We sat down with Environmental Systems Design senior associate Rick Szcodronski to learn about three roles technological progress plays in enhancing the creative office.

First is the advent of the wireless-only office. Tremendous advancements in bandwidth, density, reliability and security have enabled companies ranging from startups to Fortune 100s to go completely wireless. This facilitates transmission of data and ideas, as well as tidying up the office space.

The second aspect is technology leveraged to promote collaboration between employees and communication between the company and its clients. Examples include videoconferencing, unified communications, screen-sharing, large-format touch screens, and documents shared on the cloud that permit a large numbers of people to add content and make changes simultaneously. All play a crucial role in connecting workers and allowing them to tackle complex problems with a collective approach.

The third, and most difficult to achieve, is integration, which necessitates corporation-wide IT platforms. The idea of an intelligent office is alluring, and Rick tells us “the key to creating one is integration.” To realize the vision of the Internet of Things, systems need to be better connected so they can make decisions based on inputs from each other.

There are a large number of vendors offering solutions in this area, and each tout various differentiated products. For businesses, deciding which of the multitude of functionalities they would actually benefit from, and what represents competitive pricing, can be challenging. 

“It can be extremely difficult to decide on which product is best and how to stitch them together such that they offer the most benefit and are easy to use,” Rick says.

Business owners without deep technological expertise may find themselves overwhelmed by the number of options, and might consider turning to consultants to help them implement these exciting new innovations.