Metaverse

Can Meta Save Itself?

by The Metaverse

Opinion Piece (Updated 8 Nov 22)

Meta (principally led by MZ) has been making a lot of noise this past year around what they are planning for their Metaverse creation. We touched on a recent interview with Joe Rogan and summarised a few of their plans early in September. However, the question that is currently being bandied about is whether or not MZ has been spending too much time with his tech contemporaries and potentially losing touch with the general public? 

The BBC published an article highlighting the downward spiral of Meta’s shares since February, and its first quarterly revenue decline in July – with no new users being added in the US and Europe. Similarly, The Spectator showcased how failings in both tactical and strategic moves have chipped away at users and investors confidence in the company and their ability to innovate. MZ has shifted his focus away from the daily running of the company and seemingly putting all his energy into building the Meta version of the Metaverse. All this shifting is potentially resulting in a loss of core business focus and ultimately leading to a downsizing of business costs through large-scale staff layoffs, as reported in the Wall Street Journal on 6th Nov 22. The WSJ interviews (see the top of the WSJ article) with a few tech founders seems to indicate that they view the metaverse as a gaming platform that is unlikely to enter into the realm of the general public or business world. They believe the money MZ is investing in his version of the metaverse build is akin to the expenses one would pour into a ‘pet project’ and not a great business decision.

Every company has a lifecycle, and unless they are able to innovate regularly, and in the right areas, a company will either gradually (or very swiftly) find themselves on a rather sticky wicket. Although there are many potential benefits to the metaverse for businesses – it often takes a more ubiquitous use of new technology on a personal level, before it starts to infiltrate the professional realm. 

Is Meta investing too much focus and resources in metaverse technology? There is always risk in developing new technology, and much hype has already been generated by this new potential as having a high future return on investments. Is the metaverse something that will enhance consumers lives to the degree that they will buy into it? Or, are consumers starting to see some of the negative mental health consequences of too little time spent face-to-face with others and too much time with virtual others – and potentially, therefore pulling back on past and current levels of tech use? 

You can read a PDF of the articles by clicking on these links to the BBC article PDF or Spectator article PDF.

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JR & MZ

MZ and Meta’s vision for their Metaverse creation

by The Metaverse

There is a lot of speculation about what ‘the Metaverse’ will be. Although we have some idea of what it may look like, there are some variations on the theme based on the vision of the developing tech giant. 

For Meta, this metaverse future ideal is controlled via MZ, who recently revealed his vision for the future of the human-digital-connection. 

Joe Rogan recently interviewed Mark Zuckerberg on his vision for the Metaverse. You can watch this interview at the Daily Motion here. 

The Times ran a great summary of this interview of MZ’s vision in a recent write-up of the interview*. This includes: 

  • launching a new VR headset – increasing non-verbal avatar expressions and feelings of ‘presence’ with others in VR
  • a future that includes AR glasses where people interact with the physical world via digital overlays
  • normalising holograms that can be beamed into a geographically distant office 
  • more realistic avatars
  • directly competing with passive TV ‘screen time’ allowing people to actively virtually socialise with others

Although there are a lot of upsides to hologram (Star Wars-like) usage. There are some potential downsides that need to be considered. These could be (but are not limited to):

  • personal and company security
  • potential issues around hologram based cyberbullying or cyberstalking
  • the ability to harvest real-life data

The potential of the metaverse is both interesting and intimidating. The race is on for big tech companies to be the first to develop this future. 

* if you can’t access the original interview, you can read a PDF of the article here. 

You can also view an explanation of MZ’s view of the Metaverse as well as an interview with him and Tim Ferriss.

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Future Worker Psychology

Current and future worker psychology is affected by how we use technology to do our work

by Futuristic Work

Anecdotally, it would seem that we have all, in one way or another, been impacted by the Lockdowns over the 2020/21 period. Professionally our psychology has shifted in how we are able to fulfil our work role. 

Computer Self-Efficacy

One of the many positive unintended consequences of Lockdowns, and remote work, is that we’ve become a lot more confident in our ability to use the available technology to get our work done (known as computer-self efficacy).

Not having IT or work colleagues nearby to ‘quickly help us’ with things we’re not sure of, helped us to figure out the tech for ourselves. Doing so empowered us with greater confidence to use the apps and tech we need to get our work done. As a result, we have become more productive in what we do and how we do it.  

