Is Virtual Reality burning rubber or driving off a cliff?
Virtual Reality is a nice idea that is, unfortunately, a few years away.
A few months ago, I had a problem. I was feeling tired and unfulfilled, and I wanted to do something about it.
I started by looking inward. Looking in the mirror, I saw a reflection I didn’t like. I was heavy, unhealthy and all the rest [1]. All I did was work and my focus on getting Simpel off the ground was starting to take its toll.
I had become what I always dreaded; I had become a middle-aged professional.
I had to do something big – something life affirming. After all, GO BIG OR GO HOME!!
As my dissatisfaction quickly turned into self-directed rage, I threw on my running shoes and took off on a vigorous walk. For an hour I pounded the pavement and worked up a sweat as I raced around what we non-city dwellers call the “suburban track”. Cold be damned!
After about a few miles, I came home, took off my shoes and realized I was freezing cold. I was satisfied that I had seized the moment, but I also realized that this would not be feasible to do consistently during the doldrums of New Jersey winters.
As I contemplated my next move, like many great ideas, it was in the shower that I had an epiphany. If it was too cold to go outside and work out, maybe I could do it indoors. After all, people have been getting in shape using exercise videos and the like for years. Why not me?
A day or two later the Meta-moment happened when an ad popped up on my Facebook feed for a new way to exercise using Virtual Reality (VR). As a childhood VR enthusiast, I was instantly excited to see a VR machine marketed to me for just my need at the right time (funny how that works).
For once in my life, I had two cents to rub together and decided to invest them in a virtual reality headset. The technology was finally available and affordable enough for an average Joe like me; so I took the plunge.
What began with confusion, quickly became obsession. From shooting at robots to fighting zombies, my dream of a virtual world seemed to be here and I, for one, was Ready Player One [2].
As my enthusiasm grew and I began to talk more and more about it, one of my friends mentioned in passing that I try a boxing game he had discovered. He said it was a great workout and something I might like.
That night I bought the game and was never the same. The graphics were so real, so immersive, I could not believe it! I was literally fighting an opponent and even though I did not hit anything, I was feeling it. My muscles were responding, my endorphins were up, and I was on a roll.
Like any Type-A person with a new fascination, I was so impressed by the workout that I had to learn everything I could about VR, the device and how it worked. I also wanted to know how apps were created and brought to the device through the store so I could get the full picture. Yup, you read that right. Nathan from the Bronx was delving into everything from lens construction to how our brains process information. At least to the best of his ability 😊
I was so dedicated that I even further invested in a heart rate monitor to track my workouts. I wanted to make sure I was getting a work out and it wasn’t just my mind playing tricks on me. To my shock, I was burning 20%+ more calories VR boxing than running!
Yes, you read that right.
For the same amount of time running outdoors, freezing my a$$ off, I could be in my home, kicking a$$ and getting better results. The consultant in me had been awakened and I knew I was on to something.
Over the years I had spent thousands of dollars on every diet and gym known to man only to fail again and again. Yet here I was in my living room, kicking butt and dropping the pounds. I was blown away and had to scream it from the rooftops. But to my surprise, no one seemed to care. I was disappointed and confused. If VR worked so well, why weren’t the masses coming around?
Troubled by my early findings, I decided to do something. Since I couldn’t find anyone close to me who was interested in VR, I turned to my old friend the internet and searched for a chat room. And believe me when I say Facebook did not disappoint. I easily discovered multiple groups of dedicated VR enthusiasts who shared my interest in the technology and how it will change our lives. I became encouraged as I listened and observed and even began to chime in. I could not help but share my obsession with the boxing game and how it changed my life with my new friends and community. To my surprise, others joined in and shared my enthusiasm, and a little group began to form.
One day, on a whim, I asked on a chat board if anyone wanted to do a VR health challenge using the boxing game. To my surprise, I started to get a lot of responses. Like… a lot of responses. I was burned out from work, but I figured if I had a goal to get healthy and people who were interested, why not use the skills I use every day to run a program to help people like me get fit? In an instant, an idea was born which became a Facebook page that virtually overnight grew global in scale reaching well over 600 members [3]!
Just like that, I was an internet sensation (at least in my own mind 😊). It was wild. My wife and I were making cooking videos and I was demonstrating fighting techniques I learned as a youth watching my favorite movie stars like Schwarzenegger, Stallone and Van Damme. I was providing content for a channel borne from nothing more than a love of VR. It was amazing!
