Fri, 26 Aug 2011

Where is your Office?

It used to be that your office was the place in a bilding where your desk, chair and phone were -- usually a room with a door and, if you were lucky, a window. Now, more often than not, if you have a set apace to work, it's a cube with a chzir and a phone, but most likely a work surface rather than a desk -- no door and most likely, not within seeing distance of a window.

But the real thing that makes an office is connectivity to the Internet. That puts your office--the place where you work--just about anywhere depending on your technology. Right now, my work space is a netbook on a lap desk in my living room. Eariler today, it was a work surface at an auto dealership where I was getting my car checked. For many, it's a coffee shop which provides WiFi access. Communications technology has placed our office whereever we happen to be or more ideally, where the work IS. With today's powerful laptops, we can take our work environment to a customer site, a conference room, for research to the library, or under a tree in a quiet park. We work whereever we work best and have access to the resources we need.

The portable work space can be an advantege, allowing us to work where it is best, to collaborate and cooperate with those around it. Or it can be a disadvantage, placing us in a situation where concentration is impossible and interference or outright theft can be more esily perpetrated. Having this freedom can also be an isolation experience, surprisingly. How many times have you gone to a coffee shop to see two people sitting facing each other oh their laptops. The human communication of the place has been lost to the more pervasive communication of the internet. It is more important to confer with that faceless community of social networking than to actually look up and see who is sitting across from us. Where ever our office is, I sincerenly hope that it doesn't separate us from the people who are an important part of our world.

posted 06:49 [/Technology] permanent link