I was hoping to be able to embed the video found here within this blog post, but, alas, the good folks at Harvard Business Review made that a bit too difficult, so I’m providing the link.

Michael Porter and Jim Heppelmann do a terrific job explaining why anyone – especially anyone in business – should give a darn about augmented reality, or AR.  For those who like to read, there’s a great article from 2017 that accompanies the video, too.

Augmented reality, a set of technologies that superimposes digital data and images on the physical world, promises to close this gap and release untapped and uniquely human capabilities. Though still in its infancy, AR is poised to enter the mainstream; according to one estimate, spending on AR technology will hit $60 billion in 2020. AR will affect companies in every industry and many other types of organizations, from universities to social enterprises. In the coming months and years, it will transform how we learn, make decisions, and interact with the physical world. It will also change how enterprises serve customers, train employees, design and create products, and manage their value chains, and, ultimately, how they compete.

The ten-second reductionist version is this:  There is WAY TOO MUCH VALUABLE INFORMATION available and needed to effectively engage life and work – and it’s too stinkin’ hard to assimilate/use/leverage/profit from this information via today’s typical transference methods.  To really get value from this plethora of information, it has to be combined into and with the live experience. 

We are almost at a tipping point.  Pay attention.  It’s coming.