Boris is the wise ol’ CEO of TNW who writes a weekly column on everything about being an entrepreneur in tech — from managing stress to embracing awkwardness. You can get his musings straight to your inbox by signing up for his newsletter!

A few days ago, I was doing a woodworking project which involved two wooden planks, just over 10 meters in length (impressive, I know).

I had to attach them firmly at one end, then I roughly aligned them so they would be parallel to each other. My attitude towards woodworking could be summed up as “we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” So as usual, I wasn’t stressing the details too much in the beginning.

When I’d firmly secured the first 3 meters in place, after a considerable amount of elbow grease, I noticed something. The few millimeters of margin I’d noticed in the beginning were now a few centimeters of margin. And surely enough, further along the planks those centimeters turned into decimeters.

Still, no big deal, right? Well, unfortunately this woodworking project was literally building a bridge I would have to cross soon.

I didn’t quite relish dying prematurely in a freak bridge accident of my own making, so I was left with no choice but to scrap everything and start over completely. But this time I’d pay extra attention to those millimeters that seemed so trivial in the beginning.

Another thing that might seem like mere millimeters at the beginning of a project for most people — but can end up causing a kilometer-wide gap — is company culture.

Values, manners, and methods are implicit, and when you’re struggling to get your idea off the ground or just trying to simply survive, there’s not a lot of time for long brainstorm sessions about What It All Means.

But even if you never sit down to come up with your meaning or values , I’ve learned that all the little things you do in the beginning will end up defining what you’ll eventually recognize as your company culture.

It’s a mistake thinking you can create ‘company culture’ by putting a ping pong table in the basement or force everyone to think of yourselves as “one big family.” Company culture is a lot more subtle than that, and it’s created by all the tiny actions that have happened, rather than sweeping declarations.

I declared I was building a bridge — but the amalgamation of all my actions showed I was constructing weird stilts for two planks, veering off into different directions.

That’s why simple things like how founders treat each other in meetings are the building blocks of company culture. Those millimeters of small mistakes you skipped over so easily in the beginning can turn chasms you can never cross if you’re not careful.

But even if you manage to inspire a thriving culture with mutual respect and the ability to grow, are you done? No, never. Company culture, and the values it comes with, is a living and breathing thing, and like the tide, it ebbs and flows with the people that live it.

So make sure all your actions contribute to the company culture you strive to build.

Can’t get enough of Boris? Check out his older stories here , and sign up for his newsletter here .

Here’s what the future of classrooms looks like

With the onset of the pandemic, students, and teachers across the globe suddenly found themselves struggling to adapt to online learning experiences, from dealing with Zoombombing to gently reminding everyone to wear pants to class.

But it’s not just about adapting to the strange circumstances we find ourselves in. For a while now, classrooms have been due for some much-needed disruption. COVID-19 has sped up the need for new solutions and many are seeing this as the right time to finally reset and rethink the classroom experience altogether.

With an annual front row seat to the latest in AV tech, we spoke with Mike Blackman, Managing Director of Integrated Systems Events, to get his perspective on where innovation is needed most.

“With COVID-19 preventing students from coming to classes or lectures, technology has – as in other aspects of life – stepped in to provide a solution. And, as elsewhere, the pandemic has served to accelerate existing trends – forcing the adoption of solutions that some schools, colleges, and universities might have been reluctant to try otherwise.”

From hologram professors to virtual field trips to the Amazon, here are a few of the trends that could shape the classroom of the future.

EdTech puts students in the teacher’s seat

Thinking back to when you were in school, the idea of studying from home probably sounded like a good time to get some valuable gaming hours in, discover daytime TV, stare out the window, and [insert anything other than school]. One of the biggest challenges faced by students has been just finding the motivation to sit down and study outside of the classroom.

The problem with online lectures, and even the traditional classroom setting, has always been that, in a class of 300 or even six students, not everyone will be engaged all of the time. But studies show that actually giving students the option to choose what they want to study can increase self-determination and intrinsic motivation.

“With the pandemic generally reducing the amount of time that students can spend with their teachers, even over video, there’s been more of a move towards helping students discover things for themselves as opposed to simply being told them,” Blackman said.