I had so many wonderful and meaningful experiences. Like sharing stories with some of the bravest people I have ever met who were overcoming heart wrenching injuries and illness and now had VR to help them with their weight gain caused by their medications. Or the time I introduced someone from eastern Europe, who never met a Jewish person, to matzoh ball soup while explaining Sabbath to a new friend from Norway. It was so much fun and best of all, the group was really helping. Not only me, but folks all over the world lose weight and gain confidence. I was so proud and happy, and it quickly became an important part of my life.
After about a month or two, work got busy and believe it or not, I got hurt VR boxing. Like badly hurt. And more than once. I almost broke my hand, pulled a muscle severely in my shoulder and more. It would seem that despite all the warnings, the device is so immersive I literally got lost and smashed into things.
Now, before the uninitiated laugh, do a quick YouTube search for VR injuries and you will quickly go from America’s funniest home videos to shock and horror. I’ve seen people crash through T.V.’s, smash hands on tables and more. It’s gruesome and not for the feint of heart.
If this level of immersion sounds more “Matrix than science” consider the following: Virtual Reality has been used for years to treat severe anxiety such as fear of heights and flying. The immersive nature of the device helps the user desensitize and process scary situations such as when standing on top of a tall building or flying in a plane across the ocean. As someone who suffers from these anxieties, I have personally benefited from the immersive realism of VR, and I am watching where this goes with bated breath (e.g., can VR be paired with cannabis or psilocybin to enhance the effect and perhaps treat other severe ailments like body dysmorphia etc.?).
As time moved on and I got to know the groups and the technology better, I naturally started to network. In spite of my injuries, my belief in the future of VR never waned and it was fun to meet likeminded people. I simply see the potential in the technology as undeniable. It’s super immersive, realistic and oddly registers in a way the real world does not. Without much imagination I could see every day uses from schooling at a distance to global work across teams. To me adoption is an inevitability, and we are just waiting for the tech to catch up. Kind of like the World Wide Web in the old days.
And yet… after a few weeks I discovered that the thrill of the game, and VR as a whole, quickly wore off. Add a return to work and to my surprise, a once ardent VR acolyte who used the system daily completely forgot about it. Like a-show-you-miss-one-episode-and-never-watch-again, forgot about it.
When I thought about it, I realized that it wasn’t that I disliked VR or was angry at it because of my injuries. Rather, I just forgot about it. As the weather turned nicer, even when I forced myself to think about VR, I found it harder and harder to create an excuse to strap in. Disappointed after so many years of waiting for virtual reality to come to my living room, a problem emerged that the consultant in me just had to solve. It was the classic issue of technology adoption and I wanted to solve it.
I started with my groups. I explored content, networked, and asked many questions about eye strain, health and safety, and also how VR could fit into the future of work. After all, if a VR devotee was losing faith in using the technology himself how could I ever recommend it to a client? If I had lost faith, how could the industry as a whole expect to attract those “second adopters” that drive macro trends? As a transformation specialist this line of thinking is ripe territory and I dug even deeper. But the more I looked, the less I could deny that it wasn’t the technology or a particular program that was lacking. It was the industry as a whole!
Now, I fully recognize how big of a statement this is so believe me when I say: Despite how excited I am to incorporate virtual and augmented realities into my day-to-day, not only are many – if not all– of the technologies I encountered lacking, but the industry itself feels like it’s not ready for prime time.
When I say the industry is not ready, what I mean is: the challenges I encountered in my interactions across the VR landscape revealed structural and foundational issues that make it difficult to see this technology taking off for a few years. Like the early days of the World Wide Web, I encountered big, global issues that I believe are serious impediments to widespread adoption and cannot be remedied with a single, killer app or product.
To expand on this further, I decided to look more into VR in the workspace; maybe I would find more had been done in this area. No matter how far I searched or dug into the world of VR for work, I always seemed to hit the same blockers:
A lot of people still prefer the real world
Many potential users won’t even try it
The technology is not customer-centric enough
Subject matter expertise is very scarce
Broadly speaking, VR for work faces an uphill battle across personal behavior, product design and people who can deliver said products. This is a serious problem for an industry looking to get on its feet and without the right guidance, the industry could be set back for years.
Beginning with personal behavior, for the Metaverse to truly reach its potential, VR devices must become ubiquitous. Like in the movies, or what Jobs did with the iPhone, unless the technology seamlessly integrates into my life, it will always be less convenient than what I am already accustomed to doing.
