WORKPLACE NOW E-ZINE
Philip Ross, SEO UnWork.com

Philip Ross, CEO of UnWork.com, is something of a workplace visionary. In the early 1990s he pictured a wireless digital world, which was against conventional thinking at the time.

 

In 1994 he founded Cordless Consultants, following the publication of his report The Cordless Office. He is an author and consultant who specializes in identifying new trends that will shape how we work, live and learn.

Philip has written a number of books on the future of cities, work and the workplace including The Creative Office, The 21st Century Office and Space to Work, all with co-author Jeremy Myerson who is Director and Helen Hamlyn Chair of Design at London’s Royal College of Art.

 

Philip recently received a CoreNet Award for his contribution to the industry and in 2013 will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the international workplace conference series, WORKTECH, which he founded. He took time to speak to WorkPlace Now about how he first became captivated by workplace and technology, as well as provide a glimpse into his current thinking.

 

What inspired you to start a career in workplace?

It was back in 1992 that I first began to get really fascinated by workplace. I helped write a report called Office of the Future. The aim of that report was to look at the issue of hot-desking, which was just emerging as a trend. I became fascinated by technology and got into the laboratories of a lot of leading companies. I saw the most amazing advances in technology. I then became absorbed about future technology, which was a big barrier to new ways of working at the time. I was interested in how it could become an enabler and could catalyze something far more positive in the future. At the time no one wanted to hear this. It was the year of the intelligent building, structured cabling and the massive growth of networked computers. I began to talk about mobility, agility and wireless and some people may have thought I was crazy. I then wrote the Cordless Report in 1993, published it in 1994, and set up my first business, Cordless. The Cordless Report was featured in the Wall Street Journal and this really propelled these issues into the business realm.

 

Who has been the most influential person of your career to date?

That’s a very easy one, it would be Jeremy Myerson. I met Jeremy 25 years ago and at the time he was Editor of Design Week. We have written three books together - he has been there right throughout my career as a great co-author and friend. In the 1990s we felt that there wasn’t a book on the workplace that stimulated people. There were some great technical books, but we wanted to do something that was more inspirational. We brought out The Creative Office and have written two more books since. We are currently working on a fourth book, which will look at how digital will reshape work and the physical realm. When we wrote the first book we realized that what we were touching on was no longer the domain of just property and facilities management (FM), but embraced the worlds of human resources, brand, technology, architecture and design. We felt that there was no forum for these disparate worlds to get together and discuss what, in effect, was the future of work, so Jeremy helped shape and launch the WORKTECH events, which celebrates its tenth anniversary next year, and has been a constant part of my journey.

 

What has been your biggest achievement to date?

There are two areas. One is having a business that has spawned variants over the last 20 years. It’s given me the opportunity to work with some wonderful people and I have a great team that has grown with me in terms of developing the consultancy, publishing and events businesses. Then, there are our clients. I take a great deal of satisfaction in some of the projects that I have helped to shape, capitalize and achieve a high level of innovation. It’s always inspiring to go back and visit a project and see what’s been achieved by getting people to think outside their comfort zones. One of the most recent that springs to mind is Macquarie in Sydney. I believe that we helped shape a much more exciting project, which has become globally recognized as an exciting and innovative workplace.

 

How has the industry changed since you started your career?

The way people work has obviously been totally transformed. I now look at where we are now with wireless - Wi-Fi and 4G. It means that people are no longer constrained to the office. The launch of the new devices, from the iPad to Microsoft’s Surface, means that people are carrying around remarkable devices that we could only have dreamed of 20 years ago. I love the fact that the iPad has no Ethernet port because I was told for many years that we’d always need Ethernet cables because wireless would never be fast enough or secure. I love the idea that there are tens of millions of people carrying devices without the need to plug in to anything. As a futurist, it’s nice to have been proven right.

 

Looking forward, what do you see as the most significant industry trends?

It will be fascinating to track the impact of the ‘internet of things’. I’m researching a trend called “real time real estate”. Up to 50 billion devices will be connected on the internet in the next five-to-10 years, along with the miniaturization of sensors and chips. That means that for the first time we’re going to have real time, big data from buildings and cities. My vision is that the city itself will be like one big open server with billions of bits of data floating about, which will enable you to monitor and manage almost anything. There will be more data on the internet from inanimate things, than there will be from people in the coming years. This will impact the way we work, but also touch on sustainability, environmental issues, transport and traffic management, security, entertainment and quality of life. There are so many layers to this that the possibilities are limitless.

 

What would your top tips be for companies to prepare for those trends?

I would like to see people in FM and property embrace technology, rather than leave it to the domain of the CIO, because a lot of this technology will be located in a building’s core network and many of the benefits could be realized by CRE professionals. Today’s building is a fairly dumb container. You may know how much energy it consumes, but you have no real idea of who is coming into the building and what their interests are. Pretty soon the building will interact with individuals when they come into a space. For example, in a retail context, you may automatically get loyalty points and special offers based on your previous purchases by ‘checking in’. In a workspace it could mean connecting you to someone else in the building that may be working on something where you have a common interest. The building will become a real-time resource that helps people to collaborate with the intelligence to engineer encounters that people want. Buildings will provide people with intelligence. Rather than leaving that exciting future to an IT Director, we think that FM / property people should seize the initiative.

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