I'm going on-online Mom!!!

We used to say, “I’m going online”.?

Now we ARE online.?

We used to say, “I’m going to work”.

Now we ARE at work.?

AR to Remove Friction within Virtual Worlds

High-speed internet started a process of blending our IRL & URL selves.?But a device that makes the interplay of these two identities seamless has still yet to come.

Meta tried to get us to mass adopt VR goggles.?Is it failing, or has it “worked”? To date, they have sold 20M, which one could argue has pushed the category forward substantially. With this said, Meta is a public company, and as such, at a minimum, the adoption is not substantive enough to fulfill Wall Street’s expectations. Either way, many feel VR will never reach mass adoption because of how “un-human” it is to be “entrenched” in a virtual reality 8+ hours a day - and they are probably right.?

Now Apple has differentiated itself from fully immersive to augmented reality (through spatial computing). AR is now in the consumer’s hands and has a chance to be a more “elegant” expression of our humanity (while, of course acknowledging the inherent elitism of Apple as a company).??

If we tug on the Apple thread for a minute…

AR stands to evolve from: ?? x ?? x ???

If this evolution occurs, it reasons that we’ll see more mass adoption within Metaverse/virtual worlds as the ease of using AR devices should allow for seamless, interoperable interactions within virtual worlds.

For this to happen, however, it’s clear that the cost will need to come down, and more competitors will need to be in the market.?

Additionally, more education and more enterprise/university/government sponsorship are required to better articulate the benefits of immersive technology. I feel this way because I know from first-hand experience that despite living in a technology age, the overwhelming majority of people are not very digitally curious and certainly aren’t digitally native.

The IRL + URL Future of Work Consumer

Now let’s tug on some other threads concerning the evolution of how/where we work.

Get ready for it…

The way we work + collaborate + gather together is INFLECTING!

We don’t need any more data to know that remote work is the preference for the majority of employees - it’s undeniable - hybrid is the lesser of two evils but really the worst of both worlds.?

But data IS needed to understand how the office is now being used.??

It’s shifting from a place of work to a place to drop in and connect.?

According to a recent global workplace study conducted by Relogix, 2022 avg. occupancy levels were 33%, an approx. 50% reduction from 2019 levels. What’s more interesting, however, is the drop in utilization from 2019 to 2022.?

Relogix defines utilization as “the total time spaces are in use in minutes.”

In 2019 peak utilization was 34%, and the avg. was 24%. In 2022, peak utilization was 16% and the avg. was 10%. Peak utilization dropped by 53%!?

Workspace is now something to be consumed, which means it’ll be used less, but with more intention.?

We don’t live at the mall all day. Even the most experiential malls are places we sparingly go to, only when we need or want a specific experience, product or service.

The best malls remain occupied because they’ve sorted out the right mix of retailers and the right size based on the cadence with which their customer avatar shows up.

In essence, e-commerce forced malls to differentiate themselves as unique brands that cater to the full spectrum of high-end customers and experiences through to the most efficient shoppers and experiences.??

The same is happening with workspaces, and I would argue that over time, long-term leases will be replaced with employees having a company-sponsored digital wallet to purchase the workspace of their choosing; and more broadly, physical workspaces will compete with digital equivalents found inside of virtual worlds.?

The key reasons for these assertions are as follows:

1. Employees are now consumers (i.e. they have a say in where/when they work), which will render long-term, corporately held office leases less and less fit for purpose - of course, there will still be long-term leases for the foreseeable future but far less of them.
2. If more and more companies embrace a distributed culture, then the HQ manifesting itself in a virtual form starts to make a LOT more sense - the suggestion, however, is not that IRL venues get erased, but rather that virtual venues create the opportunity for more on-going, immersive connection points for dispersed teams and also present #DEI (diversity, equity & inclusion) opportunities in the areas of: neurodivergence, racial/gender bias, disabilities, the reduction of “power plays” that are all too common in a corporate setting, and more.?

Stuff is Progressing Faster & Different (stuff is dead, stuff is alive, stuff is mutating...)

Material advancements in virtual gatherings and collaboration within the corporate world appear to be very much on the horizon, but it’s important to distinguish between virtual reality and virtual worlds.??

Virtual reality implies the use of what most consider an intrusive headset. In contrast, all that is required to access a virtual world is a computer, a strong internet connection and the use of a piece of software - as of today, we can even stream ourselves into these virtual worlds, which lowers friction (we did this on our most recent Inspired People, Inspired Places round table discussion with Mark Gilbreath to get around corporate security issues and it worked well - think of where all of this goes over time).

Therefore, considering the evolution of how our IRL vs. URL selves will continue to blend, coupled with the increased autonomy/agency of knowledge-working employees, it reasons that:

1. Competing over where someone works is going to get a lot more intense.
2. The evolution of AR/VR stands to make gathering and/or collaborating in a virtual world a more viable alternative than it has been to this point.

The most significant hurdles to progress for both the consumerization of work itself and the evolution of the interplay between our IRL & URL selves comes down to the following:?

1. Younger, more open-minded companies re-defining the nature of how/where people gather + collaborate (whether physical or digital, it will require a LOT of intellectual curiosity and a willingness to educate people)
2. Continued technological innovation + cost reduction
3. Proving out new, killer use cases for both IRL & URL connection points (again, newly minted distributed companies are the most likely to show us the way - the proverbial Google of 15 years ago is not the Google of today…)

In the Future Will We Own Why/How/Where/When We Work?

But the future I see being within our grasp is one where employees behave like retail consumers scrutinizing why/where/when/how they access a given environment, one where AR may well replace our mobile devices, and one where people have ownership over their IRL & URL selves (I’m a newb to this whole Web3/Metaverse thing but I’m told this is called “personal providence”?).

All of this feels like both an opportunity and a necessity.

What do you think?