It seems that over the past two years we have been bombarded with information about the Internet. The Internet represents a large number of world-wide computers which are interconnected via telecommunications technology. To many it is somewhat of a "black box" concept allowing users to access information that may physically reside anywhere. In fact, the Internet focuses on the same "anytime-anywhere" concepts telework programs are designed around.
Is the Internet for real? How will it impact the way we telework in the next few years? Will business embrace the Internet? These are all questions many people are asking as we enter the later half of the 1990s. This article will provide some ideas on these challenging questions.
The Internet is indeed for real. We are seeing e-mail and web-site addresses showing up in printed articles, printed advertisements, on television and even on the radio. Many people are joining the Internet and using e-mail and "surfing" the net to browse web-sites, participate in discussion groups and stay up-to-date on an extremely broad range of topics.
The Internet is, however, still very much in its infancy. The information presented is in its rawest form -- totally uncensored and in some cases not based on fully qualified information. These are just growing pains. The future will likely continue to include a broad range of uncensored, untethered information but it will also include a tremendous amount of fully researched and qualified information on a variety of key topics. The latter category is, of course, the area which publications such as Telework International is striving to enhance.
Businesses are also starting to recognize the existence on the Internet and its potential use. Many of these businesses are using home pages on the world wide web (WWW) to disseminate information about their products and services. This opens the marketplace to these businesses to more of a global perspective which is the direction many are strategically positioning themselves towards. The stumbling block to fully utilizing the Internet today seems to be in the areas of security and e-money. Once these two areas are addressed then the stampede of business users and business transactions will increase exponentially.
The Internet will also have an impact on teleworking. The Internet can be a communications vehicle used by teleworkers to communicate with their corporate offices. Many teleworkers are already using the Internet for exchanging files between home and their corporate office by using the standard attachment options available with many of today's e-mail products. This allows someone in the corporate office to attach a file (or series of files) to a message and then use the Internet to send them to the home-based worker. This can eliminate or postpone the need for sophisticated remote access services for those employees who only need to connect to the office for e-mail and file exchange.
Teleworkers who must access other corporate applications running at the corporate office could use the Internet to access these applications. The ability to do this exists on the Internet today but many corporations are avoiding this arrangement due to concerns about security. Once these security issues are addressed the Internet could be an effective vehicle for remote access.
Finally, consider some of the new applications that are coming out on the Internet and how they could be used by teleworkers. A Vancouver-based company, Telescape Communications Inc. has just launched a new product to allow two users to exchange computer files and still images while talking to each other through an Internet connection. The product is new but it will be interesting to watch how it takes off over the next 12 months.
The bottom-line is that the Internet, or some future form of the Internet, is here to stay. Telework is built around the concept of using telecommunications technology to allow employees to work from home. The Internet is built around the same concepts. Telework should become more predominant as a work option when the Internet is more predominant as a business tool. The next few years will hold exciting developments for these concepts.
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