Covid virus ends commute

Covid and the office regime are now at loggerheads and the response, home working, is forcing the world to adopt the technological working practices of the 21 st century according to leading technology experts and economists.

In a series of interviews for the PassW0rd radio show 'The virus that started the 21st century' experts in AI, business trends and virtual working say that the response to the pandemic means that the UK in particular will begin to change the way that it works and that this will mean massive changes to our economic system.

Kiev, Ukraine, March 28, 2020, Ukrainian people at facial protective masks at almost empty street, quarantine time at Ukraine,

According to Mark Smith, CEO of the AI communication company ContactEngine, and a pioneer of the use of virtual technology, not only is the future of the office and the commute under threat due to the impact of Covid and the office but so are events like conferences and exhibitions because of the abandonment of the working practices of the 20 th century.

“I ran an online conference in 1997. Right. So, 24 years ago I started that. I've got a video of me on YouTube my 30-year-old self-saying the future is online conferencing. You do not need to travel to Beijing or Alabama or Durban or Aberdeen. You can actually do this from home.

“What is a conference if it's not a series of presentations, interactions and exhibitions? And the same thing applies with homeworking. People still have a sort of need to measure themselves by the size of their empire, by looking across rows of humans in front of desks.

"It is so last millennium. It is so unnecessary, and it is so wasteful, wasteful in time and resource and money and everything.”

Smith’s passionate attack on the futility, misery and redundancy of the daily commute was echoed by leading academic Leslie Wilcocks the Professor of Work, Technology and Globalisation at the London School of Economics, who analyses working trends around the world.

“My point here is that those that have already moved to digital the high-tech companies, big pharma and health care products, are going to inherit the future a little. These are going to be the successful businesses of the future. And as I said, I think that whatever sector we're talking about, there are some financially resilient companies and most that are not particularly financially resilient and there'll be a big sorting out.”

Professor Leslie Wilcocks : "There's going to be a big sorting out of successful versus unsuccessful companies with weak companies going to the wall, even if they're supported by government for a while.”

According to Professor Wilcocks, whose latest book ‘Robotic Process and Cognititve Automation: The Next Phase’ examines the adoption of robotics and AI in the economy the ability of companies to adopt technology is now crucial to their survival.

“If they have technology helping them, then they become more resilient I think more than other companies in their sector. So, the top dogs are going to be gaining digital advantage from adopting technologies successfully. I've looked at hundreds of companies that have moved to digital. What I see is about 20 percent of the organizations that have moved successfully to digital are breaking away from other companies in terms of profitability and financial health and the gulf they are establishing is likely to become irreversible.”

An underlying trend that the LSE’s Professor Wilcocks says will now accelerate due to the Coronavirus achieving early casualties in retail, aviation and leisure.

“Some 25 percent are behind those organizations and are struggling to get there, 55 percent in those sectors are really struggling. And I don't think the pandemic experience is going to help them much. There's going to be a big sorting out of successful versus unsuccessful companies with weak companies going to the wall, even if they're supported by government for a while.”

A home working trend Wilcocks adds that is not without problems due to cyber security issues, controlling the workforce and issues of privacy and staff motivation.

Professor Mark Smith “I ran an online conference in 1997. So, 24 years ago I started that. I've got a video of me on YouTube my 30-year-old self-saying the future is online conferencing.

Yet according to others technology specialists interviewed for the PassW0rd programme - produced by Future Intelligence for London’s ResonanceFM - the enforced Coronavirus home working is only the start of the remote technology that will be adopted due to Covid and the office backlash with many experts now backing the use of a number of technologies which have been available for nearly 30 years but which are only now gaining traction, in part because of Corona Virus.

David Wortley, Director of Virtual Conferences at The Global Consumer Commerce Centre IORMA , and leading authority on virtual spaces, the technology holds the promise of holidays for the elderly, the disabled and those suffering from mental issues.

“I demonstrated a virtual reality system to one of my partner's relations, who’s over 90 years old. I put a virtual reality headset on her, and I played a 360-degree recording of a family christening, which she had not been able to go to.

“With the headset on you could see she was looking around the church. The experience would be as if she was actually sat on one of the pews and she was watching the ceremony, and as she was watching she said: 'Oh, there's so and so. Oh, he was just a little boy when I knew him last,' and the tears started to well up in her eyes and she was just completely absorbed by it.

“So it's able to take people not only across a distance they can travel through space, but they can go back in time and see things and events that have already happened they might have watched a video in the past but it doesn't have the same kind of emotional and immersive impact as virtual reality.”

"There are plenty of bespoke systems out there where money is no object, where you can sit in a boardroom and you have projections of the different participants from around the world appearing in the room."

Such immersion is already possible for those home working and complaining about not being in an office environment according to Martyn Ware, a former pop star and founding member of Human League and Heaven 17 who now specialises in creating 3-D soundscapes, virtual office where you can get see and experience the environment of an actual office is very much a reality and one that Covid and the office has ushered in.

A virtual reality meeting room, image courtesy of Immercio

“It's already happening at the very top end for things like the summits of international leaders, or for major CEOs of multinational companies who want to talk to their heads of departments. There are plenty of bespoke systems out there where money is no object, where you can sit in a boardroom and you have projections of the different participants from around the world appearing in the room. Each has individual sound sources, that locate them accurately and the ability to interact and share documents in a virtual space, on the screens. This is all happening now.”

Whether these technologies will finally turn the offices of our cities into the dinosaurs of a bygone urban age will be a question that will be answered by the longevity of the pandemic and its economic after effects. Whether the Government, will enforce further home working in a bid to stop any second surge of the virus and whether companies desperate to restore their financial health will see remote working technologies as a way to cut overheads by dispensing with the old offices of the past and their subsidisation of the costs of the daily commute.

Already the head of Barclays Bank which is facing a potential £2.1 Bn loss from Corona Virus due to customers being unable to pay loans is seriously considering switching to home working long-term according to the banks’ CEO, Jes Staley the bank was re-evaluating how much office space it needed, as it was now being run by staff working "from their kitchens".

Staley suggested that in the future retail branches could be used by investment banking and call centre workers, hinting at an end to long commutes for some workers as changes forced by Covid and the office come home.

"There will be a long-term adjustment to our location strategy," Mr Staley told a press conference. "The notion of putting 7,000 people in the building may be a thing of the past."

For more on the soundscapes of Martyn Ware click on - http://illustriouscompany.co.uk/distinguishing-features/martyn-ware

For more about Covid and the office listen to 'The virus that started the 21st century' https://www.mixcloud.com/FI_PassW0rd/will-coronavirus-kill-the-office/

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