However, other studies warn that, to be motivating, these choices need to be relevant to the students’ interests and goals, not be too numerous and complex, and be in line with the student’s cultural values.

What we’re seeing now is a shift towards individualized, self-paced, student-driven learning with the rise of Skillshare style video libraries and Duolingo style tutoring apps including Byju (which offered its app for free during COVID), Edmentum , and Wizenoze .

And it doesn’t stop there. New technologies like AI-based chatbots are already being used as teaching assistants and math tutors, allowing students to get feedback in real-time.

Taking it a step further, in 2018 New Zealand based companies Vector and Soul Machines launched Will, the first AI-based avatar teacher programmed to have interactive conversations with primary school students about renewable energy. (Finally, someone who won’t get tired of being asked “but why?” fifty billion times.)

As a human-to-AI interface, the more a bot like Will interacts with people, the more his responses, mannerisms, etc. begin to feel more real. And, the cool thing is, adaptive learning tech could help these bots create more personalized learning experiences for each individual they interact with. In fact, Soul Machines believes bots like Will could one day help address teaching gaps in the developing world.

Technology makes distance learning more accessible

Imagine you’re watching a lecture and your professor says, “here’s what’s going to be on the exam,” just as your video freezes or your internet crashes. It’s clear that note-taking and following a full class online is difficult for everyone, but it’s not just about freeze-framed professors.

While the quick switch to online learning provided an alternative for some, it also brought the issue of accessibility to the forefront. Students with hearing impairments and those with limited access to Wi-Fi, a computer, or even just a quiet place to follow classes have suddenly been left behind.

During the AVIXA Higher Education AV Conference at ISE 2020, accessibility and inclusion specialist Alistair McNaught highlighted the importance of building AV and multimedia education tools that are inclusive for all students and in compliance with regional and national web accessibility regulations.

What this means in practice for online learning is making sure real-time closed captioning, accurate transcripts, and clear video recordings are made available. While some platforms like Zoom and Youtube have built-in closed captioning options, they’re often hit or miss. And when it comes to transcribing lectures from professors with any sort of accent, you can pretty much forget it.

Luckily, new tech is here to help. This year ISE exhibitors including Matrox and Mediasite by Sonic Foundry demonstrated advanced lecture capture systems that produce high-quality recordings that can be shared, reviewed, and integrated with learning materials. Meanwhile, Epiphan introduced LiveScrypt , an AI-based speech to text tool that provides more accurate real-time captioning that can be streamed to the web and connected devices.

Full accessibility is and will continue to be an issue for students as globally around 826 million students don’t have access to a computer at home. This is one of the biggest challenges EdTech startups, educators, and society will need to tackle and find new solutions for going forward.

Down with chalk and talk

According to Blackman the main trend in recent years has been “the move away from the old ‘chalk and talk’ model, where the teacher is the source of knowledge, to more blended learning styles. This also represents a move away from the ‘one size fits all’ approach using, for instance, small group working, where different groups may be given different tasks more suited to their abilities or interests.”

In fact, a study by Harvard University found students actually learn more during active learning sessions than they do from traditional lectures. What’s more, employers, researchers , and parents are advocating for a stronger focus on developing soft skills like teamwork, communication, and emotional intelligence alongside hard technical skills. For example, in the UK, 88% of young people, 94% of employers, and 97% of teachers think life skills are just as, or more, important than academic qualifications.

Instead of long, drawn-out lectures, classes will be centered more around project-based group activities that allow students to select topics of interest and break out into collaborative groups. IoT integrated devices and Interactive Touchscreens have already been facilitating group work by allowing everyone to easily connect their devices, share, and create.

Of course with social distancing still essential in many parts of the world, VR, AR, and MR solutions are stepping up. Imagine going on a field trip to the Roman Empire or learning about nature conservation in the Amazon with students from around the world.

A number of studies already show that using Augmented Reality in the classroom can lead to deeper student engagement, better learning performance, and increased motivation.

