By Pi Wen Looi, Ph.D.

Dr. Pi Wen Looi and Dr. James Ware will be presenting at our complimentary Lunch & Learn Webinar, Leveraging Mobile Work to Engage Your Employees, Thursday, March 7 at noon PT. Register now for this free information session on the latest remote work findings. 

The recent Yahoo internal memo that requests employees to work in their offices has stirred up quite a lot of discussion on the Internet. And it’s no wonder—most knowledge workers and Gen Y employees are accustomed to the flexibility of working from home sometimes. People are increasingly working on-the-go. The boundaries of office, workspace, home, and third-places are increasingly blurred. Enabled by the latest mobile devices, tablets, and easy access to the Internet, work is more about what you do or accomplish, not where you get it done.

Numerous studies have shown that people working away from their offices are more productive because they are less likely to be interrupted by coworkers who drop by their cubicles, take fewer sick days, and save time on their long commute. These positive results extend to call center employees, as well. People who telecommute are also more satisfied with their work/life balance as they are better able to control their workflow during the day.

So why is Yahoo requiring their employees to return to work in offices?

It is hard to say what’s the ultimate goal of the new policy. Based on discussions on the Internet and blogosphere, it seems that some Yahoo employees have taken advantage of their telecommuting policy and are not performing at their jobs. The memo points to the benefits of having better communication and collaboration when people work side-by-side, and increased insights, speed, and quality when employees work in the same physical locations.

Regardless of the tone of the memo and how it’s communicated with Yahoo employees, let’s take a look at the key issues Yahoo raised:  productivity, communication, and collaboration.

Productivity. By now, many studies have shown that doing work remotely or telecommuting does, in fact, increase workers’ productivity. The issue at Yahoo seems like a performance issue, not a telecommuting issue. If Yahoo employees abuse their telecommuting policy, it’s imperative that managers/leaders take action to hold employees accountable, recognize their performance, and follow-up with employees who do not perform. Perhaps this new policy is the first step Yahoo leaders are taking to hold employees accountable for their performance.

Communication. While it is true that the serendipity that happens at cafeterias, hallways, or water-coolers can lead to great insights, there are many technologies that facilitate effective communications, from smart-phone to online meeting tools. Regardless of whether you work in the office or in a remote location, there are ways to communicate with coworkers. The key is to ensure that access to the company intranet, relevant technology, and the speed of connection are not barriers to remote workers.

Collaboration. Similar to communication, there are many online collaboration tools that enable employees to work together while they are physically apart. Work is increasingly distributed. For companies that have dispersed geographical locations, it is impossible to require a team of employees to always work side-by-side in a conference room. There are stages of collaboration. Sometimes your team will need to work together to ideate, confirm objectives and strategies. Other times your team members will need to go off to do solo work or have quiet time to think before they get together and collaborate on ideas. Solo work and thinking may best be accomplished while working from home or in a space without constant interruptions.

The bottom line:  remote work is here to stay. It’s the employees’ responsibility to earn trust from their managers, be accountable for their performance, and accomplish what they set out to do. It’s the management’s responsibility to have relevant people practices that facilitate remote work, hold employees accountable, and have clear consequences when employees do not perform. Last but not least, employees should have easy access to the information and resources they need, either in the cloud or on company servers, to enable productive work from anywhere.

What do you think? Is remote work a peril to productivity? How would you address the issues highlighted by the Yahoo memo? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Join Dr. Looi and Dr. Ware at our free Lunch & Learn Webinar, Thursday, March 7 at noon PT:  Leveraging Mobile Work to Engage Your Employees. Space is limited. Reserve your webinar seat now!

Pi Wen Looi, Ph.D., is the founder and principal of Novacrea Research Consulting. For more information, please visit www.NovacreaResearch.com.

By Melissa Sweat, Online Community Manager

Among the world’s most productive people, Benjamin Franklin still stands as tough competition for the top. This uncannily-industrious Founding Father was not only a politician, but an inventor, musician, printer, postmaster, scientist, author, and—not surprisingly—a chronic journal writer. “What good shall I do this day?” wrote Franklin in the wee morning hours of his “scheme,” where he charted his daily goals and schedule. And at day’s end, he posed another question of reconciliation: “What good have I done today?”

One of the reasons why Franklin was so productive is that he held himself accountable to his goals and ambitions—and his chief method for doing so was the daily journal. Let’s explore four reasons why using a paper journal—yes, paper!—can help accelerate your accomplishments and make you more productive in the digital world.

