By Teresa Carlson, Vice President, Microsoft Federal
Improving productivity means getting more done in less time. It’s something we all strive for every day. It’s creating higher quality, more valuable work, more efficiently. So how do you get there? We all have our favorite software tools that help us create documents in less time, but in my experience, the best way to improve productivity is to improve the way we interact and collaborate with colleagues.
Large, complex organizations like federal agencies need to bring the right expertise together on behalf of mission goals. It’s essential to have the right people sharing ideas and brainstorming to solve government’s biggest challenges. But it can sure be time consuming. Scheduling conference calls, locating contact information, managing schedules, etc. We spend a lot of our day figuring out the best ways to work together. Improving those processes frees us up to focus on the important stuff, which is why I’m extremely excited for Lync 2010 and its benefits for federal agencies.
Launched yesterday in New York City, Lync brings instant messaging, presence, video and voice tools together to help colleagues connect in simpler, more meaningful ways. For me the exciting part is that it’s easier to have an actual face-to-face conversation with coworkers, even when you aren’t in the same state or country. And new functionality makes getting the right people on the phone is so much simpler, whether it’s through an expertise search, location information or real-time contact method preferences.
Those of us in the federal market know that worthwhile solutions also have to make the best use of taxpayer dollars, which is why I’m excited to report that Forrester Consulting recently published a Total Economic Impact report that found Lync 2010 offers customers 337% ROI with a payback period of 12 months. That’s improved productivity.
For more information, I encourage everyone to check out this video of Bill Gates talking about Lync’s benefits, along with Kirk Koenigsbauer’s blog post on his favorite features!