Learned from Murai Lab: Improve efficiency in office work

Murai Lab, one of the popular internet research labs of Japan founded by Prof. Jun Murai, the father of Internet. The lab is a two story building where the ground floor consists of the network operation center with meeting halls, secretariat room and online class multicasting center. The upper floor is the research center where at least 8-10 researchers continue research on especially new internet technologies with latest IP addressing mechanism: IPv6.

 

I am writing here just about how the efficiency of office work increase and save the energy of one when you gonna meet your senior/boss/professor or whoever without moving from your table. Guess, in Nepal, what happens if an office has five story building where your boss is on the top floor and you are in the ground or middle floor, almost time to discuss with boss, either you have to use lift to meet him/her any time when he/she calls or use the steps. What if, you gonna meet 8-10 times a day. May be we need more energy for it and time consuming too. Instead of this, we can use phone conversation but sometimes phone conversation only is not effective. Sometime due to concentration in other works may not make the phone conversation fruitful. Hence, either video call or face to face meet is necessary.

So, for time and energy saving in office work, you need to have following:

• First of all, in your office cabin, you should have either laptop or desktop with headphone set. 
• Make sure that you have different kinds of communication tools like internal phone, cell phone, yahoo, msn, Google talk, Skype or any other kind of messenger with your notebook/PC and web cam that enabled your effective communicate with other office staffs.
• When you log into your cabin, log into your all communication tools first and set the status as per your work load. Sometimes its emergency to talk with friends in messenger when mobile phone connection is ……..(in Nepal..). Voiceless communication is suitable than voice communication during office time to avoid disturbances to other office staffs. However it is urgent sometimes with voice and video communication needed. In this regards, using microphone is better. You can talk with other colleagues, senior and bosses within the same flat, building or outside using Skype like tools.
• Browse social networking sites like face-book, hi5 etc during lunch hour or during the last office hour (after 3PM). These sites are just for your refreshment and if it is opened from the beginning of our office time, it could never ends as it is like habitual drugs continue browsing that leads to your all office works into pending with low priority.
• If you need to consult with other staffs (senior, junior…) for your work completion, use text messaging first. If messaging only is not sufficient you may have internal phone call or follow the video call using Skype like tools.
• Request peon or helper to handover your file to be submitted to super-ordinate/sub-ordinate.
• Transfer softcopy file through network sharing or using local mail.
• Appear online video conferencing call if you need to have peer communication, meeting and group discussion.
• Complete the every file task within three days after you receive or response at least, even if it is not followed up.

It is also necessary to freshen up frequently during the work. Continuously sitting in a single table and works load make staff monotonous and more tired. It is obvious that there might be the possibility to misuse internet and other resources. It is necessary to monitor on it. Social sites and video sites like YouTube should be allowed during lunch hour and at the end of office time only. All the office staffs should be aware of using computer and internet properly. Every PC/notebook should have broadband connection with at least 512Kbps speed so that there are no any disturbances during the video communication.

 What I have written above is what I learned and saw after I joined Murai Lab where almost meetings and any other office activities were performed by text/audio/video communications. It is necessary to implement (however it is not a big deal but a big deal for Nepal) such technique for improving efficiency of office work in Nepalese office system (especially to government offices).