[00:00:00] Dan: Hello, and welcome back to We Not Me, the podcast where we explore, how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:14] Pia: And I am Pia Lee. How are you, Dan?

[00:00:18] Dan: I am very well. Thank you. Yes. Enjoying the enjoying the new year. It's it's obviously a very wind pretty wintry here. It's very cold, but so enjoying that being out and about uh, getting some fresh air. So yes, doing very well. Thank you very

[00:00:32] Pia: Excellent. Yeah. This is the time of year we're at polar Polaris conditions. You and I We are. sweating particularly in

[00:00:40] Dan: exactly. I can't 

[00:00:41] Pia: yeah, in my new place that I'm living now. It's about a thousand kilometers north of Sydney. It is hot and wet and humid.

[00:00:49] Dan: And you liked Jeremy Clarkson has become a farmer.

[00:00:53] Pia: it is sometimes. Yeah. We always put a west country action accent on it until about being farmers. Yeah, it's a completely changed, you know, it's just a combination of running a, a tech startup by day and in the free time going out and shoveling soil and looking after ducks and we're about to acquire two alpacas in the next few weeks. So this is quite exciting.

[00:01:17] Dan: Oh, amazing. Are they as pets or do they have some agricultural role?

[00:01:21] Pia: They have cultural role of eating grass. And they keep snakes out. So they stumped their hoops and they keep that. So that's quite useful, but they're not trained. The vet said to me, you have to train them to get a Holter on, we will come out, but we will not try and track down your alpacas on five acres because we'll all be there all day.

[00:01:44] Dan: That story of snakes, every, almost everything you say about where you live reminds me of why I had to leave Australia. 

[00:01:49] Pia: Yes, they are there. So I hear that sometimes the best Christmas present is of the ones that you give yourself. And I think come clean you, you bought yourself something rather flashy, which is related to this episode.

[00:02:04] Dan: I did indeed. I did indeed. And it was actually our guest today that recommended I did it because he started talking about this this idea of teams in the metaverse and just said, you need to get an Oculus Quest II headset and here it is where you can get it. And this is what you need to do with the deluxe headband or whatever it was.

[00:02:21] So I went on. Put it on the Christmas tree and then open on to my surprise. It was a, it was indeed an Oculus headset. But this, the reason I did it was actually curiosity about this world because, just to see what to do this, actually to see if we could explore what this could hold for teams in the future. Obviously, technology provides us with so many opportunities that, Dangerous to watch along the way, but I just wanted to really explore that. And in, and I did a little bit of exploration together in preparation for this episode. So I'm hoping it's going to be a really good conversation.

[00:02:54] Pia: Great. Let's head over and let's meet in and let's dive into the world of the metaverse. 

[00:03:01] 

[00:03:04] Dan: Ian, welcome to the show.

[00:03:06] Ian: Thank you very much delighted to be here.

[00:03:08] Dan: Thank you so much for being here. Well, I met you a little while ago when I was organizing a community festival in town and heard about this crazy person down a back alley, setting up a stage and technological ways to live stream onto Facebook and stuff. So I thought I have to know this person. So that's how we we came to know each other. Tell us a little bit about you, Ian.

[00:03:29] Ian: Aside from I think my back alley sound music, engineering career, which has been which was quite short is indicative of my my my approach generally. So I'm a freelance technologist and I do it because I like technology, but I also am very a lot of what I do is around things like design thinking, which is connecting the humanness to the technology. And I do, I work for different clients on different kinds of stuff like that. And obviously the topic that we're going to talk about today is something that's very much coming along from a technology point of view.

[00:04:05] I worked for IBM for. 23 years. I say about this quite excite really isn't it. I worked for IBM for 23 years. I worked there as a technology, so I was what they call an architect, which I think slightly annoys actual architects, that designed buildings. But as a technology architect and I got involved in a lot of client innovation kind of work towards the end.

