• Aegis Australia has appointed a new CEO with 20-year customer contact executive Andrew Hume taking over the reins.
• Datacentre Africa, the premier regional event for IT infrastructure, will take place in Johannesburg 26-27 June 2013. Thinking differently about data centres provides the focus for this year’s Datacentre Africa (http://www.datacentreafrica.com)

By Nicole Hasham, Jason Dowling

Creating highly skilled “knowledge” jobs in Sydney’s outer suburbs is likely to fail and governments should bring people closer to existing jobs, a new report says.

It calls into question decades of government policies designed to shift so-called “knowledge-intensive” jobs such as engineers, scientists and financial analysts outside central Sydney, including a $13.5 million federal government grant for the University of Western Sydney’s new health and education jobs hub.

The Productive Cities report by public policy think tank the Grattan Institute argues that knowledge-intensive companies often cluster in central locations where they can collaborate and reach the right workers. This leads to increased productivity.

But there is little evidence that creating knowledge-intensive jobs in outer suburbs is cost-effective or leads to significant numbers of long-term jobs, the report said.

“When people say we need to move the knowledge-intensive jobs from the CBD to the suburbs, that just doesn’t work, it is not how the economy works,” Grattan Cities’ program director Jane-Frances Kelly said.

“You just can’t subsidise [businesses] enough to compensate for the disadvantage they would have not being in the CBD.”

The report says cheap rents, land availability and less road congestion in outer suburbs can benefit some firms, such as those in transport and manufacturing.

But knowledge-intensive firms may lose the benefits of clustering, which can “harm our cities’ productivity and employment growth overall”.

The report also downplayed the benefits of relocating government offices, as local workers do not always fill the jobs.

It questioned policies such as the federal government’s $45 million Suburban Jobs Program, which last year provided $13.5 million to support a new University of Western Sydney jobs precinct at Werrington Park. It aims to generate 6000 jobs in areas such as health, engineering, digital communications and education.

UWS economic geography professor Phillip O’Neill said a growing number of western Sydney residents had tertiary qualifications and sought jobs closer to home. The Norwest Business Park at Baulkham Hills and the Macquarie Park Corridor at Ryde showed that “high end” job centres outside central Sydney do work, he said.

A spokeswoman for Population and Communities Minister Tony Burke said high-skilled workers also lived in the outer suburbs and “if we keep putting homes at one end of our cities and jobs at the other then the only future is gridlock”.

Ms Kelly said governments should focus on increasing access to all jobs through better transport connections and housing choices in established suburbs. In some outer suburbs only 11 per cent of jobs are within reasonable public transport travel times, compared to 53 per cent from the city centre, which risks locking many residents out of job opportunities, the report said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cbd-location-is-best-for-knowledge-jobs-20130505-2j14k.html#ixzz2SSeBy500

(In Photo: Ian Walker, Queensland IT Minister)

By Sylvia Pennington

Technology outsourcing ‘will continue to increase’

Hundreds of technology workers in the Queensland public sector face an uncertain future after the government reaffirmed on Thursday its intention to outsource an array of services currently delivered in-house.

The news comes in the wake of the Costello Commission of Audit into the state’s finances, which recommends the government look to outsourcing and asset sales to balance its books.

The government’s commercial service delivery vehicle CITEC and its Shared Services division employ about 500 and 250 staff respectively.

CITEC’s remit includes data centre, network and internet service provision, while Shared Services manages and supports the majority of the state’s finance and human resources systems and processes.

Queensland Minister for Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts Ian Walker, who oversees both units, told IT Pro the private sector would be given the opportunity to compete for this work as soon as possible.

The move would “ensure service meets up to external standards”, Mr Walker said.

Agencies needed to stop providing services and become procurement managers, Mr Walker said.

Details on how the state will move from one model to another, including whether departments will chose their own suppliers or be herded into whole-of-government arrangements, are yet to be determined.

Mr Walker said his department wanted to proceed quickly but cautiously with the transformation process and would formulate “a proper plan to move from one model to another”.

The government was keen to avoid further costly Queensland Health payroll-type debacles, Walker said.

Affected staff would be kept informed, he added: “We will talk it through with them and work out the detail”.

Nitty gritty has been conspicuous by its absence in the government’s ICT strategy to date, although motherhood statements and hyperbole have been in ready supply.

It’s been a year since Walker’s predecessor Ros Bates announced a $5.2 million audit into the state’s aging ICT systems. Originally due to be handed down last October, the audit report has yet to make it to Cabinet and may never be released publicly. Mr Walker took on the job in February promising to ring in changes.

Last September, Ms Bates described the state’s ICT infrastructure as a “1972 Ford Falcon clunker” with a $6 billion repair bill. Edited highlights of the audit report revealed the government runs 1730 applications, most of them bespoke and at least 10 years old, and a slew of duplicated systems.

The prospect of an upcoming outsourcing bonanza comes as welcome news to the local ICT sector, which has seen public sector work dry to a trickle in the past 12 months.

Slow times have compounded the woes of hundreds of local ICT workers who found themselves on the jobs queue after the government slashed hundreds of contract roles shortly after coming to power.

The managing director of the listed IT services company Data 3, John Grant, said the government faced the difficult agenda of reinvigorating the local economy and cutting costs within government.

Pushing more revenue into the private sector could help achieve both goals, Mr Grant argued.

“It’s good to give the industry the opportunity to see some positive future,” he said.

“I don’t want to advocate public sector jobs to be lost but people have to find their place in the transformation.”

