The Future of Presence, Continued

John Thackara, who invited me to give a talk on telepresence and travel at the Design of the Times festival in Newcastle last October (which I ironically travelled on a jet plane to give), is pushing the discussion of telepresence and travel further. He has published the text of a recent talk at the Pixelcache festival in Finland:

Traveling without moving has become an economic and environmental imperative. Matter is more expensive than energy; energy is more expensive than information; it is cheaper to move information, than people or things. So what is to stop us moving less, and and tele-communicating more? (Full text: From MySpace to fakespace: How close are we to travel without moving?)

My own view of the subject is actually a lot more pessimistic. As I wrote here last year, if history is any lesson, the more telepresence we get, the more mobility we're going to need. If telecommunications is good at one thing, its maintaining long-distance relationships that generate demand for long-distance travel:

Over the last 50 years we've seen a simultaneous rise in both business telecommunications and travel. In fact, I don't think we appreciate that the second half of the 20th century was about two intertwined revolutions, the telecom revolution we hear about all the time but also a quieter mobility explosion, whose ripples are just now being felt in the big developing economies.

At many times people on one side of the debate or the other have wrongly forecast that one side of this equation would overtake the other - we would see the death of cities, the death of distance, and the end of travel. But what's important here is that these things happened because of each other, not in spite of each other. This particular kind of presence, international business presence, is facilitated by a hybrid set of infrastructure and human activities - making calls and getting on planes.

Now, today, the Internet, for all its distance-diminishing potential isn't really breaking this relationship. In fact. much of what we use our network technologies for is arranging travel. If you look in your email inbox or keep a diary of mobile phone calls - a safe bet is that 75-90 percent of the messages are about arranging travel or planning meetings. So right off from the start I want to break you of any mental habit of thinking that the Internet is going to make us stop moving.

If anything, its going to make things worse. For instance, the Internet is a fundamental part of low-cost airline business models. They are utterly dependent upon the efficiency of Internet bookings, and they are now the biggest driver of expansion in air travel from London to Lahore. For instance, on any given flight of Brazilan low-cost carrier Gol, 1 of every 3 or 4 passengers is flying for the first time ever.

John's main recommendation to designers is to "escape from our disciplinary silos". But it seems to me that it's a bit too little, too late. I've tried to start pushing the discussion further, with some more specific ideas:

The first [idea] is to rely on virtual for long-distance interactions, but for some travel. Any relationship that we try to put solely online is doomed to failure, but by pledging from the start to commit to at least one face-to-face meeting can help resist demands for more travel and meetings. If a team knows that it will get together once a year to bond, share knowledge, etc - that could eliminate anxious need for monthly or quarterly trips.

Second, Satisfy the desire of movement by more intense local mobility. People love to move and travel. By thinking about ways to increase mobility within buildings, neighborhoods, regions - we may be able to satisfy some of that urge for long-distance energy-intensive travel that can only be accomplished by air travel. This means investing in better designed workspaces, and public spaces (and blurring the lines between the two).

Finally, I think we all need to keep our eyes on lead users - the 12-25 year olds that are developing entirely new kinds of presence online. Much has been written about how social practices are changing on the social, immersive, multimedia web, but almost none of this looks at place and mobility. What kinds of new, altered and hybrid boundaries are they creating? How can we empower them to be the agents of transformation and shapers of more sustainable future forms of presence?

Technorati Tags: information technology, social networks, social software, transportation, travel

Comments

[Howard Lichtman]

Excellent article... I would add one more dynamic: The fact that more and more global business can be and is being facilitated using telepresence and effective visual collaboration will mean that more global physical travel will be necessitated. Telepresence can not and will not eliminate all physical travel because a certain amount of global business must remain face-to-face. Telepresence will allow companies to expand where they can do business by eliminating some of the internal travel they currently do to support existing business relationships and for internal administrivia. The smart companies will plow their internal time and travel savings into external travel to meet with customers and prospects. That leads to new business and, consequently, more travel.

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Best,

HSL

Howard S. Lichtman
Publisher