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As the free-floating, non-restrictive nature of streamlined Internet access and efficiency continue to grow, the Internet community will slowly render the traditional functionality of the office obsolete. Bye-bye cubicles and bye-bye water coolers.

The scene opens in a master bedroom, when the sun is not out yet but ticklish feet are searching for lost slippers, as rested fingers stretch and get ready for a frantic tap dance on the keyboard. A few clicks later and the world's largest office opens. Welcome to Google. The big-mama of all connectivity, enabling the searching of the entire globe, connecting to millions via Gmail, offering calendars, shared schedules, spreadsheets, aerial surveillance, videos and dozens of other nick-nacks necessary to launch a major attack on any business or a personal quest.

This access to an omnipresent, fully-functional office is so perfect, that it seriously threatens the world order of bureaucracy, whose red-tape processes have not only stifled progress with unnecessary functionalities, but continue to promote a mindset of dysfunctional square cubicles, dark elevators, and staled-air offices, where there are hourly meetings being held to determine why such meetings are required in the first place. As the free-floating, non-restrictive nature of streamlined Internet access and efficiency continue to grow, the Internet community will slowly render the traditional functionality of the office obsolete. The World's Largest Office is now open; all that's missing is the water cooler.

Bravo Google, your skate-boarding through the corporate corridors over boardroom backstabbing is certainly paying off. All that’s missing from Google are some additional services, like G-banking, job searches, and so on. Did someone say office? What office? In the near future, you will be able to visit the full-blown office exhibition at the Museum of Natural History, where young children can relive the rise and fall of the office hierarchy, the disappearance of three-hour dry Martini lunches, the final revenge of Dilbert's armies and their breakdown of the cubicles, and the ultimate elimination of water coolers.

Eventually, the prospect of having an office may dissipate, as they are rapidly being replaced by rooms creatively constructed to look like safari camps, art galleries, solariums, fish tanks, kitchens, and do not forget the master bedrooms. Offices of the past have done wonders, defined and pioneered by the great corporate leaders who laid the rules of hierarchy and delivered us the hard and soft goods leading to where we are today. A major transition where grey flannel meets the colorful cotton, where the mahogany meets rattan and where four walls do not make a prison, nor 'in' and 'out' trays a cage. Freedom at last surpasses the conventional 9.00-5.00 model and daily traffic grinds.

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Naseem Javed, recognized as a world authority on corporate image and global name identities, is a harsh critic of casual and accidental naming. He is a dynamic speaker on corporate image and branding issues, and is also the author of Naming for Power. He founded ABC Namebank International, an image and branding consultancy over 25 years ago.
Website: www.abcnamebank.com