While some ICT workers might fear the changes, they needed to “look out the windscreen, not in the rear-view mirror”, Mr Grant said.

Whether the government will require ICT work to be conducted in Queensland remains to be seen.

Offshoring has become a favourite means of containing costs for many large private sector organisations including big banks. The practice has drawn the ire of many in the ICT sector who say it erodes wages and prospects for local technology workers.

In February, Brisbane City Council workers took to the streets to protest against the outsourcing of 55 IT jobs to HCL, a company based in India, to save $7.9 million.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/government-it/uncertainty-as-government-vows-to-outsource-more-tech-services-20130502-2iuzo.html#ixzz2SHPzPwdb

Video 

As people are increasingly overloaded with information, the trend is for B2B websites and presentations to contain short, sharp, high-impact videos, which conveys the seller’s key messages and entices prospects to find out more. Sometimes this is in the form of a “why us” message from the CEO, a testimonial from a key customer, or a fun intro to your business. Videos aren’t always expensive to produce, yet when made well they go a long way to convey the image of a professional company moving with the times. Stand out from the crowd and think about including a link to your video clip in introductory emails to new prospects.

Media releases
If a company’s doing their homework on you, it may be a cause of concern to them if the latest press release on your website is dated 2010! Companies take confidence in regular good news stories, as a sign that your company is doing well, and here to stay! Parade your success in the market with media releases, where new clients are agreeable, and consider attaching the latest release as a PS on emails to new prospects. PR is an essential ingredient to the marketing mix and can be implemented with modest budgets if not in-house.

Case studies
If your company can reference similar experience to the needs of your prospect, then capture this in the form of a one page, easy-to-digest case study. Avoid just describing the services you provided, focus also on the benefits you delivered. Have a library of case studies at your fingertips to wheel out to appropriate leads.

Checklist
While each new lead requires a custom approach, have a checklist of common questions which will enable you to get to the next step – whether a proposal or meeting – as quickly as possible. Minimise situations where you have to go back with questions in a piecemeal fashion. Companies often appreciate if you can email them a checklist of everything you need to know to be able to formulate a proposal.

Proofreader
One of the greatest pitfalls when contacting a new business lead is an email riddled with spelling or grammatical errors. Take the time to re-read your email before clicking send! The same goes for responses to requests for information and proposals – it pays to proofread thoroughly. While spelling may not be a stated evaluation criterion, a poorly written document can leave an indelible, negative impression.

• South Africa has won the National Outsourcing Association (UK) – Offshoring Destination of the Year in 2013, for the second year in a row.  Congratulations South Africa!

  See: http://thesauce.net.au/south-africa-nominated-for-european-outsourcing-award

• Avalon Airport which is 56 kilometres south-west of Melbourne is poised to become Melbourne’s second international airport after the Australian and Philippines governments cleared the way for direct flights in and out of there. Australia and the Philippines signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday that a Philippines airline could fly directly between Manila and Avalon airports once a day. Justin Giddings, Avalon airport’s chief executive, said the next step in achieving international status was locking in an agreement with a Philippines airline, then establish customs and quarantine facilities. He said this would pave the way to attract airlines from other countries. “We are also seeking air rights to Hong Kong, Malaysia and India.”
• Australia – Hits 23 Million – Australia’s population is about to tick past the 23 million mark as the country continues to grow at the fastest rate in the developed world.
• For the fourth consecutive year, IDC ranked IBM number one in worldwide market share for enterprise social software. Social networking adoption continues to soar as businesses look to transform their organization into a smarter enterprise that is capable of empowering a global workforce and transforming client experiences.  According to IDC, the worldwide enterprise social market segment reached 1.0 billion in 2012, representing growth of 25 percent over 2011.
• A Deutsche Bank report illustrated what many suspect – whether catching public transport, ordering a beer or buying medicine to battle a cold, Australians pay among the highest prices on the planet. The Deutsche report uses prices in New York as a baseline, and converts all prices to $US. It echoes the findings of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual Worldwide Cost of Living survey, which ranked Sydney and Melbourne as the third- and equal-fourth most expensive cities in the world to live. Labour costs on average, three times more than in Britain. Wages in Australia are about 50 per cent higher than in the US or New Zealand, and average weekly earnings have risen roughly 3.5 per cent a year for the past five years. Australian wages have outstripped inflation for more than a decade.

Mathematicians and neuroscientists!

BIG Data starting to come into mainstream

Big data. There’s no agreement on exactly what it is; yet companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on it and claiming good returns. And when it comes to spend, a handful of Australian companies are up there with the leaders.

Those are some of the conclusions from a study into big data by Tata Consulting Services for which it surveyed 1217 companies in eight countries in four regions of the world.

Big data loosely defines the collection and analysis of myriad unrelated data sources with the aim of drawing meaningful business insights.

TCS vice-president and chief technology officer K. Ananth Krishnan told IT Pro: ”Australia turns out to be the highest in terms of median spending per company, $50 million.” The median spending in the US was $9 million a company.

However, Krishnan said that, overall, Australia had one of the lowest rates of big data usage. ”The way I would interpret this is that those companies that have started have really dived in with both feet to the extent that they are way ahead of everybody else in the world.”

According to the report, only 32 per cent of Australian respondents said they had undertaken big data initiatives in 2012. The overall figure for the 1217 companies surveyed globally was 53 per cent. India led with 70 per cent, followed by Mexico and the US with 68 per cent. One US company alone, General Electric, has pledged $US1 billion to big data over the next four years.

