Talk is cheap and so is the phone

My company is switching from a traditional telephone service to a Unified Communication (UC) solution. For internal communications, the UC solution is all the rage. Easier accessibility and dual connection avenues (i.e., IM and VoIP) can curb or eliminate the need for traditional phone services, email traffic and even travel. The introduction of a UC approach is to reduce the cost of doing business. The idea sounds great. It’s the sound itself that is the problem.

           You know you make me                   I'm sorry,

               want to SHOUT!                     can you repeat that?

 

The transition to the UC has been piecemeal. First: a suggestion. Second: a toothless policy. Third: an administrative rule. Our traditional telephone charges started with scrutiny and have ended with declined expenses. I accept this; change is the constant. But it has been challenging to adopt this latest technical push for integrated voice. I would be an early adopter if the transition was seamless and the product superior. However, this arrangement makes me feel like a beta tester. Our UC solution has a variety of options for connecting with co-workers and I have experienced hiccups with most of them.

Okay! Okay! We'll remove you from the test team.

There are complications before even joining a call. The conference IDs are ten digits long, the same length as a phone number. That is a problem. To avoid confusion between the dial-in number and the conference ID, the UC solution removed the dashes from the conference ID. Still a problem. It may look different but it is harder to memorize.

Dashes displayed within the phone number layout make them easier to read and recall. Human vision can process three and four number groupings more easily and put them to memory. A ten digit number is challenging. Instead of referencing the conference ID to access the call, I find myself looking back and forth, repeating the numbers out loud and then cursing when my access is denied. That denial is a blessing in disguise. A less appealing circumstance is actually entering the call and hearing the Theremin effect.

These vibrations don't feel so good.

You have made it to the call! Time to enter another dimension of auditory distortion created by The Art of Noise - - while on acid. What Ed Wood did for movies, the UC does for sound: voice echoes, bouncing reverb and high-pitched feedback. The conversation ends up being a discord of bings, bongs, beeps and boops that could make Lil Wayne’s grill dance. It doesn’t sound like cost savings to me. It sounds like a vacuum of money flying out the door. The idea of the technology has outpaced its reality. And both are in a forced marriage despite the absence of synchronicity.

This even sounds weird to me

I want to pick up the phone, dial and talk. Does each advance in technology mean we have to adopt it? Philip K. Dick could have easily made the UC solution into a novella. In the interest of cost-cutting and adopting all forms of technologies we sometimes lose sight of the original business purpose. The bigger promise of technology lends it an unwarranted long leash which is rarely reined in. All this progress makes me want to go back to a simpler time, a time when I could dream of my virtual vacation memories on Mars.

Get me off of this call and back on vacation!

Power Pointless

Every presentation behooves a dry run. In theory, dry runs have a legitimate purpose. They are an opportunity to identify glitches, dead air, lack of clarity, or a need to forfeit a message that does not serve the overall theme. In reality, they serve a different purpose. Dry runs are an event for leadership to frustrate and belittle subordinates. No matter the herculean efforts to date, the presentation will be ripped apart before the title page even opens. A presenter must sit and suffer through the corporate hazing. The good news is that the presenter can also have the last laugh.

This presentation is so ugly it could be a modern art masterpiece.

Corporate Joe, you are the lowest form of life on earth!

The opening question: "Okay, what are we talking about again?"
That question is the expected ice breaker from leadership. A euphemism for, “why did you drag me into this shit?” Never mind they asked for the meeting. Getting leadership to enter the atmosphere is a challenge in and of itself. There is thought residue from previous business affairs. Their heads are in a collective fog. Physically, they are present. Mentally, they are trying to calculate a profit margin, latest expense, or number of days until retirement.

Leadership’s attention is also in competition with their mobile devices. The inescapable excuse of “multi-tasking.” The word itself qualifies as an oxymoron. The most common phrase associated with it is in the form of an apology, “Sorry, I was multi-tasking.” If you were successfully multi-tasking, there would be no need for an apology.

This partial absorption of material exacerbates the presentation. It is fuel for the fire of criticism. Leadership is halfway in the conversation and cannot follow the story. This leads to spasmodic starts and stops due to constant interruptions. For the presenter, what felt like jazz while working in a vacuum now feels like a hokey pokey grand-mal seizure in front of leadership. Go back one. Go forward one. Back again. Forward. Back. Forward. That’s what it’s all about.

The mid-point question: "Aren't we running out of time?"
To answer that question, yes, particularly when there are a dozen interruptions by slide 2. Each piece of the presentation has a narrative feeding into the overall story. When properly constructed, the delivery identifies a theme that is satiated throughout. An assault of questions will always kill the theme. We are almost at the 30 minute mark and only on slide 4 of 24. Then leadership wonders why it’s taking so long. Hmm, great question! Maybe our allotted time is slipping due to leadership injecting:

• A six minute impromptu Q&A on the title page’s font size/style.
• A seven minute discussion regarding the agenda.
• An eight minute tirade on the miniscule resemblance of a competitor’s color scheme embedded within a stacked bar chart.
• A two minute meltdown about a buried hyperlink to the Lemon Party.

Okay, so that last bullet point should have been caught. As for the first three, it cost 21 minutes.
 

21 minutes is an eternity. Careers have crumbled in less time.

The closeout question: "When can we see this again?"
The great thing about running out of time is that leadership will always request another meeting. A second version will incorporate their highly suggested modifications. In return, may I highly suggest an effective trick of the trade. This is where subordinates must adopt the peer invite technique. Invite rival peers of the leadership team to the next meeting.

Leaders will always make time to critique others, no matter how tangential the business need. Sit back. The edits of leaders being sent to the slaughter at the hands of other leaders is always fun to watch. At this point, it doesn’t matter what the presentation is about. In fact, you don’t even have to watch. The presentation has elevated to communal criticism amongst superiors. Your participation is no longer needed. Leadership is too busy arguing over the material to pay any attention to you. There is a matinee across the street. It starts in one hour. Slip out the back, Jack. Make a new plan, Stan. You don’t need to be coy, Roy. Just get yourself free.

Just go, Joe.