Loudmouthed Tech-no

We all love a good gadget and never more so than now. The rise of the hand held devise has meant that the instant gratification generation can get their fix anywhere and at anytime. Now, I am an iPad user myself and know the benefits of these pieces of technology in fact I’m sat on the train typing this latest rant. However i’m not convinced that all technology is a benefit to us in our work lives.

In particular I have one gripe. I’ve often wondered how some folks would cope without their mobile phone. The idea that a phone that keeps you in contact at every moment of the day, unless you live in my part of the world where there must be some signal swallowing vortex hither to unknown to the boffins, is an aid to enhanced productivity, is in my opinion a load of old interference. I think the mobile phone has made us all lazy we don’t plan our time so well or organise our workloads as well as we could because we constantly have to revise our schedules as we have become reactive and less proactive.

The mobile phone has contributed to our time frames becoming shorter and people’s expectations are that having being able to contact you instantly you can produce their requirement equally as quickly. I’m forever being fed the mantra, ‘speed stuns’, no it doesn’t, speed more often that not leads to an almighty cock up. Let’s be honest most of the conversations I hear on the train are people telling their partners when the train is due to arrive, which happens to be the same time as last night and the previous three nights before that or what type of potato product they fancy with their reheated microtastic dinner. We have all become a slave to the attention demanding pocket ringing devises. Just because a phone rings doesn’t mean you have to answer it and especially when you’re already in the middle of another conversation and especially when I am the other half of the conversation.

That’s not to say that any of the latest workplace technologies should be discounted out of hand as being a new gimmick or fanciful distraction, far from it and despite my ongoing battle with loudmouthed self obsessed mobile phone users there are many gadgets that do and will make all our work lives a lot easier, more healthy and productive. From the now common hand held interface to the unit that monitors water flow on the taps there are many technologies that interior designers have embraced to the benefit of the the building occupiers.

One unit in particular has been a major success in our own office. A small piece of kit called a footprint tracker. This clever piece of technology monitors power usage and can display the information in many forms of units used on a graph and a series of figures or graphically with a simple thumbs up or thumbs down icon. In our case it helped us identify a faulty timer on an air-conditioning unit that powered up on a Saturday and back down on a Sunday. As the office is unoccupied at this time we were oblivious to this glitch but the spike on the monitor graphically illustrated that we had a problem which having now been rectified has saved the business many thousands of pounds.

From the now commonly adopted passive infrared units attached to lighting systems throughout the workspace and the daylight sensors fitted to light units beside window elevations through to more efficient heating systems it is the the use of energy that has seen the most significant advances. The increased costs associated with energy use has focused users attention on the potential benefits associated with swapping out an old system and to investigate more efficient technologies with easy to reconfigure control systems.

People are better educated as to the power usage and costs associated with leaving a computer active or lights burning but it still amazes me that when looking out across the London skyline at night that the view is still a twinkling mass of fully illuminate offices and flashing screens. However, there is a little box of tricks that can sit neatly under a workstation surface that can be linked to a number of computers and monitors that enables the simultaneous switching off of a series of machines with a single push of a button. The clever bit being that all the information open on the computers at this time is saved and pops back up when the on button is pushed. This simple unit utilised alongside intelligent lighting systems alone would save a business a significant amount of money.

Even this technology however may soon be obsolete as the very latest trend is to discard the desk based CPU all together. Technological advances mean that a desk based worker no longer has to squeeze into a space between a pedestal and the bulky computer. The processing units can all be hosted remotely freeing up expensive office space and allowing the user to work in a more flexible way. Ever shrinking computer hardware and the use of wifi has also added to the freeing up of desk space and enhanced the workplace as a flexible more interactive environment in which to collaborate. All these factors are contributing towards designers and employers reviewing new ways of working and reconsidering what constitutes best practice.

More and more the flexibility of zones within the workspace is becoming increasingly important to the productivity of the employees and functions taking place within the office environment and the ability to access data, colleagues and customers from anywhere is key. This is only able to happen if a business embraces new technologies that do not tie an individual to an assigned workstation, have faith in the security and robustness of the solution and ultimately can see staff work more efficiently. It does of course mean that the mobile phone is critical to making this policy a success which is to be encouraged… but only if you phone in your dietary requirements before you place the handset in it’s recharge station and leave it firmly where it belongs, in the workplace.