Have you loved or hated working from home? For those of us who found it hard, much of our angst over working from home is that many of us don’t have the right spaces set up for it. Also, trying to collaborate with coworkers from home is tough – there are only so many hours of Zoom or Team meetings one can take.
But what if… homes were built in future to accommodate working from home? What if you had home theatre-style screens for video conferencing? So you could see people’s faces at life-size rather than straining to make out faces on postage stamp heads? Microsoft has apparently proposed such as screen although I’d like a floor to ceiling version so you can see people head to toe –more like a real office experience. Although that would mean no more suit jackets up top and PJ bottoms and Uggs below.
Or what if you had touch-screen Mural or Miro apps for easy group collaboration while sitting down or standing up? What if you could still do office Uber drinks with special ordering apps that would deliver the right blend of coffee, milk and sugar to each of your coworkers? What if you could walk about and do watercooler chats to colleagues with your choice of virtual reality backgrounds in your theatre-style office? Consider work breaks – you could have morning tea break at the beach, lunch in a rainforest and dinner on the moon.
And that problem of parents and children trying to work on top of each other? What if you had auto-configurations so your office space would convert to a sound-proof pod while taking a phone or video call? No more headsets tying you to a laptop or Bluetooth earbuds that drop out. Or what if you could resolve crappy audio once and for all with at-home crisp and clear surround sound technology? You pay for it when you go to the movies for a couple of hours – isn’t it more important to have it in your working from home environment where you’re expected to spend all day being productive?
And that hatred of looking at screens for hours? Well, what if e-ink technology or an alternative could be extended further to give you an anti-glare, radiation-free, eye-strainless experience? What if looking at someone through a screen was less harsh and more lifelike? E-ink technology is meant to mimic the experience of paper. What if technology could be developed to mimic the experience of human-to-human contact so it feels like you’re in natural light conditions –or at least resolve the high dynamic range problems of modern optics? That’s why people with their backs to their windows have faces that look dark on screen unless they have other lighting to compensate –or shut the curtains
I understand not everyone can work from home. But what do you think? If the working from home experience could be made more comfortable, more convenient for family life, less desk-bound and less unnatural, would you love it more? Or do you think nothing will ever beat going into the office, pressing the flesh and seeing your colleagues in person? Let me know in the comments below.
Image by geralt on Pixabay.
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