The Home Workplace

Book excerpt: The recent COVID-19-induced slamming of millions of information workers into the home workplace has made clear that the planning and management foundations for such a mass-migration are anything but solid. Now, the IT industry is scrambling to offer products which do not treat the (remote) worker as a third-class citizen. However, there is another problem, namely the lack of a coherent theory (and documented practice) about what wide-scale workplace decentralization will really do for the individual, the organization, the local community, and ultimately the planet. Indeed, the home workplace can--and ultimately will--serve as the gateway to a whole new focus on the triplex of environmental, energy and economic issues. It may even become the portal to a more peaceful and stable world. This book is not a research work, but rather an opinion piece based on personal experience working as an IT program manager, executive and consultant in various large enterprises while working from home for a significant percentage of the time. Among other things, it reflects a very strong belief that home workplace technology architects were altogether too quick to abandon the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) as a core component of that architecture. The book will equip the reader with a balance of strategic and tactical perspectives--and tools--which should assist in designing, prototyping and rolling out a home workplace environment which is best suited to the needs of their organization, and which will also contribute to the building of a worldwide electronic commonwealth.