Social media has been around for the best part of 40 years – Usenet appeared in 1979 and is the first recorded network that enabled users to post news to newsgroups.
Although these Usenets and similar bulletin boards heralded the launch of the first, albeit very rudimentary, social networks, social media never really took off until almost 30 years later, following the roll out of Facebook in 2006.
So, what exactly is the state of social media in 2018?
If you work in an office, you’ll no doubt have your daily routine nailed down – maybe make a cuppa to take to your desk, fire up your computer, then check your emails to both ease yourself into, and set your priorities for, the working day ahead.
The chances are you’ll also work in an open plan office, where all colleagues can easily communicate with each other across the room – this is all part of the evolving office work-space, and things were very different as little as 20 years ago.
Let’s take a quick look at how we arrived at the modern day office, and what sort of working environment might lie ahead for office workers of the future…
Remote working is on the rise – the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 13.7% of the UK workforce now undertake some working from home – but why is this?
Napoleon Bonaparte once famously described the UK as a ‘nation of shopkeepers’, and, while that description might not quite hold up some 200 years later, it’s certainly true that the UK is a nation of small to medium enterprises (SMEs).
And the success of each SME is essential to the prosperity of the UK economy, including yours.
It’s not an overall success story though, and the UK may actually have too many small businesses, here’s why…
Cloud computing is a technology that enables companies to manage data and files online, rather than on a computer’s hard drive, and has been a driving force behind the growth of flexible working across the UK.
And 2017 is expected to be the year when we reach the tipping point where flexible working becomes more common than working from an office, according to a report from Lancaster University’s Work Foundation.
So what is the future of flexible working? And how will cloud computing feature in this brave new world?
The internet of things (IoT) is the name given to all those devices that are connected and communicate with us, each other, and compatible apps over the internet.
The idea of the IoT has been around for decades, at least since 1989 when the first connected toaster (!) was mooted at that year’s Interop Internet networking show – a year later, at the 1990 Interop, a Sunbeam Deluxe Automatic Radiant Control Toaster was connected to the internet, and so the fledgling IoT was born.
And now pretty much every electrical device you can think of is connected, from televisions, to printers, to fridges – and we all know the endgame is that the machines will one day rise up and take over the world, but that’s another story…
Have you ever wondered why we’re generally expected to work from nine-to-five each day, or maybe some eight-to-four or ten-to-six derivative of this eight-hour shift? Then read on…
On Monday we looked at whether working from home could be killing the day job – the theory being that not getting up, out and into the office somehow made our work seem meaningless.
If you missed it, check out Is working from home ruining work?
And while we would never fully endorse such as suggestion, it is true that working from home isn’t necessarily for everyone.
So, are you cut out to work from home? Read on to find out…