TBL prides itself on designing solutions for our clients that allow their employees to connect to each other in ways that improve the quality and speed of interaction. Business isn’t just conducted over the phone and e-mail anymore. As technology infiltrates our lives as consumers, we see the benefits it has on our personal interactions, and naturally begin to integrate it into our work lives. Instant Messaging and Text Messaging are two such examples that are almost common to most workplace environments these days. Ten years ago it would have been difficult to find many occurrences of either for business, but we were all seeing the benefits of IM’ing and texting to stay in touch with our friends and family.

Today, we have moved beyond IM at home, and Skype is the predominant way we keep in touch with loved ones. And not just on the PC – every cell phone commercial on television boasts the ability to video call across the network. Yes, video is nothing new to the enterprise – we are all familiar with rolling cart video conferencing, or even the newer immersive room video systems, but video isn’t pervasive at the desk… yet. Solutions are just being introduced that are pushing video to every user on every device, and not just for live interaction. Any message that needs to be delivered is enhanced by video. Portals for video sharing, a corporate YouTube, now allow the publishing on content in a controlled authenticated, and searchable way that is suitable for corporations. Video will soon be a part of daily interactions in the workplace.

I was recently introduced to a woman who studies the use of technology by society. Amber Case refers to herself as a Cyborg Anthropologist. While a traditional anthropologist studies the tools ancient civilizations used to extend the physical self, Amber philosophizes on how modern man uses technology as tools to extend the mental self. We teleport ourselves around the world in an instant with global communications networks, can interact with acquaintances even when they are not online, and store a lifetime worth of memories on a device in the palm of our hand. It is technology that allows us to do this, but humanity that urges us to want to. If technology didn’t allow us to improve to way we interact with other humans, we wouldn’t use it. At TBL, we coined the phrase techumanity to describe the way technology allows people to connect in ways that are more human.

Amber gets techumanity, and we think it is pretty cool.