Bare Feet Blog » Productivity

Why I Rarely Answer My Phone

Roxanne Darling — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 22:23:26 +0000

Increasingly, as a digital native, citizen of the internet, geek girl – call me what you wish – I find myself more and more discerning about how, when, and with whom I use the phone.

It is simply another trending practice that all marketers would be wise to note: Interruption of any kind is increasingly irritating and unnecessary in today’s world of technology and community. Consider this yet another free tip from your early adopter, Rox.

Clive Thompson in Wired.com captures the sentiment perfectly:

Consider: If I suddenly decide I want to dial you up, I have no way of knowing whether you’re busy, and you have no idea why I’m calling…. Plus, voice calls are emotionally high-bandwidth, which is why it’s so weirdly exhausting to be interrupted by one. (We apparently find voicemail even more excruciating: Studies show that more than a fifth of all voice messages are never listened to.)

The bold emphasis is mine. FYI our insider club of precious clients have phone access to me 24/7; you folks are listed in my Caller ID. Yet even with you/them I don’t always answer immediately. Because I have more than one client, I often choose not to drop my work on Client A to answer a call from Client B. I will listen to the voice mail as soon as I “come up for air” and will respond accordingly.

So let me explain “come up for air.”

The nature of my work is very brain intensive. When I sit down to craft a proposal or to build a blog or troubleshoot a marketing problem, I go deep into many layers of experience, technology, human behavior, internet psychology, the client’s budget level, etc. It is not a casual exercise. I have on average, 8-10 different software applications that I run concurrently.

In these busy times, I am ever more committed to using my time efficiently, as the various social web communities would otherwise tug at me literally 24/7. I not only would be severely lacking in sleep and recreation, I would not be getting anything done! Meaning – completed, finished, to-do item checked done.

To be interrupted throughout the day by ringing phones with a whole different set of (sometimes random) questions causes me to have to be yanked out of “the zone” which I consider a dis-service to my clients (my efficiency for them just crashed) and it is certainly taxing on my energy. And trust me – you all want me happy not cranky, right?

Why I Generally Prefer DIgital Communication

It can be sent and consumed at mutually convenient, self-directed time frames.
It can be sent and consumed using mutually convenient, self-directed devices/platforms.
It provides a written record; that saves so many brain cells from trying to remember things!
That written record lowers error rates and confusion over deliverables. Yes, it takes my billable time to write up the notes – but you are so well-served by my laying things out so clearly for you to consider over time.
It can slow down the process, allowing answers to appear without anyone being interrupted. Feelings of urgency are not always accurate.

So even though you’ll hear me say, “I get waaay too much email!” don’t confuse that with “I would SO much rather get a descriptive email with a handy subject than a phone call almost any day!”

Understanding the phone preference

Often, people who phone just want an answer to their question now (don’t we all!), or they are not that comfortable with email (join KnowHow Cafe where the smart people come to get smarter), or they don’t want to take the time to write out their question (you’ll be the main beneficiary of doing this!), or they are shielding the conversation specifically from a written record (hehe, no comment).

What’s more polite, phone or digital?

So while those of you who like to use the phone may consider those of us who don’t answer rude or selfish, here’s an upbeat take on things from Clive:

The telephone, in other words, doesn’t provide any information about status, so we are constantly interrupting one another. The other tools at our disposal are more polite. Instant messaging lets us detect whether our friends are busy without our bugging them, and texting lets us ping one another asynchronously. (Plus, we can spend more time thinking about what we want to say.) For all the hue and cry about becoming an “always on” society, we’re actually moving away from the demand that everyone be available immediately.

Let’s treat the phone as a really valuable business tool and make appointments for phone calls! We can leverage our powerful connections together IRL to their maximum by using the best tool for the job. Want to talk to me? Just send a quick email with your general topic and list some times you are available. I’ll get back to you. Keep ringing me up and not leaving any details in your voicemail while I am immersed in delivering services to someone else? It could take days to get a response.

Photo Credit: Mute by woodlywonderworks on Flickr.

Aloha,

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Should You Monitor Social Media Behavior at Work?

Roxanne Darling — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:08:14 +0000

You know that social media has gone mainstream when CNN has cover articles about it and when the NY Times features tools and tips like this, pretty much on a weekly basis: Keeping a Closer Eye on Employees’ Social Networking

New software allows companies to automatically monitor how much time employees are spending on social networking sites and what they’re posting when they’re logged in.

I invite you to go there for the details if you are interested – the reader comments are especially enlightening for a glimpse into the “real world” of employee attitudes. I would like to add a few observations though as this – like most things – is not a “one size fits all” situation. In short, how do you know if you and your company should be considering this type of software (Social Sentry) purchase?

UPDATE 21 April 2010: Local Hawaii company Altres (HR management firm) has prepared this free white paper on Social Media & the Workplace. Get yours!

Mahalo to them for mentioning this blog post and our company in their report.

I Am Not a Lawyer

I am however a successful systems analyst and social media advisor. My recommendations come from looking at the mechanics of the system, filtered with my knowledge of how the social web has been working to date. Take them “as is”; my goal is to help you, dear reader, feel comfortable with whatever decision you make.

I’ve created a simple matrix that can serve as your first (and possibly last) pass at the question: Do we need to be installing software to monitor our employees’ use of social networks, aka “socnets”?

The four key factors are:

the number of employees you have;
the type of internal culture you have;
the relative degree of secure information your company manages;
the relative percent of youthful employees.

