Organizations globally seem to be going through once in a lifetime events on a quarterly basis. Geopolitical strife, a global pandemic and an ever-accelerating digital curve have been difficult for all to manage and adapt to, individuals and companies alike. Many organizations are measuring their investments right now and choosing a conservative path amidst uncertainty, and many are looking to make strategic investments now to emerge from this time with advantages over their competitors. One such organization approached us with the question,
“How do we make our first investments in the Metaverse? We want to be a leader in this digital space within our industry and we see some potential high impact use-cases and opportunities to create guidance for our clients”.
The answer surprised them. We informed them that they have already set their stake in the virtual landscape, and they might just be considered pioneers in the Metaverse. No, they do not have VR/AR/MR (known as XR collectively) headsets for all their people and no they are not creating virtual worlds in Web3. This brings us to the definition of the Metaverse. Many define it as being in a virtual world with the help of a headset that shifts your reality from purely physical to either just digital or perhaps both digital and physical.
What is the Metaverse?
There is another emergent definition of the Metaverse, however. Shaan Puri of Twitch, and serial founder says that you can actually define the Metaverse as a point in time. The definition that he popularized and that is now gaining steam with others quoting and referencing it states that, the Metaverse is the point in time when people’s digital lives are worth more or as much to them as their physical lives. He claims this change has been happening for the last 20 years. He states that work has evolved from happening only in offices and boardrooms and now is frequently in virtual workspaces like Zoom meetings, Workplace, and Teams. Generations before used to find their community in neighbors and those close by but now you can find global community based on your hobbies, beliefs and interests. Games were exclusively sports and board games. Now there’s the astonishing fact that more kids play videogames than basketball and football combined.
Our attention used to be purely in the physical world. Conversations were face-to-face, corporate culture was office culture. If we can quantify our attention in percentage, there would be a clear shift from physical to digital with every major digital platform that went mainstream, TVs, Computers, and in the most dramatic shift, smart phones. Our energy and focus are increasingly tied to screens and the convenience, productivity, and entertainment that digital innovation drives.
What is the next major change that tips this balance of attention from our physical world to our digital world?
Likely when a company creates incredibly comfortable and well designed XR glasses that remove the act of bringing out your phone to interact digitally. You will just have a visual digital overlay as you move about your daily life.
So how then was our customer already in the Metaverse?
Workplace from Meta is serving as the digital bricks and mortar to facilitate culture, collaboration, the feeling of being in an office and rich employee experiences that wouldn’t have been possible 20 years ago unless you were in physically at an office or a venue. This organization’s people are already on the path to the Metaverse as they approach the point in time where their digital presence becomes more important to the success of the business than their physical presence. Should we delineate however between Metaverse and what that means to the individual vs the Corporate Metaverse and what that means to businesses and the employees of those businesses?
What is the Corporate Metaverse?
We define the Corporate Metaverse as the point in time where an employee’s digital presence is as crucial as their physical presence to the success of the business, and hopefully, while still leading a fulfilling and purposeful employee experience.
This will be part of a series of blogs on the Future of Work and the Corporate Metaverse. If you want to learn more about how you can chart your path into the Corporate Metaverse reach out to engage@linezero.com
Corporate Metaverse starts with the right communication platform developed by Meta
Joining the Corporate Metaverse starts with the right communication platform like the one developed by Meta, known as Workplace. Are you interested in belonging to this virtual work reality and taking your company to the next level?
Not using Workplace yet?
Want to see how Workplace could take your internal communications strategy to the next digital level and help you to reach everyone across your organization in a more efficient and effective manner? Give us a shout! Through a live demo of the Workplace platform, we’ll help you to brainstorm ideas on how to utilize Workplace to achieve your organization’s goals and objectives around internal communications.
Already Using Workplace?
If you’d like to explore more opportunities to learn how to use Workplace to improve your internal communications strategy and be part of the corporate Metaverse, we’d love to chat! Give us a call if you want to learn how to use Workplace to enhance employee interaction and engagement.
Comments