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Tue, May 5, 2009 8:54 EDT

Working Smarter Can Help Turn the Economy Around

Topic: Applications

Current Rating: 4 Comment: 1

Working Smarter Can Help Turn the Economy Around
By Bob Picciano, General Manager, IBM Lotus Software

We are in a very challenging period of history – a time that is testing us all. Yet the challenges we face also provide an opportunity we shouldn’t waste – a chance to transform the way we work to be more productive, efficient and resilient. By taking a “smarter” approach to our day-to-day activities, we can positively affect the economy in profound ways. By “smarter,” I mean a world where digital intelligence can boost productivity by being embedded not just in individual things, but also across entire systems, impacting everything from traffic flows to electric power to the way our food is grown.

But in order to get from where we are today to where we want to be tomorrow will require some dramatic changes to standard operating procedures. From my perspective, I see nine key factors contributing to this smart transformation this year – nine for ’09 if you will:
1 - Universal access to collaboration technology on any device will redefine what it means to be "at work" in an increasingly mobile and globally distributed workforce. Improved applications for mobile devices will offer enterprise office levels of security, flexibility and ease-of-use.

2 - Messaging will move beyond basic email and calendaring to become an integrated platform for communication, collaboration and sharing of resources.

3 - Organizations will begin managing their workforces primarily through the use of human networks. Employee skills and interests will be easily catalogued, helping employers find the perfect fit for projects and assignments.

4 - Unified communications will enable interaction through any mode via any computing device. Rich presence will drive interactions; instant messaging will be the defacto form of communication; traditional telephony will give way to "voice collaboration."

5 - Despite challenging economic conditions in 2009, the affordability and ease of using cloud-based software services will transform many small-medium businesses and individual corporate departments into global trading partners.

6 - Free and inexpensive technology will spread, allowing cash-strapped organizations to weather the storm of economic uncertainty with everything from office desktop productivity to social networking and collaboration in the cloud.

7 - The availability of essential business applications, the growing popularity of Netbooks, budget pressures and general maturity of the platform will push Linux on the desktop towards critical mass.

8 - Business applications will increasingly become interactive on mobile devices.

9 - Mashup technology will become increasingly used by IT and line of business workers to create a millions of morphing situational applications to solve daily problems.

As these technology factors and scenarios increasingly take hold within business environments around the world, we’ll experience a dramatic shift away from the outdated and inefficient practices of the past. The old reliance on resource-draining business trips, over-crowded inboxes, paper-based operations and hierarchical methods of finding information and answers will ultimately be cast aside in favor of the smart-work movement.

Down the road, imagine what you could do from your desk, your home, your neighborhood coffee shop with the new communications tools at our disposal. You could form your own network of experts to manage any business situation. You could bid for a project; find talent to complete a project; meet with your customers; or create plans with your partners and colleagues for new products or services from any location, at any time of the day or night. What if it didn't matter where people were located or the organization of which they were a part? What if you could move your work to the Internet-based cloud to be shared?

The results would be astounding. Costs would go down.

You do not have flash or javascript support.
Average (2 votes)
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Tue, May 5, 2009 16:26 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: MarkLittlefield
Rating: 90

Go with the nine for ’09, especially mobile communications in the cloud, using a rich presence address book on your smartphone!
1. Imagine universal mobile access with your smartphone address book that included your co-worker’s and key business contact’s “deep presence” –dynamic status updates for mobile presence (on/off phone), calendar availability, and location.
2. Imagine a world beyond messaging, an integrated platform that integrates, aggregates, and mediates the key sources of rich presence information—on or off the phone; calendar availability; IM and social network status; and physical location.
3. Your mobile address book could include groups by skill level, so you could immediately connect with them after checking their status, availability and where they are.
4. Yes, Rich presence will drive interactions and a drive to “voice collaboration”. Certainly rich presence or what I like to call deep presence will drive interactions with everyone, family, friends, co-workers, key business contacts, key suppliers, key customers, etc. Just imageine if you could select people in your smartphone address book for an instant conference call. That is what I call “voice collaboration.
5. Agreed: Use cloud-based software services.
6. Free and inexpensive technology is the right price.
7. For sure Netbooks are on the rise as a mobile internet device
8. Absolutely, Business applications will increasingly become interactive on mobile devices. Think of where mobile banking will be at the end of 2009. Mobile advertising and m-commerce is on the rise. I would like my smartphone address book to become my communication hub.
9. Mash it Up – Imagine a mashup of your social network, SMS, desktop presence, IM and your smartphone address book that enables smarter communications and connections wit the people you care about most, professionally and personally.

I want to be a Renaissance Man!

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