Yesterday I celebrated my 6th anniversary at Constellation Research. I want to thank Ray Wang and my colleagues for all their support and how much I learn from them everyday. Also, to our amazing clients, you're why I do this. Since I began here my goal has been simple: to provide pragmatic advice about what's coming next for the way individuals and teams get work done. I'm not a cheerleader for change just for the sake of it, nor do I criticize new ideas just because they seem a little out there. I look for trends and patterns in technology and culture and try and extrapolate how they will apply to the business world.
One of the first things I worked on was advancing the conversation around "social business" from "reducing email" or "working transparently" to be more about focusing on real business processes. This is an area I dubbed Purposeful Collaboration and something I'm glad to see is a major topic today, as almost all collaboration tools are now focusing on integrating with business applications, enabling people to work together around a business object or process.
As the popularity of collaboration platforms grew, I realized that "working transparently" was going to cause a great deal chaos and noise, leading to information overload. To combat this challenge, work needs to be organized and structured. This is an area I originally called Social Task Management, or sometimes Structured Collaboration... which is now more often referred to as Collaborative Work Management. This is an incredibly hot space right now, with several vendors securing huge funding rounds, a few acquisitions, and new products being launched. Pay attention here, as focusing on work, prioritizing what needs doing, accountability and repeatability are keys elements to getting work done.
Another project I really enjoyed was working with Ray on debunking the whole "millennials work differently" conversation. After extensive interviews we came up with a framework that categorizes employees not by the generation they were born, but instead via their "Digital Proficiency". We've used this framework to work with clients all around the world to help them better understand their employees and plan their strategies accordingly.
Now you can't read a single IT article these days without a mention of Artificial Intelligence, or AI. I actually presented a session at Salesforce Dreamforce in 2014 called "From Clippy to Jarvis" which talked about how our software was becoming more automated, more intelligent, more helpful. The intersection of AI and personal productivity / team collaboration is still nascent, but there is no doubt it will become a standard (ideally invisible) part of every tool we use.
So what comes next? I'm more excited now that I was 6 years ago when I started. We've barely scratched the surface in truly helping people get work done. We're at the dawn of new ways to create, share, discover, visualize, and interact with context, colleagues and customers. The chart below provides a glimpse into some of the things I'm working on. The Future of Work is going to be amazing, I hope you'll join me on the journey.
