After all, our brains have been retrained to use mobiles. But desk phones still feature lots of sometimes multi-colour winking lights, winking fast and winking slow.
I've long urged customers to opt for phones with a busy lamp field so that the person fielding a call can see if a person is free or busy before transferring the call.
Perhaps I have been wrong.
That desk phone doesn't tell you if the extension user is on a mobile call, or in a face to face conversation - well not normally.
It might be good to have all calls for Ms X transferred, unscreened and let VoiceMail do the job?
Perhaps it all depends on the culture of the organisation.
In our own office, we've long used messaging to confer with a colleague before transferring a call. There are lots of messaging tools around - and we're all thoroughly familiar with them these days.
Of course, you can combine the flashing lights with messaging and voicemail, too.