Looking Back, Looking Forward

Over Coffee® | Stories and Resources from the Intersection of Art and Science | Exploring How to Make STEAM Work For You

An Over Coffee® special-edition podcast In March, 2020, futurist, author, XR consultant, educator and speaker Charlie Fink was researching his third book. The coronavirus pandemic had taken hold. Beyond the devastation of the virus itself, unpredictable changes were taking place, worldwide, in almost every aspect of life, work and education. At the time, we talked about some of these changes and where Charlie saw them going. Charlie cautioned that no one could predict what would happen with virtual technology amid 2020's unprecedented circumstances. Still, many of his March, 2020 projections proved almost uncannily accurate. Charlie, who teaches XR at Chapman College, writes a regular column for Forbes. In July, he published his new book, entitled Remote Collaboration & Virtual Conferences: The Future of Work. An exploration of current virtual resources for a changing workplace, the book covers topics including live streaming, virtual worlds and remote experts. During our 2020 conversation, we discussed the ways Charlie saw extended-reality technology and uses evolving, some of the resources he'd found most effective for work and education, and the trends he was seeing as the world navigated COVID-19. On this edition of Over Coffee®, we cover: What exactly is “XR”, anyway? Some of the trends Charlie saw, in the process of researching his third book; His 2020 projections for the ways he thought society, business and culture could change, due to the pandemic; How Charlie might advise anyone needing to learn new job skills; One parallel between the unprecedented circumstances of the pandemic and a "sea change" in the 1990s; One area in which the XR field has changed in the past year; A preview of Charlie’s new book!; Some of the platforms, in 3D and 2D, that he saw working well for education, work and collaboration; A look at the arts, and how the pandemic may affect artists’ use of the XR medium.