[00:04:26] That time. And after IBM I went to work for a software testing consultancy where I was head of innovation. So you can, you're getting a kind of theme emerging here. And so that, that's led me to the point where I quite often get involved in I'm quite interested in new technology and how how that kind of.

[00:04:46] Fit, into our lives and how that kind of develops and matures, what the kind of impacts and the ways that affects us. 

[00:04:54] Dan: 

[00:04:55] I think that's early and you've summed it up nicely. And I think this is why it's so great to have you on the show because the comment we're all about humans connecting here. So technology is obviously a big part of that. And I see that, You have both in your eye-line.

[00:05:07] Ian we always start with our guests that with a little bit of torture which is around these conversations starter cards. So I have three decks in front of me, red for tricky, Amber for medium and green for nice easy questions to get to know a little bit about you, which one of those would you like to meet to choose a card from? 

[00:05:26] Ian: I would say surprise me. 

[00:05:27] Pia: oh, that's. I like it. Putting it straight back on him. Ooh. Precious on 

[00:05:34] Dan: Okay. I'm going to choose. And we've had a couple of reds and they can be quite tasty, but I'm going to go for a little orange card

[00:05:41] Pia: Yeah, cause that, that quite tricky.

[00:05:44] Dan: They are a little bit tricky, but not, I, don't not just, what's my favorite movie, which.

[00:05:49] Pia: But just relax and

[00:05:50] Ian: That could take awhile. What's my favorite movie. So probably good to dodge that one.

[00:05:55] Dan: Okay. Oh, here we are. The best piece of feedback I ever received was, 

[00:06:00] Ian: oh. Now I have to remember pieces of feedback I've received. So now I started off bold there, but now I'm like oh no.

[00:06:08] I think I think I have to go back a very long way actually to answer this question and I'm going back to 1991. I think. which is a terrifying amount of time ago. It feels like it should be more recent than it actually is, but I'm a young very nerdy young mom in a, and I've joined a magazine distribution company. So it's not a retailer or a magazine production. It's a getting magazines for. Printers to news agents. That's what their business is. And they've just had a new computer system put in. And I'm the system administrator because of my extremely nerdy credentials at that time. And there was me and then there was a computer operator, quote, unquote, and then there was our man chap called Max, who was still a friend of mine.

[00:06:58] And we, I remember there was a, an issue going on with the system where if actually we're having a lot of trouble producing some printed reports that the business needed, and eventually we managed to produce them and on. I saw that my role was finished when these things were produced. There was a print out in the printer room. But someone else, so I would more lowly than me must go and distribute these to the to the end users. And so I'll never forget my manager Max went off and started doing this work, but I had decided I wasn't going to do. He, I followed him around that eventually helped him. And he the feedback that he gave that he, I can't remember what exactly what he said, but it made me realize something about work being done and it not being done when just my bit of it was done. it made me realize that the problems with trying to say, that's not my job, that's not my job, when clearly the job is we must get these bits of paper into the hands of the people that need them. Yeah, I've not changed me quite a lot, actually over the years of my my subsequent life and career.

[00:08:15] Dan: And you've gone to the heart of one of the things that happens in teams, those handoffs, and where's the task done? That's a perfect one. Yeah. It stays with you. That's a long time ago.

[00:08:24] Ian: It really is. Um, I guess that's one of those things that a is good to learn and then build on for 30 years.

[00:08:32] Pia: Yeah, that was a good lesson to have early on in your career. So let's let's dive in, into our topic today and we're looking at this whole world of extended reality and virtual reality. And so 18 months ago, we went from the opportunity of how. Team meetings together. And that was the norm.

[00:08:56] And there was a little bit of virtual reality as in, in terms of just having Microsoft team meetings or virtual teams or zoom team meetings. And then when pretty much the world has been upended and shut down for a long periods over 2020 to 2021, we've really embraced these Zoom meetings and we weave, or the opportunity to have virtual meetings. And we're now in a sort of wall-to-wall calendar of these meetings, which can be a bit lifeless at times when you've got a lot of people on them. And you're trying to read people and it's not necessarily interactive. 

