Say goodbye to the commute and the 9 to 5; tommorrow's world logs on to a virtual office.

Is it necessary to have a physical workplace anymore?

Communication and interaction with colleagues is largely over telephone and email. In the new, global working world, meetings are usually held by conference calls between several continents. The War for Talent currently being waged on the global stage has set a requirement for the streamlining, liberation and clarification of working practices. Change in the workplace is reaching a critical apex, and momentum will soon push the office over the boundary of the physical, and into a virtual reality.

Physical meetings do not have to be cut out, as they are vital in establishing trusting relationships. However, the shift from the traditional office based work lifestyle to a freer, roaming reality – constantly connected by an online computer network holding all the office’s files – requires a mental leap more than any real change in working habits.

Work can continue as it is now, but ties to the office can be loosened – things will proceed almost entirely as they have done up to this point, however, the employee sitting at a computer need no longer be in a centralized office.

Think what this could mean for maternity/paternity leave and flexitime.

All the technology to regulate this shift is already in existence, and moving towards a consolidated coherence all the time. A centralized “virtual office” resembling Google documents (integrated with email) should register not only the log on/log off times of employees, but also what documents they are working on, the office goals (with deadlines), and instant updates on the progress of employees – rather like Newsfeed on Facebook. This could mean a shift to task and achievement-based (rather than the inefficient time-based) working hours and payment plans – and this information would make the streamlining of talented workers a far clearer task for human resources.

I predict that within one year, necessity will cause a prototype of this program to emerge naturally on the web, probably by Google. This is what it will look like.

THE VIRTUAL OFFICE

The most important thing about this program is, it is for all offices. People will not give up on physical offices immediately, and neither should they. This should be a program that is designed for use within an office. Let people get used to it, and see how useful it is. THEN, once they are used to working on a streamlined program like this, results will start to appear... maternity/paternity leave... flexitime... working from home some days... and slowly, slowly, office space will become unnecessary, and human life can retake the city centre, traffic and congestion will be much reduced, (along with demand for gasoline) and humans working in the tertiary sector can finally enjoy the independence that today’s technology already affords them. Flexible, human. Goodbye to the grind.

At the moment, virtual office means impressive offices in prime locations to rent by the hour for meetings, with secretaries installed to answer the telephone, and forward mail. It's the business of illusion - the illusion of being an established company rather than one guy with a crackberry. In short, the MS DOS realization of the concept. Mine is the Windows.

I think google is working towards my idea, with Gmail, actually. Check out Google docs, if you haven't seen it already - it's an application for editing attachments online without ever downloading them. The competent word, pdf and powerpoint programs accessible from anywhere surpasses the need to be working from an updated-to-the-minute computer. (Your work need no longer be limited by the absence of say, English language spellcheck on the eccentrically outfitted dinosaur which is comp number 6 at Cheapest Internet Cafe! - passive receptacle for the unsavory mementos of every backpacker to pass through Istanbul since 2002). Gmail continues to realize the best kind of technology - that is, not a fad, but a development that addresses and allieviates a pre-existing need and makes life easier and less cluttered for everyone. So lets take Gmail as the basis of our virtual office.

COWORKERS

To the left you have contacts, your coworkers. Obviously we need cam and mike, not just chat, available here. Video Conference calling provided for free by Skype, or any other competent chat program.

Contacts also includes the office contacts. All those contacts can be filed variously, for example "suppliers", "board members", "press contacts good/blacklisted". Searchable.

FILING CABINET

Say we put a box below contacts - "filing cabinet". Here is where all the office documents are stored. It's configured just like windows explorer, files leading to smaller files. It works just like the comp-comp networks found in every physical office, but it's more sophisticated because accessibility only demands an internet connection.

To work on a document, double click and it appears before you. To edit, click "edit" - it will automatically copy and paste itself into a editable copy, attached to the original. Thus, once you have saved it, we have a track list of who worked on the doc, what they did, etc. For an embryonic but visionary version of this feature, check out "collaborations" on Google docs.

If someone else is working on a doc, it should tell you, and encourage you both to save as often as possible in order to keep up with eachother's edits.

When someone saves their changes on a doc that you're working on, it should pulse.

NEWSFEED

Just like that on Facebook. A tally of network activity, automatically updating itself. It tracks when people log in to the office and what work they do. Example - "14:17 Naomi O'Leary edited Attendees Conference Lisbon 2008", "15:37 Naomi O'Leary set a new goal for September 20th 2008 "Have all speeches ready for printer"".

This automatically does the work of whoever is in charge of paying office workers, by making sure they're working, and when. What's more, the manager is authorised to review the daily work of whoever, having an administrative account with higher access to docs. Similarly, docs on payment that might be needed by accounts, can only be reviewed by accounts. Newsfeed means that peoples main worry about a virtual office - how do you know they're actually working - is irrelevant, because you can track progress even better than in a physical office. Plus, the program will take this data and sort it, so come up with average hours, and find out the work patterns of the best workers, so the information on how weak workers can do better – and who should be promoted - will be available.

CALENDAR

I mentioned Naomi O'Leary setting a goal for September. Once the manager, or whoever, knows something needs to be done, they set a date for the completion of that goal. Not everyone needs to know all goals - groups of people can be tagged in each goal. Then, to know what you need to do that day, and what is more pressing, click "review goals" and ta-da, you can view your goals in order of urgency. And clicking on each goal will bring up an outline of the project and relevant doc folder, etc. This is really needed to keep people on track in offices, virtual or not.

EMAIL

You have

1. your personal email and
2. the general email

So 2 inboxes. Or more, if you're a manager or big boss and require it. Your secretary could have access to the general, theirs, and yours, but not your other inbox.

The program is very clever. It tracks what docs your working on, and what words you are most likely to use there, and in email etc. So it automatically knows, more or less, the general inbox emails that might apply to you. So the general email will have "6 unread that meet your preferences", not just a huge enormous account. Anything actually addressed to you should be redirected automatically into your account.

Filters and so on can be set, like Gmail.

APPLICATIONS

The program must be open to customization. In order for it not to be simply surpassed by better technology in the short time, the users need to be doing the work and telling us what they need.

Here's an example of an application. Online movies. The company arranges for each worker to get free access to one movie a week – to watch online with the family (I am bewildered by the daily continual existence of the obsolete technology that is the television). The movie provider is pleased, as it gets to advertise.

Other ways it could be profitable. "See what other offices are using" - apps that are popular, ie, headlines, so on.

Offices can set access to apps as they like.

STATUS

Advice for users - boundaries! Do not be in the office 24/7. The program should warn you if you've exceeded your hours. You could have "inactive hours", while you're logged in but making the dinner, say.

This is where status comes in. You are not contactable when it suits you, and that's it. Or, you are contactable only if that important email arrives.