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It’s life Jim, but not as we know it
By Shaun Baker
Morgan Lovell’s Shaun Baker discusses how improving technologies, such as the enhancement of voice recognition, could potentially impact the future workplace.
Watching two colleagues struggle with the new voice recognition on their phones made me wonder just how long it will be before the technology becomes standard issue in the workplace. As designers we utilise a different side of the brain from the more analytical among us and anything that means capturing our thoughts and translating them into coherent epistles with correct spelling is fine by me. Listening to their repeated attempts at voicing their requirement to the hard of hearing handsets made me realise that if the technology became a staple of the workspace, boy what a noisy environment it could be. Hoards of individuals chattering away to themselves like demented budgerigars would not make for a comfortable open plan office, a somewhat different scenario to Captain James T Kirk of the Starship Enterprise calmly updating his Captains log in a whispered conversation.
All this chatter would mean a complete rethink on how a space is used and sub divided. Privacy would become a sought after luxury and individual booths become a far more common sight. But what of other flights of fancy that were once only to be seen in sci-fi movies? I would think that off of the back of the 3D screen revolution that there must be potential to develop and utilise the technology that means you are no longer tied to a flat screen and speaking as a designer, how cool would that be to showcase a design idea in glorious three dimensions right the in front of my clients eyes? It’s always amazed me how people are spatially unaware and this sort of tool would assist immensely.
We already utilise printers that print three dimensional solids and we already have keyboards that are projected on to a surface and I’m sure that the next step in its evolution will be floating technologies that have multiple touch and pick points that will allow for numerous functions to be undertaken simultaneously. The advancements in televisual and telephonic apparatus that have seen them morph into the ‘communicator’ of Star Trek fame, will I predict, kick start a technology revolution in the office and result in members of staff to take on whole new roles.
Managers will have to develop strong people skills to be able to communicate, influence and create a team who are both trusted and trusting and where a certain amount of self-reliance is necessary. Administration staff will need to evolve into a mega all seeing all knowing controller, responsible as a go between and resource scheduler as business becomes far more fragmented with a central hub and drop in satellite offices. Thinking that one through again, I suspect they are already perceived as the engine that makes the business tick. You could easily argue that this could all be automated too but I think in a world that is becoming ever less personal that this task would be best carried out by a real life individual not a robotic simile.
The one sci-fi invention I would embrace with both arms would be the tele porter or wormhole, however I have to reluctantly admit probably not going to happen and remain a thing of fantasy. But the growth of teleconferencing facilities will continue and potentially advance to the point of being able to share and amend documents between parties in real time.
I’m not sure if I like this potential futuristic scene as I’m painting it here, it all sounds too impersonal and more worryingly appears to have the ability to degenerate into the nightmare big brother scenario depicted in many a sci-fi thriller. There is though, likely to be a seismic shift in the distant future to the basic requirements for design of general workspace environments. We are a gregarious species and for that we need contact, so I’m sure that this fact alone will mean that face to face interaction will always be a leading force behind the creation of any futuristic workspace however noisy and impersonal it may become.
Live long and prosper.
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