Business and enterprise software, and other applications that help a business run

The business computers and software of the future are going to allow us to be more efficient than we have ever been before. At lightning speed, we will have access to all of the information necessary to do our jobs. There is a price to pay for this, of course. Our jobs will simultaneously have instant access to us, as will our family and friends. We have talked a little bit about this problem in the last few days, but it deserved some space of its own.

Psychologists and business observers have already found over-connectedness to be a problem. At some tipping point, different for every person, information overload takes a toll on information workers, especially. Simply put, there is too much information and not enough respite from it. This is already a problem, and we have not even begun to see the ultimate paradigm in business and personal connectedness.

When the day comes that it is possible to be connected to everything, 24 / 7, we will have to learn to disconnect. We will have to learn not to react to the phone, the boss, and email like Pavlov's dogs. We will have to learn to say “not now!” On the other side of the equals sign in this equation, other people are going to have to learn not to take advantage of our connectedness.

We are already being taken advantage of, many of us, by bosses, business associates and acquaintances. Friends and family, of course, should know better, and already have some respect for your rights. Similarly, we are all going to have to learn some respect for ourselves and our needs outside the business-driven portions of our lives. We have to learn when enough is enough.

I don't know what the actual number is, nor does anyone else, but the computer has already made information workers at least ten times more efficient. The new business computing paradigm will double that, at least. We have to draw the line somewhere, and I say we draw it before true connectedness begins. I say that we are just about as efficient, right now, as our bosses have any right to expect.

When we begin to see the ultimate hardware and software, in the very near future, let us use them to cut our workdays down to 8-10 hours a day from the horrendous pace at which we are living  today. Then, let's hold out for doing our jobs better in 6-8 hours, and then in 4-6. If we let them, the people that we work for will suck us dry in an age of true communications and data efficiency. Don't let them do it.