Frost & Sullivan research analyst Vu Anh Tien agreed that a number of large companies in Australia were making substantial use of big data analytics but the relatively low uptake was the result of skepticism and uncertainty.

Hiring practices, training, and management will draw from a deeper understanding of neuroscience and complex behavioural algorithms. Already, start-ups have emerged that promise to train individuals to increase their mental acuity, focus, and efficiency based on brain science. Company- specific algorithms will be developed for software that vets new applicants based on detailed questionnaires. As science comes to work, human resource managers will need to become versed in these new sciences. While most HR personnel will likely not be scientists, they will need to be able to understand the language of these disciplines and collaborate with scientists in order to assess and implement some of the new tools. A manager may not know how to design Monte Carlo simulations to optimise workflow, but he must be able to speak the language of mathematicians to understand the theory behind suggested methods.

See next story about Big Data and BPO

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/spending-big-on-big-data-20130422-2iaho.html#ixzz2RhE1iRyd

By Martin Conboy

With the upcoming SSON event in Melbourne looming, the leading personalities and thought leaders were asked where they saw the industry heading in terms of growth and best practice, and where some of the challenges are as the industry moves forward.

Global expansion and engaging with Asia

Enrico Rizzon, VP of A.T. Kearney remarked ”Whilst the Australian market is becoming more comfortable with outsourcing, the post-event reality often falls short of the original business case both in terms of performance and value delivered.” There is no doubt that not all outsourcing projects have gone along according to plan and some projects have been cancelled.  “Was the original business case optimistic or could the execution have been better or both?” he questioned.

With a slightly different perspective and a clarion call to industry, Donal Graham Asia Pacific Leader, Back Office Transformation at Deloitte, “The BPO market in ANZ is growing, as evidenced by the presence of new vendors, but too many companies are moving too slowly and too cautiously.” Graham sees it as a pragmatic issue, “The reality is that we will remain a high cost country for the foreseeable future and as such we need to look for every means to improve value and differentiation”. He goes to say, “Australia and NZ must adopt a new mindset to outsourcing and offshoring. Our politics, our media and even legislation such as Australia’s Fair Work Act present barriers to truly thinking of offshoring for competitive advantage”.

 “As Australian firms struggle to come to terms with the ‘new normal’ of lacklustre growth in traditional markets, increased regulation, and stubborn productivity, shared services and outsourcing are a key strategic imperative” agrees Martin Fahy, Partner KPMG, “They provide a platform for growth in Asia, an effective route to regaining cost competitiveness, and a basis for driving better Finance and HR capability in the business.”

Best Practice

Niranjan Deodhar Vice President Genpact feels that the processes are becoming to complex and that may be causing some players in the market to be turned off and not see the opportunities in the right light, “The market for globalised services is far too obsessed with scale.” He sees the market shifting away from the Tier one contracts and spreading to smaller organisations, “We need to drop the entry barrier and make this work for more than just the big end of town. That will require more standardized and intelligent processes, and simpler governance.” He argues that, “Measures of success have to simplified as well, so that governance can be simplified. This means clients too have to change their expectations. Simple transfer of customized processes will not enable this step change – clients have to be open to really absorbing the best practice that a good provider can bring, and be ready to change.”

“Today’s Shared Service Centre (SSC) and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) have reached the end of their self-live. The benefits gained by economy of scale in a SSC and leveraging the global work force by BPO no longer give competitive advantage and in many cases are playing catch-up with the leading players in the marketplace.” Remarked Peter Monk, Partner & BPO Solution Provider at IBM. He asks, “How do we infuse technology holistically to become a key enabler of process transformation? How do we leverage Research & Development (R&D) to continually innovate and future proof our business?”

With a slightly broader viewpoint, Michelle Cox, Director BPO HP comments, “The BPO market has traditionally relied on bringing to its clients the benefits of scale, labour location and leveraged investments. Now with the advent of multi-channel communications, mobility ‘apps’ and cloud-based models you can no longer simply expect that lining up scale to bring efficiency to a service line will be enough. To succeed and stay relevant you must develop a viewpoint on how customers want to interact with you, aim to achieve customer intimacy at all touch points and choose which parts outsourcing makes sense.”

Russell Ives, Partner, Accenture supports the reasoning, “To achieve and sustain superior outcomes from BPO and Shared Services organisations need to change their frame of reference from the BPO provider and Shared Service function to a broader more holistic end to end perspective that covers transformation of the retained organization, collaborative outcome focused partnerships, change management and continuous improvement for the long term, and has a focus on benefits above and beyond cost reduction.”

Challenges

No one said it was going to be easy, and there was a number of significant hurdles to overcome if we are to fully realise the benefits of outsourcing. One of the first challenges is to make outsourcing a legitimate part of the business landscape. “Educating the media, politicians, unions and the broader public is crucial,” claims David Fincher, Partner of Ernst & Young. “It is the duty of all of us who have had a positive exposure to offshoring to increase the education of those that have not,” he added.

Arno Franz, President of ISG sees Software as a Service as a treat to the space, “While captives and shared service operations have been focused on delivering value (a.k.a. reducing their cost) to their organisations, they have been ignoring the threat of SaaS. Similarly the IT function has been concerning itself with Big Data, Cloud and IaaS, but have also been caught napping. With products like Workday, Oracle Taleo and SAP Success Factors and a plethora of others, we see a turbo-charged SaaS market and equally turbo charged client expectation. While the number of engagements are small, they are growing exponentially, and the result will be a BPO market that will fundamentally change and a shared service function that will lose its relevance.”

