Feature: Failures in the New Workplace

Part of the premise of Basex' New Workplace concept is that knowledge workers may find themselves working anywhere. This, of course, is predicated upon the various pieces of the technology puzzle fitting together - and working.

This week I experienced first hand what some of the pitfalls might be. I am writing this from a hotel room in Munich, Germany. I have stayed in this particular hotel many times before, and during my most recent visits I enjoyed free Wi-Fi connectivity. I checked on the provider's Web site prior to my trip to ensure coverage and was happy to see the hotel included.

As a backup, I planned on reading my e-mail on my T-Mobile T-Zones Pro phone, which works very well with Lotus Notes.

At this point you, dear reader, can assume all bets are off; otherwise, why would I be writing about this. Leaving JFK Tuesday morning, I tried to check my e-mail. Instead of getting the "Inbox" prompt that had been there Monday, I received a cheery advert from T-Mobile exhorting me to subscribe to T-Zones Pro. Having plenty of time before my flight (tip: the daytime flight to London is a breeze, and you arrive almost without jetlag), I called tech support. After much coaxing (and coaching) from me, the technician discovered my account was set up for BOTH T-Zones (which is a bare bones service) and T-Zones Pro (which is what I had subscribed to). The technician would have the T-Zones service removed and all would be fine. I boarded the aircraft, confident that I'd have e-mail access by the time I arrived at Heathrow.

I was wrong.

Not only did I not have access to my mail, but now I lost standard voice telephone access as well. I called T-Mobile UK, and they patched me in to T-Mobile USA's roaming specialist. A change had been made to our account's international roaming setting - in what the technician referred to as a "back office" part of the system. He fixed that straight away and also checked on the T-Zones issue. His report: I had neither T-Zones nor T-Zones Pro on my phone. He would add T-Zones Pro and the first (!) month would be free. As of this writing (Wednesday evening), that service is still out.

Once at the hotel, I fired up my browser, fully expecting to log into the account I had purchased for one week. No dice. No DNS, I should say. The front desk manager called the provider. A CSR would call me back in ten minutes. After an hour waiting in the lobby, we called again. A promise was made for another 10 minute callback. After 15 minutes, I returned to my room - I had yet to unpack. Eventually, after spending an hour on the phone with the CSR, he determined that my computer was fine - but that the server located at the hotel had crashed - badly. The server's hard disk drive would need reformatting - or possible replacement. A field technician would be dispatched - but not necessarily today. The good news was that the technician came - quickly - but didn't have a replacement drive with him. He is returning tomorrow. I am looking for an Internet cafe where I can attach my laptop (either with or without a cable). And why not resort to using an old-fashioned modem? My hard drive was replaced and I hadn't had time to install our corporate dialer before leaving on the trip. Mr. Murphy apparently singled me out for his particular attention this week.

But back to the New Workplace. There's nothing very new in my workplace right now. I have a phone that can't access e-mail and a computer that would be happy to talk to a wireless access point that was functional. The points of failure occurred far beyond the reach of my control. And that, unfortunately, is the wave of the future. Not since proprietary software ran on proprietary operating systems (running on proprietary hardware) could one be guaranteed of a single point of failure, or rather, a single throat to choke. In this increasingly technological age, problems such as the ones I experienced in the past 48 hours will become more - not less - prevalent. The user - and the user's IT organization - is almost powerless to mitigate the situation. After all, how many belts and suspenders can one wear at the same time?

Jonathan B. Spira
CEO and Chief Analyst at Basex
jspira@basex.com.

About Basex
Basex helps companies become more responsive, connected and profitable. Its analysts are experts in collaborative business knowledge, the intersection of content, knowledge and collaboration within the enterprise. The company has a 20-year track record of research and analysis that drives its clients to make the right technology decisions for their business.

(c) Copyright 2003 Basex, Inc. All rights reserved.

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