The Observatory: Mobility Now Means Staying Home
The Observatory is a weekly series that brings together students, alumni, and professionals associated with OSU Battelle Center to write about topics that are relevant to the mission of our center. Our guest writer this week is David Staley, an Associate Professor of History, with courtesy appointments in the Departments of Design and Educational Studies at The Ohio State University. He is the author most recently of “Alternative Universities: Speculative Design for Innovation in Higher Education.” He writes frequently on foresight, futuring and visionary leadership, including his monthly futures column “Next” for ColumbusUnderground.com. He is host of the podcast “Voices of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences.”
When we say “mobility” today, we are talking about the infrastructure for moving people around the world. However, COVID-19 is accelerating a trend that I am calling “the new mobility.” Instead of referring to the movement of the individual around the world, the new mobility means the movement of the world to the individual. It is “reality” that is being made mobile.
Many Americans have come to rely on Amazon deliveries for a range of products. As Amazon refines its elaborate logistics infrastructure of delivery, same-day delivery will be within reach of most households, signaling perhaps the final death knell of the brick-and-mortar store. Services such as DoorDash and UberEats bring meals to our home, and Blue Apron and Martha & Marley Spoon permit us to cook our own gourmet meals, meaning that we can transport the restaurant to our dining rooms.
It is not just physical reality that is becoming more mobile. Experiences have proven to be deliverable as well. Work-from-home is the option of choice for many during the pandemic, and now some Silicon Valley firms are making new hires on the assumption that their employees will live in Columbus or rural Vermont and will only occasionally work from offices in San Francisco. But it is not only knowledge workers who will be able to bring the office to their homes. A Japanese firm is experimenting with a robot-at-a-distance technology that would allow a worker to operate a robot — in a similar manner to how an army drone operator controls the machine at a distance — in order to stock shelves and otherwise manage a convenience store at home. (Although one wonders who will be venturing out to convenience stores if their wares can be easily delivered.)
Telemedicine — already used by patients in rural areas — will be the preferred means for providing care. It seems the doctor will, once again, be making house calls. And of course, we have already witnessed schooling shift to on-line delivery, the educational experience brought inside the home. Other kinds of experiences will be made deliverable. Rather than traveling to the gym, that experience — complete with personal trainer — can occur in our homes courtesy of Peloton, Mirror, and other exercise-at-home services.
Indeed, I anticipate that the next wave of innovation will come from those companies that can “deliver reality to your home.”