“Across the globe we are coming to terms with ageing infrastructure, ageing workforce, transformational service delivery and ever tightening fiscal constraints,” claims Chris Morrison, a Partner at KPMG. He identifies the government sector as an area of opportunity, “The Government Sector needs to transform rapidly and swiftly to support the needs of our citizens and deliver services that will support our communities for years to come. This will require us to release resources to service delivery and embrace BPO partnerships at every level of government in every service area.”

Morrison concludes with, “The challenge (if we are willing) is to develop BPO partnerships and services that will drive our communities and transformational change.”

If you would like to hear more from these leading experts then please visit http://www.sharedservicesweek.com.au

By Martin Conboy

The Australian Business Process Outsourcing Association (ABPOA) will be incorporated into the Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA), the country’s largest marketing and advertising association, at the end of April.

Members of the ABPOA voted unanimously in late February to incorporate ABPOA into ADMA and create a new expert group. Catering for companies interested in outsourcing issues, the group will be named the Business Process Outsourcing Expert Group.

The BPO Expert Group will provide ABPOA with a sense of community and positioning within the ADMA organisation and framework.

ADMA will support the new expert group by providing the structure and resources for ABPOA to deliver on its mission and objectives, and to further the interests of its 50 corporate members.

The mandate of the BPO Expert Group will be to promote industry best practice, identify and respond to key industry issues and trends, provide thought leadership and networking opportunities.

ADMA, which has over 500 corporate members, currently runs 11 industry expert groups which focus on specific marketing specialisations such as multichannel marketing, big data, acquisition, retention and loyalty, B2B, agency and mobile.

“ADMA has a first-rate reputation and was one of the leading voices defending the industry against restrictive legislation and promoting best practice,” said ABPOA President Martin Conboy.

“ABPOA has grown from an idea to a membership organisation with over 50 corporate members. It had reached the stage where it needed to align itself with a bigger secretariat, so that the members can benefit from meeting and networking with all of the existing ADMA members,” he added.

ADMA CEO Jodie Sangster was delighted to welcome the ABPOA into the ADMA fold.

“We have some good experience in incorporating existing associations within our expert group structure and we look forward to representing this sector,” she said.

“We want to support the ability of our members to outsource business processes where it helps their businesses and to connect businesses that provide outsourcing services with those that want them.”

The incorporation approach will provide ABPOA with support through acquisition and retention of members. As well, the new expert group will be able to draw on the ADMA events team for assistance in events planning, ensuring focused and relevant events for their members in the process.

The new BPO Expert Group will determine the activities they wish to undertake which may include creating a code of practice, writing white papers or best practice guidelines on various topics, or undertaking content development, research or networking events. The ADMA secretariat will provide support and resources to help in delivering their annual plan.

To ensure the BPO Expert Group has a strong core base, which can be involved in facilitating the future of Australian business process outsourcing, ADMA is looking for eight current corporate members of ABPOA to commit to joining the expert group this year.

Members interested in participating should contact: Annette Bova, ADMA Membership Director, on 9277 5407 or annette.bova@adma.com.au.

By Martin Conboy

Outsourcing (which includes the terms BPO, shared services and a host of other industry classifications) is still one of the fastest growing and most dynamic industries in the world today. This growth and dynamism, however, has created a complex and fragmented market place that’s difficult for potential buyers to navigate.

Providers are merging, diversifying and constantly adding new services to their portfolios. It’s a challenge for buyers to keep up to date of who’s who in the market, what’s their value proposition, where are they located, and how to evaluate their different service offerings.

Peter Springett, Project Leader for theOutsourcing-guide.com, a new online directory and media service for the outsourcing industry, comments, “It’s hard for people to keep up with what’s happening in the marketplace. Players that were there one day are gone or have joined forces with someone else the next.”

“And traditionally people think of India or maybe the Philippines when they think of outsourcing or offshoring. But the reality is that there are numerous countries and regional economies out there with extensive industries established, offering a range of benefits and incentives.”

It’s a big world out there!

There is a multitude of service providers, many with specialist domain expertise, who are fighting to be heard in what is becoming a very crowded and sometimes shambolic marketplace. Up until now there has been no level playing field.

Quite often it’s a lottery trying to nail down who is who in the zoo. The market is sometimes chaotic and unstructured, and because of this uncertainty, there is always a flight to quality, a sensible choice but usually the most expensive.

When outsourcing, BPO and shared services first emerged in the nineties, the focus was purely on cost. Western corporations adopted a ‘shift and lift’ approach, shifting a section of their non-core business operations to a low cost location.

Current trends in the Industry

Outsourcing has evolved into a very sophisticated and complex art form. Price is no longer the only driver for organisations looking to outsource their business processes. They expect their outsourcing relationships to add strategic value.

Across the globe, companies are being stretched to offer superior customer service.  For many industries, as competition turns products and services into commodities, the ability to offer superior service, cost effectively is seen as a key differentiator.

To meet these expectations, service providers in the major markets are trying to maximise their productivity by establishing bigger centres to attain the resulting economies of scale. They are offering something called a “Pan Global Delivery Model”, where work is routed to the most cost effective location and where the required skills are located.

Crucial to the successful delivery of this model is technology. Rapid technological advance has gone hand-in-hand with the evolution of outsourcing. The Internet, cloud computing, social media, and a host of other technologies have not only created new industries and established new customer communication channels, they have made most of the work done by an organisation placeless. And if the work can be done anywhere then it can be done by anyone.

