Mobile Work
Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 4:11PM I've observed colleagues for years walking around with their Blackberries staying connected with their work. While I've stayed connected with work via cellphone and texting, I haven't until very recently used a smartphone to connect to work e-mail, intranet, and other work applications. I've just installed IBM Lotus Notes Traveler and I absolutely love it. I now have my work e-mail, calendar, contacts, to do lists all directly integrated seamlessly into the relevant apps and services on my iPhone. Through VPN on the iPhone, I also now have access to the company intranet and services like chat messaging.
I find it amazingly convenient to be able to quickly check my work e-mail while in line at the coffee shop and to look up where my first meeting of the day is when I'm running late and don't have time to take out and open up my notebook computer. It's an amazing time saver and uses the form factor I so love.
When I think about the convenience of having work information available like this on the device that's always in my podcast, I can imagine the utility of having it available on the somewhat larger but equally enjoyable iPad. I'm looking forward to that. There is one feature that I haven't heard anyone mention with regard to these devices that I think is critical for accessing work systems and that's fingerprint recognition. That would be so useful and Apple cool.
As always, I'd appreciate any thoughts you may have on my thoughts. By the way, I also wrote this post on my iPhone.
Reader Comments (4)
All good observations Karel but with these "new" capabilities, we're trading away our separation of work and self for convenience.
When the Macintosh introduced desktop publishing to the masses, people would jam 6 different typeface with all the available styles into one document. Just because you can do something doesn't always mean you SHOULD do something.
As a fellow IBMer, I've seen exactly the same things you describe and for those who have chosen the path you're taking, be it on an iPhone or Blackberry, takes you in one direction.
From here on out, without persistent and mindful effort on your part, you will be answering work emails and requests on your Sundays, while out at restaurants, basically places where work shouldn't be.
This isn't to say that personally you're not capable of separating the two, it's just that I haven't seen anyone who has made this choice actually keep the two "life modes" apart.
Personally, I want to be able to keep my life as MY life and if that means deliberately not hooking my smart devices to my work information, I'm willing to have that lack of ease to keep what's mine mine.
just my $.02, everyone has their own views. :)
-adam
I absolutely agree with you, Adam. It is a slippery slope and one that we have to be very careful traversing. The world has changed significantly with new technologies like these and balancing work and the rest of our lives is increasingly important to get right, for each of us personally.
I felt strongly enough about this that I actually recorded an episode of my Life Habits podcast on the topic of Work-Life Balance and I address the ways in which technologies can help achieve the balance that is right for each person individually. The podcast is available in iTunes, the Zune, as well as at http://lifehabits.net for those who would like to play the podcast right on the website.
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts on this.
Karel
Hi Karel. Interesting topic and one that's personal for me as a working Mother with young children. Technology has enabled me to both work and parent in an effective way that wouldn't have been possible if I had to go to a physical IBM office and maintain a traditional schedule. To me it's like anything else. Technology has made it possible for us to eat anything we want in any amount at any time of the day or any season, but that doesn't mean it's good for us to do so. We *can* watch TV all the time and choose from hundreds of channels but that doesn't make it a good choice. We can alert our personal and professional networks (as well as many strangers) to the excruciating details of our every activity along with our exact location, but should we?
For me being able to access work-related information in a non-traditional work environment has tremendous benefits, it just requires me to manage my time and draw appropriate boundaries. For someone else the right boundary might be deciding not to access business e-mail on their mobile device at all.
These smart phones and the emergence of internet capable phones really do save us a lot of time. This is an amazing technology that helps us not just in our work but also in our social life since we can now access twitter and facebook using these devices. Wherever we are, we are always connected to our work and family 24/7.
Duncan Samuel
Online Scheduling Software