“And now ladies and gentlemen, avatars and bots, the chief inventions officer and president of MegaOne Corp, Nadia Yaosing!”
(Ruffles and flourishes swell as Nadia’s hologram walks onstage. Music fades as she reaches center stage.)
Thank you, thank you. Welcome to 2034 and welcome to MegaOne’s most mega event ever. We have over 50,000 participants here in Orlando. And fewer than 10 percent of us had to travel to get here!
Can you tell who is physical and who is holo? I can’t.
I hugged Sharkey James, our lead event planner, and his replicant, Dick K. Phillip, backstage. Only one of them can be here in person for security reasons, and I still don’t know who won the coin toss to be here in the ‘flesh.’ That’s how good MegaPresence is.
The executive board and I are at the McMurdo Conference Center in Antarctica. Some of you are at our high-pressure research facility in the Marianas Trench. Some of you are at our low-gravity lab on Mars. MegaPresence brings us all together with all of the sights, the sounds, the sensations, the tastes and the touches of physical reality.
And now to work. The next three days are all about the future. Change is the one constant in life. Our grandparents saw telephones transform from bricks tethered to cables to smaller bricks they had to hold and manipulate. When was the last time you held your com or did more than think at it?
Ever heard of Google Glass? People used to get arrested for wearing it while driving. They thought it was a distraction, a danger. The danger today is thrill-seekers who do the driving themselves. Until they crash.
The leading cause of road accidents is drivers who take the controls instead of leaving it to MegaDrive. Our goal for 2034 is a global mandate to lock out manual controls on all MegaDrive-enabled roadways. Autodrive on the ground will make surface transport as safe as autofly has made air travel.
But don’t get too attached to safe surface travel. In 20 years, MegaDrive and MegaPilot will be history. PageBreak
The energy costs are enormous. But we have successfully turned gram quantities of solid material to energy, directed that energy to a new location, and transformed the energy back into the original material.
Within five years, MegaBeam will be a commercial reality. We will move high-value original materials over distances of hundreds of kilometers. And within 15 years, MegaBeam will be cost-competitive with any mechanical system to move humans from one location on Earth to any other location on the planet.
A funny thing happened on the way to the future. It changed. And it changed in some predictable ways.
Nadia Yaosing and MegaOne Corp are fiction, but fiction based on social and technology trends that are already with us. Science fiction can also be a useful glimpse ahead.
Star Trek, a mildly successful 1960s TV series, featured personal communicators that looked—and performed—like flip-top cell phones, noted technologist and relationship coach Jason Weberman, CPCC, head of North Star Coaching. Star Trek: Next Generation added computers the size of a pad of paper two decades before tablets hit the market. Ender’s Game, a 1985 novel, previewed personalized online learning, computer game-based education, hacking and remote-controlled warfare. All were reality by the time Ender hit the big screen in 2013.
“Science fiction is one source for clues about the future,” says futurist and science fiction author Brenda Cooper, chief information officer for the city of Kirkland, Wash. “And while futuring is an imprecise art, there are some specific problems that technology is likely to solve in the near term.”
Secret and Not So Secret
Ever attended a session where you couldn’t understand a word the speaker said? Cooper says instant translation, including cultural nuances, will be standard long before 2034.
Privacy is another major need. Spying by the National Security Agency, China and assorted industrial groups is pervasive, she says. Companies have created private networks that are not connected to the Internet in order to protect intellectual property and business secrets. The next step is conference providers that can guarantee similar privacy.
“People need to be able to set up business deals, start companies, arrange loans,” she says. “One of the sought-after meeting services will be privacy. More information will be shared in person, off the Internet, to preserve secrecy. There will be increased value to being able to meet in places that are free from electronic or physical surveillance.”
There will also be increased value in more-open and more-accessible gatherings. Virtual meetings using live streaming or virtual event space are already a staple of the industry. Meeting in a Google Hangout, via Skype or in high-definition teleconference facilities isn’t as useful as meeting in person, but it’s a start. The question is how telepresence will be developed.
“I would think that by 2034, Cisco would have the Princess Leia hologram nailed,” says futurist and technology evangelist Guy Kawasaki. “You might go to your local Kinko’s, stand in front of a blue screen, deliver your presentation and show up in 3-D 5,000 miles away. I’d use it today if it were available.”PageBreak
Attendees will use holograms, too, says trend-spotter Richard Laermer, chief executive officer of RLM Public Relations. Face-to-face interactions won’t disappear, but look for more facsimile-to-facsimile and less flesh-to-flesh.
“We already use every excuse in the book to avoid going to meetings,” he says. “Your hologram will go to the event for you, shake the hands, collect the information. You’ll still see people at meetings—holographic representations of people.”
Attending virtually means no lines, no waiting. And no need for hauling home swag.
“Every decent-sized company has its own 3-D printer,” says Colin O’Boyle, content manager at ShipEdge, a cloud-based fulfillment company. “You walk past a booth in the virtual exhibit hall, your avatar gets a code, and when you log off, you can print yourself new keychain fobs, foam footballs and clipboards, all bearing the logos of companies at the convention.”
Facilities Big and Small
Connected is key for meetings today. Uber-connected will be the status quo in 2034.
“Bandwidth won’t be the problem it is today because it will be seamless in all business communities,” says meeting planner and technology guru James Spellos, CMP, president of Meeting U. “Devices will all be seamlessly connected. The meeting of 2034 will have as many virtual attendees as physical attendees. We will need physical spaces, the question is how much.”
Events that are heavily instructional will be more virtual; events that are heavily social will be more face-to-face. And more expensive.
“Face-to-face will be a luxury,” says futurist Christopher Dancy, founder of ServiceSphere. “Meeting spaces will be ranked on their ability to participate in the event. Spaces with a history of smarter meetings will be at a premium.”
That puts hotels, convention centers and other meeting space providers in a bind. They must provide both the ultimate in technology to connect virtual attendees and the ultimate in physical space to wow physical attendees.
“The No. 1 driver is delivering ROI on the meeting dollar,” says Jaren McLachlan, director of sales and marketing at the Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Hotel. “Space is evolving. What was the general session is now broadcast throughout the resort. Information is presented more like information in the real world, whether it is on your tablet, your phone, a TV at the bar. At the end of the day, a meeting is about the ultimate experience, the location, the activities, the interactions. People will always need to connect. The only change is how you incorporate technology to deliver a richer experience and a stronger ROI on every event.”
Fred Gebhart is looking forward to 2034, but hasn’t decided yet whether to attend personally or electronically.
