European Telework Week: 4-11 November 1996
Telework UK '96 - Some Highlights of Day 1
Tomorrow's Workplace Today - Increased Profit, Improved Lifestyle
Here are some highlights from the first day of Telework UK '96. Only a selection of sessions has been reported. At the end of the week we will be compiling highlights of events that have taken place all over Europe. Please send news of the highlights of your events to Freddie Dawkins (email: 70624.557@compuserve.com)
The Benefits of Information Technology to UK Business
Rt. Hon Margaret Beckett MP, Shadow President of the Board of Trade
Margaret Beckett started by commenting on the subtitle of the conference. This was the way we should view the use of technology in tomorrow's workplace - a balance of the way we work and live alongside the economic benefits. She then spoke of how technology had changed her own work in the House of Commons had changed. Members of parliament used PCs and fax extensively. They used the Internet (see for example the Labour Party pages) and had their own Intranet that helped improve communications. For example, by using mobile phones and portable computers she stayed in touch with her team and colleagues when travelling by train to her constituency. Other highlights from her presentation:
- "information is the currency of our economies"
- In any period of dramatic change it is easier to see what technology can destroy but harder to envisage how it will transform our lives
- Government's role should be to identify and support the common interest - for the future, several stand out:
- Mastery of the new technologies - education and skills - upgrade our skills to be a high investment, high skill, high wage economy in which all have a stake
- Universal access - from the town hall, library, school, hospital and a new 'university for industry'
- Raise standards and expectations
- Develop a strong basic science base
- Government should develop partnerships - every one has a responsibility to work for and share in the success of the future
- In the workplace of the future we have to harness the creative potential of people, but balance this with a degree of security.
She spoke of the 'wonderment' of the technology giving examples of what we might see in future - wrist sized organisers and phones, but added that "the real issue is how it changes society and can change it for the better", and concluded:
"The future belongs to those who prepare for it"
Technology Trends and the Revolution in Work Patterns
Philip Crawford, Managing Director, Oracle UK and Ireland
Philip Crawford describes himself as a teleworker. He spends 50 per cent of his time out of the office, but stays in touch by mobile phone, by email. Although some employers might try and exploit telework for low wage work at home, the real future of telework is for 'high end brain workers'. And for many of them, the real change that technology had brought about was not simply digitilisation (e.g. of presentations and image) but of mobility. Highlights of his presentation were:
- Wired or wireless? - you can now access any information from anywhere at any time. Many Oracle people frequently use Eurostar. While in transit, it becomes their office where they use their portable PC and log into the Oracle network, through the GSM mobile phone network, to access information and do their email.
- "The office is in your head, computer and network, not a building". You plug into a 'support system' thats lets you take you office with you wherever you go. It's a virtual office.
- 24 hour a day support - Oracle support their customers by moving world around the world through time zones. Europe's time zone advantage makes it a good location for coordinating such work.
- With telework - work revolves around the person rather than the other way round. We lost this habit following the industrial revolution.
- The biggest challenge is how we organise ourselves and our work - the technology gives us "freedom from the tyranny of the working day", such as commuting, but we haven't;t yet used it to achieve its benefits.
- Education is the key: "we must teach people how to use the tools effectively" (he suggested that we might have to wait a few years until those currently going through the education system and familiarity with IT were in positions of influence)
During questioning he was asked why predictions of the growth of telework had fallen short. What were the main inhibitors? He suggested these four:
- Cost - e.g. of installing ISDN lines to the home
- Complexity - using computers is still not as easy as using the phone or an appliance
- Training - many people are not using the functions of what they already have effectively
- Support - you have to offer a high level of support to teleworkers, beyond the traditional working day
Telework for Urban Renewal and Distribution of Work
David Carter, Principal Economic Development Officer, Manchester City Council
David Carter started his talk by outlining the Telecities network, of which he is currently president, a role that now moves to the Hague, a good example of a wired city. 83 urban authorities are now in the telecities network, that started as a small group in 1993. Their aim is it use telematics to support economic regeneration, regional development, quality of life and cultural innovation. The roles of departments such as his is to "look beyond the slip road and exit ramps of the information superhighway". In the information highway infrastructure, what are the equivalents of public transport, driving lessons and the Model-T Ford? He gave some examples of what Manchester and other places, notably New York, were doing:
- Universal access - in inner cites 20 per cent of people don't have a phone, There must be public access in libraries etc., even though in one area of Manchester as much had been spent on security as the equipment itself. He cited trends to longer access with an IT facility in a refurbished mill at Huddersfield being open 24 hours a day. This was still an exception.
- Empower people as content providers - some of the best results were when people moved beyond accessing other's information and created their own, that could then have tradeable value. Equip people with the skills to do this.
- Silicon Alley and Digital Districts - how an empty sky scraper in New York (the financial company having moved out of the city centre) was used as a digital workspace, where booths, giving access to all major local Internet Service Providers could be rented on an hourly basis. The atmosphere in this building was a creative milieu, which had generated new business opportunities for its users.
- Telework could be used to redistribute work with a city, to provide wired workspaces, and to enable the creation of virtual enterprises and trading networks, especially in ethnic communities. In Manchester, a Bangladeshi trading network (trading with Africa and Asia) had proved a success, once they appreciated that the Internet was the telex of the future.
Videoconferencing
Ian McKerracher, Chairman, European Teleconferencing Federation
Karen Usher, National Westminster Bank
Two interesting presentations with lively debate. Videconferencing has progressed rapidly in the last few years. There are two main types - group systems - typically for 5-6 people, which now cost in the region of 10,000 ECU (Versus five time this only a few years ago), and desktop systems, integrated into PCs and allowing sharing of documents etc. Also multi-point connections - connecting people at several locations was now much more prevalent. Typically connection was through ISDN (at a basic level of 128Kbits/sec, though 384Kbits/sec was common). The benefits of videoconferencing were:
- Speed and quality in decision making - people could 'meet' more easily to discuss complex issues
- Productivity, specially in terms of travelling time
- Improved quality of life (avoiding travel stress)
Particularly used in design team, it helped companies get products to market faster e.g. the Ford Granada, improved customer service, gave access to world experts, and helped the globalisation of enterprise. However, in most cases, the business justification had to be made in cost savings terms, usually in travel costs terms. Karen Usher of National Westminster bank cited five examples of use - customer service (allowing customers to talk from a branch to experts at a remote), small group meetings, allowing individuals to join a large remote meeting for just the part where they were needed, an operations manager who held his daily meeting by videolink (even though his team were only a mile away, but the savings in time and travel over a year justified the investment) and teleworking (though she was the sole example in the bank).
During discussion, there were obviously some sceptics in the audience, several of whom had had bad experiences with videoconferencing in the past - poor images, lost connections, poor ISDN support, incompatible equipment etc. The speakers reckoned that standards (such as H.320) had removed most incompatibility obstacles, though different vendors did still have differences. Unless you had checked out a particular link previously and the users equipment had not changed, it was still advisable to test each point-to-point connection before calling a meeting. In other words you could not rely on getting through as easily as a telephone. It was felt it would be several years before it was a ubiquitous as other communications facilities such as email. Getting hotels to install ISDN links and having local business centres rent facilities by the hour would boost uptake. This was suggested as a good business opportunity for telecottages.
Reporter: David J. Skyrme
Conference proceedings and audiotapes of all the presentations will be available after the end of the conference. For further information, please contact Telework Events (email: teleworkevents@cix.compulink.co.uk)
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