The Future of Work According to Net:Work Speakers and Participants

Where does collaboration or social technology fail, and where does it succeed?

It’s not about the technologies that are failing, but rather about an adoption curve and getting companies to really explore how they can put these tools to work to achieve operational benefits. Early innovators have the difficult position of bringing these technologies to the masses, teaching people to use them, and laying the groundwork for how work will function in the future. — Maynard Webb, CEO and Chairman of LiveOps

Social technology in the workplace needs to get better at separating noise from meaning. Reputation systems, filtering and integration need to improve so workers get information served when needed, rather than useless blather. There is a lot of innovation underway in this area and the demand for systems that work is swelling. — Glenn Solomon, Partner, GGV Capital

How do you combat information and communication overload for your team and customers?

People are drowning in digital overload. According to a New York Times/CBS poll, we’re switching applications 37 times an hour! Too much information and too many useful-but-disjointed tools make it harder to get our work done. Aggregation will reduce the number of context switches, but business users typically resist changes to their work habits, thus widening the enterprise 2.0 adoption gap. — David Lavenda, VP of Marketing, Mainsoft

Teams need technologies that can facilitate communication and collaboration. What is often overlooked are the tools to facilitate “trust” in a remote relationship. — Gary Swart, CEO, oDesk

What does the “future of work” look like to you in the next 10 years?

Companies are increasingly seeking virtualized relationships where they can acquire “end-to-end” business solutions through the cloud. Professional services are becoming the new frontier for cloud-based delivery. There is an opportunity for a new type of professional services firm that can harness technology to identify, aggregate and deploy in real-time teams of experts who can collaborate on client needs. — Sugath Warnakulasuriya, CEO, 10EQS Consulting Services North America

The future of work is transparent, flat, competitive and on-demand. With the advent and adoption of web-based management and collaboration tools, businesses are embracing the idea that “work is not a place.” Finding creative ways to stand out will become more important than ever for businesses and for workers. And the structure of the working world will shift toward flexible, on-demand models that allow businesses to scale up and down, access specialized talent, and manage costs on an as-needed basis. — Gary Swart, CEO, oDesk


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