HOW THE APPLE WATCH WILL CHANGE OFFICE LIFE
LOVE OR
HATE THEM, WEARABLES ARE ALREADY CHANGING OUR WORKPLACES. EXPERTS IN
TECH SAY HOW OUR ULTRACONNECTED LANDSCAPES WILL LOOK.
With the introduction
of Apple’s new smartwatch earlier this week, many are speculating if we'll soon
be able to just glance at our wrist rather than keeping our phones on the table
during every meeting.
Forty-five percent of
consumers are expected to strap a smartwatch to their wrists in the near future, digital marketing
company Acquity Group reports.
Here’s a look at
how wearable smart
technology will change our
productivity, office policies, and daily routines.
If we were cyborgs
programmed to make the most efficient use of new hardware, working with
smartwatches would be like downloading a new piece of software to help make us
more efficient.
But we’re humans, and
we're easily distracted. When you’re working in your highly focused zone and
you glance at your watch as it alerts you to a new email, it might take you as
long as 23 minutes to get back on
task.
"We can all
attest to the current-day workplace, where whenever someone picks up
their mobile device, it isn't to check the company stock
price," says Tiffani Murray, HR technology and talent management strategist.
"It's to check texts from family, friends, that guy I went on a date with
last Friday, and, let's face it, to play Words With Friends. The
same will be true of the Apple Watch and other smartwatches."
With a variety of new
productivity-aimed apps in development, as Fast Company's John Paul Titlow reports, the ability to
track where our time goes will be valuable. But will that hyperproductive value
outweigh the potential for playing Candy Crush on our new
accessories? "When we're trying to focus on a task, it probably doesn't help
to have our wrists lighting up with new messages and reminders every 15
minutes," he writes. "There's a reason some of us stow our phones
away when we need to focus for prolonged periods of time."
But don’t curse Tim
Cook when you can’t get anything done. Staring at a device in a distraction
loop is the symptom of a disengaged culture, not new tech, Murray says.
She’s optimistic about
this new gadget, but others are less so. "Who’s not getting work done
because they aren’t getting notifications in time?" says Ravi Bhatt, CEO
of software design company Branchfire. He "highly doubts" that the Apple
Watch will make us more creative, productive, or efficient. "The problem
we’re all having is finding time to focus and get real work done. Task
switching kills productivity, and having another device to interrupt you is
hardly the answer."
Psychologist and
frequent Fast Company contributor Art Markman agrees with Bhatt.
If they’re used in the most obvious ways, wearables won’t make us better
people—but perhaps a bit more honest, if the boss is tracking your tasks. Read
on for his take on wearables
in the office.
With the high-tech wearable becoming more discreet—instead of, for
example, on our faces in the form of glasses—companies that deal with sensitive
information will need to establish a few new security policies around it.
"These devices,
which can be described as life-critical in many situations, will almost
certainly contain extremely personal data, including sensitive health
information," says Ryan Faas, mobile strategist for MobileIron.
"Clear privacy policies are paramount."
Alongside personal
privacy, company data could be at risk when it’s bared for the world on a
watch. Company IT departments and the rest of the workforce will have to start
a conversation, Faas says, about how they’ll use features as simple as email
notifications up to in-development apps and services, as smartwatches start
multiplying across an office.
We could be sitting in
"wearables training seminars" on safety and protocol in five
years—and glancing at our watches waiting for them to be over.
A smartwatch looks a
lot cooler than a retractable cord affixing a photo of ourselves to our pants.
If Apple’s new watch can check us into an airport or pay for our coffee, it
could eventually scan us into our buildings.
That’s just a small
example of the approach apps are taking toward smart wearables: to make your
already daily grabs at your attention as frictionless as possible. We’ll be
carrying our next big presentation notes and calendar updates on or wrists.
It’ll take a few years
before we know the lasting changes these new devices will make on our
workplaces. In the meantime, get ready for a lot of Knight Rider impersonations from your
coworkers.
BY SAMANTHA COLE
http://www.fastcompany.com/3043533/the-future-of-work/how-the-apple-watch-will-change-office-life
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