The Future of Work

Technologies such as cloud, mobility and social media are changing the way we work

One of my favorite ad slogans is from the satellite communication firm Iridium: Geography is history.

I am reminded of this as I key in thoughts on the futuristic dimensions of white-collar work. Will the physical office and fixed seats be history? How about the 9 to 5 rule or working fixed hours? What kinds of work will get most dramatically impacted?

Reams have been written on the subject and extensive studies conducted, so I will not go into the statistics of a growing remote workforce, home opportunities and the like. Instead, let me focus on how technology is making an impact on the way we work.

One of the biggest changes comes from the increasing interplay of personal and enterprise technologies. CIOs are now talking about consumerization of technology, the movement toward, say, user-centric, friendly apps rather than dense lines of code or cumbersome interfaces to configure resources. BYOD (bring your own device) is already a growing phenomenon and people are frequently switching screens from Facebook and LinkedIn to the intranet and CRM.

Given this growing mix, I think certain companies will need to look at the “work output” as a performance measure rather than hours spent in the office or logged into the system.

Another big change: more workers are going to be empowered down the line than ever possible before. Through the Web and the tools it provides, through user-driven business intelligence and through other means, people at various levels will need to take more decisions more quickly—for the collective enterprise to be competitive.

Social sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are also making an impact on assessment and hiring. Not just in jobs that require social media skills but generally in “judging” the future hires and their abilities through posts, usage patterns and circle of friends and followers.

In my own sphere of journalism, for instance, tech is making a big impact by connecting writers and readers in multiple ways; by bringing the whole blogosphere into the picture; by making it easy for us to find “material” through Google and Bing (and others I'm forgetting) yet difficult to escape the barrage of criticism if we slip; by making the whole writing-reading process quick, transparent, conversational...

On a more futuristic leap of imagination, in keeping with the vendors' fondness for “personalization,” shall we see a day when companies come knocking on your smartphones and say: “Hi there, if we were to offer you the job of the CIO, which of the following amenities will suit you? Please select as many as you like and we will come back with a personalized offer.”

Now, now, I didn't say that job search will be history!

Google @15

Fifteen years is a tiny speck in the context of corporate stalwarts (the likes of IBM, GE and P&G were founded over 100 years ago). Yet, when it comes to a poster child of the Web such as Google, it is a long period.

Curiously, when I searched as to when exactly the search giant turned 15—on Google, of course—the results were a mixed bag, not unlike the results Google throws up when you look for something online. A report on Mashable says Google has celebrated its birthday on different dates over the years (the date this year being Sept. 27).

But let us not make a kerfuffle here. Regardless of the exact birth-date, Google has given us enough reasons to celebrate its existence: Gmail, online office apps, maps, YouTube and Android, to name a few.

Not that Google was the first to make breakthroughs, nor did it develop everything on its own (it has made over 100 acquisitions). But whenever it lent its cute name and rigorous technical patronage to anything under the sun, the gesture met with raves and whistles. The brickbats were few and far between, as founders Page and Brin walked the corporate tightrope as skillfully as high-wire wizard Philippe Petit to stay true to their mantra: Don't be evil.

Google has tried its hand at several things but it is search that has kept it on top of its game. Growing amazingly fast, Google has rendered names like AltaVista, Lycos and Excite either a thing of the past or boring to netizens and investors. Even the software king Microsoft is struggling to make a dent with its re-launched search offering, Bing.

Google has been so relentlessly focused on “organizing the world's information” that it has spent lavishly on acquiring anything that could help its search business (advertising, driven by search, still accounts for over 95% of revenue). So it bought Motorola for a huge sum—not for the devices but primarily for patents related to Android. It is another matter that industry pundits are still scratching their heads over the true returns from the acquisition.

However, given that Android now dominates the smartphone pie with over 79% share, it is but obvious that Google's search grip continues on mobiles as well. And while its other projects often failed to take off, Google has rarely let that grip slacken.

I am mostly happy for Google. But as this brat enters mid-teens and grows in size and sheer dominance, it does look scary to find everything through this single funnel. Because, good intentions apart, consumers must have choices—even in where to look for those choices. Not sure if I'm feeling lucky.

Sex and the Guru

Faith and sex are tricky things. At a distant point in the history of India, Indians could handle both with ease, confidence, and even panache. Is it not the same country that gave the world the Vedas, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata and the Kama Sutra?

Alas, in the hodgepodge, blaring, impatient, poor, grimy and confused India of today, the vast majority of people have lost their sense of faith, sex and much else.

Now, much of what we call faith exists in the form of archaic or (seemingly) incomprehensible rituals that the countless multitudes of this country “practice.” And the practice is largely orchestrated by semi-proficient pundits, maulvis, gurus…

And as for sex, the less said the better. It is visible either through a ballooning of the population or the (often) crass pelvic thrusts of a Bollywood gone bonkers.

When the two forces are mixed—faith and sex—what you get is an explosion that shatters the fragile fulcrum of both. That is what happened in the recent case of Asaram Bapu and the allegations of sexual excesses on the erstwhile revered guru.

In the ancient times, the golden age of true rishis, munis and siddhas, people could see, emulate and worship their examples. Those gurus were able to live their entire lives in sattva and tapas. Sometimes, they also showed weaknesses. But they either chose to atone for their follies and sins on their own, or they were punished adequately through divine interventions and other means. The ultimate faith of people in the ability of the human form to achieve the highest ideals of godliness was finally restored.

Today, you have the courts and the media, and the constant clamor of the masses to punish the perverts, the wayward gurus who are taking undue advantage of people’s “blind” faith.

