Location based services

Since office become more and more flexible and employees will not have their own desk anymore you as a company will run into some challenges like how do I find my peers in the building (are they in the building or not). Location based services in your building or on your campus can be a big help here. Obvious for privacy reasons the people will move around the floor plan without names (until you search for a specific person). This makes finding people easy and people moving around on a floor plan displayed in the reception area are a great way to entertain visitor waiting but there are some extra serious benefits as well.

Just think about:

Safety:
Despite some block out areas (like the toilet groups) it would be helpful if some people are not moving for a certain amount of time.
Security:
It is always very helpful if, in case of an emergency, you know exactly who is in the building and more important where they are in the building. Obviously this will be the case for regular employees and guests
Facility management:
It is a great management tool on the usage of the building. you know exactly how the building is used by various employee groups and can adjust the building layout according to this. Also this would help you planning office expansions
IT:
In case a helpdesk engineer has to come over to support you they can use this to find you but they can also use the data to provide the right IT facilities (perfect planning of amount of printers and their location)
Communication:
When using a digital signage solution to communicate with the employees you can use the data for better targeting the message within your building or campus

Depending on the building (how it is built, your already available IT facilities etc) there are several ways to do this. You can use your wireless access point to calculate where peoples computers are (when working wireless, wires can just use the location of the ethernet wall outlet). This is the most easy way but when somebody walls away for a break while leaving his/her computer on a desk the quality of the data will decrease.

Another option would be using RFID tags on the badges. This would enable you to create the desired grid (some areas might need a more dense and thus accurate grid than others). This solution gives you great insight in the way a facility is used while on the other hand facilitating the employees. The only point of attention is privacy so before implementing create awareness about the solution and impact and adjust the shown information to the needs so privacy van be respected

Another great multitouch table (and it seems to be in production as well)

Just read an article in dag (a Dutch free newspaper) about a multitouch table that actually is on sale already so no more waiting for the Microsoft surface anymore (unless you are looking for the sphere)


On bright.tv there is a nice clip of this table (in dutch but you get the point anyway when looking). This clip can be found at http://www.bright.tv/series/cantouch-tafel and shows a nice application as well. If your phone is tagged with a chip (but I guess this could be done via BT as well:) and multiple persons (well at least 2) put their phone on the table the social network of your contacts is made visible so you can see who is connected to whom and in which way. Great for any social environment like a bar but also a company's entrance area or restaurant/coffee bar


Since this version is already available developers are there as well so this might be a great opportunity to get one for your environment and let people play with their social networks, pictures and whatever you can think of




the companies website can be found at http://www.cantouch.nl/CanTouch/nederlands/main.html and they have an English version available.


The system is based on open source standards around multi touch (easy to find when looking for do it yourself multitouch) that proved their value already