In 2020, having remote-based business and work meetings conducted via Skype, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, or one of the alternative videoconferencing services is basically the new norm. To a large extent, COVID-19 contributed to such a rapid move to remote-based work-related communication, but even without the epidemic, online meetings were getting more and more popular each year in the last decade.
And understandably so, since videoconferencing is a great technology that allows you to conduct various kinds of meetings with colleagues or business partners located anywhere in the world, and modern technologies made it very accessible too. These days videoconferencing tools support mobile devices and don’t need a very fast Internet connection to work.
Where Zoom, Skype and others fail
Services such as Skype, Zoom, Meet or Teams do have a number of weaknesses when it comes to using them for team meetings. These weaknesses become very obvious if you are having a meeting with multiple people online or when you need to discuss something hands-on rather than just having a verbal conversation.
When there are many people in one call, say more than 5 or 6, the process will inevitably be confusing or dysfunctional at least to some of them, with sound or picture problems, or delays. Another typical problem is when a team is discussing something hands-on that requires precise planning, an upcoming operation or a construction project, for example.
Evidently, traditional video conferencing tools are not suitable for anything more than a verbal conversation, while the requirements of the majority of businesses are actually a lot more extensive, especially in the time of COVID-19 crisis. Companies need simple and effective solutions to host online meetings for any number of people, sometimes dozens of them in various parts of the world, and they need the ability to effectively collaborate on various projects in the same communication tool.
Still think nothing better than Skype or Zoom for work meetings hasn’t been invented?
VR for project meetings
Enter Virtual Reality. There is a technology that is perfect for these purposes. And the name of this technology, as you clearly know from the title already, is VR. Using VR for virtual meetings in a digital 3D environment can solve a whole number of problems one is constantly facing when trying to have an online videoconference call with more than several people. And it also has so much more to offer when it comes to using VR for project meetings of any kind.
Allow us to give you a few examples.
Teams can work together on practical parts of projects in a VR environment
One can easily create an environment that would fit your specific requirements. For example, for doctors, it would be a virtual operations room, while for constructors it would be a construction site. This way, VR allows you to conduct a meeting at a location with all the necessary equipment in place for the team members to work on the project without leaving the VR communication site.
VR is much more applicable for large business meetings with over 5-6 participants
Virtual Reality environment is a much better option for a large business meeting, since it has all the perks of a real-life meeting, while the participants can be anywhere in the world. It is easy to make sure everyone can hear you in a VR meeting or to check who is present and online, making it much easier to organize compared to the head ache of conducting a mass videoconference call.
VR offers a large number of conversation options
Having virtual communication in a 3D environment gives one much more control over the conversation flow, compared to the traditional videoconferencing apps. For example, you don’t need to have just a single large conversation encompassing all the participants. Instead, you can split into smaller groups, talk to someone outside, even whisper. And if you need to have a need-to-know basis private chat it is always possible to take someone to the virtual hallway away from the general meeting.
VR: soon to be the new normal for online project meetings?
Companies- large and small- all around the world are embracing Virtual Reality for all kinds of project meetings and work-related communication. They recognize the benefits this technology can provide to the the business.
We at PaleBlue see an increase in the number of our clients and partners transferring their project meetings from videoconferencing to PaleBlue VR platform. We expect this further strengthen in 2021, as VR proves it can become the new norm for remote project meetings in the nearest future.
