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?

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.

 

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!

 

Single Malt Whisky Flavour Map

If like me you adore Single Malt Scotch Whisky, then this Flavour Map should prove to be very helpful.  Not quite a Gartner Magic Quadrant, but certainly a lot more fun to research. Enjoy!

 

 

 

 

Apple’s Consumerisation of the Cloud in the Post PC Era

Some of you will already be aware of the Apple announcements made earlier this week about the new features of iOS and iCloud. As a consumer you are probably pretty excited about the enhanced features on your “fondle device” as well as syncing your iTunes, Videos and Photos across multiple iDevices via the iCloud. It certainly boosted Apple’s share price even more as they dug the knife into both Microsoft and Google.

There was also good news from a Cisco point of view too. It was great to see WebEx shown in the WWDC Keynote to represent Business usage on an iPad2; extending the awareness of our Cloud Collaboration Solution and enhancing Cisco’s brand as leading edge.

Apple’s Consumerisation of the cloud is pretty interesting, but if like me you think about the bigger Post PC Era picture, then these announcements could also be game-changing for Businesses and Channel Partners.

Apple devices are easier to Manage

Although consumers have quickly embraced iPhones and iPads, Corporates have taken to them a lot slower as they haven’t been fully supported by IT. However, now Apple have made them a lot easier to manage with encrypted emails, device updates, user content and backups; all over the air. As “it will all just work” as Jobs suggested, the user experience will be excellent so IT can potentially free up datacenter space for other business critical applications and services like UC or VXI to make the user experience across the rest of the organisation even better.

Multi Device Workspace

At Cisco we have fully embraced the multi device workspace for some time and its one of the leading messages we drive with WebEx, Jabber and Quad. Apple with the creation of iCloud and the ability for an iPad & iPhone combination to sync together when linked to the same Apple account, really reinforces Cisco’s multi device message and will drive C-Level execs to expect the same level of service within a work environment. The good news for Cisco is that our Workspace solutions work across Android and PC as well as Apple giving us an even better “Open” message.

So Apple have excited the Consumer but have also provided opportunities for Cisco and our Channel to exploit the massive media noise created from iCloud to drive home the Post PC Era message to our Customers. It may mean that  Partners might have to readdress some of  the services they currently offer, but Cisco is well placed  to help and make them profitable well into the future. And the Future is looking Cloudy.

Social Business Innovation – Rethinking business, organisations & leaderships

Here’s a good video to highlight the need for Enterprises to embrace Social Business.

How Social Media Strengthens Companies

I spotted another great infographic post from my friend and mentor Eileen Brown over the weekend. As I mentioned in my last blog post, I will shortly be joining Cisco to look after the Channel Development of their Social Computing/Collaboration Platform, Quad. When I try and describe what Quad is to people outside of the Industry, I often say its like Facebook for Enterprise. Not strictly true but at least its a level playing field to start with. However when you say Facebook to some people over 30yrs old they often associate it with wasting time rather than working. But the top half of this infographic really pulls out some reasons why Social (media) Computing will be so important for Businesses going forward. Collaboration, sharing new ideas, team building and the engaging the workforce are great uses of Enterprise 2.0 Social software.  Let’s face it, it’s not the Banks that are going to pull us out of the recession, its people like us working harder, smarter and better together that will do it.

If I can go to work without having to sift through 1000 email  in my inbox and instead use a Social Collaboration Tool like Quad to help me prioritise what I should be working on, then I know I’m using the Facebook for Enterprise to not waste time.

The Rise of the Social CV

  I really liked this blog post from James Poulter about how the CV was “becoming less and less appealing to HR directors, whose inboxes are filled daily with the word document versions of young hopefuls, applying for graduate schemes and alike. So many are now trying their hand at getting noticed by the powers that be, by using a different set of tools – those being digital, mobile and most importantly social”

As I step away from my role at Microsoft into a new role at Cisco, my focus is moving much closer to Enterprise Social Computing  and Blog posts like James reinforces that it is a great move for me. Organisations are changing, not necessarily from Top Down, but from the Bottom Up. As GenY begin their careers, they are brining a social evolution to Corporate Britain which will only gain momentum as time goes by. This infographic may not work for everyone but it sure is more exciting than looking at 2 pages of A4!