The Future of Collaborative Business Connectivity, constant and ubiquitous, is changing business, work and ordinary life.
By Murray Newlands •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
I enter a room of futurists and listen. Airbnb this and Uber that; these companies are evolving the way business is conducted by reorganizing human potential in a way that is manageable, cohesive and (let us not forget) helpful to the remainder of society.
It's become obvious consumers, who also are our corporate customers, want to interact with technology. We've entered an era of technological ubiquity with no more silos for cloud, social, mobile and big data. These things now are merely part of being. They're a portion of the balance which has transferred from work life to life work. Being connected is what we do. We connect, share and engage as we live our lives within the public world. Our fear of privacy is futile as the lines become blurry between us an individual and us an avatar. We're human, singular and the world forever will be different because of this.
Related: Why the Future of Work Is Already Here
Working in the future.
Omni-channel is not merely a marketing ploy in which we tie people's digital and physical experiences together. The future of work will be about countless connectivity. Mobile is bringing people to a place in which we're able to achieve more than we ever have before in an office, from any place we have accessibility to information.
It won't possess a small impact on work; realistically it will cause companies small and large to rethink work. Think about this…
Work in the future will not be performed in a place. Rather, it'll be conducted from everywhere and anywhere. Businesses will be more nimble, smaller and more insistent upon matching the work to be done with the individual who is able to best do the work.
Faith Popcorn, a futurist, shares within one of her discussions concerning the fast expansion of freelance workers. As a matter of fact, today 33 percent of Americans are freelancers and it is estimated that by the year 2020 it'll be closer to 50 percent.
This presents a seismic shift for small businesses and startups that will level the playing field and permit fast growth. Just consider applications such as Odesk and E-lance. An organization can have access to the top talent worldwide at a minute's notice and deploy them to resolve the smallest and biggest issues they face within a day.
To go above and beyond tools which assist us in accessing the top talent, we're additionally witnessing change in the way we interact and engage inside the tools already used. Just recently, #NewWayToWork included the leading trending Twitter hashtag with the roll out of a fresh brand of email from IBM named "Verse." While the next generation of email might be how the solution is explained, what's truly happening here is that we're witnessing the end of the inbox. The inbox, in the future, is going to encompass our whole connected ecosystem and prioritize it to be certain we're as productive and efficient as possible.
Related: An Entrepreneur Takes Aim at the Ubiquitous Bloomberg Terminal
Tech in the collaborative economy.
For oDesk, Uber, Airbnb or any additional collaborative economy app to fulfill its purpose it depends on mobile, social, cloud and data to fill their roles. Individuals learn about those apps via social and leverage their powers via information and accessibility that must manage, organize and deploy to the consumer in a way which is easily comprehended. All this is powered using technology.
Work reimagined won't be about technology, but instead powered by it. The proof is directly in front of us, as every day we take to the Internet to share, engage and socialize. Our lives aren't any longer defined by our work as they were at one time, and for the ones holding on to this demarcation, our resolve is going to soon become exhausted.
In the future we'll work smarter. We'll use the tools to inspire and create progress which leads to better outcomes in business which solves greater challenges and if we allow it, develop an improved quality of life.
Reminded: Zipcar Founder: Entrepreneurs Have to Build a Collaborative Economy, or Else
