Lily Snyder

This past week I had the opportunity to fly out to Seattle to meet up with some of my team for work on Doghead Simulations. It was a really great week. While the main perk of working in a distributed company is getting to work from home, the other is that you get to travel from time to time!

Working remotely is natural for us although I still get plenty of exclamations when people hear that I don’t go into an office every day. I’m not sure why, but that still surprises me. In this day in age, it is becoming more common for people to work from home, even if only a couple days out of the week.

Technology is constantly evolving. It is constantly changing the way we communicate with one another. We went from calling each other on landlines to texting each other on smartphones. The apps we use in our personal lives eventually bleed into our working lives. I think companies can be a little slower on the uptake of new technology. Once they have a system in place, it pretty much stays there. However,  that can keep being used as a reason to stay with outdated software.

In 2016 I joined a tech startup developing virtual reality (VR) software for the enterprise. Since then, it has become my mission to open the eyes of fellow business people to the magic of VR. It is an exciting time for VR (I am still blown away by the new experiences people develop for it) and soon it will be the go-to app to communicate with each other.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BhPoAeZh7Oh/

The majority of our communication comes from our body instead of from our voice which is why VR apps are better for professionals than traditional communication technology. I’ve talked before about how remote work is becoming the norm for many professionals. Even if you work in an office you still have to communicate with customers, suppliers, and clients who are not.

I can use words like “immersion”, “self-presence”, and “engaged” to describe virtual reality. Unfortunately, you have to experience it (with another person in VR) to really get it. When I say experience, I mean something like the HTC Vive with hand controllers and body movement tracking. This is because body language helps us to access memories, help make people listen to you, and help us work through problems. Don’t we deserve that same right to communicate with our co-located colleagues? That’s what virtual reality does for us.

Check out this list of 10 VR apps for remote workers.