Telework in 2021

Chris Knotts is vice president of technology and innovation at Force 3, an IT services provider for government agencies.

I have good news for government agencies wrestling with how to implement and maintain effective telework policies and procedures: In 10 years, the word “telework” will feel as outdated as a rotary phone.

Knowledge workers won’t telework. They’ll simply work in whatever location makes the most sense. As I look out at the evolving technology landscape, I have 10 predictions for what the future holds.

1. Wireless carriers will increase to wired speed. The next evolution of mobile technology will bring the speed of wireless carriers in line with wired networks. Along the way, a security breakthrough will occur that will change the way we access information and ease hacking concerns dramatically.

2. We’ll be online all the time. The idea of “getting online” will seem antiquated. There will be no more hot spots or network connections. The network will simply be there — and we’ll be on it.

3. Tablets will replace desktop and laptop PCs. Desktop and laptop PCs will be supplanted by tablet PCs that are micro-thin and foldable. Picture a foldable smart phone that expands to a 20-, 30- or 50-inch screen. The new devices will have an on/off button but no more fans or moving parts. Because we’ll be accessing more information and applications in the cloud, the need to store data on the devices will decrease dramatically.

4. Everything will move to the cloud. Every application that we access will be in the cloud, and people will no longer store anything locally. In other words, you will have a hard drive, but it won’t be part of your computer.

5. There will be no more boxed software. What got the big software vendors to 2011 will not get them to 2021. I believe all software will transition to a service-based approach.

6. Text messaging is here to stay. Text messaging fits the way we work and live incredibly well. Therefore, even as networks and devices evolve, the practice of sending short text messages will endure.

7. 3-D video will become the norm. 3-D technology is mainly seen as a novelty now, but in 10 years, most teleconferences will be conducted with 3-D video. Imagine working from a home office and taking part in a 3-D video conference with colleagues and partners from around the globe. Workers are going to have to shower and dress for that one!

8. There will be no more Bluetooth. The image of someone walking around with a Bluetooth device sticking out of his or her ear will feel outdated by 2021. Those gadgets will be replaced by embedded audio in or on our ears (or somewhere else on our body).

9. Holdouts will proliferate. Not everyone will want to be on the grid all the time. I believe we’ll see a growing subculture of people who reject technology and form niche communities or companies.

10. The generation gap will get bigger. Previous generations will struggle more than younger generations as the workplace of the future evolves. The next generation of employees will not see the workplace as a focal point of social interaction. Being able to work will suffice, and they won’t feel that they need to be in the same place as their co-workers.

Right now, what’s holding many agencies back from telework are issues of control and trust in their employees. But as technology and human expectations evolve, telework will simply become “work,” with a greater responsibility placed on the individual to manage the balance between personal and professional time.

Pew Research: More Video Calls, Video Chats and Videoconferencing are used

Some 19 percent of 3,001 American adults surveyed said they have participated in a video call online from their computer or their cellphones, according to new data from Pew Research Center's Internet & American Project.

Users joined video calls, chats or teleconferences from the Web via their computers to the tune of some 23 percent, while 7 percent have used their phones for such tasks.

Often, people placed video calls on both the Internet and their cell phone, but Pew only counted those who said they had used both mediums to participate in video calling once.

People were surveyed this past summer from Aug. 9 to Sept. 13 in what was the first survey of Pew conducted that covered both online and cell-phone video calls.

Pew last year looked at video calls from the Web, noting that the number rose modestly from 20 percent of Web users in April 2009 to 23 percent of Web users in summer 2010.

What is becoming clear is that mobile video calling appears poised to boom in the coming year, as front-facing camera are being included in smartphones and tablet PCs.

"Video calling has become increasingly available as camcorders have spread through the online environment, cameras have been built into smartphones, and as video-chat services like Skype, Google Talk and Apple iChat have become a feature of the online and smartphone environment," Pew said, adding that teleconferencing is also becoming a staple medium in businesses.

Indeed, Skype is picking up traction on mobile phones, with new apps surfacing to leverage the larger screens and more powerful browsers and processors on modern smartphones such as the iPhone and devices based on Google's Android operating system.

Apple launched its FaceTime video calling application for iPhone 4 in June, while Yahoo Oct. 12 launched Yahoo Messenger App for iPhone.

Tablet computers are coming to the fore to leverage video calling, most likely to enable video conferences for corporate road warriors on the go.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab touts a front-facing camera for video chat, as do future machines from Dell and Motorola.

