Where did good old voicemail disappear?

Back in the nineties, I used to have in my company a real interesting system that we called voice mail.  When I got to the office, in my car, I called up a special number.  I got a nice message telling me how many messages I had received and asking me whether I wanted to start listening to the first one.  While driving I pressed the little button and started listening.  I had one of my colleagues shortly explaining me an issue in asking me what to do about it.  I could then respond by choosing another number, or if I did not know the response, forward it to somebody else with my own comments.  I could then delete the message and move to the next one.  I could send a message to somebody as long as I knew his ID number, or send a message to distribution lists.  As you can put a lot of emotions in spoken words be able to address a whole team was actually very powerful. It actually had nothing to do with the mailbox we now have with our mobile phones.

The way we used to work was actually simple.  We used e-mail for all the background information.  All documents, notes, presentations a.s.o.  were sent to e-mail, while short questions and points needing fast response were going through voice mail.  Actually in voice mail we could even send something normal or urgent, allowing us to differentiate between the things that came at the top of the list and the others.

When we merged with another company that system was obsolited and e-mail became our only and single communication mechanism.  Now we've flogged by hundreds of emails a day and have no way to make a difference between the important things and the details.  Many people speak about voice over IP, and unified communication, but I have seen very little companies implementing anything like that.  I truly believe that 10 years ago are mechanisms to collaborate where better than the ones we have today.  It looks like some time in history we need to take a couple steps backwards before taking the next leap forward.  We used to have voice mail, what's the next thing now?

Use what you preach...

As I mentioned previously, with an American friend we developed a training module to demystify Web 2.0 for a leadership training course. Unfortunately, my friend could not be physically present in the meeting room and provided his contribution to the training remotely. As the session was going to take four hours, we referred back to POTS, the plane old telephone system, as we wanted to make absolutely sure the connection would stay open for the four hours.

At the start of the session, one of the attendees asked us why we did not use some of the technologies we highlighted, such as Skype, to give the training. We pointed out the need for reliability, and by a matter of fact, we were proved right, as some of the assistance got difficulties keeping their wireless Internet connection up and running for the duration of the training.

This got me thinking. In my previous post I spoke about advanced, 3D, collaboration tools. They are cool, but we all know they require quite some bandwidth, which may occasionally not be available, resulting in delays, crashes and frustration. Now, if it is to play a game, or having fun, that's perfectly fine. But when you have 30+ people in the room, expecting you to make the best out of the time allocated, and deliver them a perfect job, you can just not take the risk of having problems. And Murphy's law applies here too. If something can go wrong, it will at the worst possible time.

To make a long story short, the session went well and the participants gave excellent feedback. They felt they really learned something. We had no major hick-ups and the POTS did its work perfectly. The lesson I learn out of this, test out and play with the latest technologies, as it is important to understand what is out there and when to use it. But when you need to do a professional job, make sure to go back to some proven technology. The technology used by NASA in space shuttles is also old and proven.