Social Networking

Business doesn’t happen face to face as often as some would like. Instead, today’s communication depends on conference calls and emails chains that make it challenging to get to know your partners. It’s been a common lament among business people dissatisfied with the technology that has become the norm in their daily lives. But with so many workers worldwide now working in virtual teams, many business relationships do depend on technology. And that’s not a bad thing — as long they’re using the right technologies in the right ways.

A new generation of communications technologies are upon us. They are addressing the new way to work that is permeating workplaces worldwide. It’s “dynamic, cultural shift in the marketplace.” They’re making the global workplace exactly what it’s looking for: a joyful, delightful experience.
 Who wouldn’t want to engage with that?

Work-from-Home
We live in a global workplace without time zones or office hours. Just ask any spouse who has waited to serve the main course while awaiting a husband or wife to finish a work email at the table. Delayed dinners notwithstanding, the ability to shoot out that email at the dinner table actually allows that spouse to get out of work an hour earlier and be there in the first place. A fair tradeoff.
And it’s also good for employers when employees have happy, balanced lives. You might be on a conference call with Europe in the wee hours and have to get your kids to a soccer game in the afternoon. You can do it working virtually, and there’s real value in accommodating that employee need.”

Closer Collaborations
Collaboration used to happen in board rooms with whiteboards and bagels. Today, it’s on documents being edited by multiple people all over the world at the same time. It’s sharing screen data and chatting over video.


Unified Communications

What this new generation of platforms is doing it pulling it all together.  You get the information you need for the business moment you’re in. At the beginning of a recurring meeting, you get a picture of exactly where things stand, action item status, all relevant documents and emails. “It’s like the recap at the beginning of a television show. You quickly make the context switch and pick up right where the last meeting left off.”
That’s some real, measurable productivity. And when in human history has an increase in workplace productivity come hand-in-hand with an increase in workplace delight? Joy? Social connectivity? This is what makes the new generation of workplace collaboration tools so exciting — they don’t just make the new way to work more possible and productive. They also make the job itself more desirable.



"Six Ways Social Media Technologies Can Accelerate Large-Scale Change." Six Ways Social Media Technologies Can Accelerate Large-scale Change. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.

"Six Ways Social Media Technologies Can Accelerate Large-Scale Change." Six Ways Social Media Technologies Can Accelerate Large-scale Change. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.