Lately the momentum to outdistance a nagging sense of being left behind has accelerated for businesses. So many predictions about the digital workplace come tinged with a sense of urgency that it’s hard not to feel chivvied by time and circumstance. No matter that the future of doing business is still anyone’s guess; if you’re not sprinting red-faced to catch up, you’re already behind.

Welcome to the emerging reality of the digital workplace, part hype, part uncertainty, but definitely disruptive. As businesses have moved from the late-industrial to the information age, work has morphed from a task-oriented hierarchy toward a model less solid, albeit better connected, more competitive, and far more complex. The term “smart company” has taken on a new meaning as geographically separated teams and client bases collaborate across an ocean of wireless signals via workplace-enabled technologies.

 …