E-Motional Business: Wired World - Real Relationships

How can we make real connections in a virtual working world? Meet, communicate and create? It's time to find our place in the digital economy. Is this the age of technology or the age of living differently? Technology changes the PACE at which we move, the way we spend our TIME, the SPACE we choose to be in and the DEPTH of the relationships we have. Feeling connected or disconnected? As the pace gathers and lines of communication blur, we need to adjust our working relationships to the faster time and networked space of the wired world. And in the end, beyond the technology, it's all about connecting with people. But where does the virtual world end, and where do we begin? Who do we become in the e-world? With demand and response time being instantaneous, are we defined by what we do rather than how we do it? What does this wired world mean for the way we work with people? What sort of working relationships will emerge in e-world? How can we re-tune our emotional involvement in the wired world of working ? At work, methodically clearing the in-tray has become multi-tasking. E-work makes it easier and more pressing to do the urgent, non-vital things and harder to make room for the vital, non-urgent things. Have we lost the chance to express ourselves through the quality of our work and so will we all end up acting the same? The gap between demand and response is vanishing. Where has our chance to reflect and review gone from our working relationships? Corporate man is dead. Is subsuming yourself in the greater corporate being an option any more? Is it good enough for customers or employers? Is it good enough for you? The multiplication of working relationships - the transition from a limited number of deep, relatively stable working relationships (in which we know our place) to an ever-expanding, ever-changing network of shallow but instantly informal relationship - are eroding comfort zones, eating into formality and reliability. And what about the blurring of work and home life? In e-world we have blurring boundaries.How much is enough?How fast is fast enough? How close is realistic or reasonable? We need to rediscover purpose, meaning and identity in our wired work. How can we make real connections in a virtual world? Meet, connect, communicate and create? We are finding a new pace, time, space and depth to our relationships. It's time to find our new place at the heart of the digital economy.Phillips, Nicola is the author of 'E-Motional Business: Wired World - Real Relationships' with ISBN 9780273650195 and ISBN 027365019X.