Why New Media? CEO Perspectives

Andrew Maiden from Telstra made a comment at this morning's Frocomm session on CEO perspectives regarding the importance of new media. The comment was around how it is no longer about 'work life balance' but that it is about 'work life integration' these days - and I couldn't agree more.

We are noticing this shift more and more thanks to new technologies such as smartphones and the plethora of other mobile devices that provide you with the capabilities to access email, IM, social media applications such as Twitter, social networking sites and other emerging technologies that are making it easier than ever to connect with work and friends from pretty much any environment.

Ultra-portable, ultra-light notebooks such as the Toshiba Portégé R500 or MacBook Air are also making it easier to take your work with you. The exciting thing here is that technology is actually keeping up with the changes of today's lifestyle. The iPhone and other MIDs are perfect examples of this.

I could spend time going into the debate about whether or not these devices and technologies are infringing on our personal lives and making it impossible to balance work and life but I’m not going to. Reason being – I don’t think this is a relevant debate anymore, at least not entirely.  Thanks Andrew for point this out.

I’m not sure that people are still seeking work life balance these days. It’s idealistic and rather utopian if you ask me. By the way, feel free to slam me here if you completely disagree but I am more inclined to believe that today’s workers are happy to tip the scales one way or another from time to time. Let me put this point to life using me as an example:

I wake up early in the morning and check my email when I’m still in my pyjamas or house clothes (call it what you will). I then drive into work, get a coffee, read the Fin Review, the technology headlines and log on to my PC at the same time. I tend to emails mostly, action the important ones, talk to my teams regarding priorities, and then I review and respond to emails some more. It’s then on to client meetings, conference calls, internal and/or external WIP meetings and that will quite safely take me to the end of the day when I head home. Sometimes I go home and log on to email after dinner to do a quick check to see the emails that have hit my inbox from the APAC countries that I work with – but sometimes I don’t.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and tend to emails before heading to work. Once at work I check my emails and do more of the stuff I talk about above. I then have lunch for an hour, come back and do some work and then leave at 3pm to take my grandma to the doctor – and no, I don’t come back to work and sometimes I don’t even log back on to work emails from home.

I’m a good example of a worker that integrates work with life. I don’t try and squeeze or build my life around work instead I make sure that both complement one another. Some days I may work longer hours but such is the nature of work or responsibility, and any responsibility for that. A relationship takes time and effort – you have to put in the hard yards in these too.

I have the flexibility at my workplace to do these things and I think we are starting to see this happen across more organisations and industries.

Anyway, this is my rant. I’d love to get your thoughts on the shift from work life balance to work life integration. Do you agree/ disagree?