Request for Comments: “OfficeHours”

My friend Rohan Seth and I have been discussing new ways to use our phones for their original use-case: voice calls.

He built a product called Phone-a-friend which let’s us broadcast our availability to accept an incoming phone call from our friend networks. I have been using it for the past two months and it has helped me coordinate more than 10 catch-ups with my close friends ranging from 10 minutes to more than an hour.

These types of catchups have proven to be really useful while commuting — the time we might otherwise reserve for podcast or audio consumption.

So we were wondering if this behavior could be extended even further to the idea of “OfficeHours”: You get a link to publish to Twitter/Facebook whenever you’re free for a call — people can click the link and connect to talk to you.

There are obvious sensitivities around who you will share your attention with, who you will accept calls from, etc… but would a basic version of this be useful? We’re interested to hear your feedback.