Issue #2: Into the Metaverse?
Last week, Facebook unveiled Horizon Workrooms, a virtual reality working-environment to collaborate with your co-workers. It's Facebook's next step towards realizing their vision of the "Metaverse", what Mark Zuckerberg calls the "embodied internet" (or put another way: the world created by shared virtual spaces).
Unlike a video call on Zoom, Workrooms is a fully immersive experience. By donning Facebook's Oculus Quest VR Headset, and taking a few steps to setup your experience (such as scanning your desk), you'll be placed into a virtual room full of your co-workers' avatars. Unlike some other VR solutions, your keyboard and computer screen will actually show up in the virtual room, allowing you to work more naturally than if all your applications were elsewhere. 'Spatial audio' creates the experience of people sounding like they're in the room (if a colleague is to your right, it will sound that way). You can also see shared whiteboards / screens.
If you want to see a full review, I'd recommend this CNET video, which has plenty of footage of the actual experience. Not to kill the surprise, but I pretty much LOLed when Mark Zuckerberg popped into the screen looking like this:
Now, the graphics - reminiscent of Wii characters from circa 2006 - are easy to make fun of, but that's an easy target.
The real question is: is this the future of work? Here's a few ways to think about how it may be, and why it may not be.
Why it's hard to imagine it becoming the norm
The hardware requirements make this a costly technology to adopt. The Oculus for business is $799 per person - a price tag that many companies will balk at.
Requiring a VR headset also requires a lot of the people joining these meetings. Many people still get motion sickness from VR experiences, though the technology has gotten better with time. It's also a relatively heavy/big thing to wear for long periods of time. You think Zoom fatigue is bad? Try wearing an Oculus for hours straight.
The experience leaves a lot to be desired. The technology still has a lot of kinks to be worked out. As Alex Heath reports in The Verge review: "Some features in Workrooms, like a personal drawing pad and giant whiteboard that anyone can go up to and use, feel more gimmicky than useful. There were multiple times when the audio cut out or became garbled, and the Quest’s hand tracking isn’t perfect. At one point Zuckerberg had to leave and rejoin the room because his avatar’s mouth wasn’t moving at all when he spoke."
Graphics can never replace a real face. Jokes aside, the one thing I can't get over is the product vision being ever-improving graphics to render more and more realistic avatars. Yes, a 3-dimensional space with 3D 'people' is more immersive. But seeing facial expressions (and the dozens of micro-movements that come with them) are a fundamental way that humans communicate and understand each-other. No matter how good the graphics get, you're losing something!
Do people want this? Management may feel gung-ho about something like this, but does this really solve a problem for your average employee? Certainly there are better ways to create social connection, and even within the narrow focus of work-collaboration, there may just be better tools out there. (Or: the option to do periodic onsite meetings for remote teams)
But, why early criticism may be overblown:
Some of this tech is very cool. Spatial audio, having all of your tech in the virtual room - that's powerful stuff! Zuckerberg mentions the power of having your ideal work setup right there waiting for you, even for non-collaborative work. Want 6 screens? Much easier in a virtual space.
This is a new technology, it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be good enough to improve the work/lives of enough early adopters to keep it going. Given Facebook's reach, and the number of companies trying to accommodate remote/hybrid work, there are plenty of people out there who may give this a chance.
There's much more to come. Again, this is a new technology. Facebook is looking to build out a whole world of tools, with 3rd-party collaborators working on some of those. It's hard to know what this will look like in 5 years! When the iPhone launched, your average consumer couldn't imagine that within 6 years, there would be over a million apps you could download to allow you to do virtually anything. Plus - Facebook isn't the only game in town. Microsoft, Apple and many others are betting on this future and are creating their own experience. With more big names vying for this space, it will push innovation and adoption of these new technologies.
If and when VR headsets become more wearable and less expensive... who knows! If jumping into a virtual room is as easy as throwing on 'sunglasses' and throwing in headphones, why wouldn't it become the norm in 10-20 years?
And yet: the remote movement isn't just about wanting to work from home. It's about a re-alignment of lifestyle priorities and wanting more flexibility to prioritize the things that are most important to us. Going back to the office - even a virtual one - feels antithetical to this philosophy. Are remote workers not immersed enough? Are bosses going to expect to throw on their headset, and see everyone sitting at their virtual desks throughout the day? Companies are already bad at over-scheduling their employees to the point of meeting & zoom- fatigue. It's easy to imagine this new technology just taking that abuse to the next level, to the detriment of everyone: the employees and the organization.
What do you think? Shoot me a note or reach out on twitter!
In the News
According to Kruze Consulting, which has analyzed 400 startups' spending patterns since the beginning of 2019, Startups are now spending more on AirBnBs than office space. As more companies embrace hybrid & remote work-styles, the focus is shifting towards periodic onsite meetups, often at AirBnBs. It's a shift that will have huge implications for not only the future of work, but the future of commercial real estate and the fabric of major cities. It's a relatively small sample size, but it's a clear indicator of where many companies will head in the years to come.
Tips & Recommendations
Tech Rec: Plantronics Headphones
With all of us on calls all day, having comfort, superior audio, and excellent noise cancellation makes life a lot more pleasant. The Blackwire 5220 Headphones are $75 well-spent to get all of those features and more, especially if you're someone who works in public spaces at times. They’ve come recommended by multiple people in the remote-work world, and you can check out Headset Advisor for a full review, and get them on Amazon today (affiliate link).
...and one more thing
To celebrate the Digital Nomad lifestyle of working from anywhere, we want to feature a photo or two each week of someone enjoying their freedom and flexibility!
This week’s photos come from Damien, a Solutions Engineer at an NYC Adtech firm. Working remotely since the beginning of the pandemic, he was able to capture these amazing shots while visiting the stunning landscape of Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats.
To submit your photos with a brief story, shoot us a note here!
