For video conferencing, a start trek-like world with holograms, real-life type interaction and virtual environments where guests have the impression to physically touch objects is just around the corner, as most necessary technologies are available right by now.
I was very surprised to get a phone call through Facebook some days ago, as I expected that this service was not available in Italy. My friend said, in big surprise: “You didn’t use it? I have been placing calls through Facebook since one year at least, and it is free”. I am an old thing, I thought. But conferencing technology has been developing very fast in the last few years, and it is difficult to keep up with it.
In less than a decade, we have moved from the old Skype chats to R-HUB`s TurboMeeting servers (http://www.rhubcom.com) , some plug-and-play devices for virtual conferences that are so small and silent that can be placed on clients’ desks. But upcoming tech innovations are going to create a scenario even more disruptive in the next few years. Millennials, virtual reality and new social usages of web conferencing are the three forces that will triggera new technology revolution that will lead to a world very similar to Asimov’s romances.
There are already available some kinds of devices, like HoloLens, that combine virtual and augmented reality, in order to make clients experience the sensation of being in a real room while having a meeting. In this way, the issue of the feeling of separation of the traditional video conferencing is addressed. Plus, holograms allow users to virtually manipulate objects, at the point that the differences between real and virtual meetings become so thin that it will be difficult to tell them apart.
The fuel to commercially propel this new tech revolution is millennials. According to a survey on the preferences of young workers by Redshift Research, 87 per cent of interviewed individuals would prefer to work for organizations equipped with video conferencing, and 75% say they won’t settle for low quality.
What is there behind these data? Simply, millennials consider video conferencing like a kind of default tool to use in everyday activities. The evidence is given by another study by PGI, (https://www.pgi.com/blog/2014/07/7-statistics-video-conferencing/) according to which 66% of candidates prefer video interviews, no matter the distance; In the Redshift Research, 21% would like to have pop ups drilling information about the participants from LinkedIn during a conference, and 54% would welcome the possibility of customizing their experience with social media sharing tools. To tell it in other words, video conferencing is going to be used for more than the traditional virtual meetings.
In conclusion, video conferencing is going to change deeply in the next future both in terms of technologies and kinds of usages of the medium. This revolution will spread from workplaces to the whole society and have millennials as key players.