1. The Power of Paper. “It takes just a few seconds, literally 5 to 10 seconds, to capture an important note in the paper journal,” writes People-OnTheGo Founder Pierre Khawand in his Accomplishing More With Less Workbook. “In the electronic world, it may take that much time, and usually much more, just to get to the application where we capture the information.” A paper journal, in this case, is actually faster and more efficient than an electronic device; it’s quieter, easily portable, and requires no batteries or charge, so it’s always going to be there and ready to use. The paper journal can be inspiring, too, like these handmade, recycled journals from Recover Your Thoughts, and a good change of pace from our digitally-dominated world.

2. Reflecting & Reconciling. Like Ben Franklin’s good example, reflecting on what we intend to accomplish at the start of the day and reconciling what changes have occurred at the end of the day—seeing if goals were met, what needs to followed up on, etc. helps “put a stake in the ground," as Pierre says. This way we cannot avoid or escape our goals and ambitions; the journal holds us accountable on a daily basis.

3. Write it, then let it rest. If we have a sudden burst of inspiration, an idea or strategy to jot down, or some item relating to our daily tasks that needs to be attended to later, the journal allows us to write it down quickly, then get back to the job at hand. Instead of analyzing the importance of that information in the moment, the journal enables us to quickly capture it and gives us the distance to process it at a later time—instead of interrupting our focus.

4. Intend. Affirm. Act. So many times in life and at work, we beging a project only to lose our intention and commitment to follow through with action. Just as we hold ourselves and our goals accountable in a journal on a daily basis, journaling in the long-term helps us keep on the path of our greater mission. If we want to make a change in our lives, journaling about it daily for a week or two can also help bring clarity to the change, and we may find our commitment level increases, as well. We may even discover more insight surrounding this intention than we would have simply by letting our thoughts wander.

In short:  Capture your intentions. Hold yourself accountable. “Dare to journal!” as Pierre encourages. “The results can be beyond your imagination.”

Join our Accomplishing More With Less groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. Follow People-OnTheGo Founder Pierre Khawand on Twitter.

Additional Resources

• The Accomplishing More With Less Workbook

• Accomplishing More With Less Workshop & Webinars
  
  

By Eugene Dilan, Psy.D.

The verdict around employee engagement is in, and there is widespread agreement that an engaged workforce leads to higher retention, higher productivity, better customer satisfaction and yes, better overall sales and profitability. Consequently, there are many ideas about how to best create, optimize, and leverage engagement. These hypotheses range from the simplicity of Paul Marciano’s “RESPECT model” to Sirota’s “3-Factor Theory,” the work of Cathleen Benko in “The Corporate Lattice,” which focuses on the customization of how we build careers, do the actual work, and communicate—and let’s not forget Gallup’s “12 Elements of Great Managing,” among many others. So the critical question is, when it comes to developing powerful employee engagement, which model is the real McCoy?

Unfortunately, there is no be-all and end-all model for optimizing engagement, and part of the reason for this is that individual employees, managers, executives, and organizations are not all alike. The strategies or levers that work with one person or place may simply not work with others. That said, if you look at a cross section of the research and working models, you might notice that some factors appear across all models—though the words used to describe them are all quite different.

I’ve made sense of the top engagement strategies across various models, and have provided them in the list below. The bottom line, however, is that true employee engagement interventions cannot be bought off the shelf and instead require time to assess and understand the specific and unique requirements for success within a specific sector, business, or individual.  We need to move away from thinking of engagement strategies as simplistic tools that once implemented can be forgotten, and instead work to intervene in a more holistic fashion. Here are the 12 key values that will get your organization on the right track to creating a powerful, engaged culture:

1. Engaged leaders and managers. You cannot have engaged employees if your leaders are not engaged.
2. Trust in leadership. Do what you say you are going to do. Make critical decisions based on what’s best for all stakeholders (internal and external).
3. Timely, honest, and consistent two-way communications.
4. Personable relationships with immediate supervisors. Research shows that knowing your immediate supervisor on a more personal level improves engagement.
5. Respectful and collegial relationships with colleagues who are committed to doing great work.
6. Fairness (compensation, workload, during conflicts, etc.)
7. Pride in an organization’s mission, products, or accomplishments.
8. Opportunities for professional/career development (within and across functions) that are appropriately developmentally challenging.
9. Reward/recognition for progress or a job well done—however small. If you do not water the plants they won’t grow.
10. Ability to influence or have some level of self-determination.
11. Flexibility (when, where, and/or how the work gets done).
12. Some level of accommodation to address personal needs as they arise.

