Two Months In: An Update From the Executive Director

Further to my last post about the AWE ’16 conference, I want to share some thoughts and areas for future focus from my first two months as the Executive Director of the AREA.

It’s exciting to be involved in such a vibrant and dynamic ecosystem of AR providers, customers and research institutions. I’m amazed at the sheer breadth of the kinds of member organizations, their offerings, skills, achievements and desire to work with the AREA to help achieve our shared mission of enabling greater operational efficiencies through smooth introduction and widespread adoption of interoperable AR-enabled enterprise systems.

Success and Challenges

Through my initial conversations with the members, I’ve learned of many success stories and also the challenges of working in a relatively young and rapidly changing industry.

For example, AREA members talk about the prototypes they’re delivering with the support of software, hardware and service providers. However, I would like to see more examples of wider rollouts, beyond the prototype stage, which will encourage more buying organizations to investigate AR and understand its massive potential.

The AWE conference in Santa Clara in June, and the subsequent AREA Members Meeting added emphasis to my initial thoughts. The AR in Enterprise track of AWE, sponsored by the AREA, highlighted a number of organizations who are already using AR to create real benefits, ranging from the enabling of real time compliance, better use of resources, applying the most relevant data and the reduction of time, errors and costs. It was great to see that many member companies understand the benefit of working together to enable the whole AR ecosystem to become successful.

Carrying on the Momentum

My continued focus over the coming weeks will be to carry on the great momentum that has been started. I’m briefing more organizations from all over the world about the benefits of becoming an AREA member. I’ll continue the focus on developing and curating thought leadership content including case studies, frameworks and uses cases, and deliver them via the AREA website, webinars and social media. We’re enhancing our value proposition through our development of research committees that increase the capabilities of the industry.

This is an exciting time for the enterprise AR industry and the AREA; I’m very interested in any feedback or comments you may have so please contact me at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you and working with our growing membership to meet our goals of realizing the potential of Augmented Reality in the workplace.