[00:09:37] So I guess we start today with, is that it, is that what our future looks like? And if it's not. What is the experience? And I know you two have been playing in this, in, in this space together. So I thought let's start with that to paint the picture. It's a very early days, but if we look into the future, what did you experience?

[00:09:59] Ian: So what we did was that we took quite a narrow slice of it, we used what I suppose I should now call the Meta, as they've changed the name from Facebook. We use the Horizon Workroom app on the Oculus Quest II that we each have which is a virtual reality headset. So it's a big pair of goggles that you put on. And we met up in a Horizon Workroom, and we mostly, we've only managed to have meetings about Horizon Workrooms and making them work properly. But we were able to be together in that virtual space and to talk and to interact and customize it and display slides and write on whiteboards and things like that. And so those are the things, those are the things that we've done 

[00:10:50] Dan: Yeah, we had meetings. Yeah, it was hilarious. Literally. Trying to get the meeting room to work. But because I think it's very early days in it. I mean, my, it was a pleasant experience for me other than the company, obviously. but I I got this headset as a present for myself at Christmas and and I thought I've got to explore this thing. And I actually did a couple of things. I downloaded a a first person shooter game. I don't game at all. This was a, you puts you into a 3d space, basically where you're killed by American teenagers was my summary, but it's a, quite a scary space. It's very futuristic. And, but you did get a visceral feeling that I'm a threat actually. And so it was quite real, but not pleasant.

[00:11:34] So this was quite different. You find yourself in a, in an office environment there's clearly. Quite real, but cartoony. And I felt it was a bit like being in an, in a, in an, in the Incredibles. Environment. Yeah. A little bit of a film tech sort of cartoony film set, and you can, you've got lovely views outside. So I found it really basically pleasant to a pleasant environment to be. And then in the meeting room, we eventually got it to work so that when Ian said something, there was this moment. I remember when we're sitting together around this table and I was faffing about with my laptop as usual and Andean said, oh, And I looked up to where he was and he was pointing to a screen and I followed his hand and he was pointing to a slide that he was sharing on screen. So there was that, really those, that real 3d moment of hearing the sound from that direction and pointing. So it was, it definitely felt we felt more connected afterwards and we in then than in a flat Zoom call, I think we were we quite enjoyed that the human connection piece.

[00:12:38] Ian: I think the word visceral is really important there. I remember my, the first time I ever tried any VR was a couple of years ago. And I was at a conference and I just tried the first couple of seconds of a scary game that they had as a demo. And really, when you playing a regular game, you have a little person often on the screen that you are controlling and you want to stop them from getting killed or threatened or whatever it is, but it really does transform translate into a way from, I need to stop my personal on the screen from getting shot to it's me that's in danger. It's very visceral. 

[00:13:12] And that's great for games and people can really enjoy that kind of sensation, but that also applies and it works for. Non-gamers as well. So in zoom, we're talking on something quite analogous to zoom call now, and I can see you both, and you can see me on, in little square rectangles on the screen. But when we were doing the the experiment with Workrooms, we felt as though we're in that room.

[00:13:37] Pia: Yeah, it's more dynamic. 

[00:13:38] Ian: it and I come back to visceral.

[00:13:40] Pia: Yeah, th the way I can understand it, and there's simple ways I went to Universal Studios about four years ago. And so if you imagine going on a helter-skelter ride, that's a 2d. I went on the Harry Potter 4d ride where I put on the same gear and put on the glasses, went on the ride and I was thrown into space, I was attacked by spiders. I was falling off cliffs. It was the most extraordinary experience that now four years later, Feel it so that visceral, I can feel they experience.

[00:14:17] So I think what you're talking about is you're alerting all your senses to a meeting as if you were together in a place. Like we walk into an extraordinary setting and somebody walk into a room and we are literally doing it as humans. This is the, I guess the, the avatar but you're alerting all of your senses.

