Restructuring Civilization with Virtual Reality
Immersed’s vision for the future of work. For more information, visit Immersed’s website.
A Species Like No Other
The late Steve Jobs mentioned in a few interviews that he remembers reading a magazine as a kid that compared different species’ efficiency in moving from point A to point B. The condor was at the top of the list, while humanity was a third of the way down. However, when including humankind’s ability as a tool-builder, adding a bicycle to the equation blew the condor away. This was Steve Job’s inspiration to build the “bicycle of the mind”, the personal computer, and now that we have a global network of these computers, we’ve grown into what Elon Musk now calls a “superorganism” that has “[acquired] a collective nervous system.”
Tool-Builders Empowered By The Internet
There are 7.8 billion people on earth and each of us are just 3.9 degrees of separation away from each other since the advent of the internet. We often don’t realize it, but the internet’s ability to give us access to people and ideas from all over the world is pretty mind-boggling when you really think about it. Some of the greatest accomplishments in human history were made possible by bringing the world’s best talent together and collaborating as one, which is partly why you’ll see companies with very ambitious visions recruit globally. In this context, I am a firm believer in “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
The internet has enabled many great advantages in life; one of which is the ability to work remotely. As one who has led several software development teams over the years with distributed team members, I can attest to the benefits of working remotely:
- Having access to top global talent has definitely proven to be advantageous when trying to accomplish great technological feats (especially when the right team members are motivated around a central vision).
- Undisturbed, deep focus is much easier to achieve when there aren’t distractions or interruptions. Jason Fried (CEO of Basecamp) compares working to sleeping: It’s not something that you can effectively do in 15 minute intervals, but instead need to get deeper and deeper into to accomplish your goal.
- Quality of life can be improved if you can avoid the unnecessary commute, impromptu meetings, and water-cooler gossip.
But We’re Not Really There Yet…
Working remotely apparently improves individual productivity by over 13%, but generally decreases engagement and collaboration, which is why remote collaboration tools (such as chat and video conferencing) have been widely adopted.
However, our team at Immersed (also distributed) has surveyed many companies only to find that the vast majority of remote team members feel disconnected and disengaged even with remote tools. We call these tools “workarounds” because they don’t solve the real problem of remote team members not being physically present to tangibly collaborate. It’s no surprise why companies allocate so much of their budget toward air travel. In-person interactions just can’t be replaced by remote collaboration tools.
Until now…
What if there was a way for you to use a platform that could instantly immerse you into the workspace of a remote team member? Or vice-versa? Or what if you had access to your own multi-monitor workstation anywhere you went, including on your flight or while lounging on the couch? Our team at Immersed is working extremely hard to make this dream become reality. But how?
Two Words: Virtual Reality
Virtual Reality (VR) is an immersive experience where one wears a headset with finely-tuned lenses attached to a high-definition screen. As you look around with the headset on, the screen shows you what you’d see if you were in another world. With this type of technology, the possibilities of where you are or what you do are endless!
VR has become a lot more popular in recent years, so popular that Facebook acquired Oculus for $3B. Standalone-VR has been on the rise most of all and pixel-density on mobile device screens are now high enough to be unnoticeable to the lense-enabled eye. All of this, collectively, is the perfect storm for innovation, so if there’s ever a time to build this product, it’s not 2 years ago, nor 2 years from now.. It is now.
We, at Immersed, are building software that integrates with your laptop and Oculus Quest, immersing you into a world where you can collaborate with distributed team members or physically interact with your multi-monitor workstation anywhere you go!
Reshaping Whole Cities
With this technology, you’ll be able to live in Cancun and work in your company’s San Francisco office just by putting on your headset. Our ability to bring your whole body into VR is the ground-breaking tech that will transform society by decentralizing populations and bridging the gap between remote and on-site with virtual spaces.
You can try Immersed for FREE at immersedvr.com. Thanks for reading!
Question: What do YOU think about the future of work?
Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below!
