In his keynote address at the recent ASIS meeting in Columbus, George White, formerly Vice President for Research, Development and Engineering at Xerox Corp., challenged the audience to explore the effect technological revolutions of the '80s will have on the workplace. As the labor emphasis continues to shift to the professional and technical workforce, creative solutions to increasing productivity in the sector must be addressed. Since technological investment per employee in the technical/professional realm is currently far less than that in agriculture or industry, there is room for considerable investment in the office innovations that promise to improve productivity.
The significance of automated information systems lies in their ability to accept, process, communicate, store, and retrieve information--all the typical functions of the technical/professional environment. Advances are occurring simultaneously in all these functions.
Developments in input technology-key-boarding, optical character recognition, and voice-input-will directly improve professional productivity. There will also be dramatic penetration into the personal environment in the form of flexible software and personal micros.
The major communications industries are competing on the leading edge of communication developments: local area networks, long distance data transmission capabilities, and switching flexibility. Optical disk technology still in its infancy, will affect the filing function as technologies mature for short and long-term storage of information in the forms of images or speech.
Output technology is relatively mature; printers are receiving further development with only limited payoff. The cathode ray tube awaits a more human-compatible replacement.
White reports that certain "development dynamics" require some attention to speed utilization of these technological innovations. Our hardware development is tracking with dynamic needs while necessary software improvements lag. The software development problem must be solved if the technology is to meet the market needs.
