Kevin S. Parikh, Chairman and CEO at Avasant, Author of Digital Singularity: A Case for Humanity.
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Our journey to a boundaryless, borderless global community has been underway for many decades, enabled by globalization and fueled through the information and digital ages. With the birth of the internet and the World Wide Web, the Y2K era, and the technology revolution, the world, its people and enterprises became more integrated. We discovered that new technologies and connectivity platforms allowed us to communicate in real time with people all around us, regardless of geography. The world not only became "flatter," as propagated by Thomas Friedman, but also smaller.
This is the basis for the occurrence of transboundary communities. Transboundary communities enable us to instantly connect with anyone, anytime and anywhere in the world by leveraging digital technologies to augment human interactions. These communities provide a multisensory communication experience to enrich and strengthen the quality of our relationships unlike ever before. They can exist at work, the home and everywhere in between, simulating in-person interactions in real time but in a completely virtual way.
Think about a conference call — arguably one of the most prevalent modes of communication during today's Covid-19 pandemic. About a decade ago, audio was the primary human sensory experience for calls. Today, almost everyone is connected by audio and visual.
But what if we could create an experience that involves more than just these two senses? For instance, you are on a conference call with your mom and she gives a hug. You get optical and haptic feedback — sensations from vibrating actuators and waveform patterns sent to the user to convey information — through a sensor that stimulates touch. You will feel like she is hugging you!
Covid-19 Is Accelerating The Transition To Transboundary Communities
Despite the economic and social devastation we face with Covid-19, humanity has connected in a way we have never experienced before, made possible through technology and the transboundary communities that it helps to create. With the draconian lockdown measures and social distancing requirements, demand for unified communication platforms and broadband communication services soared. A May report by the OECD listed that since the start of the pandemic, broadband operators experienced up to a 60% increase in internet traffic. The ITU reported in June a 300% growth in teleconferencing apps in the United States (Zoom, Skype).
Companies have been able to go virtual and online in one day. Major organizations almost instantaneously accommodated thousands of videoconferencing among employees. In what other period of history would this have been possible?
The rapid surge and increasing demand for these platforms are also propelling the need to transition from legacy 2G/3G networks to one that can support higher speed and greater capacity of users. South Korea, as part of its post-Covid-19 recovery plan, announced a project "New Deal" in June that's focused on 5G network deployment and artificial intelligence to revive its economy. With 5G rollouts by many more countries globally, the way we communicate is set to fundamentally transform to a true transboundary nature.
Transboundary Communities Define The Future Of Work
Post-pandemic, it is unlikely that we will return to work in the way that we did before it. The digital workplace and the physical workplace are one, focused on how we work rather than where we work. The future of work enabled through transboundary communications is hyperconnected, instantaneous, multisensory and unified.
There are no boundaries between countries and people. Videoconferencing will not be sufficient alone to create the ability to work in this new environment and re-create the experiences we are accustomed to in our physical offices and in-person connections among our colleagues. The future will drive us toward new and more immersive ways to work and communicate together.
Future workstations — whether at home, in the office or your favorite café — will combine sensor technology to create a 3D visual environment. Technologies that will support us when we work, such as augmented reality, will be ubiquitous with glasses, smart walls and wearables. These devices will receive information that helps enable interactions through analytics and sensors. We will work more efficiently and produce quality work in less time.
Businesses Need To Act Now To Effectively Manage And Support The Transboundary Work Delivery Model
Businesses need to start thinking about how they can support this new work delivery model. New situations will raise new challenges. How do we manage cross-border working without ever setting foot in the country of delivery? How will we continue to keep our employees engaged? We will need new standards for communication, employee health and virtual communities. To support this new model of working, businesses will need to:
• Design a strategy and road map to guide the organization toward this new way of working.
• Rethink employee policies to support the new way of working and support employee health. More permanent measures for remote and flexible work will need to be considered — not just serve as a short-term solution for the pandemic. Human resources will play a dual role in workforce management and change management, as businesses adopt new ways of working.
• Invest in unified communications, cloud and virtual workplace technologies immediately in the short term to support the remote, digital workplace.
• Begin exploring emerging technologies such as AR, sensors, IoT, AI, etc. and how they can be incorporated and leveraged to enhance work functions and improve collaboration — for both in-office and virtual workspaces.
• Prepare for the "always on" connected economy. For example, changing patterns of commerce will need to be accommodated (e.g., working off-peak hours to avoid contact with others).
• Protect data and invest in secure infrastructure to prevent cyberattacks.
• Generate new platforms to support innovation and creativity.
We got here much faster than expected. Technologies will continue to emerge to support working in real time, across borders and in a completely integrated fashion. New technologies will further transition us to a fully transboundary community to fundamentally improve and transform our work and communication experience so that it is more intelligent, collaborative, adaptive and secure.
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