Stu has written an article on a concept called iNotice. I was going to write a comment, but the comment got so long I changed it into a post.
Could we not have a feature in our instant message solution which allows me to be added to a list of people who wants to contact them? Perhaps it could add me to a “need to chat urgently” group in sametime or change the colour of my icon? I’d call this functionality an iNotice, potentially link it to an SMS.
I think that the challenge that iNotice really faces is human nature. What people are trying to do in using the ‘do not disturb’ type functionality in their Instant Messaging client is to protect them from interruptions. The challenge is that if you knew what an interruption was before it interrupted you then you could decide whether or not to accept it. The problem is that you can’t, by definition. You rely on the person interrupting you to give the interruption the correct priority. Unfortunately, whatever mechanism you provide for interruptions will become abused.
It reminds me of a very old manufacturing story where a factory was struggling with getting the urgent parts through their systems. Their planning means that there was always some urgent parts. The answer – a ‘red list’ for the really urgent stuff, which was given special treatment. Unfortunately human nature meant that soon everything became urgent and was on the ‘red list’. The director responsible for manufacturing soon got fed up of this and introduced an extra-special list which required his signature. Soon the director was so fed up with the number of requests that he had to sign that he delegated it. Soon everything was on the extra-special list.
Soon afterwards the director retired. The new director who took his job abandoned all of the lists. Interestingly the Japanese had a different approach; they fixed it so that everything was urgent and called in Just-in-Time.
Interruptions are exactly the same, it doesn’t matter how many hurdles we put in front of people, soon everyone will circumvent them. We can create extra technologies or we could try to change human nature. I see GTD as a Just-in-Time approach for information workers which doesn’t require more technology, it requires a different approach.
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Graham Chastney 
It is an annoying side effect of new technology. Give me the ability to IM someone and I expect a better response time than email but not the synchronous reaction I get with a normal conversation. However once you give me that technology it niggles me that I can’t contact someone at all, no matter how important. With the virtual workplace it is not possible to go to their desk and hold a post it note under their note, like “the data centre has gone down” which may end their call and divert them. What I’m saying is people hunker down and lock out of all communication channels now, our workplaces aren’t then designed to deal with very important interuptions. We need some way of still getting these through. Right tools for the job is the issue. Perhaps if we relied on individuals less and teams more then this wouldn’t be an issue but it doesn’t matter how large the organisation a lot of the time it comes down to individuals in certain geographic locations.
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As I mentioned to Stu earlier today I think there are a few ways to solve this problem. Allow people to see what you are actually doing (for example presenting, traveling) and allow the system to calculate a interuption cost based on analysis of how busy and stressed you are, (not impossible to guess using machine learning algorithms)design some way to motivate people to manage their virtual funds that get added to – when people interupt you if you are busy – and debited when you interupt people when they are busy.
Its a bit way out right now, but I bet it won’t be long
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Steve, that is an interesting approach. After our conversation yesterday I did stop to think how that could operate in the more federated world of instant messaging which we seem to be moving towards. The concept is great and I think with the consolidation of communication (in terms of voice, email, and IM) towards pc controlled IP systems it could be possible to bill for each type of interuption. My concern is that unless companies have real budget responsibility low down then the “do I care” attitude will take over. Look at the amount of time we all waste in meetings at the moment, much of that because the person chairing the meeting doesn’t really have any budgetary concerns. I always look back at the years I worked in the civil service (loosly) at a research lab. I had a £30k budget for capital items and a £100k budget for labour (charged back internally). The £100k had to cover any work done on my experimental station in terms of fitters, electricians, CAD etc. It was mine I had to make it last the year. Too many companies have the budgets so high up the organisation that no-one cares about them.
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