To say it more directly, employee engagement is about culture. Culture is about values, leadership capabilities, policies, practices, and behaviors. How does one create a strategic culture? That is a very complicated question that is far beyond the scope of this blog post. However, we can begin by working to assess and understand whether the values and behaviors of our current culture are in fact delivering the performance levels we seek. If not, engaging other stakeholders to explore how the factors listed above can be optimized in the context of your strategy and culture will help.

Remember, Rome was not built in a day and that you need to employ all of the tools in your war chest. Values, leadership capabilities, policies, procedures, communication tools, learning and development, and performance management (including incentives) are all but a few of the many levers that, together, can help you create a coherent and powerful intervention that will move your organization from being mediocre or good to being best in class.

Eugene Dilan, Psy.D., is the founder and president of Dilan Consulting, Inc., and has over 25 years of experience providing direct clinical care and organizational consulting from the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to healthcare facilities, the aerospace industry, IT, and many more. More information at www.dilanconsulting.com, or contact eugene@dilanconsulting.com.

David Sibbet is a world-reknowned visualization expert and author of the new book Visual Leaders: New Tools for Visioning, Management, and Organization Change. He will be presenting at our free webinar Thursday, January 31, 2013 at noon PT. (Seats are filling up fast! Click to register now.)

We're also giving away several copies of David's new book! Simply participate in our short Leadership Survey for a chance to win. 

The world is becoming an increasingly visual place—and your organization, business, or team needs a leader with the right visual IQ and know-how to communicate the "big picture." You don't have to be an artist, but becoming adept at utilizing visual practice techniques will be a huge boon to getting your team on board, sharing ideas, propelling projects forward, and so much more. 

Read on for our interview with David Sibbet, who shares his expertise about the practice of visualization, why it's important to be a visual leader today, and how you can become one.

People-OnTheGo: For those who aren't familiar with visualization or visual practice, can you please describe the basic ideas of the field and its uses in a business or professional environment? What are some common applications?

David Sibbet: Visual practice is using the tools of design thinking and graphic design interactively—much like one uses spoken words. Where once these ways of working were focused on design itself, the methods are now used by leaders and facilitators to support meetings, teams, and organization change processes. Visual practice includes graphic recording of meetings, visual facilitation of meetings and teams, and use of many kinds of media on the part of leaders to collaboratively develop visions, processes, and plans.

Why do think it's important in this day and age for leaders and managers to be "visual leaders"?

Almost all media in today's world integrates text and graphics, and in increasing numbers of cases, video. Not only are younger people quite fluid with these new ways of communicating, but anyone who is trying to develop and align people on new plans needs visuals to make sense out of the complexity. People understand how different parts of an organization connect and work together with mental models, diagrams, maps, and other kinds of displays. A leader who is visually adept has a tremendous advantage in his or her personal communications. If a leader understands how to work with and guide visual professionals it is an even greater advantage. 

How can visualization techniques improve meetings, project management, and overall team function?

Active visualization improves meetings in four proven ways. 1. Visual spark imagination. 2. Active recording and co-creation greatly increases engagement. 3. Visual are the key to big picture thinking and systems thinking in groups. 4. Visuals create a group memory that supports implementation and action. This latter aspect is critical to project management, which is largely about getting actions to align and integrate over time. While project management software is highly visual, it is designed for individuals. Graphic templates, decision rooms, roadmaps and other large format visuals are what work with groups. Teams that understand how to run visual meetings and work visually in virtual settings have a much greater chance of getting results than those that don't—especially if they helped co-create the key documents they steer by.

What are three ways that leaders, managers, and others can increase their visual IQ? For non-artists/drawers, what are some tips and tricks to overcoming a fear or hesitancy of using these visual strategies?

Visualization is effective with very simple shapes and figures that anyone can learn to draw. The first way a leader or manager can become more literate is to use visuals in his or her personal notetaking and diagramming to thinking through ideas. A second important way is to begin paying attention to organizing mental models and metaphors that are embedded in verbal communication, and allow people to see how things work together. Visual note taking helps with this, but working with a visual practitioner who graphically records what is happening in key meetings raises everyone's consciousness on a group basis about the metaphors being used. To the extent that much of strategic thinking is analogous thinking (i.e. comparing one thing with something else), visualizing these comparisons allows everyone to expand on, challenge, and ultimately understand how everyone thinks things should work. A third way is to encourage teams and groups to share their ideas with each other using graphic templates rather than slide decks. Slides help the individual develop ideas, but do not invite enough engagement and interaction in most cases to allow others to come to new insight. Large murals and sketches, sticky notes and timelines allow groups to develop ideas all together at a rate that everyone can absorb. Drawing and diagramming is a way of thinking in and of itself. Consciously picking different formats to work with is like going to a brain gym and working out all the different mental muscles available to human beings.

