Yesterday I read, to my bewilderment, that England is to get a high speed rail network. What will that mean to me? Mancunian’s can revel that their journey time to London will be cut by an hour! Well, half an hour because you’ll have to get yourself to Stockport first. How much will the luxury of this extra half hour cost? A mere £33 Billion! Let’s write that in full. £33,000,000,000!

According to the The Independent on Monday 28 January 2013, the tickets will cost us as much as £1,000. Other sources suggest that ministers have ruled out price hikes but given that it currently costs around £441 for a First Class Open Return with Virgin, we can bet that it will be at least 10% more expensive. So let’s recap. For an investment of £33 Billion and a 10-50% increase on ticket prices, we will get a half hour reduction in our journey time.

How long do we have to wait for this boon? What’s that? Twenty years!

As a self employed digital designer who works for clients all over the country, you might expect me to do a great deal of travelling? Actually, about 80% of the work I do is from my office. Mostly, my clients are happy using Skype and Video conferencing technology to manage projects remotely. Thanks to these technologies I can demo projects, make presentations, exchange documents and enjoy instant connectivity with remote colleagues without ever having to leave my chair. We only have to glance at the products emerging from the audio visual technology sectors to realise that these new channels of communication will play a big part in the future of commerce. Huge online gaming communities already exist and what’s more, our children are already engaging with them. As the internet and wireless networks continue to improve and the attitude of the general population towards technology continue to mature, the shape of our companies will evolve too. Why would a business suffer the overhead of a large premises when they could downsize and manage a high percentage of their staff remotely? We accept that the high street will have to evolve quickly to survive, why not business too? In a world where the consumer can scan a barcode with their iPhone and instantly purchase the item at the cheapest possible price, the high street must change. In a world where an HD video conferencing wall, could potentially double the size of a boardroom table and connect you to any member of staff anywhere in the world instantaneously, business will have to adapt too.

Of course physical collaboration will still need to happen, especially in manufacturing, but as technology and video conferencing suites become cheaper and a greater part of our lives is spent within these virtual environments, it will become more and more commonplace to conduct our business online.

Environmentally, as the price of fuel climbs the pressure to work remotely will increase too. As the cost of running cars will make it more expensive to travel, the radius we will be prepared to commute will contract.

If you think I’m beginning to sound like Arthur C. Clarke, can I remind you that twenty years is a long time and that even politicians would point out that investment in bringing high speed broadband to rural communities is part of this reality; although personally I think an improved wireless network infrastructure, would have been an investment in the future.

Maybe I’m just cynical but I continue to note with interest how little IT or computer studies is being mentioned in the current debate raging over the English Baccalaureate Certificates (EBCs) being introduced to replace GSCEs from 2015. Maybe a computer savvy workforce isn’t a good thing? If we all worked from home as self-employed sole-traders, what implications would that have on Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs? It might make it difficult to pay for those high speed trains. You know, the shiny new trains, the ones with nobody on them.