When is time less important than...?

It is said time is not a renewable resource. Yes the day starts all over again tomorrow but during the course of the day there seems to be never enough time. Time to meet your clients, colleagues, friends and most importantly your family. A well balanced schedule both private and professional (your career) is hard to come by. 

After 9-11 companies began looking inside... and began to appreciate family values and the real work life balance... after perhaps two years things were back to normal. Work to live, live to work.... With the great economic downturn that started in 2008 companies made tough decisions to jettison corporate assets (technology + people) at record volumes. Only with the intervention of the government gift program did the economy not fall into a deep deep recession or "depression".  

Workers worked more, did the duties of several employees at the same time and work life balance was shrouded with "you are lucky to be employed"... workers became interchangeable parts more than ever. Stockholders demanded bigger returns, outsourcing to the far east increased and the remaining workers became more stressed.

As the economy slowly rebounds one can ask... what did we learn from 9-11? from post 9-11? from the great recession? What effects did this have on our private life and the great work life balance?  To answer is to invest hours and thousands of words into such a story. The "Of War and Peace" of the modern era. A novel so lengthy it can be used to hold up the tilting leaning tower of Pisa. 

However technology did not stop evolving...out of this period came some great cloud technology designed due to improvements in internet access and the great recession where investments in hardware and infrastructure are the less wished scenario. 

Technology investments remain at all time lows - sales of new infra and new services have spread to all corners of the market but at lower buy in rates. Video conferencing hardware saw drops of ca. 20% across the board from ALL providers including CISCO, LifeSize/Logitech, Polycom. Only ZTE and Huawei showed increases and those at about 1%. 

Today technology is readily available at affordable prices that can turn the tide back towards a proper work life balance. The reality is as an employer at the end of the day I want my employees to do something else. Giving an extra half day of work in most cases will not make more people and companies buy more services. It from an employee perspective is not scalable. Go Home... enjoy your family and your hobbies...come back tomorrow, batteries charged and ready to be productive. #Videoconferencing services can help by cutting down on stress, travel times to and from meetings and well collaboration. This supports a proper work life balance and is in my eyes... #Timewellspent