EDITOR’S QUESTION
JOSÉ VASCO,
REGIONAL DIRECTOR
MEMA AT ARUBA
O
ur working lives are at a
point of inexorable change.
Technologies are disrupting
our traditional work patterns to such a
degree that soon the term ‘office’ will
become obsolete. In its place will be
a new model for work – a flexible and
collaborative environment where the
mobile device is the tool around which
everything else will flow.
Much of this change has been
triggered by the new breed of worker,
‘#GenMobile’, who are putting mobility
at the centre of their working and
personal lives and work in ways which are
collaborative and creative, but also local,
agile and socially and civically aware.
#GenMobile see themselves as
innovators, and expect their employers
to be too, eschewing the nine-to-five
and instead working wherever and
whenever they can connect to the cloud.
But if #GenMobile doesn’t need an
office, what do they need? Working
with insight consultancy, The Future
Laboratory, Aruba have pinpointed
some key trends that we think will shape
the workplace of tomorrow, globally and
undoubtedly in Africa as well:
The blending of business
and leisure
The ubiquity of mobile devices, high-
speed Wi-Fi and cloud computing have
led to the merging of business and
leisure and has sparked a total rethink
of how we structure our working day.
People no longer have to be attached to
a plug or a wire.
Businesses are also finding that the
more they can make work feel like a
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leisure activity, the more productive
staff will be.
The frictionless office space
What we’re seeing now is an employee-
centric model of working, where
employers are using new practices that
favour collaboration over competition,
productivity over presenteeism, and
invention over inhibition.
You could even go as far as to say that
as we become ‘cloud collaborators’
rather than cogs in a machine. It’s fast-
paced, the rewards come quickly, and
the work never gets stale.
The office used to be the place
where things happened, but you, the
employee, had to do all the work.
The Internet of Things is changing all
that. Predictive devices are already
communicating with one another to
make our working lives increasingly
seamless, and taking away much of the
drudgery that gives work a bad name.
The Internet of Things will anticipate
our objectives, learn our behaviour, then
create the perfect environment where
we can concentrate on what’s most
important – ideas.
The personal
information economy
At the centre of everything here is data.
It is becoming the business world’s most
valuable commodity, and everyone
wants to get their hands on it. Already
we are seeing businesses using it to
pre-empt consumer behaviour and
companies are harvesting it from co-
workers, clients and even competitors, to
enhance productivity.
But rather than privacy too becoming
a thing of the past, new businesses
are emerging focused on data
stewardship, storing your personal
information and keeping it out of the
reach of businesses.
So where are you going to work?
The future workspace will look less
like an office and more like a multi-
purpose apartment where brands
work collaboratively, feeding off each
other’s innovation and productivity.
Our research indicates that only 14%
of businesses globally have moved to
this collaborative style of working. But
as this transition accelerates, IT must
be prepared to deliver the ‘All Wireless
Workplace’ to meet the needs of the
frictionless office.
This technology will release us from the
very physical and restrictive demands
of wires, cabling and desktops, allowing
businesses and corporations to be more
cultural, artisanal, social and ultimately,
more human. We thought technology
would enslave us, but really, it’s about to
set us free.
“#GenMobile
see themselves
as innovators,
and expect their
employers to be too,
eschewing the nine-
to-five and instead
working wherever and
whenever they can
connect to the cloud.”
www.intelligentcio.com