Mixed reality goes far beyond changing the way we communicate. It will change the way we do just about everything so dramatically that many compare it to the rise of smartphones.
It eliminates the need for screens, so instead of leaving your physical space to immerse yourself into your phone or computer, you’ll remain connected to your physical space, which will be augmented with interactive holograms.
Wearing mixed reality glasses will be like having a computer on your head at all times that knows where you are and interacts with your physical space through geo-specific holograms. Information will constantly be at your fingertips to a level we’ve never experienced — even with smartphones.
In the near future, you won’t be able to walk down the street or go to the grocery store without encountering mixed reality.
The telephone totally revolutionized the way we could communicate with people all over the world. But then came email and took it to the next level. And then came text messaging. And then came video calls. And so on…What’s next? What’s just around the corner?
In this interview series, called ‘The Future Of Communication Technology’ we are interviewing leaders of tech or telecom companies who are helping to develop emerging communication technologies and the next generation of how we communicate and connect with each other.
As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Christopher Reid. He is the founder and Lead Envisioneer of goHere, a creative technology agency specializing in mixed reality. goHere is carving out the future of mixed reality with innovative applications for businesses and consumers. Christopher has a proven track record of creating beautifully intuitive UI/UX and pushing the boundaries of current technologies. He’s always looking for ways to improve how things are done, and he’s known for his creativity, generosity, and spirit of excellence.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?
Igot my start in fine dining, and one night I waited on a wealthy tech entrepreneur who asked me to come work for him — so I did. After a short time at his company and working my way up to business development manager, I decided to start investing in some of my own ideas. I’ve been working for myself ever since.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I’m not sure it’s the most interesting story, but few things taught me more than being in Detroit for the housing market crash in 2008.
I grew up in Oakland County, Michigan — home of the big three, known as “automation alley” — and within the course of a year, 1 in 4 houses in my county had been foreclosed on.
It taught me how fragile economies are and how fleeting wealth can be; it taught me how to make a little go a long way; and it taught me that placing your personal value in wealth is like building your foundation on sand.
It also sent me in the direction of goHere — in pursuit of industries that would stand steady in volatile economies.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Success is a marathon of consistency walked out one day at a time.”
On your way to success, you’ll experience many mundane, seemingly fruitless, and sometimes downright demoralizing days. Walking through these days without quitting means having the discipline to consistently do the things that garner success — even when you don’t feel like it, even when it seems like nothing’s coming of it, and even when you want to give up…because you know success is a marathon of consistency walked out one day at a time, and even if you don’t see the impact of what you’re doing right now, you will in the future.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I wouldn’t be who I am today without my parents. We didn’t grow up rich — there were times when things were very tight for us — but it taught me that there’s more than one definition of rich.
You can have all the money in the world and have no fulfillment or purpose, and what does that profit you?
No matter what season my parents were in, they chose to use their gifts to serve others, and I saw by their example that when your purpose is service, it doesn’t matter how much money you have: you’ll live a fulfilling life.
I couldn’t count how many times my parents opened their table to people with nowhere to go on holidays or lent a bedroom to someone in need; how many times my dad took care of patients who couldn’t afford it — even when we were barely making ends meet ourselves; how often my mother still has former students reach out to tell her how she impacted their life. I couldn’t pick just one story — their entire life is a story of reaching out to others and giving people a hand up, and their example of sacrificial love continues to this day.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
goHere is deeply honored to work alongside House of Providence, an incredible non-profit bringing excellence to the field of foster care. Their model revolutionizes outcomes for children who have been through extreme hardships by providing a beautiful family home where consistent, loving caregivers walk with them through the hard work of processing trauma.
Every detail of their homes, program, and staff culture are meticulously designed to feel as much like a healthy family as possible — to promote healing, redeem childhood, and spark the resilience in every child who walks through their doors. I cannot express the passion behind this project. It’s a home. It’s a family. It’s love in the face of a very ugly system.
