Vision Video Of The Near Future: Diverse Thinkers Wanted

Last week, we released our fourth installment in the Near Future series of vision videos. I started creating these vision video’s back in 2006 when I was at HP. The most recent film titled The Near Future: Diverse Thinkers Wanted explores the impact of technologies on our work lives.

The Future Vision

The film’s narrative is centered on Nikki, an ambitious executive who’s about to meet with the CEO for a very important presentation. But as often happens, things don’t go as planned and Nikki and her team are faced with a number of challenges.

Fortunately, they have all the tools needed to not only solve every problem but to do so without ever slowing down. Thanks to advanced tech at their fingertips, they have the opportunity to be their best, most creative and efficient self, and to make smart, calculated decisions without ever losing focus. Not everyone’s workday will resemble what is shown in the film, but this kind of technological advancement is certain to have a profound effect on the way we approach our daily tasks, conduct meetings and solve problems in the near future, no matter what line of work we’re in.

Technologies That Will Help Us Get There

The technology shown in the film will shape the way we think about work in the future. Powered by a 10G multi-gigabit network of tomorrow, it will create a more efficient, productive and creative work environment that will help us perform at our best. For example, technology can be used to:

• Manage our time better: Picture a world where you don’t waste half your morning resolving calendar conflicts or worrying about logistics. How much more would you be able to get done in a day? According to Accenture, technologies such as Nikki’s ear-piece AI assistant are projected to increase labor productivity by up to 40 percent, enabling you to make more efficient use of your time.
• Access the information we need, whenever we need it: A lot of workplace slowdowns occur because of missing or inadequate information. How much more productive do you think you’d be if all the information you ever needed was readily available to you? In the film, Nikki’s eyeglasses have built-in mixed-reality tech that overlays street addresses and other data on top of everything she sees, allowing her to make critical decisions on the go.
• Collaborate more efficiently, from anywhere: To accommodate a more talented and diverse workforce, businesses around the world are seeking advanced remote collaboration solutions that allow their teams to seamlessly interact as if they’re physically present at the same location. In the film, we explore a few ideas about how this might work, including layered videoconferencing technology that combines traditional video with mixed and virtual reality, public light field tables and holographic telepresence systems (holo-rooms), where Nikki’s entire team gathers to work on a common project.
• Enhance our skills and abilities: According to the World Economic Forum, 65 percent of children now entering elementary school will hold jobs that currently don’t exist.
• Focus on creative solutions: According to McKinsey, 50 percent of current work activities are automatable, and the demand for skills like creativity, critical thinking, decision making and complex information processing is projected to grow 19 percent in the United States by 2030. Outsourcing some of the boring and mundane tasks—such as double-checking locations, hailing a cab or booking a room—to machines will free up more of our brainpower for a whole new level of creativity and imagination.

Predicting the future is not for the faint of heart. It can be tricky to know what and when something is going to happen. It’s not enough to just have an opinion of what the future holds but you have to have a way to show the future so others can see and respond to it in their own way.

Hopefully, you have found the above and the previous vision video’s challenging and maybe even a little inspiration in your thinking about the future.

What is your vision of the future?