The Future of Work – The Work-Life Integration

 

Over the last few decades, we have all heard about this the Work-Life balance; many of us have even managed to find it. For some its about getting the right amount of family and social life to balance out the stresses of the 9-5 workday. But as workdays get longer, and smartphones and tablets become more prevalent for employees, we will definitely be seeing a new way of working. The Work-Life integration.

The Chartered Management Institute published a report earlier this month outlining some of the key work changes that will be faced in 2018, and one of the interesting things for me, was the exodus from the traditional workspace. This exodus will be partly caused by environmental pressure to reduce carbon footprints as well as demographic pressure of an ageing population, leading to a blurring of boundaries between family and career. I also personally feel that many commuters are now getting so fed up with poor transport infrastructure, whether on the road or the rail, that working from home is best way to optimise a lot of knowledge workers time.

So what does this new way of work mean to me, I hear you cry?  Well as someone who has already embraced the work-life integration, perhaps an insight into my life my help. My head office is just outside London which takes me 2hrs to drive to; I have a satellite office in Reading which is just over an hour to get to; both these travel times exclude the additional rush hour delays of course. I also have my home office in the Cotswolds that takes me less than a minute to get to; it is a nice quiet space with a Cisco home office kit including secure access into my Office network. I also have an work laptop, an iPhone and a personal iPad.

So if you follow me on Twitter, you’ll know I have a new West Highland Terrier puppy called Archie. He likes waking me up before 7am every morning without fail. So I get up, have breakfast and turn on my iPad to start catching up on all my project activity and messages on the Cisco Social Business portal Quad. Once I’m up to speed on activity, I put my boots on and take Archie out for a walk on Minchinhampton Common. Luckily for me, there is good reception up on the Common so I can keep in touch with email and make any early morning calls. After about an hour I come back home and work for the rest of the morning in my home office, including various video and web meetings using WebEx. If I need to have a Telepresence conference meeting, I drive to my Reading office obviously now avoiding the most of the traffic. I may stop off on the Motorway Services to have a Flat White coffee and complete some work actions on my iPad from earlier; the wif-fi is free. When I get home I often relax, go to the gym and then have dinner. In the evening I’m on my iPad working while my other half watches her programmes.

The fact is, every day may be different, but the key success behind it all, is that I can work from anywhere that has 3G or wifi access. My company has given me some tools, I have also bought my own. My office is no longer the building just inside the M25, its now anywhere I go. A lot of the baby boomer generation feel that working from home isnt really working. But for me, I am at least 20% more efficient when I work the way I do. I also think the quality of my work is better as Im less stressed and able to think outside the box better when required. According to Chartered Management Institute, we’ll all be working like this in the future, which should decrease the amount of cars on the road and increase the number of available seats on trains. We can also see an increase is trade for pubs, restaurants and service stations who will now be filled with more people tapping away on mobile devices. Just don’t forget to turn them off occasionally

Cheltenham Special: Paddy Power PR Stunt

As its the Cheltenham Festival this week, I’d thought I’d post this great PR stunt from Paddy Power.

You may remember last year they did the Paddy Power  ”Hollywood sign” on Cleeve Hill over looking the racecourse. That was truely epic and was always going to be tough to better; but they certainly tried by putting a Jockey on the famous Uffington White Horse in Oxfordshire.

This cheeky Word of Mouth stunt really works! It grabs your attention and gets people talking due to a number of factors; the risks (they didnt get permission), the Irish humour and the grand scale of the project. I cant wait till next year’s stunt!

Let me know what you think?

Clouds + Mobility = Improved Collaboration

As someone who always recommends a short video in any partner or customer presentation to bring it to life. Here is the latest viral video from Cisco that was posted on YouTube over the weekend.

The message is clear, “Clouds and Mobility improve Collaboration“

I’ve heard that Cisco have hired a couple of Marketing folks from the Microsoft Office365 team and it looks like they have got straight into action with this this video; highlighting a few of Cisco’s strengths against their old employers. Thankfully its not the usual Cisco technical spin; its a video aimed at getting Managers and Directors thinking about the strategic agenda of their business.

