unified communications

it all sounds very rosy of what unified communications can bring - at least that's what tech firms such as microsoft, cisco or nortel are trying to tell us: with a click of the mouse you can connect to a colleague whether one's on the road or in office, a voice mail message left on your office extension will be delivered to you by email instantly and retrievable from your pda; instant messaging is no longer for casual chit-chat with friends but for serious interactive business collaborations across nations without long-distance charges; and you can control your schedule, set up meetings, retrieve contact information... all by "talking" to a voice-enabled communications server, from anywhere and in any way you like. But my question is, is it what we need, or are we ready for it?

my arguments against this come two-fold. first, a major problem we are currently facing is information overload and further convergence in communications means is unlikely to solve this, if not aggrevate the problem. how many of us already got hooked on blackberry, as well as your mobile phone, pda, laptop etc etc. these days more often than not we are receiving repeating or non-necessary information through redundant means, instead of not able to be reached and contacted - just look at your blackberry, how many of those emails really did require immediate attention and how many can wait til next day in office? now we know how the stock market does every day through email alert, sms alert, multiple websites and financial news channels, words of mouth, tv screen on the street... is that even necessary?

without a true universal access solution - under which each individual should only have a single "identifier" (which will replace email address, phone number, msn messenger handle, etc) and possibly one single device which can perform multiple functions - we are still in the world of too many numbers, too many devices and too much information to be digested and processed. before that can happen, i don't see much point or value of any further convergence of widely-used communication means.

second, further convergence based on the current ip network will probably leave us more vulnerable to any unexpected breakdown and create a single point of failure as we are trying to put more eggs in the same basket. remember the tsunami that severed the cross-pacific internet connection between hk and usa and led us into a virual blackout for a couple of weeks? just think what would be like if telephone services were affected at the same time as well - which would have been real if phone is exclusively based on voip network. thank god it doesn't, at least for now. currently, as we have experienced in the last episode, we don't have a satisfactory solution to this yet, by having an alternative and viable path for our ip-based network infrastructure.

so my answer to the original question i raised is - yes, we do need it, but probably not now. there are still further study and research needed to bring about the optimal level of connectivity and information richness for individual. advancements need to be made in our network infrastructure, software applications, implementation road-map and business value proposition in order to make a convincing case for business to make such investment and adapt such technology.

some of the features available today (for example, integration between voice mail and email) do provide convenience in some ways, esp for people constantly on the road, but to get to the level of perfect unified communications and connectivity - as the vendors depicted - we still have a long way to go.

the best $18 can buy

and yes that's hongkong dollar we are talking about. fyi, this is the special promotion at m at the fringe for their 18th anniversary, til November 18. wow time flies. can't believe m's already 18 years old!

exams

did i mention i really hate exams? and it certainly didn't help change this feeling as recently i have to sit in three tough ones within a short period of time. anyway, to my surprise and miraculously, somehow the results turned out to be much more okay than i expected. not exactly with flying colors but at least presentable, but i know i am not the one that made that happened. oh well, finally i can breath a sigh of relief now - cuz failing in any of those would mean i have to go through that hell once again.

arhhh... now i can't wait til next spring when i am done with my master's program. maybe i should start planning where to go for golf after that. next year for sure i will keep on playing through the scorching heat in summer (as my type of redemption). and 6 weeks before christmas!

a night of jazz

haven't had a chance to update my blog lately, so i am going to share with you some nice jazz music that we enjoyed over the weekend at a concert.

alpha testimony

last tuesday i was asked to share in our church's alpha course. and the night before that as i was digging through my heart trying to figure out what to say, this particular dialogue in a movie suddently came to mind -

"i am trying to free your mind, neo, but i can only show you the door, you're the one that has to go through it"

that's what morpheus told neo in the movie "the matrix". in a sense, alpha's exactly like that - show you the door, not opening the door for you, nor pushing you through. but first, in order to even spot that "door", you have to free your mind - forget everything about what you thought you know about god, about christianity, about the purpose of life and go through all these issues from afresh during the course.

it so happened that as i joined alpha for the first time 5 years ago, it's at a time of renewal for me - a new home, a new life, a new relationship. i was able to keep a free mind for everything and give this a whole new thought. that, i think, is the key ingredient of why i think alpha's such a great personal experience.

in case you wonder what alpha's about, here my previous blog entry on it: http://g4gary.blogspot.com/2007/08/is-there-more-to-life-than-this.html