What was it that Timothy Leary advised in the 1960's, "Turn on, tune in, and drop out"? Forty years later, old Timothy couldn't have gotten in more wrong. These days it's more like "Plug in, log on, be productive".
A convergence of several factors in the last 20 years has led years to a significant change in our communication behaviors and lifestyles. These are:
- A global economy, where efficiency and agility is paramount
- An explosion of communication technology that enables unprecedented levels of interaction
- New generations of workers with different life goals from their parents
The table below shows some of the significant changes in the American workforce over the last century (click to expand).
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Compounding these changes we see an increasingly global economy where businesses have to leverage every intellectual asset available to them for survival. We have to be connected to our customers and supply chain partners which are very likely to be located in places all over the world. As such, it means that everyone needs to be switched on nearly continuously. For the most part, the globalization of the technology economy is driven by the very same technology it produces. In other words, we eat our own dog food.
In the early 20th century, Frederick Taylor developed the first practical theories on how to manage a workforce under the theory of the "right man for the right job", he referred to this as Scientific Management.
It gradually became obsolete with the ascendancy of the Human Resources school of management where people were considered to be something more of a company asset than simply human machines performing repetitive tasks to be replaced as they wore out. A sort of social contract took place between the worker and company.
In the last 25 years we have seen an explosion of technology which is now approaching the state of maturity to once again change the face of our workplace again. As a personal exercise, think about when you were first introduced to these and how it has changed the way you work:
- Voicemail
- Pagers
- Email
- Cell phones
- Telephone conferences
- Video conferences
- Palm Pilots
- Online chat
- Blackberries
What's interesting about these technologies (not even counting the web-oriented ones) is that they are almost fully mastered by every teenager today. As these young people enter the workforce, we are going to see wholesale adoption of the technology they have been using masterfully in their private time for business purposes.
These people will bring with them not only the new perspectives on the workplace, but also deft expertise in using these communication technologies efficiently. For example, many people experience email overload, their email inboxes overflowing with one or two line emails that could be more efficiently communicated via text or chat. The Millennials will surely not invite someone to lunch via email.
The dark side to all this innovation, and expertise in harnessing it, is the increasing difficulty for any of us to truly "drop out", if even only for a few days. We are always tethered to our communication devices and expect the other people we deal with to also be similarly connected.
I recently had a discussion with a 20-something CEO who had a different perspective. He saw the new technology as liberating. That he could go to the beach, a bike ride, or simply work from home when he wanted to because he had fingertip access to all the same information he had at his formal office. To him, the technology was not a tether to work. Instead the technology enabled him to have the lifestyle that he wanted. Being tethered to a cubicle and having to commute everyday to get there was seen to be a significantly worse trade-off against being connected 24x7.
Increasingly we are going to be forced to adapt to new communication paradigms brought to the workplace by young people. The expectation is that we will be plugged into work at any time and any place. Who knows, we baby boomers may learn a thing or too.
Warren Savage, President and CEO of IPextreme, is a well-known and published authority in the field of semiconductor intellectual property.
He has a long history of pushing the envelope of design methodology from his work in fault tolerant computing at Tandem Computers in the 1980's and driving reliable design methodologies into commercial practice at Synopsys for its DesignWare IP product in the 1990s. Much of his thinking became embodied in the seminal book on IP reuse, the Reuse Methodology Manual.
Previous columns
(Nov 07) Warren Savage On: Making the Case for Invented Here
(Dec 07) Warren Savage On: Swiss Cheese Solutions
(Jan 08) Warren Savage On: Collaboration Needed for Success
(Feb 08) Warren Savage On: Knowing Your No
(Mar 08) Warren Savage On: The Next Big Thing
(Apr 08) Warren Savage On: Gumming Up the Works?
(May 08) Warren Savage On: Waiting for Godot
(June 08) Warren Savage On: Our Virtual Future