The other day, my daughter and I were driving home from her holiday basketball camp. As we approached a stop light, we noticed a large herd of people staring at their phones. My first thought was that they were a group of lost tourists, but given the area we were in, that theory didn’t line up. My daughter thought it was a church group based on how they were all dressed and that they seemed to be made up of a true melting pot of backgrounds. As we drew closer, we both commented, “Wouldn’t it be funny if they were playing Pokémon Go?”
Much to our delight, that is exactly what they were doing. What looked like ten to twelve complete strangers, young and old, men and women, all standing around with one thing in common; catch as many Pokémon as possible. My daughter laughed because she thought it was funny that “old people” were still playing the game. She was lucky that there were indeed a handful clearly older than me. I thought it was funny because it wasn’t too long ago that same group of people were likely complaining about how technology has complicated the world around them. Regardless of the perspective, my daughter and I got a front seat view of how technology is impacting all of us in the real-world.
Fast forward to this week. My company pulled the Band-Aid and made the final transition from Skype for Business to Teams. Many of us had already taken the leap of faith last year, but there were still quite a few hold outs. Change is scary; even for a technology company! For the first couple hours I had a bird’s eye view of the reactions my office had with the switch over. Thankfully, we took advantage of our own adoption services team to minimize the impact of the transition. Even with assistance, the first steps are sometimes a bit wobbly. As much as I wanted to step in and assist, I knew they needed to experience this on their own to truly know how our own clients feel.
Near the end of the first day, there was one person in our office that seemed to be struggling with the new platform more than the others. I sat quietly in my office listening to them stretch those new muscles throughout the day. Just as I was about to crack under the pressure of hearing them suffer all day, they took a call from one of our clients who had already adopted Teams. Based on the one-sided dialogue I had access to, it sounded as though our client was making fun of my associate for not enabling video on the call. In the end, the client won the day and video was enabled.
Over the next ten minutes the two of them had a delightful conversation that covered everything from the “Vancouver snowstorm” to the success of the Raptors this season. At some point it started to feel like I was intruding on their moment, so I stepped away for a quick coffee. When I returned to the office the call was complete. I asked the employee how it went. Making a long story short, the client had been reluctant to book face to face time with our team for over a month. There were important items to cover, but they simply wouldn’t make the time for us. After the Teams video chat was over, the two of them agreed to meet in person to review all the outstanding items.
Technology doesn’t solve all our problems. Especially when it isn’t deployed properly, or for the wrong reasons. Whether you are an office worker who wants to connect in a more positive way with your clients, or someone who simply wants some company while tracking down Pokémon, there just might be a solution out there for you. When you understand why you want to innovate, and what outcomes you’d like to achieve, technology can truly bring all of us closer together.