« The future of museums: the shift from expert curators to facilitators of participation | Main | Launch of Implementing Enterprise 2.0: using software versioning for books »

mX newspaper: Blogs to conquer the office – prepare for the workplace of the future

Ross Dawson, March 8, 2009 11:38 PM US PT

Last week mX newspaper in Melbourne (the city’s largest free newspaper with readership of over 300,000) had a little story on Blogs to conquer the office based on an interview with me. The article was originally intended to cover the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 Executive Briefing which was run last Thursday in Melbourne, though the final article just covered some of the forthcoming shifts in the workplace (slightly mangled in the journalistic process).

Hopefully these kinds of messages will eventually filter through this kind of mass audience to help accelerate these trends. Full text of the article below, or click on the image for a scan of the article.

Blogs to conquer the office

Blogs, wikis and social networks are the future of the Australian workplace.

Organisations which block employee access will be punished for their lack of vision within five years.

And email, which transformed workplaces late last century, will be a thing of the past.

Futurist Ross Dawson, chairman of Future Exploration Network, said companies embracing Web 2.0 – interactive internet use and web-based applications – would result in unrecognisable workplaces within five years.

Graduates and tech-savvy workers were bringing blogs, virtual worlds and social networks into the workplace, which improved communication, efficiency and productivity, Dawson said.

“I am not saying that if you use blogs you will be more successful, but those organisations that try to avoid any use of Web 2.0 in their organisations are going to find it far more difficult to attract talented people and to be competitive,” Dawson said.

At the expense of email, blogs and wikis are becoming popular methods of project management.

“If you use a blog or a wiki, (anyone) can update the most recent info and, at a glance, can see what has been done most recently by who and be updated using RSS (web feed Really Simple Syndication),” he said.

2 Comments

Angelina Russo said:

and conversely, professionals who don't run blogs may well be seen as not contributing to the discourse in their field....

I'm becoming more convinced each day that none of us will be able to have a professional profile that doesn't include peer examination! No evidence at this point - just a hunch!

Now back to updating mine!
Cheers

March 9, 2009 3:25 AM

Ross Dawson said:

Certainly you can expect to gradually fade to invisibility (and insignificance?) if you don't contribute - which you're not in risk of Angelina! :-)

March 9, 2009 3:38 AM

Ross Dawson is globally recognized as a leading futurist, entrepreneur, keynote speaker, strategy advisor, and bestselling author. He is Founding Chairman of four companies: professional services and venture firm Advanced Human Technologies, future and strategy consulting group Future Exploration Network, leading events firm The Insight Exchange, and influence ratings start-up Repyoot.

Ross is author most recently of Implementing Enterprise 2.0, the prescient Living Networks, which anticipated the social network revolution, and the Amazon.com bestseller Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships (click on the links for free chapter downloads). He is based in Sydney and San Francisco with his wife jewellery designer Victoria Buckley and two beautiful young daughters.