by Jim Spellos

The new decade will bring even more change to the traditional business workflow than we’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something, considering how tech tools such as computers, the internet, mobile devices and social media shook up how businesses successfully ran their operations. Imagine doing your job without Microsoft Office, Google, Amazon, or your smart phone (or even Facebook, though many will dispute that!).

While the Roaring Tech ‘20s will bring us more developments that will impact our work on a daily basis (think 5G and the Blockchain, among others), where technology tends to be most useful is when technology matures into tools that can be used every day by your consumers, constituents and colleagues. Three technologies that in different ways will all be essential will be three we’ve seen begin to mature in the past decade: Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality.

Let’s take VR first, as that’s the one many folks say will never be a core component of workflow. “I’m not going to wear a silly looking headset to do my work.” Perhaps not—all the time. But we need to understand the value of the tool to your organization in order to make such a statement. And that means we need to understand how our customers may be using those gadgets.

It’s clear to many that VR isn’t an everyday tool, at least not yet. But it has become very clear that VR is a powerful tool in the sales and marketing process for many industries. If your sales/marketing team is out in the field, visiting clients, and trying to get your customers to experience what your product looks like through their vision, connecting more of their senses to understand your value proposition is a no-brainer.

If your team was selling space, be it real estate, event venues or a myriad of other industries, the only thing about VR that doesn’t make sense is not always bringing it with you to facilitate the sales process. And since the past two years have seen high end cable-less, computer-free devices become the norm, we’ve reached a point where it’s just bad business not to use these tools.

We could also venture into the conversation about the benefits of staff education and retention through VR learning environments if we had the time and space. Needless to say, organizational onboarding will be a very different thing in the coming decade.

VR’s lesser known sibling, Augmented Reality (AR), is primed to actually become more essential than VR. While with VR you need a pay of sci-fi looking goggles, AR currently utilizes a tool you always have with you—your smart phone—to do the work (way cool note, as the ‘20s moves forward, the smart phone in this situation will likely be replaced by a wearable device, but that’s another conversation for another time). Both Apple and Google are all in on AR as being the tool of now and the future. Apple’s CEO Tim Cook recently called AR the operating system of the next generation.

Many folks use AR frequently but don’t even know it. Are you user of Snapchat? If so, the filters that are so popular are nothing more than AR experiences. How about for business? Check out AirMeasure and how it uses AR to calculate measurements? Or Living Wine Labels to tell a brand’s story by hovering your phone over the label? Or Ikea, allowing you to see what their furniture looks like in your space.

This blog is authored by one of the amazing speakers scheduled to have a session during our one-of-a-kind event, IAAP Summit.

Summit 2020 is going to be offered, for the first time ever, in a 100 percent virtual environment. The Summit experience, which is full of excitement, inspiration, learning, and connection is now coming to you. You can learn more on the Summit website, as well as this FAQ document.