Technology, according to Gerald Celente, Founder of The Trends Research Institute:It's a quickly spreading worldwide epidemic that will get much worse. All colors, classes, creeds and races are addicted and they can't break the habit. Before 2008 ends, the TechnoSlave trend will be so pervasive and so deeply embedded into the fabric of society that Old World communication styles will be seen as quaint and ridiculed as stupidly boring by the high-tech "hip."
Technology, according to Gerald Celente, Founder of The Trends Research Institute:
It's a quickly spreading worldwide epidemic that will get much worse. All colors, classes, creeds and races are addicted and they can't break the habit. Before 2008 ends, the TechnoSlave trend will be so pervasive and so deeply embedded into the fabric of society that Old World communication styles will be seen as quaint and ridiculed as stupidly boring by the high-tech "hip."
Across borders and around the world, blinking lights of blue and red flash from human ears ... electro-plastic appendages affixed to the body and controlling the mind. So self-important have society's members become that they must be connected at all times ... to be in touch and instant messaged ... for work, play and to fill the voids of idle time.
It wasn't too long ago that email was labeled as "old fashioned." Years earlier, lamenting corporate email, managers noted that employees engaged less in personal communication and increasingly rely upon email, even though employees sit next to one another or share the same office. My guys drive me nuts with back and forth cell phone chatter while on the job. Their attention is redirected to someone else and they're already on a jobsite performing work that could suffer mistakes by distraction of a cell phone call? Theatres, places of worship and even some restaurants post notices to "Please turn OFF your cell phone before entering." Then, there are those souls appearing to talk to them selves with a growth stemming from their ears. Students of all ages attending classes will text message one another. I'm not without guilt either; me and my Star Trek communicator badge wish to do away with wired phones and cell phones--at least mine must have a DND (do not disturb) button.
Unified Communications may not necessarily meet the challenges of technology-challenged users or those that are resistant to technology. Again, we run the risk of marketing and throwing stuff over the wall, hoping that it will stick. There's a good and bad with UC, but there's an apparent end in that no matter what you do, it seems that we are creating a "fabricated sense." Unlike the old senses of sight, smell, sound and touch in the personal engagement involving other human beings, UC offers a way around that, and yes, it's fabricated--not as real or personal, but impersonal instead, even with the recent ravings about Telepresence. The green side of me tells me that UC could and should be a vehicle to reduce energy consumption, improve lives and put an end to the countless number of hours wasted on the nation's highways and roads by millions of people trying to show up for work on time just to begin using their terminal or computer. Our nation's workforce has transformed, but our business rules and laws governing us haven't caught up.
Again, I call upon the factory guys to study not the marketing data, case studies and factoids about opportunities to exploit UC and earn big bucks, but instead to study what seems to be an old fashioned thing, of observing and studying people. The old arguments against video teleconferencing in case you don't recall are primarily human points of contention:
First, people do want to venture out and see others up close and personal, just not too close and even too personal, at least in America where many want to enjoy their own bubble. Now and in the future, out of necessity and again what I call a colossal waste of time and resources, people (telecommuters) must make better use of their time and avoid burning 4 bucks a gallon for gas to wait in endless traffic just to arrive at their places of work in time to sit in a box and in front of a screen.
Second, not all people feel comfortable sitting in front of a camera. A few months ago, one of the CTOs of a hosted service did an online demo. I could tell that some were not comfortable being in front of the camera, and to think otherwise, I believe, would be a grave error in judgment of human nature. It may be that the lesson is that we can never master how people feel, so should we try to change what they fear by changing how we deploy technology?
Before deciding to jam more technology down the users' throats, try something simpler like observing the users and their behaviors. An answer to expediently moving more technology into the organization is always sounded off with "the users just need more training" and unfortunately for the trainers, they aren't prepared to teach these customers how to cope with changes that affect their old or natural behaviors. Observation is an old management skill.
Of course, management demands more of employees and contractors, and incites not loyalty but survival of the fittest. Technology, and specifically UC, must get beyond the IT techno guy's tool belt and get to the working majority by making better human bonds, using the right mix of tools to enhance where humans have erred in the past.
So, management is what I hope comes to mind with an understanding in who or what it is that we are trying to change. My belief is a hybrid of what Jeremy Rifkin wrote years back in The End of Work and with the predictions of Celente; I think people will stop working for individual companies and begin working in labor pools creating different resources on a different scale. I also believe that we are seeing the tip of this change with UC--and where it ends up I have no earthly idea. My hope is that we don't become so connected that we lose sight of what we're doing and where we're going. The past, being a good measure of performance, tells us that civility has taken a back seat to make way for the furtherance of technology. Making a difference still counts, and let's hope for a positive UC experience that offers encouragement and is uniting, and still flexible enough to give people their individualism, enough space to breathe easy.
