How to work without an office by Adam Turner (The Age.com, August 24, 2004) shows that Australia is thinking strategically about the use of telework for "people disaster management", a parallel idea to "IT disaster management".

'What would your organisation do if your building was suddenly "unavailable"? Whether it had blown up, burned down or was just temporarily off limits - how would your staff left standing on the footpath keep the business going?

'Since the events of September 11, 2001, many organisations worldwide have begun implementing strategies to enable them to continue to operate effectively in the event of an emergency situation, says virtual team consultant Margaret Aspin.'

11:58:04 AM    
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 The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) released a new survey this week, Generational Differences Survey Report (August 2004). A primary finding of the report is that much of the conflict between workers of different generations (Veterans, Baby Boomers, Gen X-ers, and Gen Y-ers) comes down to differences in work ethics and work/life priorities.

Nearly a quarter of HR professionals say differences over acceptable work hours are the primary sources of conflict, which reflects different perceptions of work ethic and benefits like telecommuting and flextime. Frequently, these complaints came from older workers about younger employees' willingness to work longer hours.  Past SHRM research finds that work/life balance is among the most important job satisfaction factors for younger employees and is typically not as important among older workers.

I'd say this reflects the basic state of the practice in flexible work arrangements, which are still fairly new in too many organizations. Once policies that truly work are established and implemented, expectations will be managed better between the generations. Not that this conflict will entirely go away, but we can expect improvements over time.

11:42:39 AM    
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An August 24, 2004 press release from Plumtree Software, Inc. caught my attention: Plumtree Unveils Nine Customer Case Studies; ROI Ranges From 564% on One Deployment to $4 Million on Another.

Plumtree, a leading enterprise portal provider, details a total of nine case studies in its "No Empty Portals" white paper (free download, registration required).  FTN Financial reported the 564% ROI, Ford Motor company reported a savings of $4 million per year in communications, mail, and distributions costs; and Best Buy projected a 3-year ROI of several million dollars in increased sales revenue.

The white paper explains the evolution of the portal industry. Portals first supplied a single place to access all the content and services users needed to do their work, then expanded with additions such as integrated collaboration, content management, and search capabilities. But portals now are evolving into an application framework for integrating services from separate base applications, often running on different platforms. These new "service-oriented" or "composite" applications provide seamless solutions to business needs of their users.

11:13:05 AM    
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