Flexible Working

Although the technology was already available for much of the team to effectively and efficiently work in a remote/hybrid or flexible way, this way of working was often posited as ‘impossible’.

In 2014 the UK issued the Flexible Work Regulations, which allowed any worker (not just those with caring responsibilities) to apply for flexible working arrangements. This change in regulations garnered limited press coverage and, therefore, little awareness among workers. Even then, employers often based objections to flexible work on the overriding narrative that ‘working from home was impossible’, ‘it would lower productivity levels’ and ‘it wouldn’t be good for team cohesion, company culture and overall productivity delivery’ (etc).

Then the impossible became possible, and entire workforces were shifted to a remote working environment, within a short space of time. 

If workers had all gone back to the office after those first 3 weeks to ‘flatten the curve’, very little would have psychologically changed in how work got done. The ‘old normal’ would have remained.

What has changed

Extended lockdowns meant we had to:

  • Spend time and mental energy finding better ways to work from home
  • Turn part of our home into a better working solution
  • Develop physical and psychological strategies to juggle different work and home realms, personas and commitments

Effectively more hybrid

So, we’ve inadvertently done a self-taught crash course in how to work remotely. This means we have more choice in how we now ‘do hybrid’ more effectively. We’ve tasted the flexibility that working from home/anywhere gives us, but relish the community that in-office work gives us. Research by Stanford University showcases that 50% of workers want to keep it that way and see hybrid working as a big part of managing their work-life balance more effectively. 

The downside of technology in remote work

Because a number of workers have set up a home-based work environment, there is more opportunity for workers to start their workday earlier and end their workday later. Although this may seem to increase overall productivity, it has limited benefits. Working longer hours increases energy output and reduces personal time and the time needed to psychologically transition between two life realms. 

Workers have become more used to the concept of working while at home. The habit of ‘quickly checking’ emails/messages is a lot easier to indulge as we’ve become mentally more familiarly with working away from the office. The more we check and reply to work emails the more we set expectations of others that we are available after working hours. We reduce the ability to cognitively and emotionally recover from the energy required to perform our work role. We reduce the available time to spend on our own pursuits and time with our friends and family. 

If a dedicated workspace isn’t available to visually separate working space from private-time space, workers are more likely to be constantly reminded of work after working hours. This can be especially true if a laptop or work mobile is left on and notifications can be seen/heard outside of office hours. 

Going forward – technology for work

As technology continues to shift how we use and engage in our workplace, we need to become more mindful of how our use of technology is shifting our psychology about work. If we are more mindful of the impact of work-based technology in our everyday lives, we can take more proactive steps in either enhancing the benefits or curbing the negative personal and professional impact on our psychology, productivity and mental wellbeing. 

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2040 Work

How will technology change the jobs of the future?

by Futuristic Work

A recent Telegraph article on a book written by Nikolas Badminton called ‘Facing our Futures’ due to be published later in 2022 by Bloomberg, has highlighted a number of potential jobs that may be key for children to consider over the next few decades.

I admire anyone who takes a punt at predicting the future. We are individually racked by biases, worldviews and limited insights of world dynamics. But, I also wonder if we, as humans, are so enamoured by progress and technology that we place all our bets on universal acceptance of all upcoming technology and the complete integration of it into our daily lives. Although the use of new technology changes us as individuals and as a society, there are some fundamental elements of who we are, as humans, that will not change.

We need community. We need physical engagement with others. Some need more than others, but we need physical presence, we need physical touch, we need physical support. Machines can be a substitute, but they are just that, a temporary substitute.

We solve complex, nuanced, problems every day. Knowing how to reach and teach each individual child in a classroom is something AI cannot do. Fixing a burst water pipe behind the toilet under the stairs isn’t something a machine can easily sort. Emotionally supporting and counselling a returning veteran is not the realm of a therapy bot. There may be some very well-paid technology-based roles in the future, but that isn’t much different from similar well-paid technology-based roles now. There will be very few who either have the aptitude, desire or ability to fill those roles.

