Enterprise Communications Featured Article

None of us have been around long enough to remember the introduction of the electrical outlet. But if we were there when the humble electrical outlet was first introduced, we would know that they started on the ceiling.

The first electrical outlets were on the ceiling and intended for lighting. There were also more than a hundred different plug sizes. But as the technology evolved, plug sizes standardized and some creative entrepreneurs recognized that cooking appliances could benefit from the electrical sockets on the ceiling. From this was born our mixers and our toasters, and practically everything else that’s now in our kitchen aside from dishes and spoons.

The same sort of evolution is underway in the workplace with bring your own device (BYOD) policies and mobile technology.

Right now, we have a relatively narrow view of what smartphones, BYOD, social media and the cloud can do for business. This is the product of our cultural baggage; we use new technology similarly to what came before.

Future generations will not be burdened with such baggage, however, which is when the mobile revolution really gets interesting.

Take Snapchat, for instance, the popular service with short-lived content that disappears after a short time like a spy message set to self-destruct. For most of us, this has no utility in business. But social media innovator, Gary Veynerchuk, argues that this new medium could serve as a platform for limited-time promotions and other uses.

Or take how video is now being used in business by the millennial generation. Whereas people my age often feel as though we must take time when crafting a video, my younger contemporaries often demonstrate during phone conversations by making video of what they are seeing during our call and sending it to me as we talk.

The world of business has changed a lot in the past 10 years, but I think it is fair to say that we haven’t seen anything yet.

Like Google (News - Alert) Glass, which also is a BYOD device potentially. Google Glass most likely will change how and what we learn for the job, making it almost more important how fast we can search and process information than knowing information going into a situation.

Google Glass probably will change how we collaborate, too, as it will enable workers to pull in experts for any important conversation, and visually share data that today cannot be easily shared in real time.

But then again, these are the uses that spring to mind for me, and I’m largely dictated by what I’ve known previously. The millennials and the generation after that probably will change the game completely when they show new uses for the technology that we can hardly dream about.