The Reality of Virtual Reality

The Reality of Virtual Reality

How prepared do you believe you are for the future?  In 1970, I attended an Officer Call at Ft. Gordon.  After a couple of hours of Ohio State Police films of accidents, a Military Police Captain addressed the officers (Signal Corps) about the evils of alcohol and fast driving.  He proceeded to declare that radar detectors would require a 2-½ ton truck to tow them.  And yet, a few years later, you could put a radar detector in your shirt pocket.

Have you seen the commercial where fast food companies are depicted turning to point of purchase terminals thereby eliminating the need for order takers and cashiers.  This is in response to the proposed $15 minimum wage, supposedly!!! Not a day goes by that we aren't being bombarded with the changing landscape of business due to ever advancing technology. Recent articles in some of our favorite business trades that have spoken to the rapidly approaching future and how business should approach and prepare.  Two (seemingly unrelated) articles have generated at lot of conversation in our office:

-             From Best The News, "My $800 million career mistake taught me a powerful lesson, but it revealed the one question we all should be asking," written by Joshua Cooper Ramo

-             From Fortune magazine, "The Race to Make Virtual Reality an Actual (Business) Reality," written by Jeffrey O'Brien

At first sight, we tried to find a connection between virtual reality and our client network…we didn't identify one.  The tie wasn't really the virtual reality but rather another example of our rapidly changing environment.  For years, we've all heard of just-in-time inventory: now it's just in time EVERYTHING.

Ramo speaks about the "Seventh Sense" and defining it as the need or feeling for what it means to be constantly linked and how that affects the world and our lives.  Further, he speaks on the power in recognizing connected systems - the way that they produce value and that mastering how they work is going to mark your success or failure in the future.  O'Brien speaks about the necessity of linking your customer to virtual experiences so that they will develop a connection to your company.  As one of my partners is fond of saying, "If you are not growing then you are dying."  From our perspective, being linked to a community that challenges you will instill survival.

The real question is how will we, as business owners, respond within our own companies yet alone our respective industries.  Do we have the energy, the financial resources, the intellectual talent or even the inclination to pursue the changes that are coming?  Heck, some are already here.

We want to share these articles with you so that you can think about the level of preparedness that you have for the future whether you need to prepare to integrate virtual reality into your customer experience or if you need to take a full assessment of your connected systems.  Take a moment to read the articles in the links below.  We would love to hear your opinions and thoughts about the content.  Join in on the conversation below in the comment section!

1.  http://bestthenews.com/article/my-800-million-dollar-career-mistake-taught-me-powerful-lesson-it-revealed-one-question-we

2.  http://fortune.com/virtual-reality-business/