The entertainment sector has seen a massive evolution over the past few decades. Books, video games, shows — it all gained interest of the public quickly and took major steps in its development. Such developments could vary from introducing new ways to entertain the public, such as the introduction of smartphone applications, to adding new dimensions to existing media. This direction has been taken with the launch of Choose Your Own Adventure books in 1980. As the name already suggests, the power here lies in the reader’s hands. Every choice leads to a totally different storyline. You can have the same content in the beginning but every time see a different story unfold. Other entertainment forms, such as video games, already followed their example and in 2017 the streaming service Netflix also announced to made to launch interactive movies where viewers can influence the storyline. Will these interactive movies fully be embraced by the public? Will the choose-your-own-adventure concept of online entertainment be the future or a flop?

Netflix started their journey exploring options in interactive storytelling by mainly focussing on producing interactive content for children and uploading titles such as Puss in Book: Trapped in an Epic Taleand Minecraft: Story Mode. According to their Product Innovation director Carla Fisher, they made this decision based on their research that children already tend to be prone to interacting with the screen. However, these days when we open Netflix’s website we can find several interactive movies aimed at adults as well such as Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, You Vs. Wild,Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy vs. the Reverend.

To make such an interactive film is not particularly effortless. Producers need to produce approximately 5 hours of scenes to be able to finalize a 90-minute movie for consumers. Additionally, Netflix had to develop a software called Branch Manager to ease the production and use of interactive movies. Further, Netflix adapted their progress bar presenting multiple options at certain time stamps to users and only enabled the newer electronic devices this service.

To conclude with certainty whether the interactive movies will be the future or a flop, we will have to give it some more time as Netflix just recently launched this option. Personally, I think the interactive movies share will continue to grow the next couple of years. However, it seems unlikely to me that it will ever replace the ease of a simple movie where you can just relax and watch the story unfold. While waiting for the results, I would recommend giving interactive movies a try yourself to kill some time. Sometimes doing research can be challenging, but it will probably be the fastest way to find out.

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To say that pandemic changed things, feels like stating the obvious. Some things, however, did stay the same. For instance, organizations often still find it quite challenging carrying out business transformation projects or shaping the future of the workplace successfully. In 2020, however, businesses learned that projects that normally would have taken months to finish, such as the whole company being able to work from home, can be realized in a matter of weeks. The pandemic changed the workplace in a split second, but how will this influence the workplace in the future?

This year influenced businesses to become less risk-averse towards digital transformation and automated tools. This movement is everything but undesirable as the customers become increasingly digital focussed and have certain expectations of businesses in the same area. Therefore, an increase in automation and augmentation to benefit the efficiency of the services. As a result, employees in the workplace able to focus more on elements that could possibly help businesses differentiate and keep claiming in the market. Also, individuals start to incorporate more of their personal Internet of Things (IoT) devices in their work such as voice assistants and smart earbuds (Rimol, 2020). The way jobs were structured before the COVID-19 situation, could be quite different afterwards.

Additionally, some studies show that working from home leads to an increase of productivity and happiness of the employees (Allen, Golden and Shockley, 2015). While other show that the current situation is mainly built as an emergency solution and not ideal in the long term perspective (Johnson and Suskewicz, 2020). Therefore, experts would currently advise businesses to combine the two by offering a space for regular meetings and support employees to work from home (Fisher, 2020).

The future of the workplace will be built on a base of agility, flexibility and technology. Combining these three elements can support a future of the workplace where creativity and efficiency flourish, while supporting both autonomy and team involvement.

Allen, T., Golden, T. and Shockley, K., 2015. How Effective Is Telecommuting? Assessing the Status of Our Scientific Findings. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 16(2), pp.40-68.

Fisher, L., 2020. How Technology Will Shape The Future Of The Workplace. [online] Information Age. Available at: <https://www.information-age.com/how-technology-will-shape-the-future-of-the-workplace-123492020/> [Accessed 6 October 2020].

Johnson, M. and Suskewicz, J., 2020. Does Your Company Have A Long-Term Plan For Remote Work?. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: <https://hbr.org/2020/07/does-your-company-have-a-long-term-plan-for-remote-work> [Accessed 6 October 2020].

Rimol, M., 2020. 6 Trends On The Gartner Hype Cycle For The Digital Workplace, 2020. [online] Gartner. Available at: <https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/6-trends-on-the-gartner-hype-cycle-for-the-digital-workplace-2020/> [Accessed 6 October 2020].