{"id":3766,"date":"2019-12-18T09:31:24","date_gmt":"2019-12-18T17:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=3766"},"modified":"2019-12-18T09:31:24","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T17:31:24","slug":"six-predictions-for-collaboration-in-the-next-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/six-predictions-for-collaboration-in-the-next-decade\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Predictions for Collaboration in The Next Decade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now that we\u2019re at the precipice of a new decade \u2013 my fourth in this industry \u2013 we have to look back in order to truly appreciate any look ahead.<\/p>\n

I still have the toy football that one of the videoconferencing manufacturers gave away at a tradeshow in the 1990s.\u00a0 In order to win it, you had to pick-up their device\u2019s remote control and successfully dial a videoconference call.\u00a0 Think about that \u2013 video systems were so hard to use back then that they had to give away swag just to get you to try them.\u00a0 A generation of enterprise professionals had correctly categorized videoconferencing as both difficult and unreliable.\u00a0 That stigma stayed with collaboration technology for many years.\u00a0 Whether it was needing to hire an army of AV or IT technicians to start enterprise meetings, or that next trend of over-the-top expensive<\/em> \u201cimmersive\u201d systems that minimized the user interface (and the capabilities), achieving high quality visual collaboration had always seemed to be just out of reach.<\/p>\n

This last decade saw that perception begin to reverse.\u00a0 The consumer trends of wireless internet everywhere and commonly found smart devices began to convince people that successful video calling was not that difficult to achieve.\u00a0 Even though it was a bit of simplistic thinking at the time to assume large-scale, secure, centrally managed enterprises could have collaborative ecosystems as easy to use as something like FaceTime<\/em>, the trend was unmistakable.\u00a0 Every business professional began to believe it shouldn\u2019t be as hard or expensive as it was \u2013 and they were correct.<\/p>\n

Taking these insights from past decades into account, let\u2019s focus our lens on the future and take a look at six trends I see shaping up to define the next decade of innovation in the collaboration space\u2026<\/p>\n

1. User-Friendly Tech is Expected<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As we approach unified communication (UC) in 2020 and beyond, this perception has become a reality.\u00a0 Room videoconferencing systems no longer require tens of thousands of dollars of investment, no longer require expensive programming for complex touch-panels, and no longer require an IT professional to operate them \u2013 and that\u2019s all valid today, with us barely dipping our toes into the next decade.\u00a0 As we really plunge into the 2020s, the improvements will only grow.<\/p>\n

Beyond simply working, the standard for collaboration systems going forward will be ease of use.<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Manufacturers have begun answering that question with systems that are smart enough to know what to do without being told.\u00a0 Instead of giving away a prize to people who can figure out how to use the remote, that remote has been tossed in the trash.\u00a0 And, AI and ML will continue to remove tasks from the user\u2019s \u2018to do list\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/h4>\n

2. Improvements in AI and ML Will Set New Standards for Voice and Sound<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As AI and ML continue to improve, the automatic features for speaker tracking and noises suppression will get that much better.\u00a0 For example, the systems Poly will be shipping in 2020 will have NoiseBlock AI<\/em>.\u00a0 These won\u2019t just hear background noises like keyboard typing and mute the call to prevent the far ends from hearing it, these will hear keyboard typing and filter it out<\/em>, leaving the microphones still open for conversation.<\/p>\n

3. Systems Auto-Synced to Your Calendar<\/strong><\/h4>\n

As we get further into the decade, we can expect systems that will no longer need to be pre-scheduled to enable a single press of a start button.\u00a0 The systems will be able to recognize you \u2014 they\u2019ll know what\u2019s on your calendar, and they\u2019ll just ask you if you want to start your meeting.\u00a0 The technical challenges to accomplishing that have already been solved, but the social challenges still remain.\u00a0 Do we want to enable facial or voice recognition on enterprise systems? Or, are we validly concerned about privacy issues?\u00a0 No one is suggesting that there\u2019s an easy answer there \u2014 but the features are inevitable.<\/p>\n

