The Importance of Embracing a Mobile-First Philosophy

I’m always a little surprised when I meet with a company that hasn’t embraced a mobile-first philosophy when it comes to deploying its unified communications (UC) solutions. What does it mean to be mobile? We all know mobility is important. Once you have it, you really can’t imagine life before it. You know the saying: Work is what you do, not where you go. Obviously, this doesn’t apply to every job function, but a lot of information worker-type jobs can be done from anywhere.

Historically, I’ve worked in an office setting where I grew familiar interacting with people and co-workers face-to-face. Having spent the bulk of my adult life working in offices and among other people, I grew accustomed to the luxury of dropping in on co-workers, chatting at the coffee machine, and walking down the hall to ask a co-worker a quick question. The casual drop-ins became the norm for me and my co-workers, and it was a critical part of how we worked together and created a strong and positive work culture.

The past few weeks have been interesting, as several customers have inquired about how to best prepare for a health pandemic. Within this same period of time, one of our industry’s largest conference, HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society), cancelled its conference (with 42,000 registered participants) due to concerns about COVID-19, commonly known as coronavirus. Clearly, our industry—and society as a whole—are paying attention and investigating next steps for dealing with this outbreak.