By the turn of this decade, it is predicted that more than half of the UK’s workforce will be mobile in a way. Whether telecommuting, holding virtual offices, or doing fieldwork, people will inevitably turn outdoors (or at least out-of-office) as ideal workplaces. Today it is not uncommon to spot laptop-toting technical or creative types working away at restaurants, cafes, or even pubs. And it is also not uncommon to have business contacts, friends, and relatives working from home offices, even at the encouragement of their companies, which would rather minimize office and transportation costs. Pretty soon, this might be the norm.
So what does this mean for us in terms of infrastructure? We should endeavor to improve on our facilities that can support a high level of mobility. For instance, we should start to implement the city-wide wireless networks that have been in our plans (and dreams) for the past year. We should also start to increase the data rates that our broadband pipes can can support. Pretty soon, most of the work in the world will involve some transfer of information, and an economy’s communications infrastructure should support that.