Google for Education is one of the best known VR and AR providers now, but there are a number of smaller companies doing some innovative things in this space. Check some of them out at next year’s ISE 2021 .

Teachers join the force

It’s not just students who’ll get to enjoy the new tech advances coming out. Instead of hopping on a plane to give visiting lectures, in the classroom of the future professors will simply be able to sit back and project themselves hologram-style to lecture halls across the globe (even giving lectures in multiple locations at the same time).

Sound a little too Obi-Wan Kenobi for you? Imperial College Business School already started offering hologram led lectures in 2018.

TNW caught up with Dom Pates, Senior Educational Technologist, at City University of London, who gave a workshop on holographics at ISE 2020. According to Pates:

“Aside from the obvious novelty of holographic technologies, the primary benefit of them is that it’s the closest experience for an audience to feeling that the remote speaker is physically present in the room. In the example from my workshop, the screen that the holographic presenter was appearing on was seemingly invisible, the image of them was life-sized and in three dimensions, and the audio matched the high quality of the image. This brings a degree of flow to the experience, and makes it much easier for the learners in the physical room to focus on the subject matter rather than the technology.

As Pates explained, using holographic technology offers a far superior experience to Zoom streaming:

“Delivering a lecture over a web conferencing platform like Zoom as a substitute for one in a physical lecture theatre is inherently inferior if it just substitutes the room for the platform. If teaching is done live and online, it’s necessary to build engagement considerations in much more than it might be in a physical learning space, as it’s harder for learners to remain fully engaged in an hour delivered on screen than an hour delivered in a room.”

However, there is one challenge professors looking to become a hologram should keep in mind:

“For the lecturer, their audience is now on a screen in front of them rather than in the room, so it’s more difficult to pick up on the cues you’d get from an audience in front of you.”

AKA, finding strategic sleeping positions during early morning lectures will be easier than ever.

Classrooms get an upgrade

To fit this new reality, students and teachers will need more than just the standard classroom with rows of desks.

“Another major trend is the ability of teaching spaces to reconfigure themselves. Some higher education establishments have large, multifunctional learning spaces that they use to accommodate different classes or lectures of various sizes at the same time. This requires the video and especially the audio in the room to be reconfigurable to suit a variety of layouts. In the COVID era, social distancing is bringing its own requirements for flexible room arrangements,” Blackman told TNW.

If you’re wondering just how much of a difference an educational environment can make, studies show that classroom design can alter academic progress over a school year by 25%.

At ISE 2020 Piet Van Der Zanden, Associate/Analyst at Delft University of Technology, gave a talk on the University’s Interactive Education Spaces Configurator. This interactive tool allows them to easily reconfigure learning spaces based on the activity and also improve readability, sightlines, seating capacity, and accessibility.

But, along with improved visibility, flexible spaces will also need to be equipped with the right tools to ensure sound quality reaches everyone. This year Humantechnik , Williams AV , and Opus technologies showcased their induction loop amplifiers and other systems built to help learners with hearing difficulties block out background noise and amplify a lecturer’s voice.

We still don’t know exactly what the classroom of the future will look like, but events like ISE can give us some clues.

“Exactly what will be on show at ISE in 2021 we don’t know yet, but our exhibitors always push the boundaries of what’s possible – so the excitement is guaranteed,” Blackman said.

Adobe’s top tips to adapt your commerce strategy during the pandemic

Concern over COVID-19 had an impact on online shopping behavior early on in the pandemic, according to data from Adobe Analytics , which monitors the ecommerce transactions of 80 of the top 100 U.S. retailers.

As with any crisis situation, businesses must adapt to these rapidly changing conditions and modify marketing, operations, and business models to best serve customers. Integrity is a critical foundation for modern business and ensuring that you execute a planned response to this situation is paramount in this age of information transparency and social media sharing.

During crisis situations like COVID-19, making clear and factual statements, meeting customer commitments, and ensuring business and operational continuity is more important than ever. Below, I’ve outlined the key commerce tactics you may consider as you modify your commerce strategy.

