Here’s Another Workplace Futures Conference Worth Considering

May 13, 2009 at 12:34 pm · Filed under Economic Development, Management, Technology Management, Work Design

I’d like to encourage anyone interested in the future of work to consider attending the Worktech(tm)09 Conference in New York City on May 20. It’s being held at the Time and Life Building at 1271 Avenue of the Americas.

Our across-the-pond colleague and fellow futurist/author Phillip Ross, CEO of Cordless Group in the U.K., is behind Worktech, which has been held annually for the last several years. He’s an expert on the impact of new technologies on work and the workplace – and a very dynamic speaker.

Dan Johnson, head of global CRE Workplace planning for Accenture, and a member of our Workplace Innovation and Performance Network, will also be a speaker. He’ll be describing Accenture’s new workplace strategy and highlighting a case study from Accenture’s Tokyo operations.

There’s lots more in both speakers and networking opportunities.

You can register for the conference here, and download a pdf brochure about the agenda and speakers here.

Unfortunately New York is too far away from the west coast for me to get there, but I’d love to hear about the program from any of you who do attend. It looks like a terrific contemporary review of what’s happening in the workplace (and beyond) right now.

For a greener office, engage your employees

May 11, 2009 at 7:40 am · Filed under Culture, Management, greenIT

Companies around the world are scrambling to save money to survive the recession, but a lot of them are missing out on a key area. According to Hugh Jones, Solutions Director at Carbon Trust, “Many companies think of energy as a fixed overhead but saving energy is actually one of the easiest ways to reduce costs. Simply by switching machines off after use, or turning the heating down in warm weather, organisations can make real savings on their energy bill.”

Carbon Trust did a survey among UK employees and found that a substantial majority (87%) think that they should do their own part in cutting costs, while 78% are ready and willing to do so by being more energy efficient. What made them so eager to help? About half of them point to the bad economy as their main motivator.

Managements could have capitalized on this prevailing sentiment, and yet many have been failing to do so. Over half (55%) of employees said they were never given them any advice on being more energy efficient around the workplace (which they would have followed gladly). Among those who were given advice, 42% said it had made them more energy efficient. Beware, though. If you’re going to implement an energy initiative, there’s a sense of fairness that employers need to uphold. Two-thirds (67%) of those surveyed felt that while they’d like to help personally, it’s important that their colleagues do their part as well.

In the US, wasted energy in offices present a huge problem. The 2009 PC Energy Report found that almost half of US employees who use computers do not turn them off after work. This translates to $2.8 billion wasted annually for 108 million idle PCs, not to mention the millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Imagine the savings if this was properly addressed.

Book Review: Clara Shih’s “The Facebook Era”

April 29, 2009 at 10:58 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, Management, Networks + Networking, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web Apps, productivity, social media, social networks

Subtitled  “Tapping Online Social Networks to Build Better Products, Reach New Audiences, and Sell More Stuff” the book is a must read, and especially useful as a primer for those still needing to understand the fundamental changes in doing business as the Internet has matured  from Web 1.0 to:

“an entirely new level with Web 3.0- an era that is entirely about innovation and collaboration.”     (Foreword page ix)                        

An excellent overview of the book, in author  Clara Shih’s  own words,  is in 2 parts at the Entrepreneur’s Journeys blog .   Not surprizingly the book’s home page is on Facebook and 24 x 5 star Amazon reviews indicate the book’s value.

The book section titles– starting with “A Brief History of Social Media’ through “Transforming the Way We Do Business’ to “Your Step-By-Step Guide to Using Facebook for Business”–  reveal the key themes.  Reflecting the author’s hands on experience as the developer of FaceConnector and head of Enterprise Social Networking Alliances and Product Strategy for Salesforce, the book is filled with lived experiences of companies using social networking to “build better products, reach new audiences and sell more stuff.”

If there are gaps in the book they reflect the state of the industry. For example, “The ROI of Social” is addressed in half a page (205) beginning:

“Understandably, a large number of you are focused on ROI and  might feel frustrated that there has been no clear quantifiable data around ROI”

and concludes suggesting;

“ROI will become much more quantifiable  and standardized”.

Have you read “The Facebook Era?”  What did you take away?

