Steve's Seaside Life

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Sametime vs Office Communicator

Ed Brill has an interesting post indicating that Microsoft and IBM are on the same track with respect to integrating an IP Soft Phone and the Instant Messaging and presence client.  I am looking forward to it!

IBM is teaming with Avaya to help make businesses more agile, responsive, and productive through the seamless integration of audio and collaboration tools. This integration will introduce “click-to-call” capabilities, enabling businesses using IBM(R) Lotus Notes(R) and Domino(R) and IBM Lotus(R) Sametime(R) to instantly place a telephone call to an instant messaging or email contact while remaining in their inbox or instant messaging client. By selecting multiple names, users will be able to “click-to-conference” for faster decision making and problem solving. IBM will also be integrating audio conferencing provided by Avaya Meeting Exchange with Lotus’ Web conferencing solutions, giving Web conference participants a visual indication of who is speaking and the ability to dial out to new participants, mute lines and control volume, among other capabilities.

As I understand it IBM are releasing an API for integration some time soon, and this announcement is of one partner who is implementing that API,  but I may be wrong.

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I am about to get very interested in Lotus Notes, Domino and Workplace …

and IBM’s vision for its equivalent Office System using OpenOffice.org as the client.  I am also interested in tracking integration between Microsoft Office and Domino/Workplace.  Stu is my guru in this area.  I am off to Redmond next week for 3 days on the Office System v12 and meeting some of the Product Managers on Friday so it will be interesting to compare.

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Always on <> productive

Noisead_chart2_213x496Now that I am always on, ie I have wireless (GPRS) access to most of my applications from my Tablet and my Treo I need to take care not too get dragged into the perils of “always on” addition.  The panel on the right, gives some insight into the issues courtesy of HP. 

When I had a Blackberry I felt the urge to check emails way too often for example, very similar to the addiction to e-Bay that my wife had but has now well and truly broken. 

My strategy is fairly simple, when mobile:

  • Switch off the notifications on my Treo
  • Gather the information I need onto my Tablet in advance, so I can focus on the tasks I intend to work on and don’t connect – and get distracted – unless I really need to
  • Only check my email when I have otherwise dead time,  have been away from my desk for a few hours, or get a phone call trigger that requires me to make a response

My strategy at home:

  • Switch off notifications
  • Make sure I make a plan each day – the tasks on the plan are the priority, not the email
  • Don’t have email …

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0ffice 12, a lot of responsibility rests on its shoulders

CollaborationAccording to Microsoft figures:

Office 2003 appears to be falling behind in targeted sales for this point in the product’s lifecycle, according to Microsoft’s own internal figures and guidelines. Just 15% of PCs are running Office 2003, two years into its life, with Office 12 – the next edition of Microsoft’s ubiquitous suite – now on the horizon. However, Microsoft traditionally expects between 50% and two thirds of customers to be running the previous version of Office when the new copy ships. …

obviously Office 2003 is not going to catch up, which means that Office 12 is going to have to make up a lot of sales, and will also be critical to stimulating enterprises to upgrade to Windows Vista , as most enterprises upgrade both the office suite and OS at the same time.

I am off to Redmond on Sunday for a 3 day briefing on Office12 so we will see if it lives up to the challenge.

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This is probably the most important Vista news so far!

WinOE or “workflow for windows”, is probably the must important capability for business announced so far for the longhorn wave:

The Windows orchestration (WinOE) code, built from the ground up by Microsoft’s BizTalk team, is a set of high level XML schemas, .NET classes, application programming interfaces (APIs) and workflow components that will allow Visual Studio 2005 developers create business processes and human-to-human workflow processes.

Microsoft will also have an add-on service available for the Longhorn client and server version of Windows in 2006 and 2007 and will make its fleet of applications including Office 12 and the next Sharepoint Portal Server “WinOE-aware,” several sources said.

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yet another new toy

SonorixI decided I no longer wanted to compromise when it comes to interacting with audio,  I wanted a very easy way to switch seamlessly between the following activities:

  • Record audio notes in OneNote
  • Listen to music
  • Take phone calls
  • Listen to podcasts – mainly from IT Conversations

And I wanted to be able to do all of the above:

  • From desk
  • Walking
  • Swimming – I already have a solution for this
  • Chilling out at a Cafe or health club
  • Shopping
  • etc

I knew the solution needed to involve Bluetooth, and a headset that could switch from audio player to phone headset to microphone as required.   I think I have found the solution – Sonorix Bluetooth Audio Player –  its £50 off right now because it’s an old model.  I friend of mine had one about a year ago and loved it.  I have ordered one,  should arrive in a couple of days.

 

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Treo 650, so far, pretty good

Treo650I picked up my Treo 650 last week, it’s a company supplied device and so it’s camera is locked down and they discourage excessive loading of applications, it also has anti-virus and data encryption which slow it down a little,  but these are relatively minor issues.  First lets look at why I wanted a 650:

  1. I work from home,  but that doesn’t mean I sit at my PC in my study all day long,  in fact I spend a lot of time away from my desk:
    1. beach walking
    2. eating out, often working at a local Cafe
    3. watching the kids doing sports for or waiting for the kids
    4. beach games with the kids
    5. travelling to and from yoga and swimming
    6. shopping
    7. on the train
    8. gardening
    9. etc
  2. In fact I only spend about 4 hours at my PC so I really wanted to be able to stay as productive as possible and easy to contact during these other periods of the day.  I also wanted to be able to spend extended periods away from my desk, for example on a long hike.
  3. I have a TC1100 Tablet and although its with me most of the time, always on email and web help …

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This looks like a book I should read

Although I am more of a solution manager than a project manager I have managed 30 odd projects in my time and a fair few programmes.  I have gradually developed a dislike for formal methodologies and templates because of their tendency to prevent the team from thinking.  That said I think there are some key management skills that every project team needs, but I have rarely seen described very well.  This book looks like it is my sort of style,  it in my Amazon favourites in case anyone wants to buy it for me.