Adobe recently commissioned a new survey to look at how business will be conducted in the social-media rich environment of the future. The quest was to find if social networking and instant messages have the capability to replace the standard business phone call, a working lunch and the handshake. The survey targeted respondents who were white-collar workers. College students accounted for 10 percent of the respondents. Survey responses were divided equally between men and women.

 

The respondents were broadly classified into four categories:

Leaders - Young professionals who use a variety of emerging technologies both at work and in their personal lives

Actives - Largely professionals over 35 years who have adapted to emerging technologies to meet the changing demands of the workplace

Followers - The less technically-inclined who rely on e-mail at the exclusion of other technologies

Resisters - Generally older workers who are reluctant to adjust to shifts in the workplace and office technologies

The results of the survey have thrown up quite a few facts that might be startling for some, while at the same time predictable for others who always thought social networking will "take off" in a big way, even for business purposes - outgrowing its original intentions as being a tool for kids to network.

 

The research suggests several trends signify that more business will be conducted using emerging communications technologies and social networking platforms. More importantly, the survey adds that technologies that people prefer to use in their private lives will become the technologies people want to use at work. Additionally, it showed that the younger generation prefers to use multiple channels of communication, often choosing social networks, text messaging or instant messaging instead of e-mail and in-person meetings.

 

Other key findings of the survey include the emergence of text messaging as a business tool. With 50 percent of technology "leaders" saying they choose text messaging or instant messaging if they could have only one technology for a month for personal use, the verdict is clear. In the next five years, white-collar workers plan to increase their time working remotely by 50 percent, resulting in average white-collar workers spending 30 percent of their time working out of the office.