It has long fascinated me that an entire class of information work that used to be done by trained professionals is now being muddled through by the rest of us. I’m referring of course to data archiving, preservation of records, doing small research projects, preparing presentations and the like—which used to have skilled people to handle them. Well, turns out the next wave may bring some relief to those of us who wonder what we could be accomplishing if we weren’t revising the dancing baloneys on the PowerPoint presentation one more time.
Pfizer has adopted an innovative program call Office of the Future (or OOF) which allows employees to selectively outsource so-called “scut work” to two firms in India, for a price. The benefits to Pfizer people? Shorter turnaround times for projects, more consistent handling of tasks and of course time saved for higher value added work. In my own life I’ve learned the benefits of having a little help. My assistant, Anne Ferguson and I have been working together virtually for three years now, and it has been wonderful.
For a full description check out the Fast Company article.