[00:14:38] Dan: I think that's right here and it was, it's interesting, I don't know how, where this is going to go eventually, Zoom's fine, but this did this filled in something else, gave us something more humans, as you say, visceral and connected the than that. And it wasn't something I felt was necessarily missing, but you realize you were missing it if you like.

[00:14:56] Pia: Which is interesting. So tell us what's the backdrop to this, obviously. You're in a, you're having this experience. This is quite interesting. We've been thrown into this virtualized world but there's something, it seems like there's a future that's ahead here, so. 

[00:15:11] Ian: I think we have to talk about this, the N word, which we keep hearing. And the N word in question is metaverse. A few months back. Facebook announced, they're changing the name to Meta, and they're going to build the metaverse and they are investing a billion dollars or something just this year. And Microsoft are also doing something like this. They are, they've come up with something called Microsoft Mesh, which is. Quite similar in nature. And they've just made a nearly 70 billion us dollars acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which is a gaming company and yes they have their Xbox brand and they are into games, but they're framing it, this acquisition as being a key plank of their metaverse strategy.

[00:15:57] And so what tends to happen is that when these big tech companies start spending this kind of money on something, it generally comes to us. And when. I'm not, wouldn't suggest to anything, but maybe the small, smaller teams might decide that they're going to invest in, in headsets and start having meetings using this technology.

[00:16:16] But I guess companies are going to be away or. Larger organizations already going to be a way off from doing this. But I think it's something I find it to be something that we need to be talking about because it's something that, you know, is going to become a very real option. 

[00:16:32] I have this thing about business travel. So over my career, especially, you know, working all that time. IBM I've driven and flown and all these kinds of things, many miles for business travel. And there are some things it feels like you can only do face to face on the The pandemic has taught us the last 18 months, is that things that we thought we could only do.

[00:16:51] Face-to-face it turns out we can do quite a lot of them on zoom. So I run design thinking workshops for some of my clients. And, I now have to do those on zoom and I use tools like mural and I use a zoom itself and breakout rooms, all those kinds of, kind of things. But how much better would it be if we could be in a virtual room?

[00:17:13] Where we've got the balls to put out our sticky notes on and to fill out without with our our solutions that are persistent so that when we go away and come back, it's still in the same state as it was when we left it, which doesn't always happen in real life because post-it notes fall off sometimes.

[00:17:28] But having that kind of vision for the future of this is really, I'm not sure I'm answering the question anymore, but it's re it's really. I, I find it very exciting to, to think that we, you know, at some point we'll be able to eliminate or reduce business travel yet further by using some of these technologies to avoid having to fly somewhere or having to go somewhere in person.

[00:17:51] Dan: it was interesting thinking about, yeah, the why we're talking about this and how teams can collaborate. It's quite subtle in a way, isn't it? Because you and I, when we were trying this out in our experiment here, and we stood at a, an imaginary white board and of course, bizarrely, you were in your room somewhere.

[00:18:08] And I was in my room in the sort of physical space. But we stood next to each other and you drew something and I added to your diagram. I think I probably made it worse in some way, but yeah, but you know that's a genuine collaboration that could take place. Now, if you had, there's nothing to stop us doing that using a zoom whiteboard with the right tools and things, but it just, there's something about this world that takes us more into.

[00:18:32] Into that human Zelda to use that word visceral again, I think there's something subtly different about that, that you could easily say, oh, we've got all that now, but this seems to give us something different didn't it?

[00:18:43] Ian: Indeed. Something is probably worth mentioning is that a key feature of the workrooms environment is that you can bring your computer. And the Oculus quest to which you need in order to use it has small cameras dotted on the front of it. And so what you can do is you can install an agent on your computer to share the screen into a virtual screen in that environment.

