Omnilaborality

With the unexpected protagonism that technology has taken in the advent of a new work culture, in which the need for ubiquity and agility seems to take over the current ecosystem, the professionals who head the technology areas of companies have had to evolve towards a business conception that goes beyond, and have had to realize what has been commented for some time, not only must technology be applied to meet current requirements, they must also develop the necessary skills to be businessmen who accompany organizations in the economic language that they handle; This, among other things, consists of visualizing the possible scenarios to come in order to anticipate changes as far as possible.

Leaving aside for a moment the concept of «businessman», it is important to focus on the role of «futurologist».

A clear example of this is that the way of working has evolved, and continues to do so, at an accelerated pace towards a scheme that we cannot even call a hybrid environment. This last concept, in my opinion, refers to a binary conception: we can work in a traditional work environment (read office), or in a remote one (read homeoffice).

But in reality, this dual environment is not necessarily the end state of the way we work. Technology is constantly evolving and is allowing us to go beyond being stationed in one place to work at one point in time. We can now be completely independent of positionality if we need to be.

For example, and to be clearer about this, let’s take a work activity that intuitively lends itself to mobility: The Meetings.

We can well imagine participating in a meeting in a remote room using a computer, at a certain point transferring the meeting to our pefered mobile device and continuing by this means, and then finishing in the traditional office in person. Was it a home office or an office, or was it something different from these concepts?

It is a simple example, but I believe it is illustrative, and the scenario is rapidly becoming more complex and expanding to other work activities according to technological evolution and the needs of businesses and the people involved. Metaverse, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Internet of Things and others are all working together to make this happen.

More than hybrid, we are now in the presence of OMNILABORALITY.

The collaboration and teamwork tools we know today will not be remotely similar in a few years, just as today’s tools are not remotely similar to those that existed before the pandemic.

Are we preparing for this yet?

One of the characteristics of the new technology executives is to think ahead and match what is coming with the current reality, so that there are no forced leaps due to unexpected external events such as the pandemic. At least that’s what companies should be looking for in their technology leaders today. In addition to technology and business, VISION and STRATEGY.