So, while the people’s faith in earlier times was based on exemplary lives, divine conduct and compassion of the highest order, these days the faith hangs precariously from a flimsy thread of haze that extends far into the forgotten centuries.

In matters of sex, we seem to be faring even worse. For most Indians it is a dirty word associated with taboo, decadence and, of course, population. They may secretly crave for it and quietly approve of the titillation that Bollywood and the media & advertising industries afford them, but they remain unaware of their own glorious past and its interconnectedness with everything divine. They have allowed it to become an instrument of shame rather than a means of higher aspirations and fulfillment.

With the current miasma of abysmal ignorance, gut-wrenching poverty and horrendous corruption, it is difficult to imagine how one could restore India to the sexual, spiritual and abundant well-being of the past. Of the heritage and culture we so often quote in the media but of which we happily continue to remain neglectful…

Thankfully, there are a few, too few I would say than we need, who are taking the pains to bring the lost sense of wholeness, true faith and balance to our lives—through studies of the ancient Indian texts and practices, through Yoga, through the power of Chakras enshrined in the human body, through the limitless potential of the mind. Ironically, more research and work in these areas is happening in the Western world. So, while the majority of Indians are busy aping the worst of West, a few souls in that very West are dedicating their lives to reclaiming the best of our magnificent past.

What can we do to minimize our reliance on fake gurus for our intake of faith? How can we persuade ourselves and others to take the long and arduous road to seeking a true guru rather than fall prey to the get-blessed-quick lure? And even if we don’t find a real guru, why can’t we be our own guru?

Mobile Device Mess?

The Bring Your Own Device genie is out, causing multiple headaches for IT professionals. Thankfully, applying MDM (Mobile Device Management) can bring some relief

One man's food is another's poison, they say. Applying this old adage to enterprise mobility, while the proliferation of devices comes as a boon to the touch-happy users, it is often seen as anathema to the enterprise tech professionals.

I can almost imagine their nightmares as streams of young new recruits (and young-at-heart bosses) enter the office premises, playing games, chatting, Facebooking, and occasionally answering emails or opening work files—all on their swishy new smartphones and tablets.

The tribe of mobile devices in our midst is growing phenomenally. Each quarter close to 150 million smartphones are sold worldwide and about three million in India. And these numbers are growing pretty fast.

It is inevitable that employees will walk in with their own mobile devices—and insist on using them for work as well.

Thankfully, MDM or mobile device management tools are now at hand. Using these tools, IT professionals can minimize their nightmares, if not completely eliminate them.

The problem with mobile devices is that there are just too many of them! CIOs and IT managers have to deal with a wide variety of OS types, software versions and hardware models. It's not easy taming what's come to be known as the BYOD (bring your own device) phenom, and no one seems to have found the formula to perfectly match the best interests of the company and its employees.

MDM tools such as those from MobileIron, AirWatch and Zenprise (there are scores of solutions available, including many from traditional large vendors, though only a few are available in India at the moment) allow enterprises to provision applications with ease and safely manage access to critical business data.

However, challenges persist. Key concerns include creating a standard environment, rendering apps correctly or elegantly on multiple types of devices, and dealing with the constant barrage of new apps that employees would want to download and use. And then, there are issues concerning company policies (subsidizing the costs, fixing liabilities in case of theft, etc.) and employee turnover (managing the data/device handover process).

Together with cloud and social media, mobile devices and their growing use for work are causing a complete relook of ICT infrastructure for many enterprises. Deployment of a solution is no longer a siloed activity that can be done on a need basis but one that is getting intertwined with other solutions, the overall infrastructure and, of course, the company's “agility” ambitions.

A lot of learning and pain awaits IT folks before the device mess can be sorted out to any desirable degree of satisfaction.

But then, what's life without challenges?

The Green Machine

I remember my initiation into the idea of green living through, ironically, cars—one of those inventions that contribute significantly to pollution (though I must admit I drive one to work everyday like hundreds of millions).

The cars I'm talking about, however, didn't look like your regular street machines but something straight off the pages of a sci-fi thriller. These “concept cars” invariably looked very curvy, used lots of sheet glass and were often accompanied by smiling beauties (not sure if the girls were there to turn your attention away from the fact that such solar or non-fossil fuel powered cars were not going to be a reality for the next 10-20 years).

After more than two decades since those memories, it's heartening that electric and hybrid cars are gradually being introduced in the market.

The click-click world of computing is in a similar situation right now, though things here seem to have moved relatively faster than for automobiles.

Most of those in IT would identify the green-colored “Energy Star” logo that appeared while the computer booted up. It is believed that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was one of the first to launch efforts to recognize energy-efficiency in tech equipment when it announced the Star as a voluntary labeling program in 1992.

Today, there are thousands of such programs and efforts worldwide to cut down on energy use by ICT equipment—most notably in large data centers that have become massive guzzlers of electricity.

The rising energy prices, coupled with a growing environmental consciousness, have resulted in a multi-billion-dollar “green equipment” market. Even in India, which is always considered price-sensitive and therefore reluctant to shell out 15-20% more for the green tag, many CIOs and other decision makers have begun to “talk green,” if not “buy green.”

But they should look beyond the initial cost and think of RoI from green IT in the longer term. Fortunately, several businesses are in an expansion or migratory stage and can thus take help from the independent data centers that have come up recently in India and which tout great green credentials. Or they can tweak their purchasing processes to include some  green elements as well.

I know it's easier said than done. But it has to be said—and, eventually, it will be done more than we thought possible. Policies and laws on e-waste and energy use will catch up in India, but there's no reason why the avant-garde businesses should wait to go green.

The green run, after all, is going to be a marathon.