Pekka Himanen' review on Information Society looks not to the far future but takes into account the changes ahead before 2010. The paper discusses different trends in Europe that affect the development of information society, the values to be kept in mind during the change process, different development models and concepts for social change. Interesting points I found: agreement on flexible working hours, problems with health coming from no physical activity at work, leisure time or teleworking and proactive behaviour.
My experience so far has shown that making the agreement on flexible working hours is not a complicated task. For sure it depends totally on the nature of the company. I have chosen companies that respect the values given in the paper - the balance between work and leisure must be met. I value highly the opportunity to choose your own best time for working while all the people do not share the most productive times of the day. Creative workers often get maximum out of themselves late at night therefore the company can profit the most when allowing the person rest in the morning and start later on. Seems reasonable for me. At that point of course it might come in handy to agree on some hours of the day when all employees must be accessible so that the "morning" and the "evening people" could meet up for teamwork purposes.
Employers should take into account the effect that sitting infront of a computer eight or more hours a day has on his/her workers. Himanen also points out the importance of physical activity during the day. My experience again shows that it has been counted with and various possibilities have been provided to takse some time off and relax at the office as well. Somehow more complicated for me was to share the work and leisure while working at home. Telework can have stronger effect on the health than working at the office with collegues.
Himanen describes three scenarios for future development in information society: Silicon Valley, Singapore and Finnish. The latter seems rather odd at that point, maybe a better name could be found. But the idea is that none of those is a positive scenario and bringing in the fourth combined model is needed. He uses terms proactivity and innovation to describe it. Innovation has been discussed a lot, we know we need to be innovative and find new ways to do things to become more productive. In addition he says that we should no longer focus on reacting to something that has already happened; instead we should act beforehand and boldly lead the way. I find the approach very approximate, saing a lot but not much.
My experience so far has shown that making the agreement on flexible working hours is not a complicated task. For sure it depends totally on the nature of the company. I have chosen companies that respect the values given in the paper - the balance between work and leisure must be met. I value highly the opportunity to choose your own best time for working while all the people do not share the most productive times of the day. Creative workers often get maximum out of themselves late at night therefore the company can profit the most when allowing the person rest in the morning and start later on. Seems reasonable for me. At that point of course it might come in handy to agree on some hours of the day when all employees must be accessible so that the "morning" and the "evening people" could meet up for teamwork purposes.
Employers should take into account the effect that sitting infront of a computer eight or more hours a day has on his/her workers. Himanen also points out the importance of physical activity during the day. My experience again shows that it has been counted with and various possibilities have been provided to takse some time off and relax at the office as well. Somehow more complicated for me was to share the work and leisure while working at home. Telework can have stronger effect on the health than working at the office with collegues.
Himanen describes three scenarios for future development in information society: Silicon Valley, Singapore and Finnish. The latter seems rather odd at that point, maybe a better name could be found. But the idea is that none of those is a positive scenario and bringing in the fourth combined model is needed. He uses terms proactivity and innovation to describe it. Innovation has been discussed a lot, we know we need to be innovative and find new ways to do things to become more productive. In addition he says that we should no longer focus on reacting to something that has already happened; instead we should act beforehand and boldly lead the way. I find the approach very approximate, saing a lot but not much.
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