Remote working is here to stay. There’s a certain synergy that happens when you’re in the same room with someone during the creative process, but at T3, working from home has been far more successful than I would have imagined. I wouldn’t assume, however, that this is the case with every organization.
Many attribute their work-from-home success to virtual tools, but I think it goes deeper than that. At T3, we have the luxury of working amongst coworkers we know well, with years invested into understanding each other and our collective process. I believe the pre-existing depth of these relationships largely accounts for the virtual success we’ve had during this time.
But this does not apply to every team, and even amongst our own agency, the longer we work from home, the harder it will be to retain that collaborative bond. And studies are showing that endless video calls breed a different sort of physical and mental fatigue than in-person work sessions.
YES, WORKING VIRTUALLY IS HERE TO STAY, BUT SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE TO ENSURE ITS LONG-TERM EFFICACY. WE NEED A BETTER WAY OF WORKING VIRTUALLY.
Based on its seemingly overnight pervasiveness and popularity, you may think Zoom is the virtual panacea. But in reality, Zoom and other similar video chat tools are really just replicating an element of the in-person, face-to-face experience. And it’s not without its problems. Not only does the current technology fry your brain and eyes, but if you avert your gaze — perhaps to consider an idea or look something up — there’s a sense you’ve checked out and are no longer “present.” It’s getting us by at this moment, but overall, it’s not an optimal experience.
BUSINESS MEETINGS: DISRUPTED
I normally fly all over the place for business — sometimes taking a long-distance trip for a single meeting. Recently, I had one of those meetings scheduled with a CEO in New York that I’d never previously met. Prior to COVID, I wouldn’t have thought twice about flying there for our one-hour face-to-face to maximize our connection. Now, that’s not an option. So, instead, we were forced to meet via Zoom. She attended the meeting from her closet, as she lives in a small New York apartment, and it was the only place she could escape from her kids. And yet, it worked well enough.
These makeshift solutions during dire times have permanently shifted what is socially acceptable in these professional situations. The stigma of catching a glimpse of someone’s personal life while doing business has evaporated. So while we have collective buy-in and reformed norms, the virtual experience itself can be so much better.
COVID-19 has taken everything we predicted in Embracing Irrationality and accelerated it. It’s taken a matter of days to smash constants, not years. Everyone across the globe has been forced to change where and how they work overnight. When it comes to working from home, these technology companies have looked at this problem through the lens of constants, with the presumed constant being working virtually / remote collaboration.
THIS ASSUMES THAT WE WANT THE TECHNOLOGY TO MERELY REPLICATE THE IN-PERSON EXPERIENCE. IN REALITY, WE WANT IT TO ENHANCE IT.
So here’s my prediction: A new company will be formed in the next 12 to 18 months that solves this problem by focusing on creating an experience that’s better than in-person human interaction. It will throw out the constant that virtual tools should replicate the face-to-face experience and instead make it even better. We don’t need to focus on adoption — we’re all convinced — and instead, we can work to enhance the experience.
I don’t believe this technology will come from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Zoom, Slack, or any of the other existing players in this space. They’ve already gotten so far down their current paths that it will be hard for them to shift course before a smaller, more agile company beats them to it. They’ve also experienced enormous success during this time — simply because people don’t have any better options — which has given them exponential growth. So while they will offer small, iterative innovations on what they’ve already built, it will take an outside contender to make the giant leap that I believe we want and need.
I predict this new company and its game-changing technology will be so vital to the future of how we work, that by 2028, it will become one of the 20 most valuable companies in the world.
SO WHAT MIGHT THIS SOLUTION LOOK LIKE?
Combo hardware and software play: A video camera and a microphone are not enough. We actually need to create something different. Facebook has done some interesting things with its portal —I’m probably one of the only people who embraced this technology pre-pandemic. Admittedly, I don’t love Facebook recording things in my home, but a camera that pans and zooms when people enter the room is attractive. The company that emerges will launch a new type of hardware that’s simple to use, offering a full-room view, the capability of image recognition, and likely 3D surround sound.
VR/AR experience: To be better than the in-person experience, the software will have to complement what the in-person can’t do. Perhaps there will be some type of holographic experience. Or I may be able to program the “location” as my house or the virtual office I set up — some kind of shared space, with technology that would allow us to look at the same things through the same perspective simultaneously.
Haptic feedback and shared ambient sound: I believe we’ll see some interesting technology emerge that can implement digital touch. Perhaps it will simulate the difference between how cotton versus wool might feel. Whatever the surface, we each need to be able to feel the same things; we want to go through that sensory experience together, whether it’s the sound of me dropping something or a scribble on a whiteboard.
Shared visual surfaces: We’ve used a company called MURAL for our collaborative whiteboard needs, and while it’s been helpful, it can be so much better. We’ve tried many different companies, and they all come up short. Now, working virtually, this problem will actually be easier to solve. Running digital sessions with lots of people, this new technology would allow people to collaborate and participate in the same whiteboard, all while seeing the same information in real-time. Phil Libin, former CEO of Evernote, recently launched mmhmm, a new video conference platform designed to make presentations more engaging and eliminate some of the video fatigue. I believe this is only the start of what’s to come.
Drop-ins that make sense: At our office, physical drop-ins have both pros and cons. Yes, there can be distractions, but so much great innovation happens when someone pops over to a coworker’s desk to say, “Hey, I’m working on this, can you take a quick look?” Right now, those sorts of moments require scheduling a meeting, going into a virtual room, inputting passwords — in other words, it’s anything but impromptu, which disincentivizes on-the-fly collaboration.
AI: Artificial intelligence could greatly enhance the virtual experience, far beyond anything we currently experience in-person. Acting as a sort of personal assistant in the room, the AI could take notes, look up questions, facilitate scheduling, and so much more. I predict that once these AI assistants attend our meetings and make them better, we won’t want to meet without them!
BETTER THAN IN-PERSON
Eventually, meeting in this enhanced virtual world will not feel second rate — it will be preferred. This new technology will create a better experience than our current human interaction. But this will not come without resistance. The major players in the teleconferencing industry will likely do everything in their power to slow this innovation because it would disrupt their model and usher in an entirely new set of user demands.
The video conferencing constant has always been shaky at best, and with this wide-scale disruption that I predict, other industries and constants, like air travel and hospitality, will also face a reckoning.
What else do you think this new technology might introduce into how we work remotely? Drop me a note and let me know!
Until next time,
Ben
p.s. We’re still donating proceeds from the sale of Embracing Irrationality to support All Together ATX. Download it today!
Previously posted on t-3.com/thinking.