🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <27744@athertn.Atherton.COM> mcgregor@hemlock.Atherton.COM (Scott McGregor) writes:
   I thinkIn article <SHEA.90Jul24181213@edson.East.Sun.COM>,
   shea@edson.East.Sun.COM (Tim Shea - Sun BOS Software) writes:
   > How essential is it for people to be able to see
   > inside (or manipulate) others' calendars? I would argue "not very".

   This depends upon the local office culture. [...]

   I believe that the biggest problem for scheduling systems is not the
   privacy issue [...], but rather one related to the portability [...]

Interesting anecdote time.  This was told to me by one of my observation
subjects, so take it as a friend-of-a-friend story (i.e. with grain of
salt).

In one particular office system, users could block out times on their
calendar when they were unavailable for meetings.  This could be due to
other meetings, off-site activities, or just times you didn't want to be
disturbed and so masked out on your calendar.  People who wanted to schedule
things could see when you were not available, but not why.

One worker in this office consistently blocked out Noon to 1:30 PM.  This
became noticeable when the new boss, who liked to schedule lunchtime
meetings, remarked on the worker's absence publicly.

Well, to make a long story short, the worker was having a lunchtime affair
and so was consistently, er, "unavailable" at lunchtime.  The subject who
related this story pointed out to me that even in a system (like this one)
with strict privacy restrictions, having other people look at your calendar
can sometimes say more than you want it to say.

[For the record, I agree with Scott's assertion that the portability and
data-quality problems are significant, probably moreso than privacy.]

--
--Alan Wexelblat
Bull Worldwide Information Systems	internet: wex@pws.bull.com
phone: (508) 294-7485 (new #)		Usenet: spdcc.com!slug!wex
"Zen is the essense of Christianity, of Buddhism, of culture, of all that is
good in the daily life of ordinary people.  But that does not mean we are
not to smash it flat if we get the slightest opportunity."