[00:19:04] And it looks at your keyboard in front of you and makes that a pair in the virtual environment as well, so that you can tell. So you can see your hands, where they are on the keyboard and you can type, even though you're not seeing the reality, it's, you're just seeing its version of your hands. And you're seeing a projection of your screen, but being able to be in that meeting room with your laptop or whatever is actually I think an important part of being able to work in those spaces. And actually we discovered you can re format the room. So you can have without just by clicking the mouse, clicking on stuff, you can make it into a theater layout, or you can make it into a sort of conference circular table layout, or you can make it into a sort of v-shaped, and it scales up to for the number of people are there. So you only get one row of the theater seats, but you can have more than one row as more people arrive.

[00:19:56] Pia: You could really see the value of this because otherwise we're just faced with the same thing, looking at the same people in our team, in the same boxes. I think there's only so much of bringing our pets into the conversations that can add variety to the topic, but really what we're looking at is how do you make a meeting that is virtual a truly interactive experience, that actually brings if you're particularly, if you're looking for creativity, activates a different part of the brain? And that must be part of where the technology of the Oculus headset is doing that, it's activating different parts of the brain and almost tricking you to believe that it's real.

[00:20:36] If that, that if I take my Harry Potter, that's what I constantly was doing. Is this real? It's not real. It's, it's but when I did it twice, gosh, I felt sick afterwards. It was really interesting because my brain had been working in so many different planes. That was really interesting in itself too. But the experience, as you say was so strong.

[00:20:57] Dan: I think that is an interesting point. The physicality of being a bit well being attacked by a spider or being in a shoot them up game where you're being killed by sarcastic teenagers. They're sarcastic quite rightly because you're so rubbish. But but that was a threat state.

[00:21:10] It's It's there's something happens to your limbic brain. Definitely. To me, it's I was in a threat state there. And in this one, I was in a comfortable state that, the scenes are really nice around. You can select a tranquil lake side view outside your office. The office itself is just lovely. You can decorate in your own way in small ways at the moment. So there's, there was something very calming about being in that space. It was a pleasant experience and 

[00:21:34] Ian: There are some subtle things that are happening to make, to give you that feeling. So one of them is the there's a the headset has a spatial audio capability. So one, when you're in this room with other people and someone speaks, your ears are getting what feels like accurate information about where they are in the virtual space. So when you, if you turn to one side, that person's talking over there, their voice sort of trucks round in your hearing. One of the things that we did was we invited somebody else to join us via

[00:22:08] Dan: The lovely Mrs Hammond. 

[00:22:09] Ian: The lovely Mrs Hammond indeed, to join us via her laptops. So we didn't have a third headset, but when she joined, she appeared as a Zoom person, almost on a virtual screen, the, in the space. And again, when she spoke the audio tracking about where she was was, was quite startling. So you knew where to look. And because of the cameras, it tracks your hands as well.

[00:22:32] So a lot of the way that you use virtual VR applications is via controllers that come with the headset you hold in your hands. And they're not, then they're not like game controllers, but they're similar in concept with buttons and joysticks and things like that. But this particular environment, you discard those and it looks at your hands using its cameras and it tracks your hands. So when you point it can see it and your avatar points as well. And I don't know how magic this must be under the scenes, but it's quite clever that when I'm pointing in the virtue to something in the virtual environment, everyone who's looking at me in that environment sees where my finger is pointing. So effectively. There's a lot of intentionality in how they're building it to mirror these things, these kinds of cues of body and an audio, but it really makes a large contribution to that real sense of being in a place.

[00:23:27] And there as part of the announcement made by Metta that they were talking about something, they call Project Cambria where they're going to release a more pricey had set this year that has things like eye tracking and facial expression tracking. So in, in that. In that scenario when I'm looking w the, my avatar will start to look in the direction, I'm looking with my, the eyeballs of the avatar will, will move around. I guess if I cause my eyes up to heaven, my avatars will do that same thing.

