Re: Optimal location of world capital

Michael Ash schrieb:
>>> Give it another couple of generations, wait for all of the people 
>>> who think that forms are made of paper and work is a location to die
off, 
>>> and I imagine that both will become the rule rather than the exception

>>> for jobs which don't require physical work.
>>>
>>> (Disclaimer: I'm a full time telecommuter and may be biased.)
>> AFAIK, the relative number of people telecommuting has consistently 
>> stayed below forecasts or outright stagnated for as long as the thing 
>> has a name.
> 
> Do you have any evidence for this? A bit of googling turned up this 
> document:
> 
> http://www.worldatwork.org/waw/adimLink?id=17182
> 
> It claims a 20% increase in full-time telecommuters in the US between
2005 
> and 2006, for an absolute increase of 2.5 million. The number who never 
> work from home at all dropped by 24% over that same period. This is
about 
> as far from "stagnated" as you can get, and if it's below forecasts then

> those forecasts were foolish.

This genuinely surprises me, but as the numbers seem to count work done 
in the car, in hotels, at a customer's site, i.e. at places where people 
wouldn't be if they weren't actively going out to meet face-to-face with 
others, I'm not sure how relevant they are. Besides, the total 
percentage of the labour force telecommuting full-time is still below 
ten percent, which is indeed below even moderately enthusiastic 
prognoses from the 1980s and 1990s.

>> There is a reason why modern offices and research campuses 
>> are conceived in order to enable (and cause) as much deliberate and 
>> accidental face-to-face communication as possible - processes are just 
>> more effective if people talk to each other a lot. Of course there are 
>> jobs where telecommuting is really effective, but without cheap, fully 
>> immersive telepresence, it will remain a niche phenomenon. (And even 
>> then, I have my doubts.) It seems there's also some evidence that
people 
>> hate phone meetings and teleconferences, preferring to discuss really 
>> im****tant matters over lunch even if it means getting up at five and 
>> spending four hours on the train.
> 
> This is all true, but I'm not convinced that it's anything other than 
> inertia. *Contem****ary* people are more efficient when they're
physically 
> proximate, but that doesn't mean that this is inherent in humanity. Even

> if new generations aren't as efficient when telecommuting, not having to

> actually travel will make up for a lot of inefficiency. Having people
talk 
> to each other a lot is not the exclusive domain of physical offices, and

> it's entirely possible to bounce ideas back and forth through e-mail and

> instant messaging. I know this because I do it all the time.

Well, so do I, but still, more work gets done if you actually meet. 
There's also the problem that written-form communication always takes 
longer than just talking to someone. People take ten minutes to write up 
an e-mail the content of which could be transmitted and acknowledged in 
a three-minute phone call.

>> The paperless office might actually be coming in through the back door 
>> with clean desk policies that urge office workers to keep their 
>> documents stored electronically so they can throw away their printouts 
>> in the evening. But as long as I see those same businesspeople on the 
>> train going over hard copies of their PowerPoint presentation scripts 
>> with a day-glo marker instead of revising them on the laptop they use
to 
>> watch DVDs, I'll remain skeptical.
> 
> Just out of curiosity, are any of those businesspeople under the age of,

> oh, 27 or so?

Yes.

mawa
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