Managing Workplace Resources in Office Environments through Ephemeral Social Networks

With the ubiquity of mobile devices, GPS and WiFi, location-based social networking services are developing rapidly. The rise of services such as Foursquare and Google Buzz, enable users to instantaneously in real-time report their activity to online social networks around the places they visit. The people that we encounter and connect with around physical resources such as meetings, provide opportunities for extending our social networks which are rarely captured. In this paper, we designed and deployed an indoor location-based resource management and social networking system called Nokia Find & Connect for managing workplace resources and enabling social networking in office environments. Central to our system is the concept of an ephemeral social network, temporary networks that are created for a specific time and event like a meeting. We carried out a trial to study the impact of our system on managing office resources and creating ephemeral social networks. Results show that Nokia Find & Connect inspired people to make new friends and provided great convenience when people book or are about to have a meeting.