As for the metaverse and mixed reality. Facebook (or Meta, as MZ prefers to call it), Microsoft and Google are investing epic amounts of cash into this mixed reality environment. Their investment doesn’t mean that the majority of the population will actually engage with it to become ‘the way we do life’. It just means they currently speculate that it will make them a lot of money in the future. There are plenty of very clever people betting on this future semi-reality. But I suspect that there is a general growing undercurrent of dissatisfaction with the emptiness of technology. There seem to be more and more people who are stepping back from their constant interactions with tech and stepping into better connections with physical others. I suspect that the vast majority will use the metaverse for what they can personally get from it – for work and home – and then switch themselves off from it, go outside and meet with real people.

I think that, in general, we need to take a little bit more of a human-centred approach to how we view the workplace of 18 years hence. Will it change very much from the workplace of now for the general population? I would suggest not. We may be using different tools and apps to achieve the same or better levels of productivity, but the majority of our roles will just evolve to accommodate these better apps and these other ways of doing things, rather than us radically shifting to a whole new dimension of job availability and skillsets. As a case in point: when the motor vehicle became popular and the carriage less so, we may have ‘lost’ some key jobs and companies within the carriage-related industries, but the general gamut of jobs remained the same. We still had butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers; the mechanisation of transport just changed what those roles looked like. There is unlikely to be any greater revolution in the general workforce even with new technology being invented and engaged with.

I guess we can only wait and see what happens. However, I have a much more optimistic view of our place in the future world with technology. I cannot buy into the more pessimistic view of technology taking over all our jobs. But, we will have to just wait and see.

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AI Recruitment

Is the Future of Recruitment in AI and Algorithms?

by Futuristic Work

On the 23rd March it will have been 2 years since Boris Johnson ushered UK knowledge workers into a new era of doing businesses when he asked the UK public to stay home to ‘flatten the curve’. Much has changed since then, including how we recruit and onboard new staff. In July 2020 Dr Linda Kaye (a senior lecturer in CyberPsychology) wrote an interesting article about how future AI may help HR with new staff recruitment, using psychometric competency profiling, based on our online activities and purchasing behaviour.

This is a futuristic piece, with a focus on the recruitment process. Dr Kaye makes some really good points around the direction and potential positives of future recruitment using online behaviour as a psychometric tool to evaluate a candidate’s potential for the role. However, there are a number of concerns I have around using AI & Algorithms to select potential candidates:

* AI doesn’t pick up the subtle nuances that make us human.

* Big Tech have agendas and profit models that go outside of our individual and business interests

* A number of people either don’t have social media accounts or choose to not engage on social media and tend to do all their shopping locally

* Those pulling together job profiles competencies have their own set of biases around what type of person they would like in the role – and potentially reducing diversity and ability

Personally, I’m not sure I want an AI bot or the algorithms of Big Tech to skew my chances of landing my dream job. But, saying that, we do need to consider how dramatically work has shifted over the past 24 months, and how we are going to need to continually (physically and psychologically) adapt to a more tech-driven workplace and recruitment process.

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Avatars and MetaHumans

Should we be calling Avatars MetaHumans?

by The Metaverse

There is something quite amazing and awe-inspiring about how talented designers and creators of new digital technology are. The box office success of the Avatar movie is a testament to this.

In line with this, the creation and use of 3D Avatars as an online representation of a human in a virtual environment is not a new phenomenon for gamers. There are some really interesting studies that showcase how these avatar representations can be very helpful in improving overall self-esteem. The Ideal Elf and The Proteus Effect are well-cited examples of the research done in this area. 

With the current rise in awareness of the Metaverse as the technology heralded as replacing the current internet, there seems to be a bit of a love-affair with how we represent ourselves online in the future. In line with this, there is new terminology in the naming of these online human representations of ourselves as ‘Meta Humans’. How these are created can be seen in the video below.

As much as I admire and celebrate this incredible creative talent, from a psychological point of view, I would suggest that the terminology used may have unintended consequences on us as humans that we have not yet considered. I would suggest that these could be: 

  • The Facebook has recently renamed itself ‘Meta’. Although I suspect that this is to gain a head-start associative mental link to the future of the interactive online world, it is a worry that the ‘MetaHuman’ naming convention is so closely linked to the Facebook holding company renaming.
  • Avatars are human representations, they are not in-and-of-themselves humans with all the biological, social and communal nuances that make us uniquely human. How and to what extent will this blurring of the cognitive boundaries between how we view and interact with a physical human and an avatar affect our future self-image and that of others in the metaverse?
  • We are already aware of The Online Disinhibition Effect that comes from us acting very differently in an online world to how we act in an offline world, how will engaging in a Metaverse with an avatar representation either increase or decrease our disinhibition to treat others in socially unacceptable ways? 

