About Astronauts and Urban Normads

I did some long overdue backlog reading this weekend and came across the Economist's special report on Mobility. It is excellent reading - some of it beyond the scope of this blog but others spot on.

I argue in this blog that we are in the midst of a technological transformation that will force companies to change their culture and way they work dramatically. Whoever wants to remain unconvinced of that is not advised to read that special report.

The wireless world will soon be upon us. We can take that as a given. Today, already more than half of the world's population subscribe to a mobile-phone service. Given that Wi-Fi hotspots are popping up everywhere and processing power is ever increasing it is no surprise that Google has received 50 times more web-search requests from iPhones this year than from any other mobile handset. Not surprisingly, Arun Sarin, Vodafone's outgoing CEO, says in a recent FT special report: "The mobile internet is the new, new thin in the industry. And it is here for real and happening now".

The most interesting parts of the reports, however, are the sociological, urban and other ramifications of the wireless revolution. The office as we know it today will soon (or is it already?) be history. The workplace is not defined anymore by a single physical place but as the actual location where you happen do something for which you get paid for. That can be at the airport, Starbucks, a nearby library and other so called Third Places.

People argued that working in virtual teams is becoming more prevalent in a globalized world. However, even in places where employees live geographically close enough together to regularly meet in an office, "3rd-Place-ing" becomes common practice. Manuel Castells (sociologist at USC) summarizes it well: "Permanent connectivity, not motion, is the critical thing".

Another interesting contribution of the Report is on language. For the Gen Y, grammar, syntax and spelling provide general guidelines - at best - for written communication. Text and IM messages, blogs (not this ones) and other communication vehicles become loaded with abbreviations, emoticons and self-invented expressions which only insiders are able to decipher.

What does that all mean for employers? A lot! They need to rethink how their office space look like or indeed, if they still need one. Perhaps they (and their employees) are better off if they gave their employees financial allowances to work from Third Places. Second, team leaders need to be much better trained in how to manage vitual teams. How to set goals and monitor progress, how to use new technology to communicate with dispersed team members, how to engage them remotely so that they can be retained and how to create a team or company culture with employees who never see each other. Virtual Worlds will provide useful conduits for that (for more on that see also Erica Driver's Forrester report on working in the virtual world) . But individual behaviour of both leaders and team members need to be adressed as well. Finally, companies need to get to grips with the fact that their employees use new/other technologies and use traditional technologies differently. A recent Pew Research report shows that for instance 31% of 18-29 year olds use their mobile phones to access the Internet as oppose to merely 10% of 50-64 year olds who do the same.

Are companies ready for that change? My take is: No - by a fair margin. Are they realizing that these changes are coming? Well, some are but most still think they can sit it out. With this attitude many companies forego not only a chance to attract and retain the young talents they are desperately seeking but also underutilize the potential for bottom-up innovation (for more on that see my last post).

Bye for now!
Charles