The reinvention of productivity
Bill Bennett reports on the many new ways in which digital technology supports personal productivity, and offers some practical tips for speeding up productivity both in and out of the office.
Bill Bennett reports on the many new ways in which digital technology supports personal productivity, and offers some practical tips for speeding up productivity both in and out of the office.
Westpac’s 2015 Grow New Zealand survey reports “nearly one third of New Zealand small and medium-sized enterprises say digital technology had no impact on their business over the past five years and 27 percent don’t expect it to in the next five years”.
It’s not clear if the people who said technology had no impact fully understood the question. As one cynic observed: “Try taking their email and phones away for a week and ask the same question. You wouldn’t get the same result.”
Despite the negative news headlines that appeared at the time, the real story behind the report is encouraging. It says two-thirds of SMEs know they are getting value from digital technology.
Golden age
That number could soon improve. If we believe the optimists, business is entering a golden age of productivity. That’s thanks to new tools that allow us to work while on the move.
A billion people worldwide already connect to mobile data networks. To the citizens of many less developed countries, wireless data is the Internet; almost all online transactions are mobile transactions.
Even here in New Zealand, where fibre networks are rolling out across the country, mobile devices are now the main way people connect to each other and to information.
The best new productivity apps have been designed from the ground up for mobile computing. They are touch-based, work in real time, collaborative and highly visual. Most link to cloud services. They are lightweight in the sense they sip small amounts of data instead of quaffing from distant servers – which means you don’t plough through your mobile download allowance in an afternoon.
Above all, the best mobile productivity apps are easy to use. Most require little in the way of training. You can usually pick them up and just go; at most you might need someone to peer over your shoulder to point out shortcuts.
Modern mobile apps look nothing like traditional productivity apps: Word, Excel and PowerPoint. They neither resemble Apple’s iWorks nor Google docs. Meanwhile, those trusty old productivity warhorses (see sidebar) are getting a new lease of life as they are repurposed for mobile use.
The good news is that almost everyone in the technology business, including the big guns Microsoft, Apple and Google, are working hard to break down boundaries between devices, apps and services. At the same time, they are standardising the way people interact with technology, so there’s less of a need to start from scratch each time something new comes along. Everyone, it seems, is now focused on helping you be more productive.
Reinventing productivity
When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took over the company last year he told employees and customers the company’s strategy is now all about “reinventing productivity”. The idea behind this is that the world is now awash in data. It comes at people and companies from multiple directions in many different formats. Productivity is all about channelling this data into ways that make it useful.
Microsoft is no longer worried about the devices you use to work with your data. In the past the company focused on PCs. Today you will find Microsoft apps on PCs, tablets, phones and smartwatches. There are also web browser versions of many popular Microsoft apps.
For years the software giant carefully guarded its turf and used its apps to increase the desirability of other Microsoft products, especially Windows. Microsoft will tell you its apps work best on Windows 8.1, but now the company’s software is just at home on Apple hardware running the OS X or iOS operating system. You will find Microsoft apps running on Android tablets or phones, even on Linux.
Microsoft is more concerned that you carry on using its apps and services than whether you use Windows. That is because it sees the company’s apps and other tools as the gateway to selling services, which is where the money is. Above all else, Microsoft uses its software as a lure to its cloud offering.
Tuning hardware choices for productivity
For most people the device sweet spot is to pair a large screen, touch-enabled smartphone with a thin, lightweight notebook computer.
This combination will give you or your workers access to just about every imaginable business application. You’ll be able to work with the best mobile apps and cloud services. This pair of devices is able to create documents, access data from remote sources, handle analysis and deal with every conceivable kind of messaging or communications. There is almost nothing that can’t be done with these two devices.
While both are useful in their own right, they get better together. You can tether the notebook to the smartphone allowing it to access mobile data. There is no need for an extra communications device and you won’t make life more complicated by needing an extra Sim-card or another mobile account.
You could do most things with a smartphone — many of your employees, especially those working on the road, will find that’s enough technology. However, there are times when you need to move from the limited size screen and the even more limited touch screen keyboard, to a larger display and a proper keyboard.
For a while it looked as if tablets would bridge the gap between smartphones and laptops for business users. They still have a place, but they are rarely at the sharp end of business productivity.
You’ll get the best experience if the two devices come from the same family, say an Apple iPhone and MacBook Air or a Microsoft Windows Phone and a Surface Pro 3. That’s in part because you only have to learn how to use one, to know how to use the other. It’s also because each range is deliberately made to work closely with compatible devices.
It gets trickier if you prefer an Android phone, despite what some hardware companies tell you, they don’t have suitable matching laptops for serious business users. The good news is that it is not hard to pair an Android phone with an Apple or Windows computer.
Bill Bennett is an Auckland-based specialist technology writer. Email [email protected].