Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

From Forrester via Down The Avenue:

"Forrester envisions a day when new employees on their first day will be handed a sheet of paper with their phone number, email address — and a URL for their blog. The company would give all of its employees a personal internal blog where they could provide project updates, trip reports, and market intelligence — anything that they think others should know about the work that they are doing. This information could then be tied into the company's VoIP phone system — for internal calls, the caller's photo, title, bio, and a link to his blog would appear on the computer screen. The blog content would give context and background for the call, making it unnecessary to send extra emails or to have extensive discussions about a project."

I recently started working with a company named Redknee. We create mobile/wireless infrastructure software. On my first day with the company, just like every employee, I was given a laptop, a cell phone preloaded with the phone number of every employee, and a logo'd messenger bag containing a logo'd t-shirt, ball cap, pen, and lanyard.The email was on the laptop, the number on the phone in my office, and the wiki already available.

We don't have office voice mail. After four rings, the call transfers to my cell phone, where I do have voice mail if I happen to miss the call. Just one voice mail to check at any time.

All company information is in one of two places - our wiki, which has been in place for three years, or our Sharepoint portal which is currently more geared to certain quality initiatives which require document tracking. Everything I need to know from Powerpoint templates to health insurance, from core architechture to when the next lunch and learn is, can be found there. I use RSS feeds to keep informed when anything changes. There are no limits set on what can be written, and employees frequently add any information they think will be useful.

We don't have a VoIP phone system yet so we don't have pictures and blogs tied in yet, but I'm not sure that would be that useful for every call.

I'm willing to bet that there are other forward-thinking companies out there like Redknee. I don't have to envision as Forrester does. I'm already there, and for me it has set the standard for what I expect from a company.