Day-to-day Work Is Now Data-way Work
The Age
Tuesday December 30, 1997
Increasingly, work is where you find it.
For many this is still in an office, but for a growing number of people it could be at home, in the field or on the road. These "teleworkers" are some of the first people to benefit from the spread of high-quality voice and data communication links coupled to more affordable and powerful computers.
The Western Australian Government has constructed a Web page at the Department of Productivity and Labor Relations on the subject. The department recommends that those engaged in "intellectual work" or where there are "clearly defined areas of individual work" can benefit from teleworking. But areas of creative expertise where it is necessary to bounce ideas off others, or where a high degree of customer care is required, may not be suitable.
But the site warns that teleworkers may suffer isolation and lost promotions. It is up to management to ensure that these factors are minimised by continuous training and occasional trips to the office so that an out-of-mind-out-of-job mentality does not intrude.
One way workers can keep contact is through electronic mail. E-mail is consistently rated by workers and managers as being at least as useful, if not more so, than the mobile phone. E-mail is fast, efficient and cheap to send. Hand-held terminals allow workers to send and receive e-mail and data wherever they may be.
In the near future videomail, or v-mail, will be possible. Faster communications links (called bandwidth) will mean that the mostly text-based systems used now will be enriched by video and sound.
Last month at a technology preview in Hong Kong, Ericsson unveiled its vision of the wireless future. Ericsson engineers are working on systems to capture live video and sound and transfer them over existing wireless GSM and digital mobile networks. The company believes that digital mobile's relatively slow capacity of 9600 bits-per-second will give way to speeds 40 to 200 times faster in five years.
"There is only one trend that can mirror cellular technology and that is the Net," Ake Persson, Ericsson's vice-president of marketing, said. "Within five years we will have as many Net users as mobile users. They will want to use that tool wirelessly, untethered. This is one of the most important trends in the next decade - the combination of the Internet and wireless technologies."
New mobile phones due in Australia in the next few years will also be able to switch the user between phone services. If you are in the office, the mobile will switch over so you can answer your desk phone calls. When you go home, it will pick up your home phone calls. Calls made in these two zones can be charged at the normal fixed-line rate or can be internally transferred for free. Out on the street it works like a normal mobile phone.
Other satellite systems, such as Iridium LLC, offer the benefit of a truly global phone network. Satellites hovering 420 nautical miles above the Earth can send and receive data and voice communications to handsets, passenger planes, car GSM and navigation systems and through the normal telephone system.
Beyond unshackling us from our desks, computer and Internet technologies are transforming the way we work. Intranets - internal computer networks that use Internet technology - promise to reduce paperwork. This is because common forms, memos and other print-based paper trails can be reduced to electronic documents.
Darren Finkelstein, the national major account executive for Apple Computer, says his PowerBook 3400 has finally freed him from the chains of the office.
"I can sit in the airport lounge and, using the mobile phone, log into the company intranet in Cupertino for the latest info from head office, download all my mail, read it on the aeroplane, answer it and, as soon as I land, send it all off. I'm wonderfully self-sufficient," Mr Finkelstein said.
"But I am also closer to the company in that I can log into the intranet here and in the US, I can send memos and download the latest information on prices, availability, options and so on.
"Also, I don't have to lug huge boxes of hardware any more. I have in my hand as much, and even more, power than is in my desktop machine."
Just about every workplace is set to be transformed by encroaching information technology. Courtrooms have been made more efficient through the use of document management and scheduling software. From primary school to university, educators are looking to Web-based delivery of courses to eke more outputs from dwindling resources. Doctors are turning to telemedicine to diagnose patients in far-flung places by remote control. Soon it may be commonplace for simple operations to be carried out by robots connected through high-bandwidth multimedia links to doctors on the other side of the country.
Home Based Work: www.wa.gov.au/doplar/hbw/
NEXT: On the road.
WELL-CONNECTED WORKERS
Mine Site - Mining surveyor uses Apple Newton Messagepad and radio modem to relay blasting instructions to home base.
Production Line - Line manager connects to company intranet using Windows CE 2.0 handheld computer and Microsoft Pocket Internet Explorer. Access is through a wireless 28.8Kbps cellular modem and cellular modem.
Distribution Centre - Parcels can be traced and tracked by palmtop computer barcode device and the results relayed to robots that despatch items for delivery.
Mobile Traveller - Business woman checks her e-mail and videoconferences with a client before hopping on a plane. An Ericsson fourth-generation mobile terminal relays full-color pictures and audio through a high-speed wireless 384kbps cellular link. She then tracks the company's stock price, orders a rental car at her detsination, and downloads the latest product brochures electronically from the company's intranet.
Farmer - Out on the farm a property manager checks in with the Bureau of Meteorology for the latest weather forecast. The palmtop computer is connected through a satellite phone for digital connection. An integrated GPS unit lets the farmer know precisely where he is. A mobile field soil sampler relays readings back to an online service for analysis.
Insurance Assessor - After a break-in at a hotel, an insurance assessor arrives on the spot with laptop in hand. A quick call to the office brings up a complete list of the items insured and the insurance policy. A further link from the insurance company to the police reveals some items have already been pawned. The police are alerted and investigations are underway.
Home Worker - A teleworker writes a report on an Apple Macintosh connected through a high-speed digital fibre optic link. The worker teleconferences with coworkers several times a day, and attends regular meetings. Network tracking tools serve to help analyse performance, and keep the worker on schedule.
© 1997 The Age
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