Desktop Virtualisation is a technology that soon will enable many people to work at any desk anywhere, and use all their usual applications in the same way as they would do if they were to remain at the same desk each day. The impact will be great in terms of increasing desk utilisation and offer real benefits in terms of churn and lower accommodation costs as well as providing a robust menas of addressing business continuity.

http://www.fm-world.co.uk/features/feature-articles/desk-hopping/

What are your experience and views?

Graham Jervis

Mark Kingdon the Chief Executive of Second Life spoke at the recent CeBIT conference in Hannover about the opportunities he foresaw for the use of Virtual images in business. He explained that Second Life currently had the image of being for young people to meet and to have virtual sex, but this was to disregard the serious benefits that could be gained from its intelligent use in business. He explained that there were 1,300 organisations and companies worldwide using Second Life as part of their business, for meetings, conferences, complex simulations, distributed learning – many, many applications. For example Canadian border guards were taught how to inspect vehicles approaching their border by simulations in Second Life. Many organisations have used Second Life to hold meetings – BP is apparently holding a graduation ceremony in it.

The change in Second Life’s product offerings are interesting in that they now provide an Enterprise version that sits within an organisation’s firewall and allows a private instance of Second Life to be created and to be connected to enterprise systems They have also increased the collaboration capability of the product to incorporate document sharing.  It claims to offer a persistent space where people can go in virtual offices from any location. It allows people to connect from home or from a café or anywhere they have decent internet access. Often with video conferencing, people need to be in a fixed location so it’s not as mobile as it could be.

Whether the business world of work is ready to take on the virtual world of avaturs will no doubt emerge, but we shouldn’t shrug off the creative potential that such innovations might offer.

Graham Jervis

ExxonMobil have recently produced their 42 page report on their views on the Outlook for Energy demand and supply through to 2030 when there will be 8 billion people on the planet.

Key finding are:

• Globally energy demand will rise by 1.2% a year on average and by 2030 will be 35% higher than it was in 2005

• Power generation is the largest and fastest growing sector and by 2030 40% of all energy supplies will be used to make electricity.

• Transportation is one of the fastest growing sectors and by 2030 heavy duty vehicles will have become the largest users in the sector Demand for cars will flatten through to 2030.

• Energy demand trends will be dominated by growth in China, India and other non OECD countries. All energy demand and CO2 growth from 2005 to 2030 occurs in non OECD. In OECD energy demand essentially flat and CO2 expected to decline.

• Global CO2 emission to grow by 0.9% pa

• Oil will remain the largest energy source with natural gas the fastest growing fossil fuel. Nuclear and renewable will also see strong growth

• One of the most important “fuels” of all is energy efficiency. This will be the largest source of energy through to 2030. Without energy efficiency improvement growth in energy deamnd would not be 35% higher BUT 95% HIGHER.

• Massive investment in technology will open up new energy sources and enable energy to be used more efficiently.

The full report can be seen at

www.exxonmobil.com

The importance of energy efficiency is I think a particularly interesting way of considering its importance in energy supply.

Graham Jervis 5th March 2010

I recently listened to a seminar in which Lancashire Constabulary related their experience in providing Desktop Virtualisation to 5000 desks.

So what has that got to do with Workplace Management?

Well the seminar highlighted one issue that IT consistently fail to recognise as a major benefit. The IT chaps from Lancashire pointed out that the business case for desktop virtualisation is very difficult to make because of the high up front investment needed and that without the clear support from a business mandate, in this case, new regulatory security requirements, they would not have been able to progress the project.

Now desktop virtualisation is a great enabler of flexible use of workplaces, freeing people to work at any desk using exactly the systems and applications they normally expect at their own desk.

So we have a common situation in which IT would wish to go forward with desktop virtualisation to provide them with benefits in lower support costs but unable to sufficiently make the business case without other benefits being taken into account. At no stage was there any consideration of the substantial financial benefits arising from better workplace utilisation that would accrue from virtualisation.

The situation I feel is symptomatic of the silo approach to workplace services that IT and FM take in many organisations.

It is time that such silos were broken down and I would suggest it would help if FM management did more of the following:

1. better understand the technical aspects of desktop virtualisation – its basic workings and some of the difficulties involved.
2. invite IT technical management to attend FM “away” days and to talk about their challenges and to explore where the departments can better work together.
3. seek to develop joint workplace investment plans in which the total benefits and costs can be identified.

 I know that this is a concern for many FM colleagues but the next few years offer great opportunities to grasp. Desktop refresh programmes and upgrades to Windows 7 both open up the opportunity to consider desktop virtualisation.

Graham Jervis

Over Christmas I read an interesting little book. “Yes! 50 secrets from the science of persuasion” by Noah Goldstein.

The book describes a series of controlled psychological experiments to test out various views on how people are persuaded.  As well as underpinning some apparently obvious ploys, there are some less predictable ones. One that struck me, particularly, has implications on the behavioural outcomes to benchmarking comparisons.

In the experiment, the researchers sought to encourage 300 householders to reduce their energy wastage use. They sold the idea on the basis of environmental arguments and cost savings and provided a service for measuring the individual householders baseline use of gas and electricity. The householders were then given advice on means of saving energy and the trial began. Over several weeks the researcher collected weekly data on use and the analysis provided back to the participants. Each householder was given a report on their own use and that of the average use. The trail was then repeated and over the next few weeks it was clear that those households which used more than the average had significantly improved - but, what about those who had been better than the average?

They had got significantly worse!

The results support a frequent psychological trait. People are most comfortable when they feel themselves not to be outside of what they consider to be normal.