[00:24:00] And and I, they were talking about sort of things like facial expression, trucking to bring. And as well, and he, even with the tools they've got, it's really compelling. But when you start to add these things, these aspects of human. Nonverbal communication into it. It just gets stronger and stronger.

[00:24:24] So I don't know what that is going to look like, but they are talking about releasing something this year. So I think, you know that even though it's already a very powerful, I think it will be getting more. And there's also a kind of dystopian aspect to that as how much will advertisers pay for knowing which way your eyes are pointing. We have to get, we have to make sure we understand all of those kinds of implications. You can't just sleep walk into hunting over so much

[00:24:49] Dan: And, and, And let's face it Meta doesn't have a great reputation on that front, so.

[00:24:53] Pia: No. And I think probably the headsets are still a little pricey at 300 pounds, so that's got to change in some respect to that. And there's probably going to, once they're designed, there'll be knockoffs of those that will be, still as effective but cheaper. 

[00:25:08] Ian: Well, maybe. I'm starting a note of caution. Next. I think a part of Meta's strategy is to be selling these things up at all close to cost, or maybe even below it, to, to get them out there in the hands of people. And actually, if you think about your sort of business computers that you use, your phone costs more than that, and your laptop costs much more than that. So actually the 300 pounds, I think he's actually a bit of a bargain for what it is. The question I know that large companies are going to think twice before they spend 300 pounds times the number of employees that they've got, their start will certainly be the case, but actually it's not completely out of, it's not out of the ballpark, is it?

[00:25:53] Pia: No, it's not. And as you say, a phone is much more expensive. Hey, I was thinking though, it's an interesting one of where this will fit for teams, because if you're having a performance management conversation, I don't think I'd be wanting to have that with an avatar. So this, what's the fit for purpose, if we're creating as a team where your brain needs to be activated in a different way, you could really see the value of this, but you know, you both were different avatars. Be a little off putting if it's a serious. Conversation that we've gotta be having, or necessarily developing something that's either confidential or I don't know what, what's your thoughts around that? 

[00:26:32] Dan: My avatar looks like like a 12 year old boy. That would be off-putting, what'd you think, and this is an interesting one. I think if we think about teams now, what's, what is possible and what, where could people start experimenting? Where do you think are the sort of areas where they might where it's going to be less useful right now?

[00:26:48] Ian: I think to talk around it a bit first, I think this concept of the metaverse is a lot bigger than what we've. Doing at the moment. And it's, there's a sense in which a metaverse is a big connected world where your avatar, doesn't just, isn't just able. So we've got an avatar in workrooms, and then you build another avatar for another app and another avatar for another app, but the, in this view, vision of the metaverse is you just have one avatar that you, that goes everywhere with you to goes to work or. Gaming or recreation or whatever it might be. You have the kind of ability to move around in the same way as we only have one web browser, but we we visit Facebook, Google, Twitter, the BBC news or whatever it is we w we, we do it. The vision is that it's, it becomes a 3d world in which we can do a lot of things.

[00:27:44] So when you're thinking about. The, your performance management conversation, it would be probably quite inappropriate at the moment at this stage where we are to do something like that as you suggest. But I think it's a lot about context. I think now that conversation is quite likely it will have happened millions of times on Zoom, whereas maybe three years ago, we would've said it's inappropriate not to do that in person.

[00:28:12] So I think there's a sort of window of expectation that, that kind of moves around. And as, as this, if we're all going to work every day by plugging, by putting out hopefully more light and longer battery life headset on onto our heads, and we're, we're doing substantial amounts of work in creative environments with, without the teams that we're in or parts of, then a lot more things will become reasonable to have thought to do.

[00:28:43] but at the moment, I think it's still experimental. And I think if I was running a substantial company, I think I would be trying experiments in the same way that Don and I have been, and maybe taking out my innovation team and saying, okay, why don't you you try starting to use this for some of your meetings and then come, and then let's, let's have a conversation about what that's, what's good for, what it's not good for, to get to the starting line of it. But I think it's a journey that will end up in, we can have 95% of team interactions and even, you know, challenging ones in that virtual space. I think that's where we will end up, but obviously we're not there at the moment.

