Reality Of The Virtual Office

Tiny state of-the art practitioners of computer science day talk about "artificial intelligence". At Microsoft, we prefer to concentrate on the reverse. IA - intelligence augmented. Take my intelligence and augment it. Don't replace the individual.

Machines can't think like people. But they can help people by taking away redundant tasks and making life easier. Don't make people think about the same things two, three or four times.

That is the shape of the future the new office, the new corporation as well - an environment where people, at machines, are in control.

To arrive at a new concept at the workplace, we actually went out and spent a lot of time listening to focus groups and talking with people. It is very interesting to talk to people about their work and what is important about it. Sometimes, though, just talking to people is not enough. we actually watched people at work.

We saw people talking on the phone, creating documents, sending faxes and making copies. But the people, the workers, were the integrators. We saw people running around the office because their devices cannot share information, cannot communicate with one another and have interfaces that make it difficult to take advantage of anything beyond the most basic functions.

As we looked at that, we realised we were looking at an environment that was harried, kind of disorganised with little or no integration. This is the typical workplace. In fact, very often, highly trained and educated people function as production workers - even though they are paid to work with their minds rather than their hands.

People are an organisation's most important resource. The key to maximising the potential of every individual is to develop devices that enable them to work smarter and more efficiently. And I don't necessarily mean with personal computers (PCs).

For years we have focused on trying to make work easier for people in a far broader sense - to develop an environment that is fully interconnected, but where the interconnections involve the machines, not the people, leaving people free to create and develop ideas that machines may never be able to accomplish. Let me describe some of the components of this new environment.

"The fax is a great way to receive information. But you still have to re-enter data once you have received it. We get sales reports from regional offices once a month and it takes a whole week to integrate them into consolidated statements. We have to find a way to make that process much easier."

Sales manager

The fax is one. Imagine receiving a document via fax and then being able to edit that document using your favourite PC application without having to re-enter the data. You can now save the changes, combine them with other existing documents and print them using the fax machine as a printer. Or automatically distribute the documents to an on-line mailing list directly using the fax machine. The key is having the fax tightly integrated with your PC. This means being able to use the existing PC electronic mail software, address lists and applications as shared tools for communications.

This requires an enormous partnership effort - with scores of companies that manufacture office products. Many of these devices will never become part of the PC. I can not imagine the copier, or other devices that are fundamentally mechanical, actually becoming part of the PC. But certainly all should talk to the PC and share information with it.

"One of our great concerns about the fax is security. I'll give you an example. we had a sensitive document that wound up at the United States Embassy in London because someone misdialed the member. And we didn't even know about it until the police came around and began questioning why we had one this." Manager

Security is another critical element in our new dimension of business. More and more often, senders really need to know they have contacted the right recipient before releasing a document. Communications need to be secure and verified.

But how do you secure communications? In one of our focus groups, the participants agreed that the fax had to be secure. It also had to be accessible. One company made it secure by locking it in a closet. But it needed to be accessible, so they needed to give out keys to the closet. So the big argument was how many keys should be made and handed out to the locked closet with the secured fax machine. It sounds ludicrous but that is the way people sometimes work today. Software, can help, Add some software and the fax machine remains completely accessible to anyone, yet sensitive documents stay in the machine until the correct recipient comes along to enter a password.

"We'd like to centralise our information, keep it all stored on the PC rather than have stacks of paper lying around. Keep it all in one place and then have the ability not only to take that information with you but access and use that information whenever and wherever you choose. That's my wish list."

Executive

Handheld devices are another component of the new office. We think they must be great companions to desktop or notebook computers, the existing information infrastructure. Hand-held devices allow you to take information along easily, and they will also allow you to receive information, such as important messages, automatically. Personal information - phone numbers, to do list - is always available. it is useful to have a calendar that integrated with a PC scheduling system. How convenient it will be to send messages or documents directly from a handheld device while in a meeting. When you return from the meeting, all the new information collected during your travels, such as fax numbers and appointments, will be automatically synchronised with your PC.

What are some of the other key elements we think are critical in the modern workplace? Connectivity, ease of use and cost effectiveness. And all of it must go on in the background. You must not be able to see the wires and connections or the purpose is all but instantly lost. It must be accessible to everyone, computer literate or not.

In a sense, the modern automobile is a classic example of making things better without radically altering the fact that something gets done. If you look at a car today, the interface between instrument and user has not changed significantly for a very long time. Yet we have lot more features and functionality, and the car is incredibly different and much more useful than it was in the Model T days. Steering wheels are still round. Brake pedals still exist. The interface basically is the same. But the functionality (power steering, anti-lock brakes) has changed dramatically for the better, making driving easier, safer and more efficient - the very attributes that are central to the use of a car and its role. We can do the same for information in the work environment. Does this mean that ultimately we are moving toward the day when we can take the workplace on the road entirely? That indeed the office as we know it will cease to exist? That we are moving toward what might be called a virtual office, where you

do not have a physical place to go but where everything is virtually accessible, or indeed toward the virtual corporation that exists only in the mind of its employee, user, supplier or customer?

I don't think so. And for one reason. The human element. We can make remote connections easier for mobile workers and institute flexitime to accommodate part-time employees, but nothing will replace human interaction, the social aspect of the work place. Even videoconferencing will not suffice all the time. We are human beings and we need social, human interaction. In our focus groups we found people saying, We have people waiting at the copier all the time, but that's when we say `Good morning, to each other. If we don't have to wait at the copy machine, maybe we won't say `Hi to each other in the morning. After they realise there will always be an excuse to say "Good Morning, there will be real issues to deal with. Social interaction is very important.

Let's go through a sample day. I use my handheld system, which is personal, to download today's information and take it with me. Instead of taking notebooks and pads of paper and a tape recorder, I just take this. It has everything I need on it. I go to the New York office, where I can find a PC and a phone. The handheld actually fits into the phone's docking station and becomes the user interface to my phone. And it communicates to my PC so if there are files I need, they can be downloaded. Someday this device will create my environment, my office. Or maybe this becomes just a personality card, which I carry with me and insert into a PC. So my entire office fits really nicely into my pocket.

Even in the short term we can make things a bit more personal. You can personalise things with software. Here is a tangible example. I withdraw money from a bank machine. Every time it asks whether I want to withdraw money from checking or savings. Every time I choose checking because I do not have any other accounts at this particular bank. All this information should be on my bank card or, eventually, perhaps even on my personality card. Somewhere there is intelligence in that ATM machine, but we are not using it. Let's use it. Make life easier. Adapt to people. Don't make people adapt to the technology.

What is most likely to change? We will change how we spend the majority of our time. There are a lot of tasks with common threads among all workplaces. Where this is all leading ultimately is, quite simply, to greater productivity and lower costs. I am confident, using all the elements of the new workplace that we can continue to improve people's productivity. We can also cut costs significantly or if we don't want to cut costs, we can redirect the investment to more productive uses.

Where this is taking us is clearly to a more efficient environment, but above all to an environment more conducive to the kind of creativity and productivity that will maximise the value of today's workers. We can enable people to undertake and accomplish the task most suited to their training and ability.Intelligence augmented. We always return to this concept of IA. It is the work environment for the next century.n

(Reprinted from Outlook, Andersen Consultings management magazine).