For instance, in my job I frequently oversee implementation of new technologies that impact thousands of employees across the globe. The ripple effect of rolling out a headset, making sure technical issues don’t interrupt interactions etc. makes VR an unrealistic nonstarter. Especially when you consider how many other options are available that are as simple as clicking a button.
While this sounds like an extreme example think about any other work situation where VR could be used. Other than providing 3-dimensional visuals to a team, what other interactions would be easier with VR? Combined with the lack of utility in many office jobs, risks like these make VR products an unrealistic solution for my needs or my client’s foreseeable requirements.
Another way to think about this idea is comparing the current state of VR to the birth of the internet and dotcoms. I remember during the early dot-com days listening to Howard Stern talk to the inventor of a new dotcom for restaurant reservations. What we now take for granted was a topic of ridicule and scorn. Howard reasoned that [4] “instead of picking up a phone and making a reservation, I need to log on to my computer, dial up and hope the reservation is there in the real world?” “How inconvenient” he joked. In reality though, he was right. That technology did not achieve adoption as we know it today for many years and I believe that and many other companies like it closed. As so many have learned the hard way, if a product is not practical and useful it will not be adopted. It may become a fad but will not attain widespread use and longevity.
More specifically, VR must become something easy, comfortable and most of all integrated into how I do things to be truly useful at scale as a future of work solution. If not, it is and always will be a novelty that is less convenient than a simple Zoom call. It’s as simple as that.
Until you can see a screen with the ease and utility of an Apple Watch, such as say in a pair of glasses, that flawlessly integrates useful visuals into daily life [5], VR will simply not be something relevant for my line of work or daily life. The same story it’s been for years. Nothing new.
To be sure, this is not a good place for a burgeoning industry to find itself. The business graveyards are littered with many once hot technology ideas that came to market too soon and set the market back for years (think Virtual Boy). Cultural fads tend to fade fast, and VR seems to be a never-ending spiral of big promises that never really make it to the heights of mobile or the internet. Where the latter are transformational, VR remains “cute”. Until VR can provide something valuable, easy and seamlessly part of life, it will always be that other device you have to charge and strap on vs. simply stepping outside.
While the full remedy for moving a product from a fad or stagnation to adoption is beyond the scope of this article [6], I will focus on two aspects specific to VR that I believe comprise the root cause of the problem: many emphatically won’t try it and a lack of customer-centric design.
“I won’t try VR!” Is perhaps the most common reaction I got from people closest to me when I begged them to try VR. An emphatic NO!
No matter how much I try, many people are emphatic in their hatred of VR because of one simple word: nausea. The device tends to make people feel ill and want to, well, hurl. Gross. I know. But a reality nonetheless.
It is hard to look at the VR screen, especially when you are mimicking movement without feeling a little nausea. I have tried everything with my wife. From fans, to inserts to holding her hand to no avail. There is simply something about how the screen hits some people’s eyes and registers in their minds and no matter what they can’t get past it. Until Zuckerberg and co. sort this out, good luck. For once, its not the software but the hardware.
The lack of customer-centric design on the other hand, is a more nuanced suggestion. What I mean by this is, for technology to gain adoption it must not only be integrated into how something is done but also work with user preferences and feelings. The customer is the one paying the bill so if the technology is cool but makes life hard or annoying, people won’t use it. Especially at scale.
In the digital age it still surprises me how many companies forget this. Take for example a very well-known exercise app owned by a leading Metaverse company. The company used the many tools at its disposal to create a graphically astounding app with amazing music and an awesome support community in the real world. It’s amazing until you use it for a little while. You start to realize the trainers, who say inane, stupidity, can’t seem to shut up for more than 15 seconds. I did some digging and began to surmise that avoiding legal repercussions for the good music necessitated breaking it up with chatter. I also began to realize that many of the best songs were actually horrid remixes that made me not want to work out.
Even the Facebook group was predictable. Say one possibly negative thing and people who look/seem real call you out and try and flip the narrative. I had a lot of fun with this. I am still a kid at heart.
One time on my group, the bot-account (I’m guessing) even got the conversation going by asking where we were all from. It was bizarre and I went with it to see what would happen. And you know what, it worked! People participated and shared real, personal information which I am sure was recycled into more marketing. Brilliant! Bravo! But also, ANNOYING!!! I get it. You need to make money but seriously? Must everything be socially engineered? Like can I get my feet wet before you sell me, please?
