I’m Austin Lane, the product director for Lua. As we begin to introduce our product I’d like to take a moment to discuss why and how we built Lua, the thinking that informed our decisions, and why we feel Lua is poised to take over as the most advanced tool available for mobile workers.
The Way We Work Has Changed
There have been essentially 4 stages in the technical revolution of the work world. In the 80′s, computers were introduced in the workplace as solitary tools increasing the efficiency of a single professional. In the 90′s, the internet arrived and we began to exchange information across great distances, from one desk to another. The 2000′s will be known for laptops and working “at a desk” wherever we wanted – coffee shops, the couch, or the meeting room.
The 2010′s are the decade of mobile collaboration. Being tied to a desk is a problem. We can speculate about how this trend will change and grow but right now there are over 1 billion workers in the world who do not sit down next to their colleagues to do their work. They’re in the field, constantly moving, constantly adjusting – And no one is ready to serve them. Especially not the software companies still living in the past three decades. We built Lua because that computer in your pocket is now the most important tool in your business life.
To begin the process of building the product itself, we needed to break down the word collaboration. It’s a very broad term. As a strategist, the concept itself is not very useful. Collaboration in this context simply means to work together. But we had to ask what that actually meant to the mobile worker specifically. So we went out and spent years studying the interaction of professionals in the field, on film sets, concert tours, hotels, construction sites, and much more. We narrowed collaboration in mobile environments down to 5 central behaviors: Accessibility, Communication, Accountability, Coordination, and File Distribution. We built solutions for all of them. That’s Lua today.
People & Context
People and context. That’s what working together is about. Software is not the end point – it’s the conduit. Tasks are dumb strings of text, people aren’t. Give people what they absolutely need and get out of the way. That’s our philosophy.
At Lua we all share a desire. That desire is to contribute the greatest work we can to our fellow humans. Because that’s we expect from them. We want to watch the best films, traverse the most beautiful bridges, and bob our heads at the most amazing live shows. For the highest caliber of professionals to do their jobs, they need the highest caliber tools. We’re here to democratize that tool. We’re here to change the way people work together, forever.