Please describe some of your favorite visualization techniques and technologies.

A. Telling a group story visually is a winner in any kind of situation where you need to onboard new people, reflect on the past for insights, reinforce and think about values and culture. B. I love using graphic templates in small groups to create rapid prototypes of different things—like the general environment, possible visions, new business models, potential action plans—and then comparing for common themes and insights. Groups are full of wisdom and ideas if allowed the means to express them. C. Another favorite is taking strategy, visions, new business models, and other outputs from key meetings and turning them into story map posters that any leader can use to share the conclusions more widely. Treated like software, these large murals can go through versions and people provide input and feedback. The process of vetting the images aligns everyone who is involved, and makes the visuals very meaningful when they are eventually used in less interactive media. The technologies that allow these things to happen easily consist of readily available big paper from plotter printers, all variety of sticky notes in many color, many choices of water color markers, digital cameras and simple photo processing software. The professional tools for print production, infographic design, and video are easier and easier to use.  There really is no technical barrier these days to being highly visual, as young people are discovering in explosions of interest.

What do you see is the future of visualization? And why is it important to get on board with this practice now?

In general, rich media is on the rise in all channels of communication. In business, because visualization is essential to systems thinking and design, and both these qualities are in high demand, visualization is also in increasing demand. This is probably why "design thinking" is so trendy right now. The fact that new touch technologies are transforming our ways of relating to the computer is bringing hand-creation back into vogue, so visualization goes beyond thinking to co-creating. In the future it's possible we'll see keyboards as a very outdated way to interface with information. Since a premium in any organization is having people engaged, understanding what they are doing, and remembering plans as everyone works on different aspects of a project—and these benefits come regularly when groups work together in visual ways. I believe you will see visualization become as standard as writing and calculating.

What makes a good leader to you? Simply answer the questions in our brief Leadership Survey and you’ll be included in an upcoming drawing for a chance to win the following prizes:

First Prize: A complimentary seat in our upcoming leadership program and a copy of David Sibbet's latest book, Visual Leaders: New Tools for Visioning, Management, and Organization Change.

 (David will be presenting at our next free Lunch & Learn Webinar on Thursday, January 31 from noon to 12:40 PT.)

Second Prize: A complimentary, one-year individual membership (includes 12 workshops) and a copy of Visual Leaders.



Third Prize: A copy of the Accomplishing More With Less Workbook and a copy of Visual Leaders.

Here again is the survey link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/leadership-today.

Please make sure to fill in your name and e-mail address at the end of the survey to be included in the prize drawing. Winners will be announced at the Lunch & Learn Webinar on March 7, 2013. Thank you for participating, and good luck!

Did you know that only a fraction of the people who want to write a book ever do? Why?

Even those who normally breeze through a blog or article often freeze when faced with the challenge of 200+ pages in a book. Add in hectic schedules, and the idea of writing a book gets more daunting.

Sound familiar? You can overcome these mental obstacles and start enjoying the business-boosting benefits of a book/e-book with these kick-start techniques:

1. Imitate to innovate: Find a book you love, a book that’s similar to the one you want to write. Often, what you admire is what you aspire to. Now deconstruct its style. Study how the book starts, finishes, and everything in between. You’ll quickly have a blueprint for your book.

2. Write 100 words for 100 days: If procrastination holds you back, this could be your breakthrough tool. Psychologically, you know you can fit 100 words into your schedule. And many days, you’ll write much more because once you’re on a roll, the words tumble out.

3. Write fast first drafts: Don’t worry about the quality of the words—and don’t edit as you go. Just get your ideas down as fast as possible. (This also increases your creativity.) Capture that jumble of thoughts so you can turn it into something great—later. You can fix a messy first draft, but you can’t fix a blank page.

4. Plunge in: Start wherever you feel passionate. Jump into the middle or end—you don’t have to start at the beginning. You’ll find your creativity is super-charged when you’re excited about the section you’re writing.