Going deeper, I decided to explore work productivity software and communications platforms. Through my new groups and friends, I met some wonderful people including having the good fortune of being introduced to founders, developers, investors and more.
The good news: everyone could not have been nicer. From CEOs of some of the hottest VR apps like virtual offices, virtual workspaces and healthcare apps to even the makers of the best games, everyone was so nice and welcoming that to be honest, I became even more taken with the industry and more hopeful that I would find the answer to the VR adoption conundrum.
As a future of work enthusiast with a keen interest in product development and change management, I went deep with many experts on VR tools that would add practical enhancements to how we work and their visions for the future. However, instead of finding practical, easy to use tools, what I found was a mishmash of nice, underdeveloped ideas that missed basic user needs and behaviors.
For example, imagine a virtual office where there’s no easy way to pick up the phone and call someone. Yeah, it’s cool, but it soon felt like solitary confinement. I am not sure how it helps me work better to be in a virtual world with very little functionality that looks great for an audience of one. I quickly felt isolated and anxious and ended the session.
Or consider the best virtual office product I saw where to make a single meeting you have to:
Get the phone number or e-mail of the friend
Use the clunky remotes to key it in (constantly removing the headset to reread the number)
Send an invite
Wait for the other user to respond to your invite
Log into the room
Kick off the discussion
How about instead we built an integrated directory (like the ones in any virtual phonebook since the Palm Pilot) so you can easily invite friends and connect with one button? In some applications you had even more steps between you and your connection like having to mirror your computer screen, send an awkward invite and wait sometimes minutes to open a room that no one could figure out how to use. And by no one, I mean college and graduate school educated folks who were downright befuddled.
Not a single product was designed to help make work at scale easier. In fact, they all had the exact opposite effect. The lack of utility + physical discomfort = a non-workable solution in anyone’s book but especially for corporates looking to do something different.
Even some of the cooler features, like virtual white boards or writing utensils sounded cool but were almost universally a failure. They came close but were all ultimately impractical. Like season 1 of The Simpsons, the kernel of the ideas was all there but they were just not ready for primetime or sustained use. The customer journey quickly moved from “ok, I get it, this is cool” to “now what?” followed by “why the heck is this not working?!” to “can I just turn this darn thing off!” and ultimately – click— end of experience.
By now you may be asking, this sounds bleak but isn’t there tons of investment happening? So, like the internet or mobile, won’t the industry as a whole get better soon?
Unfortunately, I am not so sure because of one final reason; a limited number of people with practical skills.
Like I said, I met so many lovely people who were smart and amazing that I became even more excited as my research progressed. But, after a very short while I began to realize that the developers and practical delivery personnel seemed to be far outweighed by the dreamers. Yes, dreams are vital but without execution, what’s the point? Think Keenan Feldspar [7].
Sadly, most of the “experts” building the products did not seem to grasp customer-centric product design or how the product would be used by the end customer. Take for example the communications apps built for corporates. The people I spoke with had a hard time understanding what I meant by “making users follow extra steps that break the VR interaction” and why that was so important. They seemed to not put themselves in the users’ shoes and rather focused more on cool features that looked good but were not in any way designed for scale.
Another example: one of the better apps marketed for corporate interactions claimed it could accommodate 100 users in a room. I smiled and probed a little and quickly found out that they had never had more than 15 people in a room! I asked what they would do if I rolled it out at scale say for a client interested in giving a virtual conference and there was no coherent answer. This was especially interesting considering the recent capital raise this company completed and how it markets itself.
Almost universally, the products I sampled that were built for B2B were so primitive and childish that short of a “fun time at the next offsite” it was hard to see many clients really getting the value they need to justify the investment during tighter economic times. The economics just don’t make sense to me right now. From the technology I sampled and people I spoke to, it became clear that the use case is not only undeveloped, but not even conceived yet. Combine that with too few people to execute and you got a big problem akin to the early dot-com bubble.
A situation like this is quite dangerous for an emerging industry because you only get so many chances to impress before the market collectively becomes burned enough to give up for a long time. With already too few experts who truly understand the technology and how the customer will use it, whether exercising or in B2B, in my view, the industry faces potentially years before critical mass is reached and adoption becomes ubiquitous enough to support the ample investments made.
While this article is sobering and for naysayers probably a nice validation, I will conclude with this message: I still very much believe in VR and think within 5-years it will occupy a more prominent place in all of our lives. The potential is simply too great. Like imagine if you are handicapped and want to experience walking again? or if you live in a poverty-stricken area with no local schools? VR offers tantalizing potential to change humanity forever and move our species closer to the next stage of the digital revolution.
