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When Apple finally revealed the world’s second worst kept secret (Ricky Martin today revealed the other one – good for you Ricky), I publicly and privately expressed, along with many others, my initial, if not disappointment, at least state of being underwhelmed. Whatever it was, it wasn’t revolutionary (and let’s face it, we’ve come to expect revolution from Apple).

I’ve think I might have changed my tune. Not because of the technology, which always seemed pretty cool (Apple designed their own custom chip, the form factor, built the OS, and the core software – come on that’s impressive in anyone’s language). But because of the real impact on the way we work, the places we work, the way we collaborate I think it will have. In short, it might just revolutionize the concept of work.

200 years ago, toward the end of the Napoleonic wars, most of the world, even in its most developed parts, worked with their hands, in pre, or at most proto industrial occupations. Farming, weaving, shoemaking and so on. Those who worked in clerical roles represented a tiny fraction of the world’s population.

In the groundbreaking and highly readable Time, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism [PDF], English Historian E.P.Thompson asked “If the transition to mature industrial society entailed a severe restructuring of working habits – news disciplines, new incentives, and a new human nature on which these initiatives could effectively bite – how far is this related to changes in the inward notation of time.”

The industrial revolution essentially invented the vast majority of the roles we occupy at work today, in manufacturing, administration, sales, and so on. And the nature of these roles is in many respects largely unchanged since their invention in the 19th century. They were (and remain) highly regulated (then because coordinating communication and cooperation between individuals was most readily done by bringing them all together at the same time in the same place). But long after the need for such regimentation has passed, out working remain similar.

Let’s focus on the sort of person for whom using a computer is central to their work, a person whose education, work related tasks, and indeed philosophy of work was completely unknown prior to the Industrial Revolution. I’ll exclude the tiny minority of those who work freelance, or in workplaces that work hard to make their employee’s experience more than the mundane (that is most of you reading this post I’d guess).

• We travel to places of work (at our expense, and on our own time, it’s worth noting) at designated times and on designated days
• We largely occupy utilitarian spaces, “cubicle farms” and the like, designed for maximum real estate efficiency, and modelled often on the panopticon – everyone is essentially publicly visible, so they can be continually monitored to ensure they are performing their tasks.
• Our work is measured largely in time – we clock on and off (often quite literally still 100 or more years after the invention of the punchclock).
• Of course, our use of that most precious of employer resources (our own time) is measured, and rationed – with our use of the web, and other online resources blocked or monitored.
• And our own work is often locked away on carefully controlled desktop computers, and all our work needs to be done in the workplace (I know fast growing successful startups with these sorts of policies, it isn’t just banks and governments)

But what does all this have to do with iPads?

The technology of work (both industrial and administrative) drives the shape of the workplace, which in turn shapes workplace policies and practices. Which is very much the tail of process wagging the dog of outcomes.

Computers, even “laptops”, work best on desks. Connected to power, and often physically to networks (many workplace networks require fixed connections only for “security” purposes). Now, it may come as a surprise to all you designers and developers out there, for whom multiple monitors, and super fast desktops and laptops, with multiple applications open simultaneously are a must, but for many of the roles most people play at work, the traditional computer at desk with keyboard and mouse, running a fully fledged OS like Windows is simply an anachronism (and overkill). People work with this technology because no better way of working has come along, and it has become embedded in (and come to shape) the architecture of work. Meanwhile, we’ve seen the Blackberry exploded in popularity, despite its crammed keyboard and terrible user experience in relation to a desktop computer for email, due to the popularity of doing email on the go. So popular, that the President of the United States insisted on keeping his despite the secret service concerns about security.

What the blackberry did for email, the iPad may well do for many kinds of clerical work (which for many of those who work in offices is very email driven anyway).
Desktop software has been, and will only continue moving to “the cloud”. So, IT departments will less and less need to manage the clients on the network the way traditional networks need to be managed (getting IT to cede this control is a separate issue).
The unpleasantness of sitting upright 8 or more hours a day in the same seat at the same desk will be replaced by the ability to choose different work environments based on mood and need. Large scale typing tasks can be done at a desk with a dedicated keyboard. Web based research or general emailing on a lounge, at a cafe, on the train or bus. Collaboration, particularly the unstructured free flow of brainstorming and idea generation often takes place best face to face – the iPad and the types of environments in which it can be comfortably used may well end up conducive to a synthesis of the best in online and in person collaboration.

It’s not that any of these possibilities are entirely new, but the iPhone and other similar devices simply aren’t the right form factor for extended work – they merely complement desktop and laptop computers in limited circumstances. Laptops, and even “netbooks”, as anyone who’s tried to use theirs on planes, and trains, and in bed, and even on the sofa, really don’t have the flexibility to be pleasantly used in most non desk-like environments for any extended period of time. The iPad may indeed have found the right sweet spot of mobile and more traditional computer like qualities to liberate us from the anachronistic, frankly stultifying work environments, and practices most “knowledge workers” are subjected to. I’d go so far as predict iPads (and of course the other similar form factor devices which will soon follow) will replace desktop and laptop computers for most people. And for those for whom it doesn’t I suspect it will replace their laptops, with ironically, the desktop outlasting the laptop computer (which for the last 5 years or so most people would have predicted as ultimately consigning the desktop to extinction).

Intelligent companies and organizations, starting with individual decision makers, will see the possibilities, for empowering and inspiring their workforce, for making their working environments not simply tolerable, but enjoyable (by granting as much autonomy as possible to those working for them, not by installing foosball and pool tables) and ultimately for getting much more from those who work for them by embracing the opportunities that rethinking traditional working environments and associated practices presents.

Such sweeping changes in the architecture and cultural practices of work will take time to come about, and be strongly resisted by many. Many levels of management exist largely to dream up and maintain policies, rather than actually enable their teams to achieve their outcomes better and more efficiently (the term “management” says it all really). But those decision makers, companies and workplaces which embrace these opportunities will surely see the best and brightest flock to them. And the value and output of those who do work for them soar.

We spend half or more of our waking life in some way connected with work – surely to goodness it should be as pleasant an experience as possible?