Other trends Pew found:

• A third of Web users living in households earning $75,000 or above have participated in video calls or chats, compared with 18% of those earning less than $75,000.
• Some 29 percent of the Web users ages 18-29 have participated in video calls or chats or teleconferences, compared with 15 percent of Web users age 65 or older.
• Online men are more likely than online women to participate in online video calls (26 percent vs. 20 percent).

UAE cancels plan to ban BlackBerry

HONG KONG — The United Arab Emirates, one of several countries that have threatened to suspend services for the Blackberry smartphones this year, on Friday backed away from a ban that was to have come into effect on Monday, after reaching an agreement with the popular messaging devices’ manufacturer, Research In Motion.

The U.A.E. telecommunications regulator said BlackBerry services were now “compliant with the U.A.E.’s telecommunications regulatory framework,” and that all BlackBerry services would continue to operate as normal beyond Monday.

It was not clear what, if any, concessions, R.I.M. had made to avert the bans. A representative for R.I.M. in Britain could not be reached immediately for comment on Friday. But the U.A.E. telecommunications authority said that R.I.M., which is based in Canada and is one of the world’s largest makers of smartphones, had shown “positive engagement” in reaching a compromise.

One analyst said the announcement meant that RIM had either consented to share encryption data with U.A.E. officials, which it had previously said was impossible to do, or that U.A.E. regulators had relented, wary of the economic impact of losing Blackberry service in the Emirates.

“Either the U.A.E. allowed RIM to provide the same services, realizing the threats from BlackBerry services are extremely limited, or they have come to some sort of technical agreement — the most likely outcome — where RIM would allow the U.A.E. government to have limited access to BlackBerry data by providing an encryption key in extreme circumstances,” said Shardul Schrimani, an analyst in London at IHS Global Insight, a research firm.

If the ban had been imposed, U.A.E. businesses would have instigated a major backlash against the government, Mr. Schrimani said in an interview.

The U.A.E., home to the key financial and air transport hub of Dubai, in August had cited security concerns as a reason for threatening a ban on BlackBerry e-mail and Web-browsing services.

Governments in Saudi Arabia and India earlier this year expressed security concerns about R.I.M.’s reluctance to provide them with access to its encrypted e-mail traffic — an information flow that R.I.M., whose success in corporate e-mail is largely built on the security features of its delivery system itself, claims to have no way of decoding.

The Saudi government later lifted the threat of a ban, while the authorities in India, one of R.I.M.’s fastest-growing markets, in late August said they would study for two months a proposal by the company to facilitate some access to messages by the Indian law enforcement agencies. (source: The New York Time)

Government of DKI Jakarta will increase Parking Tariff to Rp10,000 per hour. Is there not a better policy?

The Jakarta administration will implement Zoning System as an effort to progress in implementation of tariff increases of parking in the area of DKI Jakarta to fivefold. They were reviewing the arrangements that will result in effective policy mechanisms.

This zoning will be applied at the centers of activity, so that the road area used for parking will be reduced. They estimate that the use of roads for parking areas that are not regulated previously had caused losses of U.S. $ 900 million for the users of that road, because traffic jams it caused.

Besides reducing the parked vehicle, the Government obtained a source revenue (PAD) of 20% of the turnover of parking building management. With parking tariff of Rp 2000, - the government of DKI Jakarta earns USD 400 per vehicle. If car parking charges increased by Rp 10.000, - then the PAD of the Jakarta administration will also increase by five times as much or USD 2000, - per vehicle per hour.

But the Jakarta administration would not think of additional cost burden to be borne by the Community? Are all the solution to problems must be made through the addition burden of cost of living of the poeple of Jakarta?

Is not there a smarter solution, without burdening the cost of living Rakyat Indonesia, such as with the implementation of the National Movement of Telework (GNT) or the National Telework Initiative (NTI) that can be done simultaneously in a short time to give real impact on traffic congestion problems, full parking places

Is not there a smarter solution, without burdening the cost of living Rakyat Indonesia, such as with the implementation of the National Movement of Telework or the National Telework Initiative that can be done simultaneously in a short time to give real impact on traffic congestion problems, full parking lots, and the increasing need for fuel oil (BBM) due to the length of time the journey that must be adopted.

Let us support the National Movement of Telework (GNT) or the National Telework Initiative (NTI) to implement in the workplace each simultaneously in the not too long.

Please be positive and creative responses to the progress of the nation and state.

BlackBerry PlayBook will become a powerful Device for Telework

Research In Motion (RIM) today redefined the possibilities for mobile computing with the unveiling of its new professional-grade BlackBerry® PlayBook™ tablet and BlackBerry® Tablet OS. Perfect for either large organizations or an “army of one”, the BlackBerry PlayBook is designed to give users what they want, including uncompromised web browsing, true multitasking and high performance multimedia, while also providing advanced security features, out-of-the-box enterprise support and a breakthrough development platform for IT departments and developers. The incredibly powerful and innovative BlackBerry PlayBook is truly a game-changing product in the growing tablet marketplace.