So, what can the industry do now to fix this?
First, I would quickly get back to basics. I would focus teams on the customer, what they really want and just scratch the itch as simply as possible.
For example, looking at the future of work and my area of expertise, Strategy ‘TO’ Execution activities, why not focus on the pain point of virtual/distance work and just solve that? Instead of investing in products that create an impractical virtual office, just create a stripped-down offering that does nothing more than facilitate more personal feelings. Use familiar interfaces like Google or Microsoft Calendar to make scheduling meetings with your phonebook easy so you can just pop into a room for a quick chat.
Focus on specific, finite activities like delivering a training to an audience. Make a simple app that allows you to schedule a training, download a presentation, and deliver it in a virtual setting. That’s it. Nothing fancy. Master these basics before incorporating tools like virtual pens or whiteboards when they are ready. This would make people much more likely to use the product. Frankly, it would also probably be much easier to get to market sooner and capture first mover advantage.
Instead of “rewarding A while hoping for B” [8], just give people what they want and need first and then enhance. If the basics are inhibiting adoption, just fix that. If I can’t host a talk or lecture virtually and interact seamlessly then I will always default to Zoom which is already integrated in my computer and phone. I don’t need a fancy headset for Zoom, it is easy and just works (at least most of the time). Like any product, virtual or otherwise, if the solution is more annoying than the problem, I will never use it and that is a very bad place to be.
Second, look at how these products are being developed and heading to market. Are work solutions really solving a problem or are they creating them by living the mantra “if you build it, they will come”? How is product development currently done? I am sure developers are speaking to the customer but how are they speaking to them? How is that feedback captured and prioritized?
With modern Kinetic Work Lane [9] tools, like automated intake, prioritization and execution processes, even limited development teams can focus on solving basic issues that drive adoption instead of trying to spend capital on being everything to everyone.
This all sounds like product development 101; I know. But, considering 70% or more of change programs like new product development fail to meet expectations [10], is it really a surprise this young industry is struggling to find its footing? I don’t think so. However, that does not mean by any stretch that it’s hopeless. Sometimes focusing on how you get there can be as important as what you are striving to deliver. Said another way, when you are driving your project along the Kinetic Work Lane, don’t forget to check your tires or you may find basic, boring ideas like customer focus and utility, may be the difference between success and the next opentable.com.
Whether solving exercise, distance learning or the future of work, VR represents an important evolution in how we live our daily lives and deliver value in the market. While the promise is there, I think the consumer is speaking LOUDLY and the VR industry needs to refocus or else I fear I may one day be seeing the Oculus on an episode of “remembering the 2020’s”.
- Nathan, Founder and CEO of Simpel and Associates
This article is dedicated to my parents 49th anniversary. You are living proof that without crazy there would be no fun.
Happy anniversary.
[2] Spielberg, S. (Director). (2018). Ready Player One [Motion Picture].
[3] See it for yourself: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1948608325320570 https://www.facebook.com/groups/1948608325320570[4] Quotations are paraphrased since we could not locate the actual recordings.
[5] E.g. Google Glass
[6] Feel free to contact us and we will be happy to share more details.
[7] Character from the HBO TV Series Silicon Valley
[8] Kerr, S. (1975). On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. Academy of Management Journal, 769-783
[9] See our upcoming white paper “Piloting the Kinetic Work Lane” coming soon!
[10] Forth, P., et. al. (2020, October 29). Flipping the Odds of Digital Transformation Success. BCG
References
Forth, P., Reichert, T., de Laubier, R., & Chakraborty, S. (2020, October 29). Flipping the Odds of Digital Transformation Success. Retrieved from BCG.
Kerr, S. (1975). On the folly of rewarding A, while hoping for B. Academy of Management Journal, 769-783.
Spielberg, S. (Director). (2018). Ready Player One [Motion Picture].
About Simpel and Associates
Simpel and Associates provides product development and complex change program solutions that helps leading organizations cut through the noise and bring winning ideas to life. Our Kinetic Transformation Accelerator (KTA) family of products is a suite of out-of-the-box solutions that use a proprietary algorithm to deliver scale and expertise for Product Masters and Program Leaders as they stand at the helm of the large programs that drive their organizations forward.
To learn more or see a demonstration of KTA, click here.
