Mobile Working Technology – Under test with a broken arm
I’ve been putting our mobile working technology to the test, with the objective of only using Office 365 products, as I’ve been housebound since Monday 23rd January.
This unexpected test of all the tools we have available in Office 365 started after taking my daughter roller skating. Roller skating, and roller hockey, was something I enjoyed very much in my teens and I had bought my daughter new roller skates for her 6th birthday, to see if she liked it, perhaps with some personal nostalgia too.
The session ended somewhat abruptly at 5:15, whilst my daughter was having a rest, I had seized the opportunity to whizz around and put into practice the skills of my teens, which ended a little adversely. I fractured my arm, and pride. The elapsed time over the last few decades seemed to have caused deterioration of my former teenage skills. Since the incident I have enjoyed some super service, firstly by the A&E team in Brighton, then just 5 days later. at the Princess Royal in Haywards Heath to have a plate and 10 screws in my left forearm. I’m now part man and part machine!
Anyway, back to the point. The upside to using our mobile working technology last week was an increase in productivity. From the start of the week I aimed to keep what I could in the diary; internal 1-2-1’s, team meetings, project updates, client meetings and prospective client meetings.
Using skype sessions on one screen and documents open on the other, the 1-2-1’s and project meetings maintained really good levels of interaction and communication. I used Skype in the same way as video conferencing for team meetings, again with success. When documents were being reviewed, they and I, had the same one open and editing together was clear in real-time, it was even more efficient than in-office meetings because printed documents would be brought and actioned afterwards, sometimes the final review missing a discussion note. This online collaboration approach meant a completed first time right document…and printing costs saved too.
The meetings I thought needed human interaction were customer and prospective customer meetings. They all went extremely well and better interaction with prospective customers than expected too; perhaps during the years that my skating skills diminished the world changed a bit too.
Interesting observations
On-line meetings a more common place than one might think, particularly influenced by business interacting globally.
Office 365 provided all the tools I needed, there is still place for specialist conference room software or online meeting and screen sharing software.
Without a genuine reason to have an on-line external meeting I would still think twice before doing so. I still think there’s no substitute for making the effort and shaking hands.
By the injured
Craig Warren