[00:29:26] Dan: It is interesting as well. If I cast my mind back to that time, when you got your lovely feedback here, not, In the mid nineties, I was working in the states and we did everything through the phone, everything, you know, we had sales teams all across the country, and actually all of those conversations took place by phone. So we've come into more. We've got this vision that we all sit in offices and talk to each other, and now we've got Zoom, but actually it's interesting how much can be conducted in a virtual. And I liked your window of expectation is a good phrase to see how we'll slowly shift into a new way of working

[00:29:55] Pia: I'm still hoping they can transport us in another way. So that that, that technology will happen. So we can actually really feel that we as human beings are all together in the same room. That probably would be the next curve. So we're not in advertise. We are actual people, but we've got an interactive experience that that, that works in a way that really activates us not feels a flat experience, which is what sometimes working in a virtual system can. 

[00:30:21] Dan: And having experimented, I think this does have the potential for that.

[00:30:25] Ian: Well, There's already a VR app called spatial that I've tried out. They've got a website@spatial.io. But one thing that they have is that you you take various, you take a video or I can't remember exact process, but you use your phone's camera to capture yourself. And then it makes an avatar that looks like you.

[00:30:43] And actually that, I mean with no legs, for some reason, all the metaverse developers are uh, they think legs are redundant for their purposes, but yes they make an avatar that looks like you. And actually it does a pretty good job of it. And that's, again, something that's possible now, but, that's only in this app and in, in the one where we're using you, you designer a cartoon person. 

[00:31:05] There's this kind of weird place in between that people talk about the uncanny valley. I don't know if you've heard that expression, but there's this uncanny valley of something where it looks quite, it looks right as though it's real, but there's something about it where you just know.

[00:31:21] And it's quite, that can be quite unnerving. And I think there was a, I remember watching recently watched it again start one of the star wars movies, rogue one, where they had princess Leia and also governor Tarkin who applied by actors who were suddenly gotten away from us now, but they had computer generally.

[00:31:41] Versions of them in that film. And it was it, there was a little element of that. I think they did really well. Actually. I think they did an amazing job of doing it. And they had real actors that played those roles and they have motion capture spots on their faces and you know, they, so they did really well, but it was, there was still something a bit, it wasn't quite, you could still if, I don't know if you didn't know, would you be able to tell kind of thing, but yeah, so there, there is this uncanny valley idea, and I think the VR, the companies that are doing this are trying to avoid that. They're trying to avoid something that's slightly on the creepy side of being real.

[00:32:21] So I think, cartoon on one hand is probably one of the sort of tactics it's being used to avoid that.

[00:32:27] Dan: And we are very good at picking up uncanniness aren't we, I know they, they used to talk about bank notes, always having faces on them because we're, we are programmed obviously. To really be very good at recognizing faces and extreme details. So we'd spot counterfeit notes if there's a little something tiny wrong with that face.

[00:32:46] So, Ian thank you so much for joining us today. We're going to leave you in an uncanny valley, but you've taken us into into another world. Into into the future. And I hope, I'm sure it's been invaluable for teams who are now, even in any way, thinking about the future of remote working and how they can connect as a team, I think it's going to be really invaluable for them even just to prompt some thinking about the future and what they can do next. So thank you so much for joining us.

[00:33:13] Ian: Oh, it's been a real pleasure. I always like talking about these uh, these, these things. Thank you for the opportunity. 

[00:33:21] Dan: You know, Listening to me and I'll really it came to me that we've got this amazing uh, teams have this amazing moment right now, which is full of promise and not, and also probably some dangers as well, but to watch out for, but you know, the pandemic, two things, a meeting, basically the pandemic has made us really come to explore properly remote working. And I think broadly accept that, and to tap into the benefits. But at the same time, at this point in history, technology is getting to a point where this the metaverse virtual reality is going to become widely available. I think those, that sort of confluence of those two things provides teams with loads, more opportunity to explore new ways to connect as humans.

