Nice to be in the top 10!!!

I would like to thank Chase for sending this through to me.

http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tr/downloads/home/dl_10_tech_skills.pdf

Changing my Workspace

By the end of this year I will have a new office area. All to myself, outside of the home environment. Already I am looking forward to this event. With an interest in both the best way of working and the design of such a place I will be spending some time in looking how to improve my current office environment.

I’ve separated these in two categories. Basics to get the job done, and then Comfort to enjoy the environment. So here is my list so far.

Basics

1. A large rectangular desk

2. A comfy desk chair.

3. Two large flat screen monitors at least 19″

4. Laptop, Internet Connectivity, Printer, Telephone, Web Cam, IPod, camera, shredder

5. Paper, pens, pin-board, files, folders (sometimes its good to go back and be traditional when working)

6. Shelving and Storage

Comfort

1. A comfy chair with cushions for reading, researching, long conf calls etc

2. A small coffee type table to enable me to spread out when working

3. Photos of friends and family

4. A dramatic background picture for when on a web-cam.

5. Plants

This will change no doubt. The best part of moving my working environment outside of the house will be the space and obviously the commute.

Technology or People?

Having been researching and working around Unified Communications for just over 2 years I am seeing more and more a disconnect as to what Unified Communications is. It should be simple the two words chosen to describe the harmonious way of working are described as follows:

Unify v.t. reduce (things, or abs.) to unity or uniformity

Communication n. 1.act of imparting (esp. news);information given;paper read to learned society;social dealings access;common door or passage or road or rail or telephone or other connection between places

When talking to customers its easy to get caught up in the hype and the marketing around this solution. Every so often its good to take a step back and look at what you are asking the business to do by investing in a Unified Communication solution. Looking at the words its simple, you are asking the business to challenge the way in which they currently work, by breaking down and choosing the methods in which they communicate.

By asking the business to do this you are actually challenging the employee and person to change there own habits and by doing this you are asking a business to invest time and money into the people they employee to grow the business and its profits. James makes a good point about this challenge with his requirement to reduce email. It would seem that even with the use of IM, Voice, Wiki’s, Portal technology his use of email has increased by 3x as much.

So the real challenge businesses will have when implementing a Unified Communications solutions is not so much the technology and the integration of the said technology, it really is the person, the end user, you and me making use of the UC solution available.

Roles

Following a wonderful weekend with our daughter, I have discovered that the role of women and men in her life is beginning to take shape. Whilst putting stickers into her house sticker book and ensuring that the correct appliance’s (according to her) were in the correct place. Once the house was in order we moved onto putting the male and female figures into each of the rooms.

Following her logic the women were placed in the study, with the computer, printer and telephone, they were also placed in the kitchen. Moving onto the male figures and they were placed in the kitchen and also in the lounge.

I’m sure a child physiologists would have there own synopsis on what this means. To me it pretty much accurately describes where both Mummy and Daddy can be found. I love the fact that both male and female figures ended up in the kitchen with the smaller figures, for me the kitchen has always been the hub of the house, and I guess my love of the time I spend in this room is being passed onto our daughter.