“RIM set out to engineer the best professional-grade tablet in the industry with cutting-edge hardware features and one of the world's most robust and flexible operating systems,” said Mike Lazaridis, President and Co-CEO at Research In Motion. “The BlackBerry PlayBook solidly hits the mark with industry leading power, true multitasking, uncompromised web browsing and high performance multimedia.”

The Tablet You'll Want to Take Everywhere
This beautifully designed and incredibly powerful tablet is ultra portable, ultra thin and super convenient for both work and play. Measuring less than half an inch thick and weighing less than a pound, the BlackBerry PlayBook features a vivid 7” high resolution display that looks and feels great in your hand. With such a unique mix of utility, performance and portability, you’ll want to take it everywhere.

The New Benchmark in Tablet Performance
At its heart, the BlackBerry PlayBook is a multitasking powerhouse. Its groundbreaking performance is jointly fueled by a 1 GHz dual-core processor and the new BlackBerry Tablet OS which supports true symmetric multiprocessing. Together, the abundant processing power and highly sophisticated OS enable the BlackBerry PlayBook to provide users with true multitasking and a highly-responsive and fluid touch screen experience for apps and content services.

Uncompromised Web Browsing
With support for Adobe® Flash® Player 10.1, Adobe® Mobile AIR® and HTML-5, the BlackBerry PlayBook provides customers with an uncompromised, high-fidelity web experience and offers them the ability to enjoy all of the sites, games and media on the web. For more than a decade, the mobile industry has worked to bridge the gap between the “real web” and mobile devices through various apps and technologies and, in fact, a significant number of mobile apps today still simply serve as a proxy for web content that already exists on the web. The BlackBerry PlayBook closes that gap and brings the real, full web experience to mobile users while also opening new and more exciting opportunities for developers and content publishers.

High Performance Multimedia
The BlackBerry PlayBook features premium multimedia features to support high-quality mobile experiences. It includes dual HD cameras for video capture and video conferencing that can both record HD video at the same time, and an HDMI-out port for presenting one's creations on external displays. The BlackBerry PlayBook also offers rich stereo sound and a media player that rivals the best in the industry.

BlackBerry Integration
For those BlackBerry PlayBook users who carry a BlackBerry smartphone*, it will also be possible to pair their tablet and smartphone using a secure Bluetooth® connection. This means they can opt to use the larger tablet display to seamlessly and securely view any of the email, BBM™, calendar, tasks, documents and other content that resides on (or is accessible through) their smartphone. They can also use their tablet and smartphone interchangeably without worrying about syncing or duplicating data. This secure integration of BlackBerry tablets and smartphones is a particularly useful feature for those business users who want to leave their laptop behind.

Enterprise Ready
Thanks to the seamless and secure Bluetooth pairing experience and the highly secure underlying OS architecture, the BlackBerry PlayBook is enterprise ready and compatible (out-of-the-box) with BlackBerry® Enterprise Server. When connected over Bluetooth, the smartphone content is viewable on the tablet, but the content actually remains stored on the BlackBerry smartphone and is only temporarily cached on the tablet (and subject to IT policy controls). With this approach to information security, IT departments can deploy the BlackBerry PlayBook to employees out-of-the-box without worrying about all the security and manageability issues that arise when corporate data is stored on yet another device.

QNX Neutrino Reliability
The BlackBerry Tablet OS is built upon the QNX® Neutrino® microkernel architecture, one of the most reliable, secure and robust operating system architectures in the world. Neutrino has been field hardened for years and is being used to support mission-critical applications in everything from planes, trains and automobiles to medical equipment and the largest core routers that run the Internet. The new BlackBerry Tablet OS leverages and builds upon the many proven strengths of this QNX Neutrino architecture to support a professional grade tablet experience and to redefine the possibilities for mobile computing.

An OS Built for Developers
The Neutrino based microkernel architecture in the BlackBerry Tablet OS delivers exceptional performance, high scalability, Common Criteria EAL 4+ security, and support for industry standard tools that are already familiar to hundreds of thousands of developers. The OS is fully POSIX compliant enabling easy portability of C-based code, supports Open GL for 2D and 3D graphics intensive applications like gaming, and will run applications built in Adobe Mobile AIRas well as the new BlackBerry® WebWorks™ app platform announced today (which will allow apps to be written to run on BlackBerry PlayBook tablets as well as BlackBerry smartphones with BlackBerry® 6). The BlackBerry Tablet OS will also support Java enabling developers to easily bring their existing BlackBerry 6 Java applications to the BlackBerry Tablet OS environment.

