Buzzing Within The
Buzz
(You’ve Got (Too
Much) Mail!, Page 3)
By Richard
Dalton
July 12,
1999
Sneaking
in under the number-counting radar (at least so far) are the
relatively new communications media like chat and instant
messaging (IM). If you write off chat and IM as the
adolescent playgrounds they often become on the Net, you're
ignoring the increasing use of these technologies within
business organizations.
Here's a real-life scenario from a friend's Silicon
Valley software company. Every conference table is equipped
with Ethernet ports. Each team member shows up for meetings
with a portable PC -- ostensibly for note-taking. Once
hooked up, meeting attendees subtly (and sometimes, not so
subtly) check e-mail and re-directed pages, and set up IM
sessions with friends around the table.
That makes it easy to have side conversations
electronically. "Frank should learn how to put PowerPoint
presentations together," gets answered with, "And his voice
puts me to sleep." Maybe this is making full use of your
time. Maybe it's a compounding of technology tool usage that
yields poorer, not better, overall communication.
It's not just the volume of communications creating the
problem, it's also the immediacy of it. You can screen,
folderize, and manipulate e-mail, but we aren't skilled in
managing multiple devices clamoring for attention. To me,
the real problem lies in communication forms that need
attention right away.
Let's Get Basic
Somewhere along this
communications trail, you have to step back and answer the
question, "What do I get paid to do?" Very few of us get
paid solely to react to incoming communications. Customer
services reps and air traffic controllers (really, a
sophisticated kind of customer services rep) do, but most of
the rest of us have to attend meetings, talk face-to-face,
write reports, maybe even think from time to time.
Increasingly, I see systems designed to respond to what
other systems do best: generate transactions. People trail
along behind, picking up the output as it spews forth. I
much prefer a model based on information storage with the
human element focused on selection of the most important
input at any given moment.
As we gravitate toward a world full of absolute
communications -- of instant messages, pager messages, phone calls,
and faxes -- we move further away from thoughtful
consideration and management of our own time and priorities.
Pavlov made some interesting points a few decades ago, and
we should again be examining his findings. 
Richard Dalton's
experience in the information systems industry spans 28
years: as an influential consultant, editor, writer, and
industry analyst. He is president of Keep/Track Corp., and
has been a research affiliate of the Institute for the
Future for the last nine years, specializing in emerging
technologies and their business and social
implications.
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