David J. Danto
Principal
Consultant, Collaboration/ AV / Multimedia / Video / UC
Dimension Data
Director of
Emerging Technology
Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance
eMail:
David.Danto@DimensionData.com Follow Video &
Technology Industry News: @NJDavidD
(Read David’s Bio) (See
David’s CV) (Read David’s Other Blogs & Articles)
PowerPoint
in Pajamas – The Transformation of Business and Culture
A funny thing happened to me last year. I woke up early at a hotel in the middle of a
business trip because I had to give a presentation to a client. I ate some breakfast in my room, showered and
dressed and then gave that presentation flawlessly. The client was impressed both with the
subject matter on the slides and my skill in presenting it. It was a complete success. The funny thing was I was still in my hotel
room – which happened to be in Irvine, California - and the client happened to
be in Connecticut…and Toronto. The even
funnier thing was I still wearing the lounge pants I slept in.
Now you can take away from that story the funny image of
me in my pajamas – like the now classic videoconference tale of only partially
dressed participants - but in doing that you would miss the more subtle yet
completely transformational point. I
didn’t need to be anywhere in particular.
I successfully performed my job from whatever location I happened to be
in. When the meeting ended I remembered
sitting back for a moment as that thought slowly flooded over me like a tiny
breaker turning into a tidal wave. Wow.
I’ve lived around the New York City area my entire
life. The primary reason for that is that’s
where the work is. Many, many others
also live within a one hour commute to Manhattan for just that reason. One can usually get a decent job in the area,
and if it doesn’t work out, can also find another one relatively easily.
So here I was – sitting in my jammies in Irvine,
realizing that it could have been Boulder or Kansas City or San Diego or
Portland or Austin or Honolulu for that matter.
It no longer mattered where I was – work is what I do, not where I go. I could use “pervasive video” and collaboration
tools to do most of my work from wherever I chose to be. For the times I needed to be in a specific
place for a site inspection, meeting or conference I could travel to it from
anywhere. (Oh, that glorious thought of
someday no longer being a Newark Airport Hub captive flyer still makes me
smile…)
I did realize that this doesn’t apply to a waitress or a
ditch-digger – they and other service individuals need to be where the services
are performed – touching the shovel or the coffee pot. But there are still a whole lot of us that
don’t spend any time touching anything other than a computer keyboard and a
telephone. Won’t it be an amazing world
when all of those people can make their decisions on where to live based on
other, more important criteria? Things
like where the schools are more appropriate, or where the quality of life is as
calm or bustling as they desire, or where real estate costs are more
manageable, or living near their family - those are the criteria that initially
come to mind, but I’m sure there are others.
It’s easy to see why this would be transformational to any employee.
It would also be transformational to the employers of the
world. Think about how HR and recruiting
would change – being able to hire the best and brightest regardless of how
close they live to an office. And once
they’re hired, being able to assign the best person to any task – promoting all
those appropriate. This effects multiple
levels of the workforce, not just those at the top. For example, call centers can now be virtual
– without the need for a firm to buy heating or cooling or electricity or even
a building for them.
The most interesting part of all of this is that it’s not
some future vision, it is now. I work
with organizations every day to show them how to achieve this. Unified Communications, with the rich, face
to face collaboration it facilitates is the key. No one “plan” or “product” gets you there. Every organization needs to determine the
correct blend of technologies, consumption models and operational plans to
achieve its business goals. You don’t
want to be (or be working for) the next Yahoo or Best Buy who does it wrong and
then needs to pull back in a blaze of negative press predicting your
demise. (Usually hiring a really good
consultant to help figure it out is a great start.)
The important take-away here is that my PowerPoint in
pajamas was actually a virtual Pandora’s Box.
People and organizations who experience this “Smarter Working” done
right are never going back. Organizations
that don’t embrace it will be left behind, losing the next generation entering
the workforce to their more progressive and transformed competitors.
So you have to ask yourself - where do you really want to live in the next few years? How do you want your organization to stack-up
against your competition?
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This
article was written by David Danto and contains solely his own,
personal opinions. David has over 30 years of experience providing problem
solving leadership and innovation in media and unified communications
technologies for various firms in the corporate, broadcasting and academic
worlds including AT&T, Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan
Stanley, NYU, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan Chase. He now works with Dimension Data as their Principal
Consultant for the collaboration, multimedia, video and AV disciplines. He is
also the IMCCA’s Director of
Emerging Technology. David can be reached at David.Danto@Dimensiondata.com
or DDanto@imcca.org and his full bio and
other blogs and articles can be seen at Danto.info. Please reach-out to David if you would like
to discuss how he can help your organization solve problems or develop a
future-proof collaboration strategy.