Empty…
Originally uploaded by alexandra666.
Is a very “quebecer” expression that means that too much is like too little. This is a concept that truly and most definitely applies to communication in large corporations. Having spent the past month in what i will brand as one of the world’s “major communications company” it actually amazed me to witness people’s use of communication channels.
Firstly you’d be lucky if anyone answered their phones, most people would rather let it ring and at some point listen to all their voicemail messages, than deal with information straight away. Oh sure they would phone you back at some point, but its interesting to to see phone technologies being used as a sort of log more than anything.
Then there’s the question of meetings, because you’d be able to see people’s agendas, other people can book and therefore flood your time for you. A result of this is that people will book themselves “fake” meetings to make sure they actually have time to do actual work and not spend all their times in meetings. Meeting rooms were always booked which begged the questions why are people meeting in the first place? Might this be related to the open-space office model? Before, you had your own office space with a door, you could have a quick chat with someone about something that didn’t need more than a few minutes, or you could shut your door and blinds if you were having an affair with your secretary, i mean, working ; )
So what does this say about people and communications technology…i think the lesson here is that people will always find a way around technology, a way to get their way, control it and shape it to fit their attention span or ability to deal with information. I think there is therefore a real need for working structures that cater to that, instead of evading them, shouldn’t we enjoy and positively use the communication channels we are given?
In the meantime, i’ll just watch the office people around me having informal meetings at the Starbucks where i’m picking up wifi.