In the developed economies of North America, Europe and Australia it is getting harder and harder to find people able and willing to work in front office call centres or in back office outsourcing facilities.

And as costs for doing business continue to rise in these locations, particularly places like Australia, the resistance to sending work offshore is diminishing. It is hard to argue against transaction costs of US$0.50 compared to over US$4 per transaction in the US, Europe and Australia.

The challenges

Despite the growth, continuing maturity and growing professionalism of the industry, there are still a number of risks associated with outsourcing and off shoring. These may fall under the general categories of:

• Inadequate service provider infrastructure
• Quality of outsourcer personnel
• Inability to culturally assimilate with end user customers
• The operational transitioning process
• Hidden inefficiencies in the outsourcer’s environment or lack of experience by the outsourcer in the principle’s core market.

Making sense of it all

Seeing the gap in the market The Sauce and Word Labs  decided to ‘curate’ the market. In much the same way as a curater in a museum curates the artifacts and puts them into the relavant sections so that they are properly organised, assembled and easy to find.

TheOutsourcing-Guide.com aims to be a definitive straightforward compendium to the vast range of solutions and services available in the Global Outsourcing, BPO and Shared Services marketplace.

“The Outsourcing Guide will rapidly become the logical place to connect with both sides of the buy/sell equation. From novices to veteran campaigners it is the one location where you will find everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask about outsourcing and shared services”, said Mark Atterby,  Editor of The Sauce (www.thesauce.net.au) one of the Joint Venture partners.

“Already as we are just softly rolling the site out , it is getting immediate traction from all over the world ‘ Said Sritharan Vellasamy, CEO &Founder of  Wordlabs Global, an Asian based publishing house and the other JV partner. www.wordlabs.com.my “What the outsourcing guide does is put all of the service providers in an easy to use compendium organised by category and type of service offered,” he continued.

Reconising that many countries have highly skilled and educated work forces that can be easily accessed via the internet and modern online collaberation tools , and the rise and rise of online employment platforms like freelancer.com, the guide will also breaks out by information by geographic locations and the various benefits offered by each distinct geographical location be it The Philippines, India, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Mauritius, South Africa etc

theOutsourcing-guide.com is the ultimate reference guide for the BPO and outsourcing industries and it will become the most comprehensive resource for organisations looking to engage outsourcing service providers. As well as providing a range of eBooks, articles and whitepapers explaining the various aspects of BPO, theOutsourcing-guide.com provides an online directory of providers segmented by category and location.

If you are interested in promoting your business or if you want to find a quality outsourcing service provider you should visit www.theoutsourcing-guide.com

By Asher Moses

With Yahoo and Google sledging teleworking as slow and detrimental to work quality and creativity, has working from home lost its lustre?

Yahoo’s head of human resources Jackie Reses sent out a memo telling remote staff they must be working in the office by June and if they had an issue they could quit.

Is this the end to what Deloitte said would be one of the biggest structural changes to the Australian labour market this decade?

Not so fast, say experts including Dr Yvette Blount, research co-ordinator at Macquarie University’s Australia Anywhere Working Research Network, who argues that while Silicon Valley innovators may thrive on being together in the office, teleworking in Australia is taking off.

A new Melbourne University study published in the Telecommunications Journal of Australia found people who work from home start earlier, work up to three hours longer and get more done, while they felt more energised, less stressed and had fewer distractions.

Millions of Australians already do some work from home and this number expected to increase with the National Broadband Network (NBN). “There is a lot of telework occurring that is informal that’s not being captured in the official statistics,” said Dr Blount.

However it is clear that teleworking isn’t for everyone, including, ironically, some of the very companies building the online email, instant messaging, office productivity and other tools that enable us to work from anywhere.

“Being a Yahoo isn’t just about your day-to-day job, it is about the interactions and experiences that are only possible in our offices,” said Reses in the Yahoo memo.

“Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussions, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings. Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home.”

BusinessInsider quoted a source saying Yahoo had many people working exclusively from home who were not productive. Google’s chief financial officer Patrick Pichette, said “as few as possible” Google staff worked from home because it was not as conducive to collaboration and creating “magical moments”.

But Tim Fawcett, general manager of government affairs and policy at Cisco Australia, a key promoter of teleworking, said these companies were swimming against the tide. Around 90 per cent of Cisco’s 75,000 global workforce telework at least one day a week, with 40 per cent classified as “mobile workers”.

“Our workers who work outside the office are consistently more engaged, more productive happier [and] have a higher sense of well being than traditional bricks and mortar workers,” said Fawcett.

In the latest teleworking statistics available from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, as at November 2008, about a quarter of Australian workers – or 2.4 million people – worked at least some hours at home of which 32 per cent worked only or mainly at home. The number of teleworking hours increased with age.

However, the number of workers who have a formal teleworking arrangement is thought to be much closer to 6 per cent. The federal government aims to have at least 12 per cent of employees teleworking one day a week by 2020 (a target the federal public service has adopted itself), and teleworking has been pushed heavily by Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Communications Minister Stephen Conroy.

The NBN is being touted as a game-changer for teleworkers and, according to Senator Conroy, will “potentially revolutionise how we will work”.

Deloitte has said teleworking will deliver nationally an extra $3.2 billion a year to the gross domestic product by 2020-21, the equivalent of 25,000 full-time jobs. In a report released late last year it called teleworking “one of the biggest structural changes to the labour market this decade”.

Dr Blount said telecommuting was not a one-size-fits-all solution and in each case a business case needed to be made.

