TrackBack Print E-mail

From: Bill Gates
Sent: Thu May 19 10:55:42 2005
To: (Microsoft customers)
Subject: The New World of Work

Over the past decade, software has evolved to build bridges between disconnected islands of information and give people powerful ways to communicate, collaborate and access the data that's most important to them.

But the software challenges that lie ahead are less about getting access to the information people need, and more about making sense of the information they have--giving them the ability to focus, prioritize and apply their expertise, visualize and understand key data, and reduce the amount of time they spend dealing with the complexity of an information-rich environment.

To tackle these challenges, information-worker software needs to evolve. It's time to build on the capabilities we have today and create software that helps information workers adapt and thrive in an ever-changing work environment. Advances in pattern recognition, smart content, visualization and simulation, as well as innovations in hardware, displays and wireless networks, all give us an opportunity to re-imagine how software can help people get their jobs done.

This is an important goal not only because the technology has evolved to make it possible, but also because the way we work is changing. Since you are a subscriber to executive emails from Microsoft, I hope you'll find this discussion of those changes useful.

Now more than ever, competitive advantage comes from the ability to transform ideas into value--through process innovation, strategic insights and customized services. We are evolving toward a diverse yet unified global market, with customers, partners and suppliers that work together across cultures and continents. The global workforce is always on and always connected--requiring new tools to help people organize and prioritize their work and personal lives. Business is becoming more transparent, with a greater need to ensure accountability, security and privacy within and across organizations. And a generation of young people who grew up with the Internet is entering the workforce, bringing along workstyles and technologies that feel as natural to them as pen and paper.

All of these changes are giving people new and better ways to work, but they also bring a new set of challenges: a deluge of information, constant demands on their attention, new skills to master and pressure to be ever more productive.

For example, "information overload" is becoming a serious drag on productivity--the typical information worker in North America gets 10 times as much e-mail as in 1997, and that number continues to increase. A recent study showed that 56 percent of workers are overwhelmed by multiple simultaneous projects and interrupted too often; one-third say that multi-tasking and distractions are keeping them from stepping back to process and reflect on the work they're doing. In the United Kingdom, it's estimated that stress accounts for nearly one-third of absenteeism and sick leave.

It's also not easy enough just to find the information people need to do their jobs. The software innovations of the 1980s and 1990s, which revolutionized how we create and manipulate information, have created