April 26, 2005
Viewpoint: Microsoft's Jeff Raikes On Real-Time Collaboration
The fast pace of business today is forcing all of us to think, work, and communicate in real-time.
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Editor's Note: This article was originally developed for the Microsoft Office web site. It is reproduced here with the company's permission -- John Dickinson
Virtually all of our customers require effective collaboration to keep pace in today's changing work climate. The Information Worker Business recently completed a worldwide survey — 38,000 people in 200 countries — about people's on-the-job productivity. It emphasized how workers increasingly depend on outside information and interactions with others to stay productive. Some interesting data points from the survey:
- People spend 5.6 hours each week in meetings; yet almost 70 percent have at least some concerns about wasted time during meetings.
- Respondents said the most common productivity pitfalls are: unclear objectives; lack of team communication, and ineffective meetings.
We also see some interesting data points from industry analysts on the growing use of instant messaging (IM) and Web conferencing:
- Meta Group estimates that 80 to 100 percent of corporate e-mail users will have an enterprise-class IM client on their computers by 2009. (source: "Enterprise Instant Messaging Becoming a Critical Investment," Content & Collaboration Strategies, Practice 2349, March 2005)
- IDC forecasts worldwide conferencing applications market revenue will hit $1.4 billion in 2008. (source: "Worldwide Conferencing Applications 2004-2008 Forecast and 2003 Vendor Analysis," No. 32308, Dec. 2004)
Fast, effective communication with employees, partners, customers and other critical contacts — wherever and whenever business requirements dictate — is becoming mandatory. While e-mail helps, it is not always the best choice to resolve an immediate question or for group collaboration. Most of us can recall times when we composed an urgent e-mail only to receive an "out of office" response, or when we wanted to attend a meeting but could not travel for it. The desire to increase productivity, ease collaboration, and reduce costs is forcing many organizations of all sizes to look at newer communication tools. The challenge is to introduce new tools without increasing the complexity of our interactions while also maintaining a secure communications environment.
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