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While this is an interesting article, i don't think it provides sufficient nuance to be useful. A person's ability to operate in a situation (their digital fluency, for example), the types of tasks that they are doing, and the intensity of the attention they need to apply in a situation should determine the degree to which they attempt to multitask. The more fluent people we've seen know when to shut down their laptop or crackberry when they know they won't be able to pay attention, and when the context calls for them to keep it open.

While i don't really agree with Lynda's assertion that the job of middle manager will "disappear," i do agree that the nature of the job is already changing, because some of the original reasons for the necessity of professional managers has changed. I've written about this here: http://www.socialens.com/2009/11/12/recalibratingrule-of-thumb-vs-scientific-management/

The customer-centered company needs to make its products interactive, train its people for co-creative dialogue, redesign its physical places for two-way interactions, and open up the architecture of its digital sites to other processes and content that the company doesn't control. Nike puts a sensor in its shoes that lets runners track their runs and has a web platform where exchange data with others. Starbucks encourages a dialogue across all its stakeholders through the highly popular mystarbucksidea.com website. 3M invites its B2B customersto co-create new products with its R&D people live in their corporate labs. Apple invites third parties to develop new applications for its iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Companies are generally unprepared for this transformation to experience co-creation. Most product development groups continue to design non-interactive products. Company people in call centers and company stores still generally follow company narratives. Most corporate IT departments and suppliers are trained in one-way project-management techniques incompatible with true engagement-platform development. Herein lies the transformational challenge customer experience managers will face as they become customer-experience co-creators.