5. Take breaks: This may sound counterintuitive, but it works. As Pierre Khawand describes in Accomplishing More With Less, work on your book (or any task) for 40 minutes and then take a brief break. That’s 10 or 15 minutes longer than other performance studies, and here’s why in Pierre’s own words: “… while 30 minutes is reasonable and achievable, after 30 minutes of focused work, the ‘engine’ is now fully warmed up and functioning optimally, so those extra 10 minutes are ‘pure’ performance.”

Why not start your business-boosting book today? If you need one more nudge, just think about what it’s costing you not having a book/e-book to promote your business and expertise.

Lynda McDaniel is a writing coach and co-founder of The Book Catalysts. www.bookcatalysts.com/writing-class

Additional Resources

• The Accomplishing More With Less Workbook

• Business Writing for Success

• How to Write Attention Grabbing Content

Forget oil, it’s creativity that may be our most elusive untapped resource. And it’s the reason why major global players like Google and 3M have famously allowed for “creative free time” at work, in which employees can engage in projects they’re passionate about for a nice chunk of time each week, be it a personal hobby or the like. This carte blanche on workplace creativity has been credited in leading to significant innovation at these companies. Moreover, they’ve given us insights on how to foster a more creative work culture, and are contributing to a greater movement in discovering how the brain can access and harness its amazing powers of creativity and innovation.

Daniel Guillory, CEO of Innovations International, is a recognized expert on creativity and innovation, having worked with Toyota Financial Services, Ronald McDonald House Foundation, Merck & Co., and many other corporations and non-profits. We asked him to share his top five book picks on creativity, the brain, and innovation for both in and outside the workplace, so you can better tap into that vast, subconscious well:

1. Innovators DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators by Jeff Dyer, Hal Gregersen, and bestselling author Clayton M. Christensen

2. The Dream Workbook: Discover the Knowledge and Power Hidden in Your Dreams by Jill Morris

3. Creative Visualization: Use the Power of Your Imagination to Create What You Want in Your Life by Shakti Gawain

4. The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How. by Daniel Coyle

5. The Little Book of Talent: 52 Tips for Improving Your Skills by Daniel Coyle

Daniel Guillory will be presenting at our free webinar, “Creativity and Innovation—How to Experience the Lightning Bolt Every Day,” on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012 from 12:00-12:40 p.m. PT.

Register now!

Haven't heard about our summary+commentary (s+c*d) format? Learn more!

Summary

Early birds don’t just get all the worms, they’re happier too—so says a recent study cited by writer Jada A. Graves in, “12 Tasks That Killer Employees Always Finish Before Noon.” If you want to be an early-rising, productive worker, Graves suggests making a to-do list, getting a full night’s sleep, exercising, doing big projects at the start of the day, allotting set time for checking email, and more.

Commentary

Some of Graves’ suggestions may seem like things we’ve heard time and again. But that’s just it. One thing we love about this article at People-OnTheGo is the essential reminder of how much our health influences our productivity and performance at work. It’s not enough, though, just to eat healthy and be well-rested; in order to be a “killer employee” you must have “killer focus” and organization, too.

One of People-OnTheGo’s methodologies, The Results Curve, can help keep you focused as you work toward achieving your daily goals. We’ve discovered that just 40 minutes of focused effort, followed by a collaboration mode (of e-mail, social media, meetings, etc.) can bring breakthrough results in your workday. Instead of multitasking and not giving your full concentration, try just 40 minutes of focused effort—followed by collaborative work—and you’ll see how much more you’re able to accomplish. Then repeat, of course!

Discussion

What do you do to prepare for your workday? What are some tasks that you think make a “killer employee”? Do you feel focused before and during the workday, or do you need help organizing and setting priorities?

Additional Resources

Haven't heard about our summary+commentary (s+c*d) format? Learn more!

Summary

Corporate employees send and receive about 105 emails daily. Writer Nick Bilton thinks that’s a big problem as he tries to manage his more than 6,000 monthly emails, using everything from filters to away messages to no avail (see "Disruptions," NYT). He cites a 2012 UC Irvine report stating that those who didn’t check email regularly at work were less stressed and more productive than those who checked more often. Bilton considers other forms of messaging instead, like Google Chat or Twitter, or even not responding at all.

