Organisations generally don’t understand the magnitude of the impact of changing communications. Changing communications goes far beyond instant messaging and application sharing and the impact will be realised by the new workforce coming through. So what is this impact? Let’s forget the technology for a moment and look at the wider picture.
A recent study showed that 80% of people currently work at home at some point during the week. This will increase dramatically over the coming years. Businesses will soon come to notice that commute time is nothing more than lost productivity and that with the right tools in place, users only need to come to the office occasionally not routinely. Working from home will become the ‘norm’.
Good News, now let’s follow this through to its seemingly logical conclusion.
Office space is getting increasingly expensive and that’s generally the nature of real estate. The changes in communication will eventually see the majority of staff working from home with no need to go in to the office, so will organisations even need offices? The short answer is no they won’t, well, not in the sense we know it today. Over time organisations will be able to drastically reduce their office footprint and free up the money associated with maintaining properties. Offices that do remain will become more about human interaction than a place of work.
OK, so, everyone is moving out of offices. What happens to those empty buildings? Well, this is where things really start to get fun. All those empty offices could be developed in to residential, social or community based properties. There is already a massive need for additional housing in areas that are currently over crowded. Instead of building on green belt land and removing our ever diminishing countryside, we will be able to make better use of existing buildings.
Now that there is no longer a need to build on undeveloped land, we can use that for farming, agriculture and recreation. The world is already struggling to produce sufficient food for the growing population, the change in communications will help protect the land required to sustain the population. Let’s face it, the last thing we should be doing is building on what green space we have left.
Commuting will also become a thing of the past. No more regular journeys in to a designated place of work… thank goodness and ‘Hoorah’ is what I say. Less commuting means less vehicles on the roads, less vehicles means less congestion, less congestion means less pollution and less of a drain on finite resources; and less pollution means a lesser impact on global warming (unless you don’t subscribe to that theory in which case, scrap the last part).
Communications in general will become more frequent, shorter and certainly more often virtual. Physical interaction will be primarily with your family and within your local community and will be greatly needed to help to bridge the virtual – physical divide.
So you see, in only a few lines, it is clear that by adopting the change in communications and working ways, not only can we bring back the family unit and the work life blend, but we can reduce our dependency on precious resources, reduce greenhouse gasses, decongest the roads, reduce pollution levels, regenerate the local community, re-establish the family life and of course save the planet at the same time. Bingo!
I’m not saying that all of this will happen but read between the extremities and you will find truth in what I say. Changes are coming and they are starting to happen right now.
The fate of the planet and all mankind lies in your hands! I always knew there was a reason geeks were put on Earth. Techies will, as I have always suspected, inadvertently save the world….
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