Her research has found that in some instances team members and managers felt reluctant to “bother” teleworkers at home which could hinder collaboration, while at the same time the teleworkers themselves reported being far more productive and satisfied. Some however experienced “social and professional isolation”.

“One of the things that Google and Yahoo are aware of is they want to create a certain culture in their organisations and it’s really difficult to do that if people aren’t physically there,” said Dr Blount.

Teleworkers also reported working longer hours to justify the privilege of working from home. Dr Blount said this raised the question of whether teleworkers were more productive or just working harder, however more research was sorely needed.

She said a key question her research would be asking was, “we’ve been talking about this since the 1970s so why isn’t it [teleworking] business as usual?”.

NBN Co chief Mike Quigley said he had previously employed software developers who worked from home and were “immensely productive”, in some cases 10 or 20 times more productive than average.

“There’s some jobs that don’t lend themselves to teleworking but there’s a lot of jobs that do”, said Quigley, adding many workers mixed it up spending some time at home and some time at work. While that flexibility was “pretty powerful” there had to be a level of trust between the employee and employer.

He could not say how many NBN Co workers worked from home but a formal policy was in place so that “if somebody is going to telework somebody from our HR department goes out, has a look at where they’re going to be working from” to see whether the appropriate conditions were in place.

- with Ben Grubb

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/it-pro/business-it/telecommuting–the-future-aint-what-it-used-to-be-20130225-2f10u.html#ixzz2NTIWXJXo

By Larissa Ham

(In photo: Jodi Ettenberg, centre)

For many people it’s the ultimate dream – ditching cubicle life for the freedom of the open road, without worrying about running out of money.

For a growing number of tech-savvy entrepreneurs, or ‘digital nomads’, making a decent living wherever there’s Wi-Fi has become a happy reality.

We speak to three enterprising types who have managed to create a work/life balance with a difference.

(In photo: James Clark, website builder)

Clark, who still calls Melbourne home when asked, describes himself as a “location independent entrepreneur”.

First bitten by the travel bug when he moved to the UK on a two-year working visa in 1999, Clark found his wanderlust impossible to shake. Luckily, it was around the time the internet started showing great promise.

“That’s when I kind of realised that I really loved the internet and I loved to travel and decided to put the two of them together,” says the now 41-year-old, speaking via Skype from Singapore.

After his UK visa expired, Clark moved to Dublin and vowed to set up a business that would let him continue his globetrotting life. Working temp jobs, he learnt web design at night.

In 2001, he began making travel websites and by 2003, his business, Urban Nomad, had become a full-time proposition.

For many years he lived half the year in St Kilda and spent the rest travelling, but has had no fixed address since 2010.

His main venture is based in Australia and offers web design, e-marketing and search engine optimisation. Clark says his work comes via word-of-mouth or his website, Nomadic Notes, which he created to boost his profile and document his adventures. That’s also led to perks such as a press trip to Jordan.

Clark gets some interesting reactions to his lifestyle.

“I went home once and I ran into a friend and they’re like ‘I heard you’ve become a bum’,” he says.

“It’s a business. I’m pretty sure I work more hours than half my friends.”

TIPS

• Do easier work in cafes, but save new projects for a quieter space such as your hotel room.
• Meet up with other digital nomads through forums such as the Dynamite Circle.

Jodi Ettenberg, food blogger

Canadian-born Ettenberg, 33, originally planned to take a year of leave from her job as a lawyer in New York to travel.

But somehow one year morphed into five, as her travel blog Legal Nomads gained a following and spun off into freelance writing and photography, a self-published book, speaking engagements and social media consulting.

“For the first two years I was working off my savings. I was on a blogger site and not on WordPress,” says Ettenberg.

Now her website gets about 150,000 page views a month.

She’s travelled to destinations including South America, Russia and Mongolia and is now spending four months eating and working in Ho Chi Minh City.

“There’s a fallacy that because I’m posting photos of soup all the time I must not be working at all,” she says. “I’m building a business that I’m really invested in and I’m really proud of.”

Ettenberg says she rarely gets lonely as she hangs out with other digital nomads, arranges meet-ups on the way and regularly returns home.

“I didn’t set out to be a digital nomad. I just kind of followed each rabbit hole,” she says.

“It’s not like I quit my job because I was disenchanted with the corporate world, but now I’ve left it, I’ve loved building something new.”

TIPS

• Develop a routine to avoid sensory overload.
• Use Evernote, WhatsApp, Skype and Boingo.

Colin Burns, web developer

Surviving on your nomadic wits as a single person is one thing, but what about doing it with two kids in tow?

Ask Burns and his wife Tracy, who left Brisbane with Noah, now 7, and Hayley, 5, in January 2010.

Burns had sold a web design business to another company, which he then worked for – but quickly realised he hated being an employee. The day after quitting he won $25,000 in web design contracts.

“That was kind of the catalyst. We realised we really didn’t have to be in Australia to do this kind of work,” says Burns, who wanted to spend more time with his young children.

“We just figured raising kids was difficult anyway, whether we were at home or travelling.”

Giving themselves six weeks to take off, the young family was hit for six when Tracy was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. Three months later she was OK and they were away.

“That first year we did a fair bit of travel, backpacker-style travel,” says Burns.

Tracy home-schools the children while her husband does the back-end work for Australian websites.

Much of their time has been spent in Asia, where life is cheap and Wi-Fi is plentiful.

“You pretty much know that most places in Asia have Wi-Fi. Unless you’re on a tiny deserted island in Thailand you’re going to be fine,” says Burns.

