This past week I had an awkward personal moment that translated perfectly into in an example of how Mobile Presence makes every business call count.

At about 10:15 P.M. on Tuesday night my doorbell rang and it turned out to be a nightmare come true. At the door were out-of-town relatives dropping by, without notice, on their whirlwind tour of San Francisco. Assuming (incorrectly) the visit was an emergency, I answered the door and let these people in. A regrettable move on my part.

All I could think about during the entire 45 minutes of family bonding was, “This unannounced call would never happen at the office!” And this true is because my co-workers would have first checked my Mobile Presence and Status message, only to realize I was unavailable. Mobile Presence and Status message are key components of the Enterprise Social Networking capability enabled by Mobile Unified Communications (Mobile UC).

In fact, checking Mobile Presence and Status message before making contact with a co-worker has become so ingrained in us at DiVitas, that nobody would dare skip that step – and risk wasting time.

For example: Rather than (1) blind-calling Nancy (who is in a meeting), (2) getting her voicemail, (3) leaving a message on her deskphone and (4) having no idea when I will hear back from her despite the fact that my issue is urgent … I would (1) check her Presence and Status message from my DiVitas smartphone with no requirement of being at my desk, (2) see that she is unavailable and “in a meeting until 2pm” and (3) therefore send an IM briefly relaying important info that she can discreetly read from her DiVitas smartphone without interrupting the meeting.

Given the 40-plus hours I spend at the office each week, checking Presence has become such a habit that I can’t help but find uses for it in everyday life. If only my relatives were using DiVitas too – they would have seen a Presence icon that indicated “unavailable” and a status message that read, “gone to bed!”