Have a look and let me know what you think?

Is it time that Apple reinvent the Wristwatch?

I was chatting to some LikeMinds the other day about the future of Apple now that Steve Jobs has sadly passed away. The company has obviously made Computers and Laptops cool; it also created a booming Smartphone and Tablet market which has changed the way that people collaborate both socially and within the Enterprise.

But what is left for Apple to reinvent? Well an obvious answer is the Television. If you think of the mantra of 3 screens and the Cloud; the 3 screens being Computer, Smartphone and TV. Then we should see Apple enter this market soon; ok, they do already have Apple TV but this hasn’t really taken the world by storm. An iconic television would do however. Apple will face huge competition in this field from Sony and Samsung. Already reinventing the TV with 3D and internet capabilities.

Another new market for them could be the Smartwatch. In true Apple style they have dabbled with the iPod Nano watch, almost testing the concept out on their fanbase. I have a friend who loves his, but essentially its only a music device on your wrist. Plus it looks so fragile, Im pretty sure that if I had one, it would be broken by the end of the day.

But now that Apple has iCloud and Siri, suddenly the idea of an “iWatch” could be an exciting prospect! Imagine be able to use Siri on your iWatch as a remote control, as a link between all your other Apple devices; perhaps commanding music and films from your Mac down to your TV. It sounds like something out of the Jetsons, but essentially the technology is there (about time too!). There are also rumours of Apple investing in curved glass R&D which could indicate that they are looking to improve the sharp edged iPod Nano, perhaps to make it more wearable.

Will people wear technology? Of course! But you need to make it look extra stylish. Jawbone had a go recently releasing their “UP“; a wristband that makes you healthier. But it flopped as it just looks to ugly. Nike’s launch of their fitness and calorie tracker, Fuelband is a step in the right direction. Last I read, there was still a huge waitlist to get one; perhaps taking a gimmick out of the Apple PR rulebook.

There is a huge risk for Apple though. The youth of today no longer wear watches as its seen a single purpose device; instead they use their smartphones to tell the time. If Apple were to release a Smartwatch, it needs all the design power of Sir Jonathan Ive to make sure it works not only in the Tech market, but also in the Fashion one.

Virgin Media enables Flexible Working with Cisco Social Collaboration Software

If you follow my twitter or LinkedIn, you would have seen me post this video earlier in the week. Its a great reference study for Cisco’s social and collaboration solutions. I met some of the Virgin Media guys at the Cisco Collaboration Summit in Barcelona a couple of months back and they were raving about Cisco Quad, Jabber and WebEx. They said that since they implemented the solutions, 77% their employees felt that they were more productive than before. This is a huge figure and points towards the Enterprise moving away from the inbox to a more Social, more Collaborative way of working.

If you watch the video, you can also see that many of the Virgin Media employees are using multiple devices; Macs, PCs, iPads and smartphones. This goes back to my true belief of what Cloud Computing is; a similar user experience across multiple devices, wherever you are.

 

Business Together as a Service

I tweeted this video earlier today, but I wanted to blog about it too.
Orange Business Services & Cisco have created ‘Business Together as a Service’; a Unified Communications & Collaboration service in the cloud. What I like about this offering is that to me, this is a true cloud service. Leading UC and Collaboration solutions available across multiple operating systems and devices, on demand and secure. What I also like, is that it’s an individual service for individual companies, not a one size fits all public cloud offering.
Have a look and let me know what you think?

The Perfect Pour

 

I havent blogged in a while and I know my friend Charlie Cowan is probably telling me off because of it. I have some great topics listed so I’ll dedicate more time to expand on the bullets in my Evernote.

In the meantime I thought I’d post one of my favourite infographics. “Coffee, the perfect pour!” I am a bit of a fan of coffee and I carry this image in my iPhone and often show less experienced Baristas what I want.

After all I dont want this blog to be just about work!