There are a number of other concerns I have with the MetaHuman naming convention, but they are currently inklings of worry that I have not fully identified or am able to clearly articulate. But what I do feel strongly about is how quickly we are rushing headlong into an new phase of online interactions without fully considering all the unintended consequences (along with all the potential benefits, of course) that may come from doing so. 

We really do need more researchers and academics in this field of CyberPsychology. With the rapid compounding advances in digital technology, there is too much to research and not enough people diving into this critical area of human psychology and behaviour. 

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Social Connections and VR of the Future

Ready Player One or The Matrix? How prevalent will Virtual Reality be in the future?

by Immersive Reality

In a recent Guardian article on David Charmers new book the stance taken by David of VR in the future becoming the norm, and reality becoming the exception is a psychologically irresponsible (and a very 1st-world) one.

I am a great advocate for VR / AR. We’ve only just started scratching the surface of the overall potential of this technology. I do agree with the point that scenarios, objects and situations in VR can feel as psychologically real as ‘real-life’. It’s a phenomenon referred to as ‘Presence’. Your real-world visual and auditory sensory input is ‘overridden’ by what you are seeing and hearing in VR. While in VR, you become very unaware of what is going on in your physical environment. This is why gaming has grown exponentially in the past 2 years. It has been a great way for many to cope with stress and fear. It can be a useful temporary emotional safe haven.

However, when you remove the headset, your brain transforms you instantaneously back into life (with all its joys and worries). Suggesting that living in VR is bound to become a way of living does not consider the physical and biological connectivity that we humans need with others. We are creatures of community and social structure. We live and exist in a physical world. We always have, we always will. We psychologically need physical connectedness with others, with nature, with our food, with our interests. As much as I am a Virtual Reality advocate, I am a much greater advocate for Real-World Reality.

As a case in point – in a 2017 TED talk, Susan Pinker showcases how Social Integration via ‘close personal relationships and face-to-face interactions’ has a greater impact on a person’s longevity than refraining from smoking or drinking. Having people around you that you can trust, lean and rely on (when you most need it) is part of what makes for a longer life. This is rarely the reality of virtual globally-based communities.

Another case in point – Jean Twenge, in her book iGen, demonstrates how smartphones and social media are already changing how young people interact with peers and others. The reduced social interaction of our teens is not conducive to forming and building future families.

We need to be encouraging the building and maintaining of healthy physical communities, that set a strong foundation for optimising any psychological and emotional benefits we get from building and maintaining our virtual connections. Technology should be a tool we use to optimise and improve our real-world lives, not make us slaves to them.

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Rethinking Digital Leadership Skills

Rethinking Digital Leadership Skills

by Futuristic Leadership

Many experts are espousing the notion that ‘Hybrid Work’ is the future for knowledge work roles.

The question is whether we have fully come to understand how this may play out in terms of:

  • leadership behaviour,
  • who, how often and when hybrid working is a good idea for a company and the individuals employees and
  • how we can maximise team productivity while maintaining strong emotional and mental wellbeing amongst the individuals within that same team – wherever they get the job done.

Leading remote and teams requires a different set of management skills to those required for managing in-office teams. 

Historically, companies promoted successful employees (i.e. those that made the biggest impact on the company bottom line) into management positions as a reward for a ‘job well done’. This premise may also assume that successful employees will be best able to lead successful teams. Even pre-pandemic this notion often proved unsuccessful. 

A recent McKinsey Report on ‘The Great Resignation’ found that employees prioritise: 

  • feeling valued by their organisation or manager
  • feel a sense of belonging at work
  • having a good work-life balance

Employees are also looking for better and stronger career paths where they are recognised and developed within their roles. These new expectations around satisfying work roles requires a very different management mindset.

With this in mind, keeping good employees is going to require:

  • team-based negotiation around working hours and how team members intend to meet individual and team KPI’s
  • open communication amongst team members with managers being a co-ordinator of (rather than the bottle-neck for) team knowledge, ensuring all team members are up to speed on projects they are involved in
  • regular coordination of work and project updates
  • regular check-ups on remote or hybrid team members
  • higher than average empathetic skills, emotional intelligence and social intelligence
  • ability to build a sense of community amongst project and team members – wherever and whenever individual members get work done. 