~ Jenny Ambrozek

Transforming the Workplace at SCAN Health

April 19, 2009 at 3:04 pm · Filed under Distributed Work, Management, Work Design, productivity

<this is a cross-post from the Future of Work blog>

On April 2 Charlie Grantham, Diane Coles, and I delivered a presentation at the IFMA Industries Forum held in Vancouver, British Columbia.

What Happens When Two Bloggers Actually Meet Face to Face?

April 6, 2009 at 5:52 pm · Filed under Collaboration, Collective intelligence, Communities, Distributed Work, Management, Work Design, social networks

The answer:  good things.

I’m just back from a conference in Vancouver, BC, where Jon Husband just happens to live. I was smart/lucky enough to have announced publicly that Charlie Grantham and I would be in Vancouver for a few days, and Jon was gracious enough to get in touch and suggest we meet (since we never had).

The three of us ended up having breakfast together last Friday, and then Jon was the perfect host, offering us a ride out the airport for our trips home.

Of course, Jon being the champion of Vancouver that he is, the ride took a little extra time (which we had plenty of) as he gave us a mini-tour of the downtown and surrounding area.

I had been in Vancouver before, but not for over 20 years, so it was an eye-opening tour. I’ve always had good feelings about the city (stemming from a wonderful summer in the mid-80’s characterized by many late evening dinners down near the harbor).

But even more important than enjoying Vancouver was enjoying getting to know Jon. We (including Charlie) discovered way more in common than any three older gray-haired guys who had never met before have any right to expect. As Jon described on his own blog last week (“Back to the Future . . .  of Work“), we share many intellectual curiosities and probably even more views and values about organization, work, people, and even politics.

So here’s to the value of face to face meetings. In spite of our mutual fascination with what Jon calls “wirearchy,” we also agree wholeheartedly in getting together physically to share a real space, not just a virtual one.

Of course, that f2f meeting never would have taken place without the AppGap blog and our e-newsletter (where I’d announced the Vancouver trip in the first place), so I guess we owe some thanks to Hylton Joliffe and the folks at Intuit too for originally making Jon and me aware of each other.

But the nice part of now having “pressed the flesh” is that I’ll have a whole lot more context from now on as I read Jon’s blog comments. And I suspect we’ll see each other again in the not-too-distant future.

Thanks, Jon, for your hospitality and for your always-stimulating questions about the future of work and of management.

“Telecommuting” isn’t Just a Perk Anymore

February 27, 2009 at 1:47 pm · Filed under Communities, Distributed Work, Management, Talent Management, Web 2.0, Web Commuting

[This note is cross-posted from the Future of Work blog]

There’s a great new story just published today in Business Week detailing how some organizations are turning to “telecommuting” and flexible work programs as a way to reduce costs and retain employees in these difficult times.

The article (“Telecommuting: Once a Perk, Now a Necessity“), by Michelle Conlin (editor of BW’s Working Life Department), highlights how SCAN Health Plan, BDO Seidman, and Capital One are using flexible work options to cut real estate costs significantly.

The really encouraging side of the story, though, is how many employees relish the reduction in commute times and the rebalancing of their lives (no surprise to us, but still a benefit that’s not widely enough recognized).

Read the rest of this entry »

How Come Distributed Work is Still the Next Big Thing?

February 23, 2009 at 4:04 pm · Filed under Change Management, Distributed Work, Management, Web Commuting

I am very pleased that Capital Magazine, based in Dubai, has just published the second installment of an article that Charlie Grantham and I wrote about organizational resistance to Distributed Work – and what to do about it.

The article, “How Come Distributed Work is Still the Next Big Thing?“, appears in the February issue. It’s available online, though free registration is required.

This version of the article is actually a revision and update to a three-part series that ran in our own Future of Work Agenda newsletter a couple of years ago – available as downloadable pdf reprints here (Part One), here (Part Two), and here (Part Three).

We’re pleased at the continuing attention this issue is getting. It can’t be said often enough: there are very real – and completely understandable – reasons why so many organizations resist adopting distributed/flexible work arrangements. But there’s also a highly compelling business case for moving into the “work anywhere” world of the 21st century.

Why do you think resistance to an obviously more productive and more attractive way of working is so prevalent?