Gates talks knowledge work to CEOs
To an audience of more than 100 global CEOs, Bill Gates today presented a picture of the near future where knowledge workers empowered by technology and information will deliver superior customer service.
Microsoft will lead by example. The Redmond, WA-based enterprise will have a wireless communications infrastructure in place within a year, said the Microsoft CEO and chairman in his presentation, "Knowledge Workers Without Limits," part of Microsoft's CEO Summit.
The company will also move forward with KM-related technologies -- significant developments in this space will be announced next week, according to Microsoft Knowledge Management Solutions Industry Manager Jeffrey Kratz.
Speaking at Microsoft's CEO Summit, Gates elaborated on how he sees his company's role: "Our goal is to help create an opportunity for companies to explore best practices and innovative ways of empowering these knowledge workers so they can be more productive and better serve their customers."
Gates unveiled a six-part strategy for developing knowledge work. These six realms are: corporate memory; connectivity to the office of any device; digital dashboard; meetings without walls; electronic paper; and computers that see, listen and hear.
In terms of corporate memory, Gates elaborated on the need for businesses to have a rich, contextual corporate memory to allow access to corporate data anytime and anywhere. Likewise, knowledge workers need to be able to tap that from devices including mobile phones and palm-sized PCs.
Gates spoke of a "digital dashboard" as a technology that will be a single point of access for "knowledge workers to obtain information within 60 seconds of posing a question."Smart knowledge work also involves leveraging currently available and soon to be developed videoconferencing, E-mail and intranet technologies to enable sharing and problem-solving.
On the electronic paper front, Gates previewed ClearType, a new technology for making reading online text similar to reading physical text on paper.
Ultimately, Gates said he sees a goal of computers communicating in such a way that knowledge workers will be able to make computer problem solving almost non-existent, leaving more time to innovate and share ideas.
"When knowledge workers have no limits, entire organizations can stay one step ahead of the competition and provide benefit to their customers," said Gates.
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