Bringing You the Workplace Revolution
Kids get sick, cars malfunction, pipes break, bad-hair days occur, and the list goes on. Life simply happens. But thanks to technology, it no longer means the end of the world for that work day. With a rapidly growing change in workplace ideologies like BYOD (Bring your own device), and technologies like TelePresence, Jabber and WebEx, I have the ability to work almost anywhere at any time, even if things prevent me from getting to the office that day.
Given the explosion of social media technologies in the past few years, it only makes sense that BYOD is taking off like a firestorm—even among small businesses—as covered in two recent blogs, ‘Business Ready: On the Go and in the Clouds’ and ‘Supersizing Your Small Business.’ In fact, the Cisco Connected World Technology Report found that two of five college students and young employees would accept a lower-paying job that had more flexibility with BYOD, social media access, and mobility than a higher-paying job with less flexibility. So what about those at companies with very little flexibility when it comes to devices? Seven out of ten employees knowingly break IT policies on a regular basis, and three out of five believe that it is not their responsibility to keep the company secure. The bottom line: the workplace revolution is happening (and it’s being video streamed on your mobile device).
And as we become more and more reliant on mobile devices, cloud is becoming more of a focus area. In ‘the old days,’ we could only store our data and apps in physical servers in the company’s data center. But today, the data and apps can be stored and accessed additionally from public clouds, giving us more flexibility and agility. Think about a business developing a new product. They will have likely built a private cloud in their datacenter. Should their product become an overnight success when it goes to market, it’s good to know that they can offload compute to public clouds to help handle the load. These emerging trends may cause your company to implement new policies and train IT and staff, but in the end, the employees will be happier and productivity will be higher—and that has impact on customers, as well.
If you’d like to hear more about mobility, cloud and social media, check out the 2012 Time to Thrive Small Business Tour, in various cities throughout the United States over the next few months. Or, simply raise a glass and toast to the workplace revolution—and celebrate Cinco de Mayo, from any place, with any device.
By Marie Hattar
