Exploring XR Collaboration Statistics in Real-Time, with National Research Group’s Lauren Xandra

XR for Business

English - April 14, 2020 10:00 - 20 minutes - 18.6 MB - ★★★★★ - 12 ratings
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Previous Episode: Augmenting Enterprise Productivity, with Altoura’s Jamie Fleming and Bharat Ahluwalia

Next Episode: Pivoting Game Dev Skills into XR Utility for Enterprise, with Extality’s Arash Keshmirian

There’s not a lot of good coming out of the current situation affecting the globe, but if there is an upside, it’s the rare opportunity to learn from something this unprecedented. Through her work with National Research Group, today’s guest Lauren Xandra has been able to study newly-emerging work-from-home behaviours, and how that applies to XR adoption.

Alan: Hey everyone, I'm Alan
Smithson from the XR for Business Podcast, and today we're speaking
with Lauren Xandra, vice president of strategy and innovation at
National Research Group, a leading global insights and strategy firm,
about the original research on XR, AR, and collaborations in a time
of Covid-19. All that more coming up next on the XR for Business
Podcast.

Lauren, welcome to the show.

Lauren: Thank you so much for
having me, Alan.

Alan: It's my absolute pleasure.
I'm in day 22 of my quarantine. Nothing really has changed in my
life, because I work from home anyway. So how are you doing?

Lauren: I'm doing well. It's a
healthy adjustment for me, but it's rather timely that we're here
today, because I'm excited to share new research, looking at how
different demographics are adapting to our work-from-home reality,
and to share some exciting findings that we see in the space with
new, broader, addressable audiences for virtual solutions in light of
all of this.

Alan: Well, the timing on this couldn't be any better. Some dedicated, hard-working people in this industry have banded together this week to pull together an XR Collaboration guide, talking about everything from security to device management to vendor selection to feature lists, and really put a lot of effort into creating a tool online that will give people the opportunity to figure out how these tools can be used for their business or school or education, and which one is the right one for them at the time, for the need they have. And so we're really excited about that, and the information on that will come out on XRCollaboration.com. So, Lauren, please tell me, what is the basis of this study?

Lauren: Sure. So, when suddenly
millions of people -- seemingly overnight -- became remote workers,
we're faced with these huge questions about productivity, state of
mind, social and cultural impact of the situation, and the lasting
impact, too. We really set out to understand how people are adapting,
what pain points are felt across work-from-home, and in doing that,
we can better understand and address whitespace to solve for these
pain points, to ease our adjustment to this new -- and bizarre --
reality.

I'd love to walk you through some of
the key findings, perhaps starting with generational differences in
adapting, and then perhaps looking at more industry-specific
challenges and opportunities.

Alan: Sounds wonderful. Let's
let's dig in.

Lauren: So we see that the
pre-Covid-19 context really impacts different generations' concerns
and expectations for the future. Probably one of the most
counterintuitive insights is that the youngest in the workforce is
actually the least well-equipped for work-from-home. The digital
reliance of this generation already makes them victims of social
distance pre-Covid-19, and for them, the effects of isolation are
amplified. The impact of Covid-19 on culture is really their
front-of-mind concern. And here we're thinking about culture in terms
of how we connect, how we collaborate. Gen Z has really struggled to
disconnect from technology. They're citing irritation from too much
screentime, bad work/life balance, well ahead of other groups. And
this impacts mental health, with already about half of Gen Z
professionals saying that staying

Lauren, welcome to the show.

Lauren: Thank you so much for
having me, Alan.

Alan: It's my absolute pleasure.
I'm in day 22 of my quarantine. Nothing really has changed in my
life, because I work from home anyway. So how are you doing?

I'd love to walk you through some of
the key findings, perhaps starting with generational differences in
adapting, and then perhaps looking at more industry-specific
challenges and opportunities.

Alan: Sounds wonderful. Let's
let's dig in.

