by Tanja Pabelick, 07/12/2007
The phone at the ear, the laptop on the lap: every minute can be used efficiently with the means of modern technology. Already on the way to work, the first e-mails are called up in the train, the voicebox messages were already available for breakfast. There is hardly a place where we are not networked, hardly a place where work could not be done. The modern office fits in your vest pocket and is therefore always right where you are. The globalized, virtualized and digitized world is changing the way people live and work, and with it the things that accompany them through everyday life.
They are flexible, mobile and always on the move: Creatives jetting around the world and managers preparing their next Power Point presentation on the train to Frankfurt. In the age of information, they all market one of the most important resources of our time - knowledge. And thus represent the departure from the location-bound mass work and production of the industrial age. For their work, the nomads of labor need little more than a laptop and the Internet, with which the entire world is just a mouse click away. Whether they log on to their employer's corporate network or visit the homepage of a French delicatessen, everything is available 24 hours a day, regardless of local time. They select their tools of the trade according to their function and performance and whether they fit in their hand luggage. Laptop and PDA cause problems when they require a large number of accessories: Mouse, keyboard, cable, power supply, memory stick and headphones - common and burdensome equipment for working on the road.
Therefore, many companies in the mobile technology market are making efforts to develop products that combine multiple functions. Sensors, intelligent textiles and innovations from nanotechnology now enable technical solutions that years ago were instruments from the orchestra for future music. The company Eleksen presented a resourceful new function for the protective covers of mobile work equipment at CeBit last year. While a conventional bag becomes useless once unzipped, it can continue to be used as a wireless input device thanks to a sensor keyboard embedded in the fabric. And since many also use lunch time to work, the textile has a waterproof finish and can also be washed like a piece of clothing. The sensor specialist Canesta went one step further and projects the keyboard immediately via infrared onto any surface. Every movement of the hands is scanned and processed by the device. The components required for this are no larger than a fingernail and can even be built into a cell phone. Equipped with such technology, work on the move is clearly made easier - in the truest sense of the word.
While a veritable fireworks display of innovations is being ignited in the area of work tools, however, the places where mobile working takes place remain largely untouched by this enthusiasm for progress. Regardless of whether we are talking about public spaces, such as the city park, or transit spaces, such as the train station and airport, the ergonomic achievements of decades of research at the office workplace are simply lost to the work nomad. Only occasionally does one come across a city bench with a lovelessly installed laptop table or a waiting hall equipped in a work-friendly manner - a field that has so far hardly been worked on by designers and architects and where there is still much need for action.
But what happens at the beautiful workstations in open-plan offices while employees sit in the café next door or wait at the airport for the plane to Tokyo? They are simply empty. Where potted plants used to be tended and photos of loved ones put up, many office spaces are deserted. Today, employees spend less than half of their working hours at their desks, according to the German-Swiss Institute for Labor Research. The office 21 study conducted by the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft also came to such conclusions and offers the solution at the same time: The number of workstations provided is reduced and the private desk is replaced by a roll container in which personal work documents can be stored. When starting work, the employee looks for a free desk to which he simply takes his caddy. This saves the company rent and is also said to have a positive impact on the social fabric, as new work groups are always coming together.
And those who are no longer expected in the office or prefer to work alone anyway can do so from home. Bed, sofa, kitchen table are potential workplaces that can be tapped with the mobile devices of home nomads. The German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media recently announced that, for the first time, more mobile computers than stationary computers will be sold in Germany this year. This is a development that designers and the furniture industry have been aware of for some time. Beds with work tablets and sofas with attachable laptop desks are designed to make working from home mobile and comfortable. In addition, completely new products are emerging, such as Belkin's @home series: a collection of flexible bases and transport cases makes it easier to move from place to place and provides at least a little ergonomic support for working cross-legged.
But only the hypermobile elites are truly flexible - in the sense of a nomadic lifestyle. Everyone else benefits more incidentally from the advancing state of technology, which also makes parts of their living and working environment more mobile. This form of mobile existence is comparable to the folding table that you put in the dining room of your family home: You could fold it up - if you wanted to. In this context, Ettore Sottsass once spoke of "psychological nomadism," i.e., a perceived mobility that is lived with because it corresponds to the spirit of the times. Some people have recognized that this new freedom also brings dependencies, and they leave their cell phones off at the weekend. Perhaps it's only a matter of time before some people declare trains and planes to be laptop-free zones as well
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