The future of the office

By Nicola Millard, BT futurologist

New attitudes and technologies are changing the way we do business. The dawning of the digital age has created a 21^st century business model that crosses geographical borders 24/7 and transformed the way we work.

The emergence of technology such as wi-fi and cloud computing has presented us with more opportunities to work anywhere, anytime...and with any device.

It leads us to ask two questions: ‘What are offices for?’ and: ‘Is it time to look beyond the office?’

This topical subject is examined in the first of three papers in the WorkShift series written by BT futurologist Dr Nicola Millard and BT's head of agile working, Steve Gillies. You can read more on the first paper in a feature on BT’s innovation pages.  The authors look at the various aspects of work and explore the ways employees are leading the change in the way they are working as a consequence of breaking free from their desks.

The paper goes on to investigate the changing nature of the fixed office environment, how employees are using  'third party' places such as coffee shops to work and the growing trend of using their own devices to perform their jobs.