In July, Burns and his family will ditch the backpacks indefinitely, as the children start school in Queenstown, New Zealand.

“We’re at that point now where I’ve had enough and the kids have had enough and Tracy’s had enough,” says Burns. “You can have too much of a good thing.”

Burns plans to continue his business from Queenstown and is also involved in a soon-to-be-launched New Zealand start-up Scrattch.com that aims to be a Pinterest for content. (A content sharing service that allows members to “pin” images, videos and other objects to their pinboard) Ed.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/small-business/exotic-life-for-aussie-digital-nomads-20130322-2gjju.html#ixzz2OKUKxVdv

By Kate Hagan, Bridie Smith, Peter Barrett, Clare Kermond, Lucy Beaumont and Felicity Lewis

They might be a long way off, but groundwork for some amazing breakthroughs is being laid right here in Australia and right now. Below, we list the Melbourne research that could change your future.

They might be a long way off, but groundwork for some amazing breakthroughs is being laid right here in Australia and right now. Below, we list the Melbourne research that could change your future.

… by 2033

* Architects print out your new house on a 3D printer and robots build it.

What are they? Houses designed with algorithms, printed out in carbon-fibre form from a three-dimensional printer and built by robots. Advances in computer programming, 3D printing and robotics have opened the door to exciting new architectural forms made from lightweight composite materials such as carbon fibre, fibreglass and Kevlar. The spin-offs include less waste (there are few, if any, off-cuts from a 3D printer), improved energy savings and efficient lightweight structures (using algorithms from natural systems) that can be built where it wasn’t previously feasible (sheer cliffs, floating structures on the ocean).

Who is doing it? Roland Snooks, architect and lecturer at RMIT’s school of architecture and design. Snooks, a Fulbright scholar who spent seven years in the US, is back in Melbourne writing his own computer programs, which he uses to orchestrate futuristic architectural designs. “I think we are on the verge of a revolution in architectural design and construction,” he says. “The relationship between new ways of designing in conjunction with advances in materials and robotic fabrication techniques have the potential to make a radically new architecture.”

Will it work? Yes. A printer that spits out 25-centimetre-cubed objects now costs less than $2000 and the race is on to build the first 3D printed house, which could happen in the next year, says Snooks. With more architects interested in writing computer programs, algorithmic design’s future is bright, even if it’s unlikely to dominate architecture in 20 years. Meanwhile, RMIT has bought two industrial robots (the kind you see on car manufacturing lines) and experiments are underway to adapt them for building construction. What the neighbours may think of the radical designs is another matter.

See sial.rmit.edu.au and kokkugia.com

* Your brain waves can be manipulated to jog memory or scratch bad recollections.

What is it? A brain stimulator to eliminate painful memories or retrieve lost ones. Transcranial magnetic stimulation is used to stimulate nerve cells in areas of the brain that are underactive or overactive, such as in depression and schizophrenia. Dr Jee Hyun Kim says the same technique could be used to manipulate memory. “If you think about sound, it travels through the air on vibrating air particles and they create a wave. It’s the same in the brain,” Kim says. “The neurons are like air particles and they have their own activity that uses electricity. Depending on how different neurons in the same area are activated, the result is an electrical wave in that region of the brain. That wave then transmits to other parts of the brain and, more and more, it seems that memory formation and recollection depends on those waves being synchronous to other regions. I think that, 20 years from now, we could create a device that would enhance synchronous activity of the brain to aid memory recollection or create asynchrony to suppress memories.”

Who’s doing it? Dr Jee Hyun Kim is a researcher with the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in Parkville. Kim is studying memory formation and recall in addiction and anxiety disorders.

Will it work? Kim thinks it will be possible to use magnetic stimulation to jog memories in people with Alzheimer’s disease (as long as the neurons storing the memories are still alive). Weakening memories might be useful for patients with post-traumatic stress disorder. But erasing all recollections of a love gone wrong, as in the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is a distant prospect. “If we can decode the brainwaves for specific memories then I do think that is possible – but it’s very extreme and a long way off.”

See florey.edu.au

… by 2023

See vidrl.org.au (see publications/supercomputer)

* Farmers can tell exactly what species live on their land by using “sound maps”.

What is it? The solar-powered Automated Biophony Sensor System is, essentially, a high-fidelity listening device. Wireless sensors mounted on trees or poles in, say, an orchard or a grass paddock record animal noises. Encased in an army-green plastic box about half the size of a textbook (it’s waterproof and UV-resistant) the device can collect up to a terabyte of data in a month – that’s thousands of hours of audio. The object of the exercise is to inform farmers about how many different types of animals live on their patch of land. “It’s all about biodiversity and ensuring that whatever you are doing to the land isn’t having a major impact on it,” says Aaron Maher, managing director of Procept. The sensors pick up all environmental noises: both man-made and natural. Certain sounds can be highlighted. “You can delve down further and do species identification with other algorithms as well,” says Maher. The soundscape of pristine forest can be recorded as a baseline for later comparative study. Transmitted wirelessly via the 3G network or by the satellite network, the data is sent to a central server up to a kilometre away.

Who’s doing it? Product development company Procept with the Department of Primary Industries.

Will it work? It already is. A six-month trial in an orchard in Tatura in the Goulburn Valley last June showed that the device was sensitive enough to pick up the sounds of raindrops or a car in the distance. “It’s quite a complex device with a number of technical challenges, not least the Australian environment,” Maher says. “An orchard is nearly the worst-case scenario. It’s got big, thick-foliage trees that are very dense and can get very wet with rain, so that was good to test to make sure that we could still get the wireless data through the network.” The device is yet to provide a full soundscape of a farm with details of the frogs, bats, birds or other creatures that might be living there.

