Technically Speaking
In an economy that hinges on information access, communication devices continue to change the way in which the business world -- and society -- functions.

Ours is the age which is proud of machines that think, and suspicious of men who try to.
-Howard Mumford Jones

The ultimate workplace revolution caused by technology is the growth in number and diversity of those workplaces themselves. Whether the ware is hard or soft, innovations have created niches we only dreamt about not so long ago. While some may sense that the market is being subdivided almost to its limit, others see unbridled evolution in the marketplace. By spurring invention or by the sheer flexibility it affords us, technology has literally created the workplace for a large number of people.

A parallel route of discovery is the portability of applications into arenas heretofore thought off limits. Work environments and learning environments are coalescing, thrusting creative ideas into long-accepted processes, and trying out longstanding practices in new domains. Of all the advances in an economy hinged on information access, communication devices have apparently become the ultimate productivity tools.

True, e-mail has already been around for a while now -- no longer the domain of the digerati and cybrarians. But people across the workplace spectrum are now figuring out the best ways to use it. University of Kentucky Director of Libraries Paul Willis has found e-mail to be a tremendous help.

"it can help prevent misunderstandings," he explains. "In a library like ours -- with 16 different facilities and a staff of a couple hundred -- it's become easy to stay in touch with those people. For example, we had an arrest in the library over the weekend. Somebody's been breaking into copy machines around campus and stealing money. I sent out a message reporting on all of that and repeating a caution to be aware when you're in the building at odd hours. Without e-mail, I don't know if I could have done that with such timeliness.

"If I'm gone for an extended period, I can take a laptop and stay in touch that way, or I can read it at home. It also helps us stay in touch nationally. The Association of Research Libraries has about 120 members, and I can communicate with all my colleagues at once with a query or message."

On another level altogether, UK recently joined forces with five other Southeastern universities and such companies as Cisco Systems and DataBeam to form a network of computer systems that affords its users extremely fast computational speeds -- ideal for the complex problems and analyses that researchers need to address. Eventually, another tier of the Internet is expected to be devoted exclusively to this kind of work, as the traffic on the present highway has already grown congested.

Cordoning off bits and pieces of the spectrum is nothing new to the communications world. The FCC -- and by corollary the Federal Treasury -- has had enormous success in auctioning off bandwidths.

"It's about more efficient management of the spectrum," notes David Fried, president of Lexington-based ComtronICS Inc. Eventually, even private two-way radio frequencies aren't going to be "free" anymore, but available by subscription only.

Fried's company has operated since 1980 in the realm of on-site solutions, working with such companies as Ericsson to market cell-based, closed-circuit communications systems for large facilities. Incorporating intercoms, powerful cordless phones, and old-fashioned twisted pair wiring, these systems make a worker more accessible and his voice mail a less immediate option. Such systems are in use at most of the major stock exchanges, in the nuclear power industry, and are growing increasingly popular in hospitals and other institutions. Fried is currently working on a project that would employ up to 3,000 phones to link all the campuses of a manufacturing operation.

Within the cellular universe, a 1900 megahertz band has been newly auctioned off to the digital cellular sector. Like houses in the path of a new runway, the old users of this microwave band -- mostly utilities -- are being bought out to make way for more signals used by the general consumer. According to Fried, AT&T Wireless, Sprint Spectrum, and Powertel will be the providers of this new service in Central Kentucky.

Laura Duane of Cellular One/GTE Wireless in Louisville points to a variety of existing and oncoming technologies that have meant growth for their business and that of their clients.

"With field tracking for instance, delivery companies and sales reps are able to pinpoint orders and check inventories on the spot," she relates. "They're more accessible and have more portability."

"We've worked with the Louisville Sheriff s Department in getting emergency protective orders served much more quickly and efficiently using the portable fax machines," she says. "We also have a product called the Superphone that functions like a small computer, using cellular connections."

Like the maelstrom of computer standards, the cellular market has also split into various branches with no fixed reference point: CDMA, TDMA, and GSM are the prevalent modes so far. Eventually, says Fried, a wireless Internet will be the norm, with subscriber units hooked to laptops and bouncing information off cleverly camouflaged towers. One such system, an intranet application called Ricochet, is currently being installed at the Pentagon.

The dishes and antennae themselves are a multi-layered symbol for the technological revolution. Affixed to sparsely populated office buildings and old water towers, or erected in residential neighborhoods where they aren't always welcome, these signal bouncers have transported the formerly palpable bustle of cities and economic activity into the invisible ether. Skyline has thus assumed a whole new meaning.

It's not all waves and fiberoptics however. Often the advance in tools may employ a technology that's been around for a while. Kelly Spencer, co-owner of Common Grounds Coffee House explains how even rudimentary advances in workplace tools can have great impact on the bottom line.

"When we took over this business, the cash register was really just a glorified calculator. We installed a machine capable of generating itemized sales reports or showing us the labor percentages at the end of each day." For instance, it turned out that coffee and espresso drinks accounted for a full 50 percent of the overall sales. Thus informed, she and partner Tom Carey have been able to sharpen the establishment's focus.

Mike Yessin of Lee Brick & Block notes that some sectors are changing faster than others, but that speed isn't the only measure of a development's impact.

"In our industry, the pace of technological change is like watching grass grow, he observes. "The newest and most exciting change in a long time is the Q-Lite block. An average mason lays 200 blocks a day. You take 10 pounds out of each block, that's a ton he didn't have to lift that day. It helps the longevity of the mason as much as it helps the seller of the product. We're hoping it changes the market." To say nothing of the mason's outlook.

So the word application is not the exclusive property of computer programmers. In fact, while it may seem like many breakthrough business concepts operate at the behest of technology, some trends refuse to be led by the nose. Take the ideas of best practice and process thinking. From a business perspective, the only benefit of a tool is its best use for a particular process, and no tool adapts to all situations. Thus, the learning -- and thinking of the humans involved remains paramount, with even relatively antiquated tools being newly applied to their best uses.

Witness the implementation of bicycle patrols in police departments across the nation. Here is a machine being exercised to its fullest potential by 1) bringing patrols into regular personal contact with the citizenry, 2) allowing the police to pursue with both stealth and access to places a car can't reach, and 3) promoting the health of both the officer and the patrolman's doughnut-munching public image. When you combine this modem officer with the speed of a portable cellular phone, you have a supremely capable and approachable agent of law enforcement.

In the fast-evolving work environment, all evidence indicates that it's what we do with these newfangled parts that counts. The challenge is to value and use the latest versions of the slide rule and the hand-held calculator without having our work and attention held in their thrall. Then it's left to that most mysteriously and ingeniously engineered machine of them all: the human being.

Adam Bruns is a staff writer for The Lane Report.

Inset: Nicking Yourself on the Cutting Edge

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