Smartphones will inexorably alter office environments
Published 3:22 pm Wednesday, March 28, 2012
The exponential proliferation of hand-held cellular and smart phones throughout the world may have as big of an effect on human lives as electricity and the internal combustion engine. More than 6 billion people carry a cellphone or smartphone. With the ability of information to move that quickly into the hands of so many, power has shifted to the people.
Consider the change in emerging and Third World countries alone. In years past, a poor sub-Saharan villager making his way to town to sell a basket of turnips might have only one buyer with whom he could negotiate a price after his long walk to market. Now armed with a cellphone, he can check prices that other buyers would offer him on the other end of town and in an instant he is able to negotiate a better deal. Soon, he will negotiate instantly via Web portals. His agrarian lifestyle won[‘]t change, but how much of a living he earns from it will.
In developed countries and in business, things are changing rapidly as well. Office furniture manufacturers are keen to this and are designing offices and furniture on the assumption that everyone is connected all the time and the office now serves an experiential purpose for employees and customers. Lavish lobbies and front-desk staff designed to give a strong first impression are no longer in vogue.
The first impression today might be made long before when a 25-year-old salesman tweeted a message to a prospect, the prospect toured the company[‘]s website, found the salesman on Facebook and then decided the company was worth her attention. Walking in the door is going to be a high-touch experience, not a first impression. Offices will be designed to recognize that.
Changes to office settings are just one of the effects on real estate. The apartment market will need to adjust as well. Everyone is connected, so the need for social space in the cabana building is adjusted from a meet-your-neighbor purpose to a place where there[‘]s room for intimate high-touch type events that cannot fit into an apartment.
So many home businesses grow in this sort of environment that the pool table and hot tub are replaced by a business office and conference room. How individual apartment units are designed and built will change, too, as smartphones will be the portal through which the renter[‘]s energy consumption, security and access can be managed.
Older Americans adopted the digital era starting with the handful of broadcast stations on 13 available TV channels, then to the computer and all the way up to today[‘]s information explosion.
Americans in their late teens and 20s know no other way of life than the current digital era and absolute instant global connectivity. They will look for office, housing and apartment settings that fit what make sense to them. Those who have answers will be the winners in getting their business. It[‘]s a big group of Americans, too [—] several million larger than the biggest part of the baby boomer bubble. Identifying and serving what they want requires embracing the reality that the digital era is no longer a decision. It is now literally the environment around us. Adopting it is no longer a choice.
Tom Hoban is CEO of The Coast Group of companies in Everett. Contact him at 425-339-3638, tomhoban@coastmgt.com or [URL]www.coastsvn.com;http://www.coastsvn.com[URL].[/URL]
