Simon Barratt

Presence v Awareness

Usually, I hear "Presence and Awareness" in the same breath, not "Presence v Awareness".  But, based on recent conversations and general reading, it has become apparent that most people do not understand the difference.

If people are not aware of your presence, is that just the same as a tree falling in an empty forest? It never happened?

The idea is that you make your presence information useful. To provide some information, that adds value.  Your location, phone number are a couple of examples that spring to mind.  You obviously don't want to share too much, especially in more public systems.

But for a private work network, location and phone would be a good starting point.

But, as this post started out, what is the point if no-one even reads it?  The most common usage behaviour I witness is:  User sees active name, and immediately right clicks and starts chat.  Then ask: u there? where r u? can i call?  number? etc.  If they had taken 1 second to just hover their mouse over my name, they would know: where I was, what number to call me on and what I am currently working on!

Newer IM clients are exhibiting more feature rich awareness features.  Google Talk just added current song being played, like iChat and MSN Messenger, but Google recognise both popular music players!

Sametime 7.5 is adding location detection features and Office Communicator integrates with your calendar to automatically reflect the name of a meeting you may be in.  This is all good stuff!  But will anyone notice?