We believe House of Providence should be the national standard in foster care, and we’re dedicated to helping them get there — Until Every Child Has A Home.
Ok wonderful. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about the cutting edge communication tech that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?
goHere develops business applications for mixed reality — currently for devices like Microsoft’s HoloLens 2, as well as in preparation for consumer-facing glasses. Mixed reality blends the physical and digital world, using glass and light to render holograms into your line of sight, which can then be interacted with using eye- and hand-tracking technology.
One of the most exciting breakthroughs provided by this technology is its facilitation of real-time, heads-up, hands-free knowledge transfer with audio and visual guidance. In fields with a steep learning curve where information is highly specialized and widely dispersed, the value of having an expert in your ear not only telling you what to do, but seeing what you see and showing you what to do next is hard to overstate.
For example, imagine being in an emergency, calling 911, and having an operator not just tell you, but literally show you with visual cues how to do CPR until medics arrive. This specific function of mixed reality alone will impact nearly every area of business, education, and everyday life.
How do you think this might change the world?
Mixed reality goes far beyond changing the way we communicate. It will change the way we do just about everything so dramatically that many compare it to the rise of smartphones.
It eliminates the need for screens, so instead of leaving your physical space to immerse yourself into your phone or computer, you’ll remain connected to your physical space, which will be augmented with interactive holograms.
Wearing mixed reality glasses will be like having a computer on your head at all times that knows where you are and interacts with your physical space through geo-specific holograms. Information will constantly be at your fingertips to a level we’ve never experienced — even with smartphones.
In the near future, you won’t be able to walk down the street or go to the grocery store without encountering mixed reality.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?
Absolutely. It’s the end of privacy, and we already know it’s detrimental to people’s health and well-being. I sometimes wonder if being a part of this movement is moral, but I also realize there’s no stopping it, and just because it can be used for evil doesn’t mean it can’t be used for good.
All technology is engineered to program people into certain ways of thinking and patterns of behavior. The problem: it’s exploited to program people into patterns of thinking and behavior that feed big business, but leave the user empty. The door for manipulation is only opening wider with mixed reality.
Technology can also create a harmful disconnect from people, and I believe we’re only beginning to really see and understand the effects of this on societies. It’s our responsibility as creators to develop programs that don’t leave people disconnected, but actually help them connect to a better life.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
When Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 came out, I knew the time for mass adaption of mixed reality was rapidly approaching. This was the first headset to effectively answer so many of the challenges holding spatial computing back. The biggest breakthroughs have to do with eye and hand-tracking technology, which had been very limited on previous mixed reality headsets; this alone dramatically increased its functionality in business applications and was a giant step forward for consumer-facing mixed reality glasses.
goHere specializes in UI/UX, so I’m sure we’ll reach another “tipping point” when consumer-facing mixed reality glasses hit the market. For now, developing enterprise-facing applications is in such high demand and allows so much room for innovation that we are really enjoying the opportunity to push the envelope with internal business solutions.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
Better hardware, and 5G. Right now, there are several mixed reality headsets on the market that target enterprise applications, but they’re too bulky and expensive for consumer use, and many of them need to be tethered to a desktop or mobile computer to run. It’s been difficult for manufacturers to pare down the technology to fit in sleek glasses that would appeal to the consumer market.
The sheer amount of bandwidth required to operate these machines with the latency we’ve come to expect in smartphones is another major obstacle to launching consumer glasses, but the implementation of 5G technology should take care of this in the near future.
In the meantime, every major tech conglomerate — Apple, Google, Facebook, Lenovo, Magic Leap, Microsoft, etc. — is competing to be the first to launch consumer facing glasses. It should be an exciting next year or two for goHere because we love playing with new technology when it comes out.
The pandemic has changed so many things about the way we behave. One of them of course, is how we work and how we communicate in our work. How do you think your innovation might be able to address the new needs that have arisen as a result of the pandemic?