Immediate actions: communication and marketing

Consumers are personally, financially, and professionally effected by COVID-19. It has never been more important to build trust and ensure information accuracy. Provide factual and relevant information to establish your brand as a trusted advisor.

As appropriate, ensure you modify your tone to properly align with the scenario and your customers’ mindsets. More subtle modifications to your site will also contribute to establishing an empathetic experience such as shifting to alternate imagery where you may have previously featured large groups or public settings. If you provide direct services to address the pandemic and modify your site’s content, it’s critical to update your metadata as well.

Share your own experiences

Open up to your customers and tell your story. Explain the impact that the crisis is having on your own company, how it has impacted your operations (both negatively and positively). Post a video message from your CEO on your homepage – have him/her build confidence that although physical stores are closed that the company is healthy and able to weather the storm.

Explain what you are doing to ensure business continuity in your warehouses, contact centers, etc. Be sure to explain the steps you are making to protect your own employees that are still in the office or warehouse. Explain how all that is happening is impacting your supply chain and apologize for any shortages, while setting realistic expectations on when inventory may be back in stock. The overall goal is to create empathy with your customers.

Operational continuity

Ensuring operational continuity will be an increasing challenge as the widespread shift to online shopping exceeds fulfillment and delivery capacity. It is imperative to properly set customer expectations and establish safety stock levels to ensure you are able to meet commitments.

Optimize buy online pickup in store (BOPIS) and consider scheduled pickups, curbside pickup and delivery options to further reduce exposure risks. Consider putting purchase limitations for high demand products to ensure fair distribution and discourage reselling.

Establish SLAs

Many large merchants and marketplaces are prioritizing critical products and consumables over general categories to further mitigate fulfillment pressures.

Encourage customers to forecast buying needs and order multiple items at once to reduce the number of shipments going to the same address – this will reduce pressure on the fulfillment network, i discourage the Prime mentality of buying individual items as you need them.

Reassure customers that online orders are safe

Be sure to provide details to your customers on what you are doing to minimize contamination in the shipping process. Explain that in most cases the time-in-transit means that packages are a very low risk for transmission of the virus and also provide customer best practices for keeping social distancing with the delivery driver and wiping down packages with disinfectant wipes before opening etc.

And, as primary carriers and delivery networks become overwhelmed, now may be the time to consider alternate third party logistics (3PL) and delivery partners. Logistics partners specialize in last-mile delivery from stores and can help merchants quickly and effectively ship from stores and take advantage of a vast network of delivery drivers.

Alternate payments

New segments have also come online including the underbanked. To serve these segments it is important to support cash-based transaction alternatives such as Venmo.

With near term cash flow concerns around forthcoming car, rent, and mortgage payments, consider offering payment plan options for customers so that customers can keep buying higher consideration, discretionary and even luxury items and pay for them later in the year when the threat of the crisis is in the rear view mirror and the economy is in recovery mode.

Scaling customer support

Increased traffic and order volumes will also result in the need to support increased customer traffic and service request volumes. Managing these demands will be increasingly challenging as call-centers hit capacity, may need to temporarily shut down due to quarantines, or transition to work-from-home models.

This is again where beefing up product information and self-help resources on merchant sites is critical. For example, chat functionality will become more important in this context.

Also think about how you can leverage your community of brand advocates to help you in this time of need. Consider opening up a community knowledgebase where existing customers can help answer questions from prospective customers to reduce the burden on your own employees and contact center.

Focus (short term) on usability over design

COVUD-19 has put an unprecedented strain on the internet and mobile networks which in turn is slowing down online experiences. Make sure you are prioritizing the overall site performance of your mobile and web experiences.

Now is the time to cut back on those high-resolution home page banners and just ensure that the basics of being able to browse and buy does not become frustrating slow for your customers.

Closing thoughts

Right now, as consumers increasingly use digital methods to deal with the crisis, merchants need to focus on delivering smooth, frictionless, and fast experiences on their ecommerce websites and mobile applications.

Meeting your customers’ needs at a time like this is imperative. Disappoint them, and they will certainly shop elsewhere. Instead, merchants should be laser focused on meeting their needs, and building long-lasting customer loyalty.