See dpi.vic.gov.au

* Catching a peak-hour train is a relatively pleasant experience.

What is it? Overcrowded trains at peak times are a city workers’ bugbear but researchers at Monash are working on a redesign of train carriages that would allow passengers to get on and off faster and improve the flow of people once they’re inside the carriage. Based on the concept of “peak doors”, the new carriages would have two extra doors that operate only in peak times. As well, many of the seats would be folding so that they would be out of the way in the rush hour, making room for more standing passengers. The seats would also be reconfigured so that most run up the middle of the carriage, creating two channels for people to move through the carriage more easily. There would be directions for passengers to move on through the left channel and off through the right.

Who’s doing it? Selby Coxon, deputy head of the faculty of art, design and architecture at Monash University, with colleagues in the engineering faculty.

Would it work? Absolutely. Train carriage design has been fairly static for many years, but these changes are about reorganising what is already in use rather than inventing a new product. The idea relies on manufacturers backing the new concept as well as passengers following the new rules.

See artdes.monash.edu.au/design/news.php

… by 2018

* You can listen to music in an ultrasound “bubble” without disturbing anyone around you.

What is it? The sound bubble. At the point where two streams of ultrasound meet, the bubble envelops the listener in a private sound experience – they can listen to music without it being audible to anyone outside their bubble. Using ultrasound, television watchers will be able to hear programs only when they are facing the screen; airports will be able to communicate with individuals exclusively by tracking their smartphones (spelling the death of PA announcements); and people will be able listen to sound in quiet public environments such as libraries without bothering other people.

Who’s doing it? Kyle Slater, engineer and inventor. This is a side project for Slater, who splits his time at the Bionics Institute in East Melbourne between work on the bionic eye project and his PhD on epilepsy research. Born to a musical family, Slater first dabbled at inventing while working at Jaycar Electronics, where he became fascinated with ultrasonic detectors (in sensors that help you park your car). As an electrical engineering and physics undergraduate at the University of Melbourne, he built a device that sent complex sounds (for example, a recorded voice) up to 30 metres away and audible in an area between two and three metres round. His invention, soundBeam, won him an award at a global engineering and technology competition in London in 2010.

Will it work? Well, Slater is convinced but concedes there’s always a risk that it won’t. He hopes to experiment over the next year with audio-visual artist Robin Fox creating sound bubbles using single tones. But it will be a few years before complex audio bubbles are possible, he says. “I know I can create audible sound in a bubble but how good is that audible sound? … If we can make it sound really good then that’s it, it works and it’s not just a novelty science thing – it becomes a reality.” Slater argues that rather than isolating us, sound bubbles could bring us closer together. In public spaces such as airports, a combination of Wi-Fi and mobile phone technology could allow sound bubbles to track and follow individuals, making it feel like the airport is playing our song.

See bionicsinstitute.org

… by 2013

* Thin, flexible solar panels power your camping gear, mobile phone and house.

What is it? Solar panels are big, heavy and made of glass, metal and silicon, right? But it won’t always be that way. A consortium of scientists is working on creating thin, flexible solar cells, which could be printed on sheets of plastic and ultimately incorporated into other materials. The new panels would be cheaper and lighter than the current alternatives. In June the group aims to print thin A4-sized, flexible, plastic solar cells. It will then work on including printed electronics. In what would be “a paradigm shift” for electronics, the combination of flexible electronics and printable solar cells could lead to solar cells incorporated into a range of materials such as roofing sheets and fabrics. Think solar cells in the fabric of shadecloths, clothes and tents. The new technology could also be used to get solar energy to remote and developing communities.

Who’s doing it? A consortium led by Melbourne University (project co-ordinator Dr David Jones) with research partners Monash University and the CSIRO and industry partners including Bluescope Steel, Securency, Innovia Films and Bosch SEA.

Will it work? The team is confident of meeting its June deadline to print A4 sheets of solar panels. With work on flexible electronics progressing fast, solar panels embedded in other materials seem achievable.

See vicosc.unimelb.edu.au

* Physios build 3D pictures of their patients’ movements in real time to monitor progress.

What is it? A device slightly larger than a wristwatch, called a portable motion analysis system, which allows physiotherapists to monitor the movements of patients recovering from stroke. Developed over two years at the Parkville base of NICTA (National Information and Communications Technology Australia), the wireless device tracks patient’s limb movements in real time. Physiotherapists can compile a 3D picture. “It gives the physiotherapist better quantitative metrics to know how well the patient is doing in terms of their rehabilitation,” says Dr Jia-Yee, director of health and life sciences in NICTA’s business team. The device, which can be worn on the arms or legs, has the potential to prevent falls by elderly patients and in sport medicine. It could even prevent cricket injuries by looking at the rotation movement of the bowler, says the leader of the biomedical devices and signal processing at NICTA, Dr Tharshan Vaithianathan.

Who’s doing it? NICTA, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Southern Health and the National Ageing Research Institute.

Will it work? It already is. A three-month trial, started in December, involved five Royal Melbourne Hospital stroke patients. “We have been able to monitor how, for example, an injection such as botulinum toxin (Botox) makes them better or worse,” Dr Vaithianathan says.

See nicta.com.au/business/health
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/digital-life/digital-life-news/ideas-that-could-change-your-life-20130312-2fxo6.html#ixzz2OmRWHBZk