Commentary

We relate with Bilton about email frustration, but “avoidant inbox disorder” is not the solution. Our methodology at People-OnTheGo is that email is a task you schedule into your day. This enables you to focus your work effort, while saving time for collaboration (email, social media, etc.). We have a unique inbox strategy that helps you prioritize emails, daily and weekly; no more switching tasks to attend to every alert. We also agree with the UC Irvine study:  those who check email less regularly—though we would add “and more strategically”—are less stressed and more productive.

Discussion

Are you frustrated and overwhelmed by email? Do you try to avoid it? Are newer forms of communication like chat and social media messaging more preferable to you? What are some email solutions that you use in the workplace?

Additional Resources

You may have heard about the cloud, the "next big thing" in computing, virtual storage, sharing, and internet technology. And even if you haven't, you're likely using cloud-based services in your home or workplace already, such as Gmail, Skype, Dropbox, and more. In anticipation of "Living in the Cloud," our free webinar on Thursday, August 2, we interviewed presenter Thomas Koulopolous about his book, Cloud Surfing, the business and personal implications of the cloud, and where this innovation will lead in the coming years.

People-OnTheGo:  What prompted you to write Could Surfing? And why now?

Thomas Koulopoulos:  The book started nearly three years ago with a simple premise that nearly every social, economic, academic, and business institution is being threatened by the intense hyperconnectivity of the cloud—and yet this hyperconnectivity will increase tenfold in less than a decade. The implications are beyond our wildest imagination.

You mention risk, innovation, scale, and success. Do you believe that the risk is well-managed now, and that success outweighs the risk?

I believe that the appetite for risk is very much a cultural norm that is influenced by the price of failure and the cost of experimentation. For example, the risks we took to put a man on the moon or to end World War II had enormous implications that we were willing to accept because failure was not an option. In some way we lament the progress made in those eras and we talk about how that appetite for risk has changed radically. However, what I see as a result of the cloud is that today young entrepreneurs celebrate failure and experimentation. They discount the risk and have much less fear of it. The reason is simple:  they can experiment quickly and at near zero cost, while also having a shot at changing the world à la Facebook or Twitter. It's no longer about just managing risk, it's about accepting it with open arms.

How do you compare cloud computing to the mainframe era from years ago? What are the resemblances and the key differences?

I often hear people say that cloud is just the old time-sharing model used in the mainframe era. That is an incredibly simple way to avoid the disruption that the cloud will cause. The cloud is not just about technology. The cloud is about connectivity. Mainframes did very little to connect people and machines. They were repositories of data and information which caused organizations to be inwardly focused on highly structured frameworks for how pieces of data worked together. The cloud is all about connections, a focus on the outside, and a lack of structure where data and information are being brought together in ways we never could have rationally anticipated.

What would be the top cloud services that businesses "must" explore?

Start with the basics:  storage and computing (aka Amazon); move onto processes and applications (aka Salesforce); from there go to private clouds (putting your apps in the cloud), then consider which apps you can provision to the public cloud. Having done that you have about 1% of the cloud under your belt. Again, the misunderstanding is that the cloud is all about technology. It's not. The cloud is about how you employ people, utilize talent, collaborate, predict, infer sentiment, shape and influence markets, and ultimately how you build your business model. That is a long journey.

Why should individuals explore the cloud?

The most amazing thing I see among individuals over the age of 40 is that they bury their head in the sand when it comes to the cloud. The only practical answer to how you will survive the cloud is to learn how to surf it. That only comes with using it. So rather then poo poo Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, and instant messaging, I tell people to just use them. Even if they can't possibly see value to it. The reality is that the value of the cloud will change. While there may be much more effort involved in extracting value from the cloud today than most people think they will get back, it is still something you need to use to appreciate and to evolve with. If you sit on the sidelines you had better be ready for an incredibly steep learning curve.

Where do you see this phenomenon going 5 or 10 years from now?

I often joke that the best futurists are not the pundits, gurus, or economists but rather the science fiction writers. Wells, Asimov, Heinlein, Clark were all much better and much closer at predicting the future than the best pundit. The acceleration of the cloud will be unlike anything we have experienced. Yet, there are some telltales that show us the trajectory. The best one is to watch the way your kids behave online. Look at how they game, socialize, play. What you are seeing is how they will work. To me that is the best indicator of how radically different even the near-term future will be. The good news (or perhaps the bad news for some) is that most of us will be here to see that future. Whether we will be ready for it and be able to surf it is another matter all together.

Register now for "Living in the Cloud" with Thomas Koulopolous, our free Lunch & Learn Webinar on Thursday, August 2.