Digital Common Sense

Thanks to Brough for the post that sent me to read this. His post raised some intriguing points from this article in Technology Quarterly

Home truths about telecoms

Jun 7th 2007
From The Economist print edition
Technology and society: Anthropologists investigate the use of communications technology and reach some surprising conclusions

SUCH is the social significance of mobile phones that when it comes to evaluating their use and planning new products and services, mobile operators and handset-makers cannot rely on the technology-driven, engineering mindset that has traditionally dominated the telecoms industry. Most famously, industry leaders expected people to embrace videotelephony, which flopped, but failed to anticipate the success of text-messaging. So they are turning to social scientists, and in particular to anthropologists, the better to understand how telephones are used.
[Read full article]

I was intrigued my Steffana Broadbent’s (an anthropologist who leads the Swisscom User Adoption Lab) findings. The typical mobile user spends 80% of their time talking to just four people. Here’s something relevant to unified communications and convergence that I thought really stood out.

Next, despite much talk of “convergence” within the industry, people
are in fact using different communications technologies in distinct and
divergent ways. The fixed-line phone “is the collective channel, a
shared organisational tool, with most calls made ‘in public’ because
they are relevant to the other members of the household,” she says.
Mobile calls are for last-minute planning or to co-ordinate travel and
meetings. Texting is for “intimacy, emotions and efficiency”. E-mail is
for administration and to exchange pictures, documents and music.
Instant-messaging (IM) and
voice-over-internet calls are “continuous channels”, open in the
background while people do other things. “Each communication channel is
performing an increasingly different function,” says Ms Broadbent.

There’s a lot of insight for thought, and further validation, here. VoIP, mobile networks and tools, unified communications, IM, social networking and other areas of our communications technologies may not be maximizing the human usage tendencies shown here. A study like this could help an unknown become the next big thing.

Filed by Ken at 7:45 pm under Mobility & Handheld, Portable Pleasures - PDA/Smartphones, Tech in General, Technology, Unified Communications, VoIP/Unified Communications