Will Texting Be The Office Communication Of The Future? IDK
I was at a party recently with a high school band teacher who told me that he had trouble putting together a list of e-mail addresses for his students. No, it wasn’t privacy issues that barred him from assembling the list. It was the fact that his students, who live in a well-heeled Connecticut suburb, no longer use e-mail.
It turns out that the high school set has become so attached to texting that they’ve nearly abandoned e-mail in favor of short bursts of communication via their cell phones. Anyone who has a teenager within three feet of them on a regular basis can attest to this trend.
While I knew texting was gaining popularity, it never occurred to me that young people would prefer texting over e-mail, especially since I live and die by e-mail (when the server goes down in my office, the IT guy has to cower in the corner for fear we’ll rip him to shreds).
But I’ve also found that it’s becoming virtually impossible to reach my closest friends, who are in their early 30s, by cell phone any more. No one answers. The only way to actually engage in a conversation is via text.
So, I’m left wondering, is texting the next form of communication? As e-mail revolutionized the workplace, just as fax and telephones did before it, it’s bound to have a major impact on how we all do our jobs.
Expert’s Take
To verify my suspicion, I spoke with Richard Murphy, an analyst with Framingham-based IDC. He specializes in SMS, or “short message service,” which is a fancy phrase for phone-to-phone text communications. SMS is under the broader heading of “messaging,” which also include instant messaging via cell phone (remember AOL chat?) and MMS, or multimedia messaging service, or texting with pictures.
According to Murphy’s research and information from those in the wireless industry, messaging is undergoing a bit of change. While messaging is gaining in terms of traffic volume for carriers, its revenues are decreasing. That’s because consumers are choosing unlimited text plans, which are fueling the desire for tweens and teens to text ad infinitum.
One solution to that paradox might be for carriers to go back to the original model and charge people per text or amount of data transferred. But Murphy says that’s unlikely. What is possible, Murphy supposes, is that carriers will push to drive messaging acceptance even further, not only to private consumers, but to businesses as well.
So, is there a future where we no longer e-mail at work, but text instead? Who knows, but that seems unlikely, according to David Kaufman, president and CEO of Cinetel Solutions, a New Hampshire-based communications consulting firm (Full disclosure: The Worcester Business Journal is a client of Cinetel Solutions).
Kaufman told me the future of business communications is not in your handheld smart phone, but in your PC. That’s because we’re all moving (or have already moved, in some cases) to what’s known in the industry as “unified communications."
“The PC has become much more than just the computer on your desktop,” Kaufman said.
What’s allowing the PC to become the central communication hub is the fact that nearly all communication, including voice and data, can be transmitted over IP, or Internet Protocol. In other words, with IP, you can not only create a spreadsheet on your PC, you can also answer and transfer a call. And, according to Kaufman, you can communicate seamlessly from anywhere you have an Internet connection.
But what of that dinosaur sitting on your desk? You know what I’m talking about: that clunky, landline telephone. If yours is anything like mine, it’s probably 15 years old. And if texting is playing an increasingly important role in our culture, would a business be better off investing in cell phones for its employees and dropping the desk phones all together?
While Murphy’s never considered that question in his research, he admitted to me that his desk phone is sitting idle more often than not.
“Most of the communication I engage in is through e-mail, and I probably use my personal cell phone for work more than my desk phone,” Murphy said.
But Kaufman’s not calling for the funeral of the desk phone. He says wireless coverage is still too spotty or non-existent to make it reliable for businesses.
“Cellular technology is not there yet and it may take a long time for that to get there,” he said.
In the meantime, you can still reach me on an old-fashioned landline. Just dial 508-755-8004 and let me know how you’re communicating these days.
Got news for our Digital Diva column? E-mail Christina H. Davis at cdavis@wbjournal.com.
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