Innovation brings out the human in us

IF YOU went to an office today, you're taking part in an obsolete lifestyle. At least that's what many credible theorists in the 1990s led us to expect. According to them, "telework" was poised to supplant physical offices for good.

The dream was that we could work from anywhere: congested roads during the morning commute would be a thing of the past as we could simply stay at home or move to an inexpensive countryside house with a pool and a garden - all we need is an Internet connection.

We would avoid the long flight across continents to meet face-to-face or discuss contracts. Conference calls and videoconference would wipe out jetlag fatigue and impersonal hotel stays.

A 1990 study titled Telework: A New Way of Working and Living opened with these bold claims: Telework is 10 years old. In its short time its capacity for redrawing the geographical and organisational boundaries of the traditional, centralised enterprise has been amply demonstrated. The positive consequences: new employment opportunities for various categories of workers, potentially without…