This is another in a series of my notes on Lotusphere 2011. I am very pleased to be back after ten years. You can see last night's sunset over the opening party site to the left. IBM set up a panel on Work Trends 2021. It included a group of Distinguished Engineers and subject-matter experts in the areas of application development, unified communications and social software will discuss how social, analytics and mobile (SAM) technologies will affect the workplace of the future.
The panel was moderated by Kevin Cavanaugh Vice President of Business and Technical Strategy at IBM. It included: Michael Karasick, Ph.D Vice President of Business and Technical Strategy, IBM Software; Scott Prager Distinguished Engineer, Project Vulcan, IBM; Rob Will Distinguished Engineer, Web Experience and WebSphere Portal, IBM; and Fernando Salazar Distinguished Engineer, Unified Communications and Lotus Sametime, IBM.
First, Kevin asked for one prediction from each panel member. Scott said that social computing will be integrated at the workplace at the same level you see in consumer space now. It will help pull together aspects of the enterprise. It will be on the level of email now but email will not go away, just have a more limited role.
Fernando said he prepared for the panel by looking at Star Trek and other predictive sources. While he was kidding, he pointed out that the increased accessibility of media would make this possible. He sees that this accessibility of media will grow. We will all interact with it. I now go to the ITunes stores when I want a particular song whenever it comes to mind and do not have to get the entire album, much less go to a store. Recently, I went to Cape Town and read there was a great local jazz scene. So I went online and looked at some key performers and downloaded their music allowing me to arrive more informed with my iTunes playlist of local artists on my iPhone that I could play anywhere without being connected to the Web or using a music player. I also have some sample pictures of the trip on the iPhone to share with others. Fernando added that there will be better rich channel connectivity with analytics.
Kevin talked about video chat is available now and how it has enabled him to talk with family members and business colleagues anywhere on the globe. I used the same channel to speak with my wife while in Cape Town. Kevin said we are starting to take this for granted but I am still amazed when I consider it.
Mike talked about the possibilities of increased bandwidth, better batteries, and more computer power in your pocket. He said in ten years he will have a Watson in his pocket. Now there will be more possibilities for who you work with because of the high bandwidth connectivity. Geography will be even less a limiting factor.
Kevin added that we are good with predictions on the physics part but we get the social aspects wrong.
Rob mentioned the prediction a few years ago that we will go to the moon on weekends and we would have video phones. He said that one reason you cannot go to the moon on weekends is the fact that why would you want to – it is cold and barren. One driver of change is the need to talk with people remotely so much technology has been focused here. How can we can make it more like a physical connection. Now you can work better remotely because more can be conveyed digitally. This capability will expand for greater participation with both time and space being less of a limiting factor.
Kevin added that we will be less dependent on a full time work force and there will be more participation by retirees because of this increased connectivity.
Fernando told a story about working with a colleague in Toronto while he was in New York a few years ago. To cut down on the plane rides they set up digital cameras pointed at the white boards in their office so you could see all day what was happening by transmitting the image through phone lines. The experiment worked really well but the expensive phone bills in those days made it very expensive. Now you can do it for free through the Web.
My great aunt was the first telephone switchboard operator in a small town in Oklahoma over a hundred years ago. She got the same effect of continuous connection by calling her future husband who worked in the bank. They left the line open and could talk between tasks all day as though they were in the same room. As with Fernando’s example, the technology was available in those days for continuous remote connection but cost made it unavailable on scale
Kevin Boston said he is involved in a Cyber Arts project in Boston. They are putting video portals on different street corners so you can see people across town by chance and have conversations as though you ran into them at the same place.
John Moore asked about how technology might help bridge different cultural norms. Scott said that greater resolution might help people become more sensitive or at least aware. It also might be easier to correct misunderstandings with greater resolution as it is now the case with face to face. However, the panel agreed this will hard. For example, in Japan and China people find it hard to say no directly so they have polite and indirect ways of saying this. Americans will miss the clues. Knowing cultural norms takes time and experience. With faster communication we may not have time to learn the norms. How can technology help? Watson on Jeopardy has to deal with indirect language and this capability could help with cultural translations.
Scott raised the privacy issue. We see the value of analytics. However, the laws that are in place now make it harder to use these analytics except for aggregated group uses, and even then there are issues. There will likely be changes but it is hard to predict. Much privacy law is location based and people are anywhere now and location can be unknown.
Kevin talked about dual identities when people mix you up with others with similar names. He was getting constant information for another with his name for a while. Will people figure out to have false personalities in cyber space? Some do it already.
Mike was interviewed ten years ago on predictions for 2011. He said he missed analytics and thought voice would be bigger as a control mechanism. He missed touch screen which has developed more than voice.
Scott said that in ten years companies will be analyzing conversations internally for trends, just like they do on the Web now. The issue will be what they do with it. For privacy purposes will likely be aggregated anonymously.
Marcia Conner asked what would you not like to be doing. Kevin does not want to be fiddling with devices. He has simplified his digital life. Fernando wants to use face to face meetings less for procedure stuff but more to exchange ideas. Rob does not want to worry about battery life and looking for hot spots. He does not want to deal with information scatter. It was a great session.