Pictured Above: Wendy Ady video conferencing with Chief Technology Officer, Jeff Nyberg.

The impact that technology has on the everyday lives of Minnesotans is changing exponentially. As we head into 2020, we wanted to reflect on where we were 10 years ago, the challenges and opportunities addressed by technology today, and where we might be headed in 2030. Technology touches nearly every aspect of the services that Minnesota state government provides, and the evolution of those services is underpinned by advances in technology, better business processes propelled by new applications or data management, and a focus on access for all.

Over the last few weeks, we have been sharing the perspectives of employees from Minnesota IT Services (MNIT) who work hard every day for the State to ensure that Minnesotans have access to a better government.

Wendy Ady is the director of Office 365 operations and deployment at Minnesota IT Services and has seen an explosion of technology in the collaboration and productivity tool space over the past decade.

Q&A with Wendy Ady

What is an application that was gaining traction 10 years ago?

Wendy: I recall instant messaging was beginning to become a hot topic. People were excited about the prospect of reducing the number of email messages they had to manage, but were also struggling to identify how something akin to text messaging in their personal lives could be applied in a business context. A common concern of the time was that people might use instant messaging for chatting, which would be a distraction that took time away from meaningful work. In fact, instant messaging with integrated on-demand voice and video call capabilities have become a foundational collaboration tool. It allows us to stay connected and to work with colleagues and business partners among and across geographic boundaries and teams.

How has technology changed the way people work over the past decade?

Wendy: I think we’re in the early stages of a very significant shift right now for people who spend their working hours at a desk, particularly in the productivity tool space. Around 2010, we were already using productivity tools to create artifacts (documents, files, etc.) that could be shared with others. If you wanted to collaborate, you’d put the artifacts in a central location such as a SharePoint site. From there collaboration mostly consisted of turning on track changes and taking turns editing documents. Occasionally, the tools would tell you when it was your turn to take the next action.

Over the past 2-3 years we’ve seen exciting and powerful convergence and integration among the tool sets. Now, rather than taking turns editing a document, multiple people can work on that same document simultaneously. We can see the changes others are making and even have dedicated instant message discussions within the document. These functionalities enable people to collaborate in real-time while also keeping a record of the discussion and decisions for those who may need to participate at another time. This type of convergence and integration is going to power and transform the way we work in the new decade.

What ongoing challenges have you seen with recent technology changes?

Wendy: Being able to keep up with the pace of change and adopting new technology has always been challenging. When new tools or capabilities become available, we wonder: how will this help me; what can I do with it; do I really need it? The challenge for office workers now is that the changes are happening more often, and we need to adapt and adopt incrementally.

People tend to be nimble and more open to rethinking how something is done or presented to them when it happens in our personal interactions with technology. I think we’re still wrestling with the need to compartmentalize work and personal interactions with technology into different silos.

At home, people have become more flexible about technology changes. Their phone sends them an update notification that they complete because they know it will make their phone run better or enhance security. They see applications auto-update or have different feature and interfaces without batting an eye and adapt to the new operating procedures.

At work, it seems people aren’t as ready to adapt to similar changes with the applications, devices, and systems that we use to complete our daily tasks. However, I believe in the next 10 years, we will need to change that dual mindset – people will have to think about work, and productivity enhancing technology at work, as fluid and flexible as similar technology at home. If you don’t allow time and mental room for incremental adoption, you miss out on the opportunities that new advancements in productivity tool technology can provide. At the pace that things are changing, it will become increasingly harder to catch up once you’re behind.

What technology capabilities do you think will be available in 2030?

Wendy: I think the future will bring continuous change based on human-centered design. Software companies will advance the trend of continually releasing features, collecting light touch or no touch feedback, using AI to assess real-time user experiences and patterns, and reiterating rapidly on that feedback to provide better experiences. By participating in that cycle, the modern office worker will significantly contribute to what appears in subsequent releases. It’s exciting to imagine how the compressed, iterative development and deployment cycle will inform office productivity tools and transform the office worker experience over the next decade.