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Our organization works with
local, regional, state and federal leaders to develop more effective
uses of information and communications technologies (ICT).
Because our understanding of ICT as
infrastructure is unique, we are capable of supporting near term
objectives while laying the foundation for more competitive and
sustainable communities.
Broadband,
collaborative tools and virtual presence technologies are key elements
of the information economy. While these resources have facilitated rapid
and dramatic changes across the globe, we are challenged to fully use
these same resources to re-engineer our local economies.
One area of particular importance is
workforce deployment. It is an innovative, groundbreaking approach to
the commuting, location, security, and emergency preparedness problems
that many companies and government organizations face in major
metropolitan areas. Seeking to arrest the crippling nature of congestion
in our most vulnerable centers of commerce and population, distributed
workplace is a networked, multi-location approach that leverages
underutilized communications professionals and technologies to relieve
our overtaxed highways and improve air quality by reducing the drive of
many daily commuters.
Converged services networks (voice, data and video) and enhanced
collaborative and interactive systems permit a greater number of
employees to work from office clusters (“telesuites”)
located closer
to their place of residence.
These distributed work centers provide a more productive environment for
employees of major enterprise employers.
By using networked
offices to reduce commuting distances for some, the overall reduction in
Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) benefits the rest of the highway commuters.
POCKETS is the first full scale
departure from the current single location office model and telecommuter
scenarios. Its fundamental difference is the movement of the employees’
primary work location to their local community. Existing technologies
allow people in dispersed offices to function as if they are in the same
building by linking them electronically. This
‘distributed workplace” design has
many inherent benefits. The employer gains and retains a more rested,
more productive employee; the employee benefits from working in a
community “branch” telesuite reducing commute time and expense;
Additionally, networked distributed work centers offer better management
control, preservation of company identity, and provides employees
on-site technical support and training.
Our objective is
to establish ‘distributed workplace’ as a framework to extend employers’
access to a broader labor market. Integrated technologies and
computer-supported collaboration are key tools for knowledge workers.
Multi-location distributed work centers will create a strategic
advantage and establish a versatile building block of the networked
economy.
Our services include working with local
community stakeholders through public-private partnerships. Together,
with these partnerships, we analyze, plan, provision and manage these
distributed workplace networks to achieve economies of scale and to
create a platform for rapid geographic expansion and inclusion of
layered value added services such as distance learning and telemedicine.
POCKETS is the only
organization that is currently proposing a well planned, multi-location,
cross government and commercial distributed work solution. It addresses
many current and critical issues that face local and regional planners,
medium to large size employers, and daily commuters.
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