Company Size and Internal Culture

The more employees you have and the less trust and shared commitment to the company’s goals, the more likely you are to have problems that may warrant monitoring. (See the hot red zone on the matrix.) If you have a small company and good working relationships, I would recommend policy guidelines and you can skip the Big Daddy snoop program. (See the calm, fresh air blue zone.) If you have relative few employees and an authoritarian, top-down style of culture, you may want to consider it. It won’t earn you any friends, but then again, you may not be interested in that based on your culture any way. You may also be dealing with above-average confidentiality concerns which would warrant some form of monitoring activity. (See the purple zone.) If you have a large company and an open, transparent culture, you may not need the monitoring. You may well be able to manage this via policy. (See the pink zone.)

Company Size and Data Security

To me, if you are running burger shops, there is less at stake in terms of your business than if you are a defense contractor. It is useful to weight the type of data and interactions that your staff are managing on a daily basis. It’s basic math that the larger your company, the less oversight you have on any individual. Software can come in handy if you have concerns, even though you may hire with confidentiality being a core job requirement.

Company Size and Age of Staff

My younger readers might both rebel and understand this point the best. Younger people take socnets much more for granted than their parents, on average. To be sure, I am generalizing here, as I, a 57 year old, am more active on socnets than my teenage and 20-something nieces and nephews. But remember, it’s part of my job. When you take things away from a demographic that sees itself relatively impervious to what others’ think, please expect some backlash and negative repercussions.

Your Decision is Yours to Make

No matter which choice you make, I recommend engaging your employees in the decision-making process. Most people are aware their email can be monitored (heck, email is like sending a post card) though lots of folks forget that on a day-to-day basis. And the fact that you actively do or don’t monitor it, says something about your culture. It’s a good rule of thumb to give people information so they can act accordingly. The more open your culture, the more easily you can learn about what’s going on simply via word-of-mouth and updates from your trustworthy staff.

If you do decide to implement socnet monitoring software, be sure to create the time for someone to actually do something with the data. Just like all the other aspects of interacting on the social web, there is often more time-cost involved than cash-cost, and that’s a resource that deserves to be scheduled accordingly if you want to see a return on your investment.

I hope this article has helped you manage the decision more effectively, so you feel good about your choices. Remember, you can always change your mind when you acquire more data. If you still fully block sites like Facebook and YouTube at work, you may want to rethink that for certain departments. You are definitely imposing outsider status on your company, and there is potential vulnerability in that stake too.

Aloha,

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The Social Web: Learning to Use a New Tool

Roxanne Darling — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 22:56:08 +0000

The social web is full of free information. Many people forego formal training in favor of copying what they see others’ doing. We sometimes do this ourselves—once you have a strong base of knowledge in a specific area, it is quite reasonable to look at others’ tips or code and be able to reverse engineer them quite successfully to meet your own goals.

But when you are new to something? It’s like a child copying their parents: a lot of it sounds right, but fundamentally you don’t want that kid building your house. The best teachers know how to explain to you the logic behind a task as well as the most efficient order of events to launch your project.

Copying (as compared to learning) when you are a newcomer is often not the ideal route to take. Though I know, it is incredibly appealing, especially if you feel like you are in a hurry. But if time is truly an issue, you will be better served to learn it well the first time. It’s worth considering if a penny saved will quickly become a pound foolish.

Copiers are more than likely to:

learn bad habits;
create hacks that seem to work but actually misuse some of the key elements that could make your life easier;
waste a lot of time doing, undoing, and redoing when you could be making money and building relationships;
experience low success rates and blame it on the tool instead of your lack of learning;
quit before you’ve really given it a fair chance.

In my opinion this definitely explains the sharp drop off rates from Twitter. It also explains the abundance of howto content and training programs that are proliferating on the web. Just like choosing a competent web developer (or any expertise in which you yourself are not literate), it’s not easy to choose a competent social media trainer/consultant.

It’s very important that you look at their assets and Google them for proof of past work. Ask for client referrals and contact them. Look for evidence of their membership in professional associations and examine those associations too. You will be taking the first step in educating yourself just by going through this process.

Then by all means work with a professional instead of trying to figure all this out yourself! I used to say to reluctant businesses, “Don’t stress; the internet isn’t going away and you have time to figure things out.” Now I say, “Get on it! The learning curve of new tools and core changes that are taking place in the business culture are growing too fast to stay on the sidelines. Every day you wait, just makes it harder for you once you decide to get started on the social web.

With Aloha,

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Yammer asks: What’s Happening at Your Company?

Shane Robinson — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:52:26 +0000

While watching the streaming video of the TechCrunch50 conference yesterday, I just caught the last couple minutes of the demo for Yammer. Basically, as most people have pointed out in the TechCrunch comments, Yammer is Twitter for companies. But what really caught my eye was the way they use “hash tags” to allow you to automatically “follow” a specific subject. I’m not going to into what a “hash tag” is right now. Suffice it to say, anything you yammer about can instantly become something you can “subscribe to” or “follow” just by adding a ”#” in front of the word. Very slick and very useful.

David Sacks, the founder of genealogy site Geni, actually launched Yammer at the very end of his presentation. Of course I immediately signed up!

Now certainly Roxanne and I don’t really need Yammer for our little two-person company. But we have a couple projects in the works where I could imagine how having a hosted, private, Twitter-for-business application would be useful.

Yammer has a video of their presentation right on their home page. Their Control Panel is very slick and well designed. Kudos to their design team. Lots of AJAX makes using it a breeze. And they even have a desktop Adobe AIR client, a Blackberry App, and an iPhone App currently in review and that should be available any day.

Check it out and leave a comment with any ideas or questions you have on how your company or organization could use Yammer.

Technorati Tags: yammer, techcrunch50, twitter, geni, david sacks, microblogging

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