2.4 Work-Life Balance

2.4 Work-Life Balance

2.4.1 Introduction

Chris is a working parent and is involved in two entertainment activities right now, one for work and one at home, which he needs to coordinate in order to maintain a good work-life balance.

At work, Chris is in sales and has a need to keep in touch with his customers and develop new ones. Chris sells a line of teen-oriented clothing. A number of his customers are into a future- shock , cyberpunk role-playing game, called "bunk," that connects them through phone, pager, Web, and e-mail. Chris has chosen to play this extended online game so that he can meet potential customers, interact with his existing customers, keep tabs on the latest lingo and fads, and just to have fun.

At home, Chris likes to relax in his media room and is very into music, music videos, and photographs. He has a collection of old college buddies who are into this too, but they are spread all over the world. He and his friends like to get together to share music, talk about the bands, concert dates, new videos , and so forth. He also likes to have access to his music when he's in the car on the way to his next appointment or just when he's ferrying his daughter to her horseback riding lessons. Ozzy Osbourne is a great accompaniment to dressage.

2.4.2 The Present

In the near future, we have serious bandwidth issues for our wide area wireless providers and very spotty coverage for 802.11. The appliances Chris uses speak both. Chris likes to travel light, so he has a very light headset he uses for both music and phone work, a palm- sized computer that doubles as a phone dialer/communication hub, and a wristwatch that shows simple paging info and doubles as a control panel for playing music, etc.

On his way to the mall to talk to his next client, Chris is notified through his watch that a bunk player is nearby who has some info he needs. He uses his PDA to IM and makes a stop at the Jamba Juice to chat and trade bunk secrets, PDA to PDA. On his way to his customer, he passes a print kiosk where he prints a small booklet about the next bunk challenge and some info he needs.

His new-music-notifier service also sends him a page, based on his music interests, showing that there is a new Ozzy track. He vows to track that down later. At his customer's place of business, he finds out what the needs are, beams over a catalog customized to his customer, picks up some information about what's selling (the local store inventory has been told to allow him to get aggregate info on his products only), checks on the status of some open orders, and swaps bunk stories with the manager. Because his watch has swapped interests with the manager, he finds they are both Ozzy fans, and the manager tells him about a new single that is out. They share bunk IDs so they can help each other later in the week. A new custom catalog will be printed and shipped out that same day, and an online catalog will be uploaded that the customer can peruse.

On the way out of the mall, Chris stops at the music store to get a demo track of the Ozzy song, adding it to his playlist. He will listen to it now and then share it with his buds tonight when he gets to his media room. On the road again, Chris fires up his playlist on the car stereo that was synchronized with his home system overnight when the car was in the garage. The Ozzy single will be waiting for him at home. He can listen to it and share it with his friends later tonight.

2.4.3 The Future

In the farther future, we have better bandwidth for our wide area wireless providers and less spotty coverage for 802.11 WLAN technology. The appliances Chris uses can connect to both types of networks. Chris likes to travel light, so he has a very light headset he uses for both music and phone work, a palm-sized computer that doubles as a phone dialer/communication hub, and a wristwatch that shows simple paging info and doubles as a control panel for playing music.

The personal agent informs Chris about new music from Ozzy, which is automatically downloaded to his music repository and which will be charged only after he has listened to it twice. The first listening is free and and lets Chris decide if he likes the song enough to purchase it. The song is encrypted and cannot be copied so the record label does not suffer from pirate copies of the song. Once he decides that he likes it, he receives not only the audio file, but automatically also the video file with it. Depending on the device Chris is using, the quality of the video is recalculated on the spot or only the audio track is heard .

While driving to the customer site, Chris can already start talking to the customer about his needs, because his car has a built in camera and displays the incoming video stream on the windshield , so that Chris is not distracted from driving. At the customer site, the print-on-demand service has delivered the new catalogues, and Chris can use the time to have some discussions with the manager about the future.

2.4.4 Summary

If we analyze the me-centric implementation in this scenario, we see that mobility plays an important role, as Chris moves around and requires lots of bandwidth. The major issue is the design of the device that Chris will be using. The light headset, the wristwatch, and the PDA need to be connected wirelessly and need to be able to operate on their own, if the other components are not reachable . While the wireless connection can be achieved easily with today's technology, such as Bluetooth for local connection and WLAN for external connection, it can be difficult to create self-sufficient devices.

Each of the devices should be able to take over the functionality of the other. The headphone should be able to provide spoken page information, while the PDA should be able to play music, if required. Therefore, the devices themselves should not hold any information or services, but rely on the connection to a service provider that can provide the required information and services to each of the devices. The only job of the device is to convert the information to its output interface. An agent needs to configure the devices that Chris uses. The devices should work together automatically and respond to the service provider the configuration in which they work. In case a device is switched off, the service provider may need to reconfigure the service to make it useful for Chris. This means that when he uses his earphones, the music will be streamed to that device; if he is at home, the music will be played on his personal stereo. The device should have a fat cache to operate well with downloaded data and programs, and continuously when offline.

In Figure 2.5, you can see the networking infrastructure, which provides a seamless network to Chris and his music. Depending on the type of network, the quality of the music is automatically adjusted. On low-bandwidth networks, the quality is automatically dropped, and as soon as Chris connects to a higher bandwidth network, the quality is enhanced again. This requires seamless roaming just like in the first scenario.

Figure 2.5. Work-Life Balance Ecosystem

Some bandwidth needs to be reserved to support the agents that help Chris with his work. Chris's car can be used for video-conferencing and can provide all the relevant information that Chris needs for his work. An agent collects the past orders of a certain dealer and compares the information with other dealers and their recent orders. The agent prepares a proposal for that dealer based on this information. Another agent would check the stock level at that dealer and restock the bestsellers automatically.