In addition to all of this, good leaders will understand:

  • the implications of remote and hybrid working on mental wellness and work-life balance
  • how various digital technologies impact on productivity levels, tiredness and cause anxiety or stress amongst team members
  • how to spot the signs of overwork, stress, tiredness, or mental exhaustion amongst their team and where to signpost them to help team members to strike a better balance. 

In summary, the way forward in the digital work marketplace is one that requires a different type of manager than the previous industrial revolution required. With a constant engagement with digital technology in order to get work done, knowledge workers do not need a ‘productivity-focussed manager’, but rather a human-centred manager that can help each team member achieve a more productive, focussed working life. 

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Pokemon Go MetaVerse

Pokemon Go’s Creator Isn’t a Fan of the Immersive Metaverse

by The Metaverse

Pokemon Go’s creator, Niantic CEO John Hanke, has stated grave concerns around the proposed immersive nature of MZ’s metaverse plans. In an interview with Wired, he set out his plans for Niantic’s version of the metaverse. 

He believes that an augmented reality version has much greater mental and physical health benefits than the immersive virtual reality version. In a similar way that Pokemon Go encouraged children and families to get out into nature, his plans are to enhance reality by layering on virtual images in ‘the merger of pixels and atoms’ and ‘where bits meet atoms’. 

He used the example of historical events being ‘played out’ over the current geographical space, or virtual arrows highlighting the direction of travel. 

His overall aim is to enhance reality, get people off the couch and out into nature/the real world, and improve overall mental health, rather than encouraging them to stay indoors and immerse themselves in a virtual world. 

There is no doubt that his motives are financial, but they also seem to be humanistic and empathetic. 

If you cannot read the original article, you can view a PDF of that article here. 

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Microsoft 3D Avatar

Is it better to talk to a blank screen, a photo or a 3D avatar of the person when in a virtual meeting?

by Futuristic Work

A research question that may need answering soon. At this point, from a presenters/meeting controller perspective, I can only guess that it is better to have a 3D avatar engaging with you with some body-language feedback, than an array of black video screens with no visual or auditory feedback.

Microsoft have just announced their introduction of 3D avatars as part of their strategy to dominate virtual meetings within the Metaverse.

From a participant perspective, we do know that the creation of a better looking avatar in VR can improve a person’s overall self-esteem. Named ‘The Proteus Effect’ and ‘The Ideal Elf’, having an avatar that is better looking than your real self, can give you more confidence in the VR world. This confidence gained in VR then translates back into the real world – giving the person behind the avatar more confidence in offline situations.

What does this mean for virtual business interactions?

– It may help to increase levels of self-confidence for less confident colleagues.

– It may reduce the number of black screens – as we don’t have to appear constantly engaged for the entire meetings, the avatar can do that for us

– It may be easier for the presenter to engage with others on the call, especially if they are getting more regular body-language feedback – even if it is from an avatar.

– It could even reduce the amount of zoom fatigue that is created by ‘the mirror effect’ of having to constantly self-adjust when seeing a reflection of self on-screen, potentially leaving to lower levels of exhaustion at the end of a workday.

I do have a few concerns though.

– If the avatar’s actions reflect the authors tone of voice, we will have to constantly mentally adjust our tone of voice to ensure the avatar is reflecting (or potentially not reflecting) our current feelings.

– Will this technology further alienate those who have lower levels of confidence when it comes to tech uptake? If you are not familiar with the new tech, having to learn how to use it in order to fulfil your job function, or keep up to speed with other members of the team, can add a lot of additional stress and anxiety to your role.

– For those having to already switch between multiple video conferencing platforms, such as freelancers, consultants or the self-employed, learning multiple complicated meta-based 3D virtual meeting platforms can become a real barrier to business productivity.

For Microsoft, this is another step forward towards a more 3D virtual work environment. They do, however, needs to go some way in developing easier to use augmented reality technology, if they are to create good up-take in the metaverse environment amongst business users. Although they seem to be head-to-head with Facebook (it may be some time before I can call them ‘Meta’) in the race for the metaverse domination, I do wonder if a smaller, more dynamic, tech company may just pull the meta-rug out from under their very large extended-reality feet.

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