Telecommuting'R'Us or Tribute to Marissa Mayer
In my opinion, the telecommuting will soon become prevalent and "the office"v 2.0 will morph to downsize in a ratio of 4:1. The transition will be driven by three major forces: cost-effectiveness, the shift in computational paradigm, plus advances in the art of social engineering.
"The office" is costly. Lease, utilities, telecoms, maintenance, security, HR, most of the infrastructure. These costs could be substantially reduced if not eliminated altogether. "The office" is perceived to be a communal place and therefore often equipped with aging machinery and less then reasonable communication options.
The computing paradigm has shifted from Personal to mobile. Today people can engage/continue a task at any point in space and time, as effectively as they have done from within "offices" for decades. Our average mobile devices are more computationally capable, secure and resilient than desktops 5 years ago.
By far the biggest changes came in the way people interact and exchange information, receive/produce news, use collective knowledge and accumulate experience. Sounds familiar? Isn't it exactly what we expected to excel in on the way to becoming productive. However, all of these are mercilessly banned in most large organizations. This superimposed informational vacuum will inevitably implode the concept of "the office". Traditional email communication is not enough.
My prediction is that the most of what we know as "the office" will seize to exist within the next 10-15 years. As an example, Amazon did an excellent job in commoditizing computing resources. Let's call it "virtualization of IT infrastructure". In the near feature there will be a player who will successfully virtualize the staffing. On demand, reserved, and spot staffing needs will be fulfilled at the speed of a mouse click. Need tens, hundred, thousands of engineers? You can get ultimate scalability and redundancy in one package. Point to a place on the map, and your organization will start functioning within hours at the desired or even unspecified location. Bad move on behalf of state or federal government? - Nothing to worry about, operations can be moved at very little costs.
Of course, there are some technical challenges and quirks to be worked out between now and than. Project managment will need to be rethought, as well as development workflow, IT security, legal and complience issues. There will be a need for people of a new trade. Creators. These individuals will have to be masters of the process facilition. They rarely occure in the natural enviornment and will have to be mass-produced.
I hope it would increase the pace of scientific advancement, breaktrhough in medicine.. who knows. If any part of the above picture would materialize in the future, one thing is certain- "the office" will be remembered as something like the Egyptian pyramide construction sites. Meaningless concentration of workforce forced into labor to produce enourmous projects in a neolithic way.
"The office" is costly. Lease, utilities, telecoms, maintenance, security, HR, most of the infrastructure. These costs could be substantially reduced if not eliminated altogether. "The office" is perceived to be a communal place and therefore often equipped with aging machinery and less then reasonable communication options.
The computing paradigm has shifted from Personal to mobile. Today people can engage/continue a task at any point in space and time, as effectively as they have done from within "offices" for decades. Our average mobile devices are more computationally capable, secure and resilient than desktops 5 years ago.
By far the biggest changes came in the way people interact and exchange information, receive/produce news, use collective knowledge and accumulate experience. Sounds familiar? Isn't it exactly what we expected to excel in on the way to becoming productive. However, all of these are mercilessly banned in most large organizations. This superimposed informational vacuum will inevitably implode the concept of "the office". Traditional email communication is not enough.
My prediction is that the most of what we know as "the office" will seize to exist within the next 10-15 years. As an example, Amazon did an excellent job in commoditizing computing resources. Let's call it "virtualization of IT infrastructure". In the near feature there will be a player who will successfully virtualize the staffing. On demand, reserved, and spot staffing needs will be fulfilled at the speed of a mouse click. Need tens, hundred, thousands of engineers? You can get ultimate scalability and redundancy in one package. Point to a place on the map, and your organization will start functioning within hours at the desired or even unspecified location. Bad move on behalf of state or federal government? - Nothing to worry about, operations can be moved at very little costs.
Of course, there are some technical challenges and quirks to be worked out between now and than. Project managment will need to be rethought, as well as development workflow, IT security, legal and complience issues. There will be a need for people of a new trade. Creators. These individuals will have to be masters of the process facilition. They rarely occure in the natural enviornment and will have to be mass-produced.
I hope it would increase the pace of scientific advancement, breaktrhough in medicine.. who knows. If any part of the above picture would materialize in the future, one thing is certain- "the office" will be remembered as something like the Egyptian pyramide construction sites. Meaningless concentration of workforce forced into labor to produce enourmous projects in a neolithic way.