Inside Looking Out: An Executive View on Enterprise Mobility With Chris Clark

Welcome to the latest edition of Inside Looking Out.  I had the opportunity last week to sit down with Chris Clark.  Chris is the COO of Fiberlink.  This was a genuinely FUN conversation.  Almost instantaneously, we were laughing out loud, blending current social events with philosophical opinions on life, liberty and the pursuit of pervasive enterprise mobility.

The Enterprise Mobility Foundation: As I’m sure you heard, economists told us last week that the US recession ended several months ago.  This made me think about the equivalent in (enterprise) mobility.  Have we already reached the tipping point, are we there now and don’t realize it or is it still a ways away?

Chris Clark: Well, first let’s try to do a little better than our economist friends in taking 15 months after the event ended to declare it over. Specific to business, I think we have not reached the mobility tipping point yet. We are still two to four years away. I define the enterprise mobility tipping point as three events occurring simultaneously. First, when an hour of productivity on a smartphone or tablet equals an hour of productivity on a laptop or desktop. We are not there yet. The typing function alone, sorry to be the spoilsport, is not equivalent in iPad versus Mac or BlackBerry versus Lenovo. Second, we hit the “m tipping point” when my personal devices can peacefully co-exist as my business devices in the eyes of the Corporate IT department and legal department. When this happens we have the “personal business device” as all-in computer. We are still struggling with this.   And third, when my phone calls don’t drop anymore!

EMF: So with that said, what do you see as the “mobile culture?”

CC: Yeah, I have been thinking about what a mobile culture is for the last three years, especially in terms of organizational design, management, global competitiveness and employee work- life balance. Mobility is not something you just enable with mobile devices, wireless internet, and SaaS apps. Mobility is a core competency you need to foster your corporate values, attract next generation talent, use to lower costs and sell to customers. I think there are several indications of a mobile culture building in a company, both on the qualitative and quantitative side: when 70% of a company’s employees use laptops as primary computers; when the company finds no difference in employees’ understanding of company strategy,  whether the employee is a remote worker or comes to the office every day; finally, I think the number of SaaS applications and number of corporate connections employees are using also are important mobile culture drivers.

EMF: Much of the growth in mobility has been because of the consumerization of mobility – and its unsolicited entry into the workplace…hence the great IL/CL movement.  Moving forward, how do we balance personal wants with workplace needs?

CC: I think we need to rewrite the rules on the relationship between employee and company. If we are going to unlock the full power of the mobile internet, including the technology in devices and the tide of downloadable apps, we need to map out what productivity, cost efficiency and responsible behavior looks like in this mobile enterprise world.  We need to accept that choosing to  work from nine to five is no different than choosing to work  from five to nine and the employee is just as responsible for diligence, integrity, and making progress outside the office as they are when they roam the office corridor. On the other hand, the company needs to accept that the terms of engagement for getting work done are different now. This model might sound simple or obvious but I don’t think we have found that balance yet. Mostly we haven’t found it because IT and management have not figured out the boundaries of an employee’s use of corporate data and devices.

EMF: So how do we get employees to be willing to opt in to the corporate-mandated policies?

CC: Well, I think it’s a two-way street now, with the control shift toward employees and not IT. So we need to re-balance the equilibrium between employee admin rights, if you will, and IT demands.  Historically it has been IT calling all the shots. We need to give employees a “trust but verify” kind of model. We need to ensure that the employee knows what the IT department can see and, in turn, we need to ensure that the IT department has the right to see it. We then “Chinese Wall” the personal side of that same co-mingled “personal business device.” I think both parties in this deal, employee and company, want the same result in the end – working anytime anywhere. Legal departments are really not interested in knowing or being responsible for what an employee is doing with their devices provided it does not include the corporate data or context. And I think any company with good management and values is comfortable with their employees maximizing their professional and personal time.

EMF: Along those lines, how do we strike a balance for mobile security and privacy?

CC: IT needs a window into the status of employee devices, the status of when and where the devices make corporate connections, which applications were used with corporate data and whether the applications were used in a compliant state. At the moment it is very difficult to be managing the heterogeneity of devices. But I think you will see software management platforms that deliver one window and one system to make the “trust but verify” easier. I think employees, for the most part will be comfortable with this arrangement.

EMF: Are you suggesting therefore that every piece of corporate data should exist in private secure clouds?

CC: That probably is not going to happen in the mobile internet world anytime soon.

EMF: Hmmm….that makes me wonder about how, moving forward, we’ll be able to parse our personal vs. professional lives.  Is that still possible in the mobile world?

CC: I don’t think it is possible in terms of devices and I don’t think it is possible in terms of apps. So we need to focus on monitoring and managing the business data on those devices for governance and compliance purposes. It is far more efficient to mix personal and professional on the same device much like having a car that is used for both personal and professional purposes. As we have been discussing here, there will need to be a combination of culture, policies, technology and a focus on the business data of those devices to get all parties comfortable.

EMF: One last question for you Chris.  Where’s the next level of innovation in mobility?

CC: Certainly where there are problems or a need for model change there comes innovation. I expect significant innovation in the hardware and software for issues we have been discussing around privacy, productivity and policy. On the technology side, we will be working hard on designing and creating the software agents and servers to straddle the private and professional context. We will also see innovation on the softer side of things too like best practices and management models for designing and running mobile organizations.

I will give you another specific area of mobile innovation that is near to my personal interest. And that is mobility innovation in the classroom. And I do mean the physical classroom and not just the distance education model. Much like embracing the fact that employees have their own personal device doing business things, we all know that  iPhones and Blackberrys and Droids are owned by sixth graders. Those devices, while considered a distraction in the classroom, will become tools of real-time enlightenment and collaboration to facilitate conversation and to complete team projects and tests. There will be a significant increase in classroom applications for primary and secondary education with those mobile devices that are all the rage with the kids.

And that’s a wrap. Thanks so much Chris for taking the time to speak with me today.  If interested, you can connect with Chris via LinkedIn.  Do you know anyone who should be a guest here on Inside Looking Out? Drop us a line.