It’s a question the BBC has been asking experts throughout the month, turning to Tom Austin, vice president at research firm Gartner for their latest article looking into the future of work. We’re only just getting started with this century, but already the tech revolution has radically altered how many of us earn our livings, and bigger changes may yet be on their way. So when the BBC asked Austin what he imagines for the future of work, he outlined systems and tendencies far different from those that prevailed for much of the last hundred years.

Some aspects of Gartner’s vision will be familiar to regular GigaOM readers, including a shifting of focus from work as a place to work as an activity we can do almost anywhere. “The workplace is becoming increasingly virtual: with meetings occurring across time zones and between organizations,” Austin tells the BBC. Nor is his prediction of a highly connected future exactly a bolt from the blue. “Hyper-connectedness will lead to more work crossing company boundaries in both formal and informal relationships,” he says. But some of his predictions are surprising and thought-provoking. These includes:

De-routinization of work. The core value that people add does not lie in processes that can be automated. It lies in the non-routine, uniquely human, analytical or interactive contributions that people make, which often relate to discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, selling and learning.

Sketch-ups. Most non-routine processes will also be highly informal. It’s important to try to capture the criteria used in making decisions but, at least for now, Gartner does not expect most non-routine processes to follow meaningful standard patterns, and the process models will remain simple sketch-ups created as needed.

Spontaneous work. Spontaneity will trump reactivity. This implies growth in proactive work, such as seeking out new opportunities and creating new designs and models.

Check out the complete article for full details on all ten of Austin’s predictions. In the industrial age the obvious metaphor for human workers was parts in a machine, as factory workers and office workers engaged in routine tasks creating standardized products at a fixed place and time and as part of a larger process. Like some futurists, Austin foresees a new way of working that seems far more human as business runs not on an arbitrary schedule according to pre-fab rules but instead is governed by the inspiration and unsteady pace of creativity and relies on human relationships rather than bureaucratic systems to get things done.

Does the future of work outlined by Austin seem plausible to you?

Image courtesy of Flickr user krupp.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
• Social first-quarter 2013: analysis and outlook
• 11 steps for scaling a startup

Apple CEO Tim Cook said during his company’s recent earnings call that iPad sales haven’t really been affected by the Amazon Kindle Fire, which is no doubt contributing heavily to the success of Android tablets. It’s also likely the Barnes & Noble Nook Color and Nook Tablet are included in the Android figures. Instead, Cook admitted the iPad has had some cannibalization effect on sales of Macs, and he predicted that one day, the tablet market will be larger in volume than the PC market.

Compared to Android, Apple still has a dominant position in the tablet market, with a 57.6-percent share compared to Android’s 39.1 percent, according to Strategy Analytics’ most recent numbers. In terms of year-over-year growth, the tablet space has grown by 150 percent between the end of 2010 and 2011. In other words, even if shares were more evenly split, the iPad would still be seeing big gains in unit sales.

The PC market, on the other hand, contracted by around six percent in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to research firm Gartner. That’s despite 20 percent growth by Apple’s own Mac line of computers. Kevin Tofel recently pointed out here on GigaOM that half of computing device sales are now mobile. If the trend of growing tablet and smartphone sales continue, and PC sales continue to decline, we’ll soon be in a position where mobiles are considered a primary device by the majority of users.

Apple will continue to sell iPads. A new refresh expected in the coming months might even help it turn the tide of slipping market share, since while the low-cost Kindle Fire may be a success, other Android tablet makers still seem to be having a hard time putting out a product consumers can get genuinely excited about. Kevin wrote last week about how Android 4.0, while it improves the Android tablet experience, still has a lot of glaring pain points. Also, Android’s tablet-specific app library lags considerably behind Apple’s, and isn’t catching up anywhere near as fast as the market on the smartphone side.

The companies putting out Android tablets that fail to achieve the Kindle Fire’s level of success are the same ones being hurt by the slowing PC market, and they’re the ones that stand to lose the most. Amazon’s Kindle fire has reportedly sold as many as 6 million units through the end of 2011, according to estimates, which would make it the world’s best-selling Android tablet.

Apple continues to appeal to a steadily growing audience of tablet users, but Amazon is answering the call of those who were happier buying bargain-priced netbooks for their basic computing needs, rather than spending more on an iPad. That’s the market PC makers should have been trying to retain with their own tablet efforts, and also the one Amazon has positioned itself best to appeal to.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Research In Motion: future scenarios for its fate
• Will cloud computing push the BRIC market to the front?
• Mobile first-quarter 2013: analysis and outlook