And further still, they're lacking the
necessary technical and environmental setup to be as productive. We
see this as a really key audience to benefit from potential that AR
and VR presents. Firstly, AR and VR has a big base of Gen Z users,
with about 40 percent identifying as users of both AR and VR. They're
just waiting for the experiences. I would love to learn more about
what's on that collaboration list, because there's so many
possibilities for how AR and VR can viably engage employees, maintain
focus, enhance creativity and connection -- particularly for this
young group that's suffering from missed face-time and interaction
mentorship.

Alan: Being able to regain some
normalcy in places that are familiar; I think there's going to be a
big need for companies to recreate their traditional workspaces
digitally. Like, when you go to office, you feel like you're in the
office. When you're at your home, it's not the same. Everybody has
become their own I.T. department, which is terrifying.

Lauren: Yes, I'm sure we've all
seen amusing examples of colleagues' children running towards the
screen and being blurred out into the Zoom background and the rest.
Some really interesting virtual solutions have emerged, and will
continue to. A personal favorite is Spaces. I love the concept of
using virtual cameras as a webcam, so you can make use of equipment
that's not actually available in your real-world environment, like a
VR whiteboard, and communicate progress and integrate into existing
apps like Zoom and Google Hangouts. I think we'll really continue to
see exciting solutions like that present themselves.

Alan: It's an amazing story
actually. I know the guys at Spaces. They went from a company 100
percent focused on location-based entertainment -- and of course, all
location-based entertainment is shut down -- and they pivoted in a
very short amount of time to create a tool that allows you to be in
VR and see your Zoom calls, and the Zoom call people can see you in
VR. And they pulled that off in weeks, from pivoting from
location-based arcade games to a business tool that we can use. It's
really incredible. That team is very talented.

Lauren: Yeah, that's fascinating
to hear about that fast pivot. And there's certainly -- beyond this
younger generation's collaboration tools -- so many other
demographics and industries [that] stand to benefit from other
solutions. When we look at more mature professionals like X-ers
who've already lived through layoffs and significant hardship with
the recession, they're much more concerned about the economy by a
great margin, while ahead of concerns about culture, social, or their
personal life, their own professional development. But there's some
silver lining too; they're more pro-work-from-home, because they're
more self-sufficient. They generally don't mind staying inside for
long periods of time, and might enjoy the benefits of freedom and
convenience.

Alan: Everybody, as they get
older and have kids and stuff, they move out to the suburbs, so they
got a little bit of extra space. Living in a 500 square foot condo is
pretty awesome. The whole city is your living room. But when your
living room is your living room, people are going to go nuts.

Lauren: Yes. And you're right. I
mean, this group has more space, generally-speaking, and is more
likely to be parents, of course. But parents generally, we see that
the top paying point is distraction. And that makes sense.

Alan: I keep muting myself
because my kids are banging around upstairs, I'm not sure what's
happening. But I can tell you from a distraction standpoint -- my
kids are older, so I don't have to deal with them all the time.
They've got things that we've given them to do -- but I can tell you,
if you had a two-year-old running around? There's no way you could be
productive at home. So the new normal is a culture shock to people.

Lauren: Absolutely. Yeah. And
the need for e-learning to improve is sudden and significant.
Families adjusting to school closures, through to medical
professionals who are continuing to practice important procedures
from remote locations.

Alan: The amount of use cases
for this technology are endless, and they're not difficult to create
these scenarios, and the tools for creating rich, 3D scenarios are
starting to become easier and easier. So I think we're going to see
both the adoption of the headsets much quicker than we would have
anticipated, but also the ability to create experiences and create
from within experiences. I think this is going to be a huge
opportunity for the whole industry to shine.

Why don't we talk about some real
numbers? Can you maybe walk us through the numbers of this?

Lauren: Sure. So, this was
fielded March 14th to 15th, so we're a few weeks deep. And we're
planning a second wave as well in a couple of weeks' time.

We surveyed over 1,000 people here in
the US, with criteria being that they must be either currently work
from home or have worked from home in the past, and it's across 18 to
54 years old. So it's a professional audience here in the US, a
reasonably-sized base, 1,010 -- a nationally-representative sample.
Any other questions around size? Around the audience for this?