4. Systems Will Be Collaboration Platform Agnostic<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Additionally, in this decade enterprises will be able to break the chains that bind them to a collaboration platform which may not be meeting their needs.\u00a0 In the past, if you worked with one collaboration provider, and weren\u2019t satisfied with their services, you\u2019d likely need to consider an expensive forklift<\/em> to rip-and-replace<\/em> all the dedicated gear.\u00a0 The better systems being made today and going forward \u2014 like the ones from Poly \u2014 are platform agnostic.\u00a0 Your enterprise will be able to use them as native devices on platform A on a Friday, then can come back after the weekend to find them changed to being native devices on platform B.\u00a0 Selecting the best service provider for your enterprise will now be only a factor of price and performance \u2014 as it should have been all along.<\/p>\n

5. People Are Getting More for Less<\/strong><\/h4>\n

The great thing about all of these improvements is that the systems that support them are getting less expensive, not more expensive.\u00a0 You used to have to be a Mr.\/Ms. Fix-It<\/em> to install a do-it-yourself room collaboration system at a reasonable price.\u00a0 Sure, you could spend under $2k all in\u2026 But, then you\u2019d have to connect a PC or Mac to a camera, some microphones, a cable harness, a controller, etc.\u00a0 If you could manage through the spaghetti of wires and the required computer expertise you\u2019d have saved a bundle. \u00a0Today though, the new Poly Studio X30<\/a> <\/strong>meets that price-point with a single device that you can drop-in, connect three wires (power, network, HDMI to display) and be running (in native Zoom<\/a><\/strong>, MS Teams<\/a><\/strong>, and soon to be more) in less than two minutes<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 It truly is the best of both worlds.\u00a0 If your enterprise prefers to manage compute devices in your rooms then there are now outstanding and powerful peripherals to use with them.\u00a0 If your enterprise prefers appliances, there are now outstanding and powerful devices to choose from that aren\u2019t any more expensive to deploy at scale.<\/p>\n

6. Devices Seamlessly Connect As You Move About Your Life<\/strong><\/h4>\n

We\u2019re also at the precipice of 5G wireless speeds that enable better and faster connections to all of our devices.\u00a0 We will truly be able to do anything from anywhere.\u00a0 In our videoconference rooms this will mean \u201cbetter than being there\u201d experiences, with enhanced views and collaboration possibilities.\u00a0 During our travels, this means richer and more reliable connections.<\/p>\n

As we move deeper into the decade, and people begin to expect these new features and continued ease of use, more and more firms will see the value in partnering with a manufacturer that can provide a wide breadth of seamless collaboration devices.\u00a0 It will be even more important when traveling from our home to our car to our office to the airport to our hotel for the week, that all of our devices work together and provide seamless hand-offs and actionable metrics.<\/p>\n

As Irwin Lazar<\/a><\/strong> of Nemertes Research explained in his presentation for The IMCCA\u2019s Collaboration Week Silicon Valley<\/strong><\/a>, enterprises have moved beyond just evaluating if collaboration systems and platforms work, and how much they are being used, and now need to understand if they are providing measurable business value.\u00a0 The only way to know that will be if your metrics measure across all the collaboration experiences.\u00a0 If your collaboration partner isn\u2019t providing you with tools from a single source that cover the home, the car, the office, the airport and while on the road, then you\u2019re not working with the right one.<\/p>\n

While these predictions are just that, one thing we know for sure is that the 2020s will be a transformative and exciting decade for the collaboration industry.\u00a0 We\u2019ll all be able to seamlessly communicate with each other about how we still<\/em> don\u2019t have the flying cars the Jetsons promised us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now that we\u2019re at the precipice of a new decade […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":3774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[547,508,526],"tags":[1464,1465,41,984,1467,1468,1442,378,338],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}