(empo-tymshft) Old-school social networking via cubigeographical proximity

I've previously written about my move from the product management organization of my employer to the proposals organization. At the time, I noted that the transition from product management to proposals took a few weeks, because of some unfinished business (for example, Oracle OpenWorld 2009) that I had to complete.

In reality, the transition didn't complete at 10:00 pm on Thursday, October 22, 2009. In fact, the transition is still in progress. I've had to learn new things and renew old acquaintances.

But this morning, I completed an important part of the transition.

I moved from a cubicle in one room to a cubicle in another room.

Now in my October 22 post, I confined myself to speaking about the effects of the reorganization on me. I still don't want to speak about the reorganization in detail, but suffice it to say that the proposals group ended up getting new members from three other groups in the organization (product management being one of them). So we were scattered in four different locations in the building. I was just across the hall from proposals, but one person was on the other side of the building, and another person was on the other side of the building AND on another floor.

Now I know that this is the age of social media, in which we are "friends" with people from all over the world. But there's something to be said for locational proximity.

At the moment there's a lot of buzz (sorry, couldn't think of a better term) about software that allows you to share your location with others, and detect nearby businesses and people that might be of interest to you. But while that can be valuable, there's nothing like enjoying geographical proximity with a group of people on a long-term basis, day-in and day-out. Of course, this could also turn out to be a very bad thing, but fortunately for me, I like my co-workers.

So now I am in the same room with the other people on the proposals team, which should help us when we happen to be working together on proposals, and will also help us to function better as a group.

So that part of the transition is over.

There's one more part of the transition that needs to take place, however. I'll probably share that with you when it happens. And when I do, Louis Gray will make a brief appearance. Stay tuned.

[12:35 - MORE ON THE MECHANICS OF A CUBICLE MOVE.]