One of my kids turns 21 this year, Gen Z are about to enter the workplace en masse. It got me thinking about technology that has entered the workplace in that time and in particular a product that has come and gone in that time, Telepresence (or Cisco Telepresence to be precise). Who remembers the amazement of their very first telepresence meeting?

Can you believe it only appeared in 2006! For big corporates (and biglaw) having a telepresence room was the thing for a while, yes an actual room that was fitted out to an exact specification for an immersive HD video conference experience.

Fast forward seventeen short years and one pandemic and it seems a kind of quaint old technology. Sure, I know it still exists, but desktop Teams video conferencing and pretty much some kind of video conferencing in every meeting room with high quality video and audio (well mostly!) has made the need for a dedicated video conference suite a bit redundant.

But I caught a new technology via Gerd Leonhard today that made me think maybe we’re in for a new wave of video tech. After all there is a huge push across corporates for sustainability, reduced carbon footprint, travel squeeze etc

The tech in question is Proto “a truly real-life, real-size, realtime, volumetric, holographic display”

Now at the moment the marketing seems to place it in the entertainment space, presenting, training/education etc, but maybe the Proto suite in the office is the next thing. Rather than push on the metaverse, a more traditional hybrid working route will work, teams get together holographically using either their own office based devices or local rented space?

It’s a step towards what’s really needed to replace those in person collaborative meetings/collaborative time in the office, maybe not quite there yet but until we crack those type of meetings the visit to the office will still be needed as part of the Hybrid working environment.