Alan: Well, audience size, you
nailed. What did you ask them, and what were the results?

In addition to better understanding
what areas were front-of-mind concerns -- which we touched on a
little bit here [on the podcast] -- how certain audiences are more
concerned about the economy or the market, particularly more mature
audiences.

Alan: That's interesting that
the age groups have different concerns at the same time. Where does
health concerns fall? If you to compare health concerns vs. economic
concerns?

Lauren: We actually didn't
include health concerns, thinking that health concerns would be
really front-of-mind for all audiences. It would be interesting to
better understand that, but we kind of thought about it across the
framework of more kind of "Macro vs Micro."

Alan: Maybe you could include
that in Wave 2: rank these concerns. Because I think the health care
one. My prediction... I mean, I don't know. But my hypothesis would
be that younger people would rank health less, because they're not
fearing of it. As you get older, the fear goes up.

Lauren: Absolutely.

Alan: The ranking gets
reprioritized.

Lauren: Absolutely. Yeah. I
mean, what we did look at was in terms of more how health care
professionals are adapting to this remote work norm, and how their
experience is similar and different to other industries going through
this. And we actually see that their concerns are pretty closely
aligned with those of education professionals. They're struggling
both with distraction, but also missed access to the devices that
they have at work, which makes a ton of sense. And of course, part of
that is e-learning, which we are just speaking about. And another is,
of course, turning to VR in 3D formats to better approximate
real-life interactions. Because crossing the chasm to virtual
requires a major practical shift in how business is done for this
group.

Alan: How are the opinions
different in healthcare and education, as opposed to the business
community? Was there a breakdown of that at all?

Lauren: Yes. So we see that the
types of experiences that they are gravitating towards are much
higher for learning experiences, and then a range that makes sense in
approximating real-life interactions. So, things like traveling
anywhere in the world in VR, visiting remote sites as if you were
there; 3D object identification and training to, of course, improve
workflow processes and engage with 3D objects virtually in real time;
then thirdly, holographic communication or communicating in
real-time, to get close to real social exchange.

Alan: So one could almost say
"XR Collaboration."

Lauren: Yes, XR collaboration is
certainly broad brush strokes to capture their needs. These
professionals too are much more secure about their own career and
professional development. Of course, this is a real time of need for
them, but that's not true at all across the board. When we look at
retail, hospitality professionals, other areas who rely upon
in-person business but who are suffering more financially, already we
see two and three have heightened concerns about their own career and
professional development. And of course, I think everyone's come
across research by Harvard Business School that the average
small/medium businesses have 27 days of cash. Right? And Main Street
has an average of 16 days, making the speed of adjustment to new
norms really urgent. And another finding through this is that, when
we look globally -- and this is based on some other research we've
done tracking Covid-19 -- the impact globally, we see that the
financial concerns of employees across geographies sort of correlate
with where they sit in the Covid-19 curve cycle. So here in the US,
57 percent of employees believe the current situation is getting
worse economically, whereas in France and Spain, they've potentially
reached the bottom and may foreshadow the trajectory for the US and
others. They're starting to see and feel a financial return -- it
maybe early to say -- but we kind of see these early economic
indicators that are quite interesting, too.

Alan: Incredible. The whole
world is adjusting to a new normal. Now, how we adjust and how we
adapt will dictate the future of the next exponential age of
humanity. And I really kind of think this -- philosophically -- at
least we're giving the earth a break before the real pounding begins.
And what usually comes out of recessions and the hard times and every
time we've gone through something like this global challenge -- never
before have we, first of all, had a combined challenge against
humanity -- so hopefully this brings us together rather than pushes
apart. I think there's an opportunity here for the whole world to
band together, not only to get out of this and be successful; Peter
Diamandis predicts more wealth will be created in the next 10 years
than all of previous human history. And I think this is more so than
ever, because what this will do is give us an opportunity to realize
what's important: what is important to our families? What do we
really need? What is an essential service? And also, we're going to
find efficiencies where there were none. Every time you go through in
a recession or depression, businesses find new opportunities for
efficiency. And I think A.I. automation, robotics, virtual/augmented
reality -- all of these things coming together at one time, and you
have everybody pushing on these levers, and the whole thing grinds to
a halt. But people are still working on these technologies and it's
gonna get amplified. So when the economy comes back online, whenever
it is -- maybe it's a month, maybe three. Who knows? -- but when it
starts to come online again, I believe this will be the beginning of
exponential growth as we know it.

