Connections

HITS Fall: LiveTiles Futurist Examines the Workplace of Tomorrow

LOS ANGELES — George Muir, futurist for digital workplace software firm LiveTiles, looks ahead to the not-so-distant future, and sees more than one dramatic change on the horizon, when it comes to how business is done.

The world’s population is expected to balloon from 7.3 billion people today to 8.5 billion by 2030, and people over the age of 65 will double to more than a billion by 2030. And how business is done is already shifting.

“The digitization of business is working with robots, working with artificial intelligence, rethinking your manufacturing to make it smart, rethinking your retail strategy,” Muir said, speaking Oct. 18 at the HITS Fall: Hollywood Innovation & Technology Summit event. “We’re connected, nonstop, all the time. We’re connected so much, even when you’re not connected, you’re connected, there’s so much information going around.”

And for businesses, that constant connectivity means that because of the need for certain skill sets and talents, employees are gaining more of an upper hand, Muir said.

“You run your life with your heart, your head and your pocket,” he added. If a business doesn’t offer up good values for its prospective employees, they’ll turn elsewhere. “Values regarding who you work for is more important than ever,” he said.

More and more people will have more and more time, thanks to technological advances, giving them more flexibility with how they work and who they choose to work for, Muir argued. “How will you work? You have to prepare for the future, you have to prepare for flexibility,” he said.

The workplace of the future must have a social culture, keep its employees mental and physical health in mind, “or these companies will disappear, and disappear fast,” he added.

HITS: Fall 2017 was presented by Cast & Crew, with sponsorship by Ooyala, Sohonet, Microsoft Azure, Premiere Digital, TiVo, LiveTiles and Veritone. The bi-annual conference focused on innovation and technology is produced by MESA in cooperation with Hollywood IT Society (HITS), Content Delivery & Security Association (CDSA), Smart Content Council (SCC) and Women in Technology Hollywood (WiTH).