Key features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook include:
• 7” LCD, 1024 x 600, WSVGA, capacitive touch screen with full multi-touch and gesture support
• BlackBerry Tablet OS with support for symmetric multiprocessing
• 1 GHz dual-core processor
• 1 GB RAM
• Dual HD cameras (3 MP front facing, 5 MP rear facing), supports 1080p HD video recording
• Video playback: 1080p HD Video, H.264, MPEG, DivX, WMV
• Audio playback: MP3, AAC, WMA
• HDMI video output
• Wi-Fi - 802.11 a/b/g/n
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Connectors: microHDMI, microUSB, charging contacts
• Open, flexible application platform with support for WebKit/HTML-5, Adobe Flash Player 10.1, Adobe Mobile AIR, Adobe Reader, POSIX, OpenGL, Java
• Ultra thin and portable:
o Measures 5.1”x7.6”x0.4” (130mm x 193mm x 10mm)
o Weighs less than a pound (approximately 0.9 lb or 400g)
• Additional features and specifications of the BlackBerry PlayBook will be shared on or before the date this product is launched in retail outlets.
• RIM intends to also offer 3G and 4G models in the future.

Availability
The BlackBerry PlayBook is expected to be available in retail outlets and other channels in the United States in early 2011 with rollouts in other international markets beginning in (calendar) Q2.
RIM will begin working with developers and select corporate customers next month to begin development and early testing efforts.
The BlackBerry Tablet OS SDK is planned for release in the coming weeks and developers can register for early access at www.blackberry.com/developers/tabletos.

For more information, visit www.blackberry.com/playbook.

*Bluetooth support required

Why is now telework more feasible for Indonesia?

Three years ago I proposed the implementation of teleworking or telecommuting to the Indonesian business community as one solution to the increasing oil prices, at that time was as high as US$140 per gallon. The Government of Indonesia was at that time provided price subsidies to domestic oil prices so as to enable lower domestic oil prices for the common Indonesians to buy, since most of their salaries were too little to buy oil prices at international standard prices.

The subsidy caused a very heavy burden to the Indonesia Government's annual budget, causing a large budget deficit.

If teleworking was implemented at that time, large savings of oil supply could be obtained, to reduce budget deficit substantially. One reason not to implement telework at that time was that the telecommunication network was not as extensive, cheap and as better quality than that of today.

Today we can enjoy a better quality of Internet services, fixed as well as mobile, over the terrestrial copper cables(ADSL Speedy), the optical cables, fixed wireless, mobile wireless, 3G, 3.5G, 3.9G using various types of transmission modulations, such as CDMA 200 1x EVDO, GSM, HSDPA, HSPA+, WiFi, WiMAX with speeds higher than 20 Mbit/sec.

It is therefore the implementation of Teleworking or Telecommuting in Indonesia now is better prepared for a success.

Worse than before, the traffic jams in large Indonesian cities are becoming an obstacle to an efficient travels of workers from their homes to their offices. The now spent many hours just to go to their offices, and returned in the evenings. Much of fuel, energy, time and mental resources were expended. Worst still, rainy seasons in Indonesia as well as in other parts of the world are getting longer and longer, causing floods in lower level streets in many cities, thus making the worse traffic jams.

By implementing teleworking or telecommuting, time efficiency, travel efficiency, fuel costs savings, reduced national fuel needs, etc, can be easily obtained. Other value added result is an increase in our national productivity.

Why don't we all start with a teleworking or telecommuting right now?

Welcome to our Teleworkings Blog

Welcome to all of you!

This Teleworking Blog is dedicated to anyone who is interested to implement telework or telecommuting in their day-to-day work, replacing their conventional daily work at his/her physical office.

Teleworking is a normal daily work that is done at any where, any time and any place you may considered most suitable and most convenient, whether at home, at a cafe, at a beach or at a swimming pool.

The key success factor to this new working environment is that you are able to completeyour dayly work assignments or projects perfectly at the scheduled times, or earlier.

This Blog contains many advices and guidelines for you to start a Teleworking or Telecommuting successfully, based successful past experience of others.

Please do not hesitate to make an inquiry, give a comment or suggestion on any topic orsubject presented in this Blog. By doing that, your valuable experience or contributions can then be shared by others who has not had the same experience in implementing the telework or telecommuting.

We hope that you are satisfied with the content of this Blog.

Greetings and best regards,

Blog Administrator.