In the next 20 years, business is going to experience some major changes in many forms. From the way we exchange business cards, to writing invoices, to employing new people. New apps and technologies will break down barriers for companies to function more seamlessly.
But one that is set to experience an enormous renovation is the world of communications and conferencing. The way we communicate will go through great changes over the coming years and it will hit the boardroom more than anything else. In general, the way businesses speak to each other at the moment is still very much part of the 20th century.
We set up a time, we jump on a call or at the very best we hold a Google Hangout or video conferencing. We are very much limited by old technologies. Even HD flat screens challenge the humanness of an interaction. We can't shake or hug people; we just sit there idle exchanging glances. Imagine you were able to attend a press conference, keynote or seminar in person - new technologies like hologram and VR will allow you to be there without missing a thing.
Just think for a second how much time is wasted on people's business travels? We spend days and hours getting to one place just to manage a meeting with a company. Not to mention how environmentally unfriendly this all is.
Imagine the powerful implications of these technologies, and how they can save time and costs for your business. Imagine, in the near future we are able to adorn special glasses or allow a space for a hologram to appear where we can interact on a whole new level.
Imagine in the near future we can not only meet and greet someone on the other side of the world, but be in the same virtual room as them. They will be able to show us the blueprint for a new building or take us on a demo of a new live proposition.
VR
VR is still also very much in its infant stages as well, and has a lot to prove in terms of how many people currently use it. But companies like Microsoft, Samsung, Facebook, Google and even the US government have put billions of dollars into virtual reality, and we’re only now just starting to see the return on investment. They have created high-res functioning goggles like Facebook’s Occulus and the Gear VR by Samsung that can be used in many different situations.
For the business, it will revolutionise everything from product demos to event marketing, and even conducting job interviews, but most of all it will revolutionise the way we have business calls. Adorning goggles and communicating in real time will be a game changer.
There are many giants of the business world toying with this new technology already in different formats, from IKEA with its virtual e-commerce store to the largest e-sports networks and gaming sites mapping out a free-to-play Virtual Reality experience, to National Geographic putting out new immersive experiences based around their content, the examples will continue to flood in. With the VR market expected to grow to $407 million this year, expect a wave of new small to medium sized business adopting this technology.
Holograms
Do you remember in Star Wars when R2-D2 projects an image of Princess Leia onto a table? This sounds like sci-fi but this kind of technology looks set to become a reality once the technology is fine tuned.
The biggest transformation will be when 5G is soon rolled out. This will basically bring a whole new world of speed for mobiles. To put it into comparison, 4G right now throttles at around 1GB per second, but 5G will allow for a whopping 20GB per second allowing for a much larger data capacity and lower latency.
This will allow for not only holograms on the go, but a new way of interacting and projecting visuals from our mobiles. This technology is still in its infancy, but experiments have already been carried out which demonstrate that it is certainly possible.
Telco giants like Verizon, Korean Telecom and Vodafone have all trialled the 5G hologram technology to good effect. If successful in the future this will allow you to see and interact with life size people in remote parts of the world. Some people believe that 5G services won't arrive on the mobile until 2021, so we will have to wait that little bit longer.
Both hologram and VR will not only change the way we do business but also revolutionise the intimacy levels we experience with our colleagues and partners. Who knows it might even help wrap up your next major business deal.
