How to make the best of the Metaverse, today.

Are you ready for Decentralised Transactions, Extended Reality and the Creator Economy? ?No idea what any of these things are??Well, we’ll get to that soon enough, but probably not today…

Let start with some basics.?The metaverse is a portmanteau of the words “meta” and “universe”, describing the convergence of physical and digital reality. It embodies a collective virtual space where users share experiences and interact in real-time.?

So, that sounds like Microsoft Teams then? Well, no. But let’s take that corporate collaboration use-case for a moment as one example and imagine where it could be improved.?We could imagine a more immersive virtual world collaboration environment, unbound by physical constraints, imagine being able to buy/sell goods and services, imagine being able to create your own services and do all of this from your smartphone, laptop or virtual reality headset.?The Metaverse is some or all of these things and more.?Now we’re getting somewhere.

So how does one embrace the metaverse and is it worth investing in?

Well, it depends…

Let’s step back just a few years first.?The Coronavirus did more to disrupt ways of working than most technology in recent memory.?The resulting rapid uptake in video conferencing tools like Microsoft Teams and Zoom has had arguably as much of an effect on the way we collaborate and share content as the inception of the smartphone, social media, the PC and the Internet itself.?The fact that many businesses chose to pivot their collaboration strategy practically overnight was driven mostly out of necessity, but also demonstrated that rich remote collaboration was possible and practical.

Has Teams been a good replacement for face-to-face interaction??Well, in some cases yes.?Organisations could’ve continued with dial-in teleconferences, but 2D video added a sense of presence, allowed us to share emotion and witness reaction in ways a phone call never could.

But even then, a 2D video stream rarely captures the complete body language of a person, especially given that we’re usually only seeing our colleagues’ heads and shoulders in a narrow field of view.

In addition, I’ve become aware of the knife-edge tension between productivity and presence these environments foster.

On the productivity side, personally I have found when I spend hours at a time plugged in to Teams when working from home, I end up in back-to-back calls, multitasking like a boss. I’m on a Teams call, whilst also tapping away notes in another document, or, for those calls where I’m only listening, I feel an inexorable compulsion to work on something else.?And don’t get me started about how use of Teams has evolved such that people rarely check your status before trying to call you, or pinging a message asking a question when you’re in a call.?It’s all in the name of productivity of course, because we can… ?You get input from a colleague, whatever they’re doing, you get it quickly… but it ruins attention span.?Yes productivity could be up, but presence… real, being-in-the-room presence ironically suffers.

Imagine the scene; you’re in a physical meeting room, with colleagues and clients, discussing an important topic.?Suddenly, a colleague walks into the room and starts talking in your ear, seemingly oblivious to the situation around you. You either pause your conversation to deal with the distraction, or choose to ignore them.?Productivity vs presence?

To improve my presence and attention, especially when I’m speaking to clients and my team, I’m doing my best to reduce all these distractions and not to impose them on others when I feel they’re similarly otherwise engaged.?But it is a challenge. We all understand how we got here, but perhaps we need a reset.

Conversely, when I work out of an office, attending face to face meetings, my trusty Garmin watch tells me my heart-rate has been lower on average for the day.?Every time.?Strange, but true.

So, is face-to-face interaction better for us as humans? Probably.

Can we see a way back to that given the changed world we now live in? Maybe.?

Could the Metaverse be the answer for any of this?

Well, the notion of having a 3D avatar for oneself which conveys presence in a different way to a simple text-based status, “In a call” for example, could help. If we can build virtual worlds where that real-world face-to-face interaction can be replicated in a rich, immersive experience, then perhaps we can have the best of both worlds (yes, pun absolutely intended).

Now, let’s look at who’s tried this recently.?Meta (ex-Facebook) has started with their Metaverse project “Horizon Worlds.”?With recent computer game releases delivering hyper-real graphics, the Internet was suitably pumped with expectation and the promise of a brilliant next-gen experience. However, the Internet quite rightly lost its mind after seeing the initial cartoon-like graphics and were somewhat less than complimentary about Zuckerberg’s toon-like avatar. Computer game developers spend enormous sums on developing their titles, with detailed and life-like faces, textures, environments and sounds all produced to create a new playable experience that users will want to engage with and spend money on. Set against the revenue opportunities of a global player market, the sums can be justified.?Epic Games, creator of the game Fortnite made over $5bn in 2020 alone. OK, maybe Fortnite isn't a great example of hyper-real graphics, but it's better than Horizon Worlds and $5bn makes me wish I’d stayed a programmer…

But six/seven figure budgets are going to be out of reach for the vast majority of organisations, so is the Metaverse dead before it’s got started??No.

Over time we will see new platforms emerge which provide the foundation for a creator economy at the enterprise level.?Platforms as toolkits, which afford organisations the opportunity to develop their own immersive experiences with relatively little training.?I say little, but think MS Powerapps, or low-code/no-code style solutions.?If you can draw a diagram in Powerpoint, you’ll be able to design a virtual world of sorts. Think Minecraft for the Metaverse.

Now, if your graphic ability or patience is anything like mine (which is to say largely non-existent) then these tools are going to have to be pretty damn amazing to deliver anything even vaguely impressive.

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So, where are we now??Real Time 3D development platforms like Unity and world-building tools like FrameVR will get you a good way there with a genuinely impressive experience. They need expert developers to design and build the best experiences, but it just needs to be expectation managed. These tools can be used to build custom experiences for any use-case at all.?They may not impress your average gamer used to high-definition, high frame-rate graphics, but to pretty much everyone else; put on a headset, walk around in the virtual world and it’s game changing.?We’ve seen it with our clients.?The curiosity grows.

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Now take that and imagine what that could do for your organization.?

How about replicating an existing physical space in a virtual world to aid familiarisation??E.g. to help Special Educational Needs (SEN) children deal with social anxiety, exploring an otherwise potentially intimidating environment for them from the safety of their classroom. We’ve done that for a school in Cheltenham.

How about creating a virtual office which can be explored at will, containing content to engage with, enabling on-boarding of new joiners and allowing them to be welcomed by the organisation's leadership team.?We’ve done that with our Meta Hub and now on-board all our new joiners through this space.

How about developing a large scale, multiple room virtual space and auditorium, enabling delegates for a global conference to participate in discussions and presentations from all over the world.?We’ve done that, for COP27 in Egypt last year.

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So, is Metaverse worth investing in.?Yes, for the right use-case, with the right tools and with the right partner.

Don’t expect to create a hyper-real video game like experience.?Keep your expectations grounded, but explore the possible.?Think about what the space could be used for, think about what it needs to be populated with, giving users a reason to return.

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The first step is always exploration.?Exploration of your challenges, your opportunities and how such technologies could take your organisation to the next level, or provide you a competitive edge you weren’t expecting.

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If you want to know more, we’ll be here. Or we'll already be Embracing the Metaverse.