Commercial Integrator June 2022 - Special Section 3

Consumer Electronics
Honor Roll
How Consumer Technology
is Affecting our Lives and
the Future of Collaboration
Consumer technology holds a lot of promise and opportunities for
workplace collaboration, but we must be careful not to get over our skis.
By David Mario Smith
OVER A DECADE AGO,
the term " consumerization
of IT " emerged to describe
the disruptive and transformative
phenomenon of
employees (who are also
consumers and vice versa)
adopting consumer technologies
in their personal
lives and bringing that into
their business or enterprise
workstreams. Users'
experiences with consumer
technology led to very different
expectations about their
technology experiences at
work and how they collaborate
with colleagues. Add to
that the current disruption
with the increase in remote
work, which, itself, has led to
the incorporation of smart
homes, connected devices
and a plethora of consumer
electronics. Taken together,
we must conclude that
enterprise collaboration has
been forever impacted, and
there is no going back.
While the notion of
consumer electronics and
technology impacting the
workplace is not new, we
are witnessing a new era
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in which enterprise planners
must wonder and
plan for how things like the
metaverse, AR/VR, AI, mobile
and smart connected devices
will impact workplace
collaboration. In addition,
the 2020s, marked by a
global and unprecedented
pandemic, have forever
altered the world of work
that now looks drastically
different from just a couple
of years prior.
Seeing The
Convergence
And Collision
With knowledge workers
forced to work from home,
we saw the convergence
and collision of smart-home
devices and technology
with smart-office devices
and technology solutions.
Technology providers
brought advancements in
wireless communications
to bear upon consumer
smart home devices that are
connected and IoT enabled.
There is an increased use of
smart displays, speakers and
headsets. This increased use
JUNE 2022
has heavily influenced smart
office solutions to improve
and transform how people
work. Digital hubs have
emerged to help people
manage and control their
personal productivity spaces.
This new remote work
paradigm shift led to a growing
need for parity between
smart office capabilities and
tools workers can utilize at
home with the existing infrastructure
that can also be
secured and managed from
an IT perspective.
Due to the global pandemic,
this disruptive and
transformative shift in the
world of work has led to
a new office culture environment
and a new type of
worker and workforce that
is more technologically
savvy and flexible through
necessity. There is now a
new level of technology
competence required as
workforces navigate remote,
hybrid and location-agnostic
workplaces. Again, because
of mandatory lockdowns, we
had to enter a forced experiment
and proof of concept
for collaboration tools. Video
and visual collaboration
emerged as an ideal tool to
help people stay connected.
Thus, every device or peripheral
that aided or complemented
this new work mode
itself became essential.
Multiple Forces
Converge
A decade ago, when I was a
Gartner analyst, we identified
a nexus of forces
that were converging to
transform user behavior
and create new business
opportunities. These forces
were social, mobile, cloud
and information in context
that was on the move and
not stored anyplace in particular.
Furthermore, these
forces were interdependent
and reinforced by each other.
In addition to these forces,
we now see IoT being
an accelerator and forcing
a new level of connectedness.
Finally, however, the
disruptive cultural force of
a global pandemic became
the ultimate accelerator,
pushing digital transformacommercialintegrator.com
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Commercial Integrator June 2022

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