Communicating away from the office

With all the current bad weather it highlights some of the issues around communication that you take for granted when you make it into the office and so do all your staff.

Whilst less than 50% of my team have been able to make it into work today (including myself) it doesn't mean that we aren't working and it definitely doesn't mean we aren't still communicating.

Some months ago we produced a web page which aimed to help all members of staff at the University of Sheffield be able to work effectively off campus which you can view by clicking here. 

One great tool introduced by CICS is myChat which is an authenticated instant messenger tool for all University staff to use.  Using this technology has a number of advantages over other channels available such as email or phones.   Firstly it allows me to see who is actually logged into the system and available,  all my team log into the system when they start work wherever they are and so I don't need to ring round to everyone to find out if they have managed to get to work, if they are coming in etc.  

Secondly its a really quick and easy way of keeping in touch, its not as formal or intrusive as a phone call or email, and responses are a lot quicker.  Files and links can be shared and you can even have a conference chat with all or a number of the team joining in.

This type of technology has its place and with all communication one solution doesn't fit all situations, however on a day like today I am glad to have such a tool at my disposal.