The digital workplace is here to stay, and it continues to evolve. It’s a complex and changing ecosystem with many components, as Jacob Morgan highlights in an article from Forbes.com. He demonstrates how collaboration is broader than just one repository. As we always say, it’s about all of the different ways in which people interact.
Here, Morgan points out five key ways that users can interact in the digital workspace:
- Social enterprise: Think of internal, enterprise versions of popular consumer services such as Twitter and Facebook. While companies don’t need all the features of consumer services, smart use of these tools can lead to more frictionless, transparent and serendipitous communication.
- Collaboration platforms: Workers can now connect with colleagues and even upper management with ease, and they can locate subject matter experts they never would have found using conventional means. These platforms also amplify the voice of workers, making it easier for them to become leaders without having to move into management.
- The cloud: Cloud-based deployments of collaboration platforms allow business units to quickly deploy these various solutions without waiting for the blessing and support of IT.
- Millennials: This generation will soon be the majority of the workforce. They are digital natives fluent in social tools and collaboration.
- Mobile working: All of this technology along with smartphones, tablets and laptops means workplaces can be more flexible and actually improve productivity. “The notion of having to work 9-5 and commuting to an office is dead,” the Forbes article says.
The glue that holds all of those interactions together is the user profile. Technologies are continuously changing and different people will always want different features. But we recommend that there be one place that serves as a definitive source of who people are and what they know. It’s a critical element that’s often overlooked.
The power of the user profile with SharePoint 2013 is not only that it connects through your Microsoft backbone profile technology, Active Directory (AD), but it is a capable database that can connect to other systems, like human resources, to provide the single view of a user’s profile. A vast majority of other systems also connect to user information through AD, creating consistency of this information across the enterprise.
What other elements are shaping the digital workplace? Share your thoughts in the comments section!
Source: Forbes.com, June 2013
