The future of remote working
Jan 21 2010 by Stewart Watkins, The Journal
THE recent white-out across the country has certainly shown Britain to be a nation of stoics proven by the amazing Sarah Hodgson who walked her 15-mile journey to work in four hours through deep snow from her home in Consett to Oldfields restaurant in Durham.
Stories of people digging each other's cars out of drifts, of marathon commutes in to work, of employees trekking miles from home to their desks have led to regular stories in the Press praising the Blitz spirit we have all shown.
And yet if the cold snap taught me one thing it's how technology has allowed us to continue our lives with some semblance of normality without the need to leave our homes much at all.
Those who were linked up and equipped for home working could sit smugly in their cosy houses armed with a cup of tea, while others fought snow, sleet, ice and whatever else the elements threw at them.
Facilities for remote working have been gradually improving as employers recognise its value, but we still have not exploited the full potential of the technology available to us to communicate and carry out our work from a distance.
And these issues of connectivity promise to dominate the tech headlines of this decade and transform the ways we interact in the 2010s.
Much of the talk at the moment is of the cloud – not a new weather phenomenon promising yet more snow – but a system that will bring new meaning to the concept of remote working.
Like a giant server the cloud acts as a place where we can save data and then access it wherever we are in the world or whatever kind of device we're using. So if you've left that all important report at work when you jet off on your holidays it won't matter as you can tap into it via your iPhone or your Blackberry.
Tapping into the cloud would, in theory, mean the computers in front of us require less storage and probably less power too.
NETPark Net, a virtual science park was set up to enable this kind of exchange to take place. It was designed to enable companies not physically located on NETPark in County Durham to access facilities and workshops remotely and also to share information and expertise.
Communities like NETPark Net are likely to become ever more important as we start this new decade and I'm sure we can look forward to many more weird and wonderful new devices to help us communicate and share ideas.
Stewart Watkins is managing director of the County Durham Development Company
