What, where and who?
But "where" and "what" are only part of the presence equation. Full use of presence will also require workers to think about the "who." Should your boss be able to interrupt whatever you're doing? Do only select co-workers have access to you when you're in the middle of a project?
Instead of forcing workers to think out hundreds of social decisions they make on an ad hoc basis, IT departments are likely to step in and set road rules for the entire company directory. That means presence won't be as intelligent as it could be, said Irene Greif, an IBM researcher specialising in collaborative user experiences.
"To make presence work, you either have to do a lot of work yourself to tailor your environment, or you make do with a very generic set of rules," she said. "I don't know what it would take to get people to make those kind of rules themselves."
Privacy is also likely to be a limiting factor, said Turek of Nemertes Research. "There's a certain concern about accountability," she said. "It's harder to hide when everybody can see what you're doing. I think there's going to be a big resistance to that. Maybe I don't want everyone to see that I haven't touched my keyboard in 15 minutes."
IBM's Bisconti said companies will figure out such issues based on corporate culture. In a fast-paced environment where everybody works together, presence information will be openly and transparently available. In a more layered corporate atmosphere, presence data will be metered out.
"The general cultural practice of using this tends to not be any different from using the phone or knocking on someone's door," he said. "You'll find that people respect the same business rules and norms as other modes of communication. Just because I can see (IBM chief executive) Sam Palmisano is online doesn't mean I'm going to interrupt him for something trivial."
Greif added that acceptance of presence systems may also be partly a generational issue. Those who have grown up with IM will have less of a problem letting the world know what they're up to.
"I haven't seen anything in any enterprise that comes near to what AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) does with teenagers," she said. "My daughter went to college this year, and I know what she's doing minute-by-minute thanks to the way she uses AIM. I haven't seen that level of manually changing presence in any business setting."