Lauren: Absolutely. And I love
how you emphasize how this growth really starts from a place of
individual growth, from a place of reprioritization around what
matters. Across broad research that I've done in the AR and VR space,
one of the really unique benefits of this technology is around
self-improvement. People see it as a medium for learning, for
discovery, for becoming better versions of themselves. And in a small
sense, we see, of course, a trend towards fitness in these times.
Even in recent weeks, usage of Beat Saber for fitness is seriously
ramped up. But in a bigger, broader sense, how we communicate -- how
we collaborate -- is quickly changing. And I hope that this medium,
and this time period for reflection, will enable more meaningful,
more thoughtful interactions.

Alan: If we can't see each other
in person, the next best thing is being in a virtual space. And I
thank you, Lauren. Is there anything else you want to share about the
studies you're working on?

Lauren: Sure. So the I'm
thinking about how develop these solutions that can bring us closer
together, now that we're further apart. I'm also investigating, in
this next wave of research, looking at the changing services market
in light of Covid-19. So how our share of time and consumption of
content and services are changing, and even our tastes; the tone of
content that we're interested in in these moments. What habits are
likely to stick? These are all areas that will be coming out in a
couple of weeks' time. And also later in the year -- this one is
relevant for the XR community -- we'll be producing a study on the
future of devices; what the new state of normal is, so to speak. Is
it dual screen? Post-screen? One device for all? So we're looking at
that across entertainment, productivity, all kinds of contexts, for
how we live and work.

Alan: It's wonderful, being in
this XR industry at this time, seeing how everybody's pulling
together. And most people that I talk to -- even on this podcast, and
most people that I talked to in my daily business -- everybody's
concern is our health care first, and then our children's education,
and then the economy. It seems to be in that order in this industry.
Anyway, it'll be interesting to take a survey of just people working
in this industry, and see how the mindset is different, because I
think everybody I've spoken to in the last two weeks sees this as the
beginning of a new way of working that XR are fundamentally drives.
So I'm very excited about it.

Lauren: Absolutely happy to
collaborate with you on that.

Alan: And we're going to start
to be doing LinkedIn Live sessions. So, conversations like this, and
then we'll be posting them as part of the podcast, so that we can
just bring more information across a broader range of people. Some
people don't listen to podcasts. Maybe they're sitting looking at
LinkedIn. Maybe they're on Twitter. So we're going to try to spread
this out as many places as possible.

Lauren, I always ask one last question;
I think it's more prudent than ever. What problems in the world do
you want to see solved using XR Technologies?

Alan: I think I would love to
see XR solve for a more connected community globally. I think it's
really powerful to see how accessible XR can make certain experiences
for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to enjoy those experiences.
Whether that's travelling anywhere, speaking to anyone without
language barriers, the possibilities to connect with people in
unexpected ways we wouldn't otherwise. That's a future I'm excited
for. And I think it is very timely right now, in that creators have
to think about developing for the long haul, in terms of virtual
communication. And the longer this situation lasts, the real benefit
is that the more pervasive these effective solutions for connecting
will be.

Alan: Well said, Lauren, thank
you so much. Thank you, everybody, for listening. This has been the
XR for Business Podcast with your host Alan Smithson. And don't
forget to subscribe, so that you don't miss any future episodes.
Thank you again, Lauren. It's been wonderful.

Lauren: Thank you so much.