For many tasks, it’s even easier to communicate and learn with co-workers through mixed reality than through face to face interaction. Remote diagnostics and training are two of the primary ways this technology is already being used in enterprise settings, and it’s providing significant return on investment through increased retention and engagement.
Remote learning has been an extreme challenge for our students, parents, and teachers alike; virtual school is not nearly as effective as in-person learning. In its current stage of development, mixed reality would be difficult and expensive to use for remote learning, but as the technology progresses, it can mimic the effect of having your teacher watching over your shoulder — pointing things out and writing on what you see — even if you’re not in the same room.
Pandemic or no pandemic, this technology makes knowledge-transfer much more efficient and simple, and it’s only a matter of time until it catches on in a bigger way.
Fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Actually, someone was there to tell me all of these things before I started — I just didn’t realize the wealth of truth in these statements until I experienced their power for myself.
- Decide who you want to be, not what you want to achieve.
When you define what it means to be the best version of yourself and pursue it with passion and intensity — wealth, success, and influence is all a byproduct.
Many people get trapped in chasing the financial outcome, or fame, or whatever it is their seeking, but most often, this strategy leaves you spinning in a cycle of defeat because it fails to address your mindset. While it’s absolutely possible to achieve your goals from this starting point, it’s almost sure to leave you empty — whereas the pursuit of bettering yourself brings both fulfillment and success.
2. Always be teachable.
I remember my mother’s constant advice (or plea?) to me as a child, “Christopher, be teachable.”
Turns out this was some good advice. The information to succeed is all around us, and often comes from sources we don’t expect. If we can approach everything and everyone with a teachable mindset — with the humility that we don’t know what we don’t know — it keeps us open to learning the things that will move us forward in life.
3. Discipline = Freedom.
The way to freedom is through discipline — the discipline to consciously and continuously choose how you spend your time, and to overcome any influences pulling you away from that choice.
Technology is the perfect example: instead of finding yourself unconsciously choosing to spend hours scrolling through social media platforms that are specifically engineered to manipulate your brain chemistry and keep you captivated, discipline gives you the freedom to consciously choose when to engage and when to disengage.
Discipline gives you the freedom to choose how to spend your time in a world that’s trying its best to decide for you.
4. Count it all joy.
You’re going to suffer in life — it’s unavoidable. But you’re in control of the story you tell yourself when trials come.
Choosing to count it all joy and be authentically thankful for the lessons you’re learning puts the power in your hands to grow from every experience you have. It’s amazing the way problems start to turn into opportunities when you approach everything life gives you with gratitude.
5. Keep your reasons for succeeding in front of you.
Building a business comes with a lot of hard work, opposition, and delayed gratification. If you lose sight of your why, those obstacles will stop you in your tracks.
But if you keep your reasons for succeeding in front of you, you can face the long nights, the nay-sayers, the urge to quit, etc., and you can come out the other side having learned the value of perseverance.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
There are nearly half a million children in our foster care system today, and we’re failing far too many of them. There is not a more vulnerable demographic in the U.S. than children living without the love and support of a family, and I am dedicated to creating change for them.
I believe House of Providence is a big part of the solution to our broken foster care system. They love these children as if they were their own, they’re data-driven, and their results speak for themselves. They show time and time again that children labelled unadoptable and broken are completely resilient and stronger than most adults I know — they just needed someone to give them a real chance. We can all be a part of giving them that chance by standing with House of Providence until every child has a home.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can follow our work on our websites mixyourreality.com and gohere.tech. Check out House of Providence at thehofp.org!
Thank you so much for the time you spent doing this interview. This was very inspirational, and we wish you continued success.
About The Interviewer: David Liu is the founder and CEO of Deltapath, an award-winning unified communications company that liberates organizations from the barriers of effective communication. Liu is known for his visionary leadership, organic growth strategies, and future-forward technology. Liu is highly committed to achieving a greater purpose with technology. Liu’s business insights are regularly featured in Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Tech Crunch, and more.