There is a magnetic attraction to the middle ground.

That prompted a further trial in which those that were better than the average were given a small acknowledgement of their superior performance. Just a smiley on their results report! The results were equally dramatic in that those who were better improved still more.

Interesting!

Graham Jervis

There has been an interesting and lively debate on LinkedIn on the pros and cons for this. The arguments against charging user departments centre around bureaucracy and/or unfairness of a system that would penalise business units that cannot afford the space they occupy.

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers&discussionID=11875044&gid=1959879&commentID=11869531&trk=view_disc

Although these are undoubtedly real concerns, these seem to be negative arguments and suffer from their neutrality in changing the way in which we view the use of space. We do need to have drivers that encourage space to be seen as an expensive resource that needs to be managed and that means that the cost of that space needs to visible to those who manage businesses.

I have given this some thought over the last few days and offer some best practice pointers that might encourage FM managers to use cross charging:

1. Do your financial management accounting accurately to ensure that all the costs are defensible and openbook.
2. Be clear about why you want to cross charge and how that works to achieve your workplace strategies.
3. Open up the debate with your CFO and sell the benefits to him.
4. Ensure that you achieve consistency in the basis for your cross charging with other service departments such as IT. (This is particularly important if you are seeking to achieve the benefits of more flexibility in the use of desks as this may require additional IT investment that in turn may be recovered by IT cross charging.)
5. Determine, and get accepted by senior business executives, workplace standards to avoid the excesses that highly profitable businesses may be able to afford to the detriment of others that cannot afford the same.
6. Prepare for the next budget cycle to get cross charging measures set up. It will no doubt lead to some active discussions.
7. Use the costs of space to assist in business cases that require investment to achieve space savings.

I would welcome any additional contributions.

Graham Jervis

Yvette Cooper, the Work and Pensions Secretary revealed last month that the government is working with employer organisations to extend the rights to flexible working for all employees from the day they joined in response to an EU Equality and Human Rights Commission ruling.

This means that these rights will not just be for carers and parents with children under 16 but for everyone.

Leaving aside the growing criticism of these changes from small businesses, and with the growing popularity of Flexible Working, just how will this impact the already poorly utilised workplace in offices?

Will there be a large increase in the number of people electing to work part time from home?

Will it extend the hours each day that offices need servicing?

How will it change the services that FM provide?

Another set of issues that need to be evaluated in formulating FM and Workplace Management strategies for the future and another good reason for routinely monitoring the actual use of office space and services over time as such changes take hold.

Graham Jervis 17 Feb 2010

The recent annual CES jamboree in the US this month strongly features the introduction of 3D TV in 2010. With Sky expected to introduce premier football matches in 3D by Oct there could in theory be 1.6m watching 3D.

LG may be the first manufacturer to release its 3D model, a 47 inch LCD screen, expected to cost about £2,000. The 3D TV’s require viewers to wear polarised glasses but for some the inconvenience would probably be worth it to feel almost on the pitch with the players of your favourite footie team.

But even if it is a great step forward in watching tv and in playing video games, will it transform business videoconferencing? Would we see the value of viewing the boss in glorious 3D? Would it work well for remote supervision of complex tasks such as sugical operations?

What are your views?

Graham Jervis

Wondering about just how much things have changed in terms of accessing information. Yesterday I found myself following sporadically on my PC a live transmission of Blair’s appearance at the Chilcot inquiry, and this morning we learn that Margaret Thatcher’s papers from 1979 are now available on the web.

Our access to masses of information in digital form is growing at phenomenal rates, available at the touch of an IPad, a computer or mobile phone at any time and place you choose. Facebook users now number in 100’s of millions and a 2009 US Department of Education report said that on average online students outperformed those receiving face to face instruction.

and yet…

Nick Robinson commented yesterday that being physically in view of Tony Blair he could detect the “fear” in Blair’s eyes and hand movements that didn’t come over on the broadcast.

So just how far will we be able to live our lives and do our business digitally?

The benefits to business and people of remote and advanced working we are just at the tip of realising. Much more can, and should be done, to exploit the technologies and public interest in advanced working. But it is equally important that the leaders of our businesses put old prejudices aside and consider carefully just what sort of working style suits their organisation and customers best. Workplace strategies do need to be based upon accurate evidence and entirely consistent with business strategies. This means that not only do we need to understand accurately how our offices and workplaces are used over time but we have to get behind the personal behaviours and processes involved in the business. We need a process for collaboration between business leaders and infrastructure executives in Real Estate, IT and HR much different from the past tactical engagement.

The role of the Corporate Real Estate and FM executive has never been more exciting and challenging and a more extensive model of management practices and capabilities is needed to encourage and support these managers to take on the challenge.

In my blogs over the coming weeks I shall be exploring thoughts on these capabilities.

In the meantime I would be most interested in your own wonderings….

Graham Jervis 30^th January

Are you thinking of desktop virtualisation to encourage more agile working and desk sharing in offices?

Now could be the time to talk to your IT colleagues about the benefits of better space utilisation that desktop virtualisation could enable. Now that Windows 7 has been released, IT Departments will be considering how in future they are going to migrate their desktop operating systems from Microsoft XP to Windows 7.

‘So what!’ you might say?

Well there are complications here. Microsoft XP cannot be simply upgraded to Windows 7 and IT departments will have to consider how they apply the changes. This means that they may well be considering changing their IT architecture to a virtualised platform and this could benefit both FM and IT.

So I think it is opportune to develop your workplace utilisation strategies in time to fully debate the case for virtualisation.

Graham Jervis