Productivity or death

I interviewed earlier this week for a company that puts out an app for mobile devices that they call a productivity tool. Basically, it allows you to use smartphones and tablets to create or edit documents, spreadsheets and presentations.

I will confess to some ambivalence about this product. The first thing you ask yourself as a product manager is, “What problem does this solve?”

And the answer I don’t seem to escape regarding this particular app is, “There may be some small splodges of time where employees are not actually doing work-related tasks. We need something that makes it impossible for them to claim they can’t get something done the instant we want it.”

Even the example on their website shows a mom at her kid’s soccer game, using her mobile phone to edit and pass on some report. Because God forbid she should be free from work for even the length of a soccer half.

(Actually, I'm a bit surprised that there's not a user case for someone in their PJs in bed, whacking out a spreadsheet at 0240.)

I just dunno about this.