[00:34:05] Pia: Yeah. And I think that's, I think what was exciting about hearing it was that we're not condemned to a future solely just in virtual meetings. This is the next horizon. And it's, it's still embryonic really, I think and, and filled with flaws in many respects, but, give this a few years and it probably will become pretty seamless and affordable and easy for people to be able to utilize. And I think that just, it just creates it brings people closer. 

[00:34:34] To me, It's it's interesting. We would we want connection? So what's the medium and the way that we feel that we get that connection? And there's subtle cues, which when you've got static, pictures of people's faces, you're not getting those cues. Whereas you pick up all that information when you're in a room with somebody and your senses, are scanning. So I would imagine the technology is looking to replicate that in a way that you feel like you're in a room and you feel like you're working together.

[00:35:07] Dan: Exactly. And it was pleasant. I think that's the thing that I brought out from it. I have having comparing it with the shoot-em-up game. It was genuinely a pleasant environment. And when I'd had, when we had that meeting, I felt like I'd been in a room with Ian,so there's something here. I think it's really interesting. I think about the other end, as you say, you trapped in the Matrix and plugged into the matrix in the morning, Mutual friend, Bart is starting a company about called Business Outside. And that is all about how do you get your. Out into the wild, out in the green to to do business out there through walks, connecting on the phone, whatever.

[00:35:41] It's, I think that's the in a way probably quite con sort of something that teams need to think about is how they make deliberate choices about living in this virtual world, but also how they can do those really human things of being outside. 

[00:35:55] Now, obviously in the future, the metaverse will start to replicate that out, that outdoors, which is it's going to be another, but we'll during horizon, as you say. But but I think we've right now, we've got so many options as teams to connect in different ways.

[00:36:08] Pia: And I think having that conscious choice around it and using it to the best benefit, not letting the technology. you know, seduce you into thinking that's going to be the best way, but actually being able to utilize it in a clever way and having the whole breadth of experience, we're going to need human experience. We're going to need to be outside and we can utilize this and just think how exciting and creative it can be when you've got an experience that fires up different parts of your brain\? 

[00:36:35] And I really hope that. Knowledge of the brain and neuroscience keeps up with this cause my only concern is our brains are not moving at the same speed as technology. So we need to get that information so that we make conscious choices and we're not just picking on something that we think solves a problem, but creates different ones for us. So I think that will, that'll all be part of the next chapter. I think

[00:37:00] Dan: You're so right. And actually, the last chapter. So I don't think we're evolved well enough for social media that has done done a scene in a number of ways. So yeah, being really conscious about this is going to be the key point. So anyway, I hope everyone's enjoyed that a little tour of the metaverse and the expiration. So peer who we got on the show next week?

[00:37:18] Pia: We've got an amazing man called Jim Molan, who now is a Senator in Australian politics and was previously a General in the Iraqi conflict. And. His view on teams on teamwork. This team of teams is immense. And, he's created huge impact in these two very different worlds that he is now occupying. So I think it's going to be really interesting to see that journey that he's taken, but also how he sees. Teams in those two environments. So I'm really looking forward to reconnecting with them after some time.

[00:38:02] Dan: Absolutely. He's wonderful. So I think that'll be a great episode, but that is it for this episode, you can find show notes and resources on squadify.net, just click on the We Not Me podcast link. Those resources include a video of Ian and me inside the metaverse. You could also, if you have an Oculus headset and you'd like to explore a little bit further, just email me at dan.hammond@squadify.net, um, and I will enroll you in a little group so we can try things out. So we have an experimental group running on LinkedIn. Just just send that, that note through.

[00:38:35] If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends. We Not Me is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin FM. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:38:46] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.