Aaand we are back. Back home, that is, after a week away. I feel firmly in holiday mode, but now I am in it with access to my usual desk and monitors again. It is nice to have all my toys available again, but the really big thing after a highly social week is to just be back in tracks and routines we set for ourselves. There is a touch of "the silence is deafening" going on right now, and I am noticing and enjoying it as much as I can.
Always make sure to enjoy the contrast of changes.
Vision pro visions
We dove into unpacking and cleaning right after getting home, which provided perfect time to empty out my podcast queue. Some of the things I listened to was discussions about Apple's Vision pro headset and what it might mean for the future. When I have been trying to describe why I think better VR and AR headsets can become a big thing, I have been talking - more or less - about laptop work with vastly better ergonomy and larger screens. Other people have been talking about the fascinating potential of watching movies with awesome picture and sound on airplanes. I think I came up with a refinement of my thoughts, or a way to clarify why I think the change can be big:
If the headsets are good enough, they can be the end of office spaces. Sure, spaces to work still need to be ergonomic for whatever sitting or standing you prefer to do while working, and have some kind of ergonomic surfaces for your controllers.
But apart from that, they can look and feel any way we like. They can focus on being really pleasant places for humans to hang out, rather than optimize first for providing good desks and good monitor spaces (with all that means for restricting light to control glare and the like).
Some companies will of course be able to turn this opportunity into even more horrible open offices, squeezing even more people into even less area. But at least nobody who works in a headset will actually need to be in that space to get their work done. You would never (in the ideal world) be held back by the thought that your dedicated desk space has that extra monitor which makes your workflow that much smoother. I would be able to edit podcasts just as well on the patio, or perhaps even under a tree in the back yard, as I am down here in the basement office. And this basement office would not strictly speaking need to contain any screens at all any more. Fewer cables, more space for decorations, and if I did choose to work down here there is no reason that I would need to do it facing this particular wall.
How would I change my working position if the primary focus was to provide a nice environment around the screens?
(I might even find a way to get myself out of all these strange slouching positions I contort myself into. But hey, let us not go completely crazy here.)
So, my Vision pro vision: The end of office spaces.
That has a bit of a ring to it, right?