.FLYINGHEAD PERSPECTIVES
.TITLE How mobile technology has changed the way we work
.AUTHOR Brenda Coxe
.SUMMARY If we could go back in time — even "just" twenty-five years ago — we’d see a world of difference in comparison to the technology of today. Brenda Coxe takes on a short run down memory lane to help us gain perspective about our increasingly mobilized world.
.OTHER
If we could go back in time — even "just" twenty-five years ago — we’d see a world of difference in comparison to the technology of today. Although cell phones were in existence, the average person did not own one, and those that were in use were quite bulky and heavy.
In addition, there were no plans with minutes as we have today — you were billed for every call you made, and you were billed a lot. Though it’s possible the first laptop came into existence in 1979 and was used by NASA, the Osborne 1 is credited with being the first portable computer.
Shaped like a suitcase, it was developed in 1981 and weighed 24 pounds, incredibly heavy in comparison to today’s standards. In March 1983, Compaq Computer began shipping the first portable PCs, a move that contributed to Osborne filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy. [Actually a big part of the problem was that Osborne pre-announced its next-generation portable and couldn’t deliver. Rather than buying the currently shipping product, customers simply held back spending and waited — until Osborne just ran out of money. –Ed.]
The advantage of the Compaq was its that it was IBM compatible, a process that took some time for it to achieve because of some technicalities between the implementation of the software and permission from IBM. It was, however, a start in the right direction.
.H1 That was then, this is now
Many technological changes have taken place since those early days, and today most people have a cell phone, and many others own both a cell phone and a laptop computer. In addition, many companies provide their key employees with a company phone and a laptop in order to keep in touch when they are on the road. Other companies allow their employees to telecommute part of the time, and provide them with a laptop computer in order to do that.
On-call employees who once had to make sure they were near a phone to answer a pager now carry a cell phone and can be anywhere within the range of that portable instrument. Though that capability may not include being high in the mountains, for most other places it is quite useful. Doctors, for example, can now attend events while on-call and not have to find a payphone in order to answer a page. Certainly, they may have to find a quiet place to use the phone, but that is much less of a walk than having to find the payphone. This has become something of a self-fulfilling demand curve; the large number of people carrying cell phones has led many businesses to remove pay phones completely.
Mobile technology has moved the world at a fast pace, and in some ways, it has created monsters of many people who now feel the need to work at the office and bring work home as well. Before the introduction of portable devices, when a person left the office, his or her work was complete for the day — at least in most cases.
On the other hand, it allows employees the freedom to leave the office early when necessary for personal business while still being able to complete important work projects. BlackBerry devices make it possible for you to send and receive email on your cell phone, thus being able to remain in touch with important clients and key personnel at your company whether you are on business, on vacation, or at home.
Even if you are ill, you can remain in touch with people who have pertinent information you need to know. In addition, cell phones that allow you to access your office files such as those in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint are part of the new technological advances that will make office portability a process that future generations will likely use to create the home-office for many more of its employees. The future will see more telecommuting and less of the drive to work, especially for working mothers who desire the flexibility of having a job and staying home with their children.
How realistic is it to think that in the next few decades, fewer people will be going out to work on a regular basis? Remember, just twenty-five or thirty years ago we could not have envisioned a computer that you could carry home with you that didn’t require a power socket to drive it. We also didn’t envision the tiny cell phone that we could take into another room in the home or office in order to hold a private conversation.
With so much new technology, we can only guess what the future holds. I have personally read articles that predict by the 22nd century hardly anyone will be working in an office or factory except those necessary to keep production lines running.
Perhaps it is only a prediction that offers hope to those who would like to see it happen, but on the other hand, based upon how far technology has advanced in just twenty-five years, it is not impossible to see it as a future lifestyle.
After all, we need only look around and see how far things have come even since the beginning of the 21st century to see the potential for a world where only production workers and key personnel are required to report to a job location on a daily basis.
.BIO
