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Lyncked in
Oct. 25th, 2012 01:26 pmThey are going to install Microsoft Lync on my machine at work. I see that it previously had the snappy name "Microsoft Office Communicator" – a title that might not have sold many copies but which at least did what it said on the tin.
The idea I assume is to encourage video conferencing and instant messaging. As the sages say, 95% of emails are used for communications that shouldn't really be by email.
However, I liked the idea of the video-conferencing. My suggestion to the software guy who came around checking our "host names" ("well, technically it's a host number", I said, "since it's six digits and no letters. You can't have a "name" unless it consists of letters". "Oh yeah?", he said, "then what about Prince?" Fair enough.) was that he should install an additional bit of "Homer Software" for me, which would consist of a 15 minute loop of me looking interested, plus voice-recognition software that would permit me to put in comments such as "Yes, absolutely, but could you expand on that last point?" while nodding sagely and with an interested expression at the response.
This, with luck would lead to entire "virtual meetings" at which no-one was really present at all. Just a collection of avatars making pre-programmed comments. That would allow people to get on with some real work; company production would multiply fivefold. Unfortunately, there are some people whose etire raison d'etre appears to be going to meetings. I'm not sure where these people would fit in with the new paradigm.
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The idea I assume is to encourage video conferencing and instant messaging. As the sages say, 95% of emails are used for communications that shouldn't really be by email.
However, I liked the idea of the video-conferencing. My suggestion to the software guy who came around checking our "host names" ("well, technically it's a host number", I said, "since it's six digits and no letters. You can't have a "name" unless it consists of letters". "Oh yeah?", he said, "then what about Prince?" Fair enough.) was that he should install an additional bit of "Homer Software" for me, which would consist of a 15 minute loop of me looking interested, plus voice-recognition software that would permit me to put in comments such as "Yes, absolutely, but could you expand on that last point?" while nodding sagely and with an interested expression at the response.
This, with luck would lead to entire "virtual meetings" at which no-one was really present at all. Just a collection of avatars making pre-programmed comments. That would allow people to get on with some real work; company production would multiply fivefold. Unfortunately, there are some people whose etire raison d'etre appears to be going to meetings. I'm not sure where these people would fit in with the new paradigm.
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