Jeff Hrusko :
0:07
Hello, and welcome to another episode of cog podcast by compliance creep, where we explore why we learn why we don't and some of the things and make the difference. And today I'm joined by Bill West, who's a vice president of immersive learning solutions at an IIT limited. He has also started companies in the space of VR space and, and other other fields. And today, we're going to look at and talk about virtual reality, augmented reality, and the immersive experience and their use in ethics and anti harassment training. Hi, Bill, thank you so much for joining,
Bill West :
0:50
exploitation justice.
Jeff Hrusko :
0:52
So
how long have you been into virtual reality?
Bill West :
1:00
Just going on two years now, I've been in elearning, pretty much before it was even called e learning and part of the evolution of different methods and different modalities that we use to create really effective online learning. Two years ago, I put a headset on for the first time and it absolutely just changed the way I saw online training and really highlighted something new that I thought we could achieve that we never achieved before.
Jeff Hrusko :
1:30
Yeah, that that, that does it, just having my limited experience with VR. It is astounding how it puts you into the places where there's like nothing else. There's something I don't know the exact science behind it, but something about the plasticity of the mind where it kind of creates a body image and and so the body or in feels like you so tell me how you've been able to use That for ethics and specifically, anti harassment training.
Bill West :
2:08
Yeah, the problem we've had traditionally with those topics is that you can't build empathy. You could watch, you could watch a movie, video, you know, on the, on the desktop and the small window provided, and we could get a really good scenario so they can understand that, yes, this stuff does occur. And I'm seeing somebody do those things. So you can build this awareness, bit of understanding and such, but we can ever make them feel. And what we're able to do with the VR is actually stick them in the shoes of an individual who's in the scene. So for sexual misconduct, we take a man who puts a headset on and next thing you know, he's a five foot two inch female. And she's at a after our social work and her team leader is coming on to her very, very strong and You feel it, there's a visceral reaction you see people physically step back when they win when the team leader approaches them in the headset. And we're able to use that for for diversity to help people really understand not just what it feels like for someone to be biased against you but to really pick up on the nuances when people don't intend to be biased but they are and you can really feel and sense what's going on there. These are things we couldn't do just on a flat screen in any learning it's pretty spectacular.
Jeff Hrusko :
3:29
So you're just about I would say literally, but it is virtually going into somebody else's skin. My only experience with that is playing games where I could be Luke Skywalker or or or a little creature. But I could imagine that I would love to try that out that must be unbelievably jarring and give must give somebody perspective they never had before. Is that some of the feedback that you've gotten from the people that have taken this? Oh, absolutely.
Bill West :
4:07
It's been quite popular. And people are able to map it to other topics pretty easily. But you hear the guys go away, walk away from it go. And I never realized, and you hear the women walk away from home, that's all too familiar. And we actually modeled part of it on real life. We had a conference that we went to for VR. And I had one of my sales reps. Female is very attractive. And she was at one of the open, the happy hours afterwards, the open houses that one of the vendors was sponsoring. And there was a particular individual from a conference that was coming on to her very, very strong. And what occurred is that the two gentlemen who've been following us for this for the sessions had attended a lot of our sessions. One of them's name was cliff, and he came over and he de escalated the situation and sort of rescued her from from this guy. escorted her back to her to her hotel room safely. And that was the sort of the the genesis of the program we saw. Wow, what if we could replicate that? And the guy in the in the misconduct course actually, his name is cliff. And so you're in the woman shoes until you can't tolerate it on longer. And you signal cliff, who's your friend, and he comes across the room and we transport you then from Mora, who's the woman's shoes, and eclis shoes, and now you're the guy and now you have to de escalate the situation to say, Laura without it becoming this altercation.
Jeff Hrusko :
5:39
Wow. Wow, that's, that's tough. And that that is actually powerful. I'm really glad that you have those two perspectives in there because it's an ugly situation for everybody involved. And it's interesting what
you said.
I think the best scenarios in training happen are inspired by real life. I mean, it wasn't virtual reality, but I did something very similar. My fiance was working with somebody and they were wasn't overt. Right. And that's what I wanted to hit that kind of gray area there, but he would just say weird things like, I like it when you have your hair down. You know? And if she called I called him out on that he was putting up the defense, you know, no, no, no, no, no. How could you take that the wrong way? Yeah,
Bill West :
6:29
exactly. Yeah, really?
Jeff Hrusko :
6:32
Yeah, it gives you he gives you the best material. So yeah, that was my revenge than putting him not his real name but a story in a training.
Bill West :
6:41
Yeah. Yeah. What that line is in the script. Something about the fact I really like the way when you wear your hair that way, something along those lines in the script. Yeah.
Jeff Hrusko :
6:52
It's chilly. And then I could imagine in diversity training, and I know I've had some moments of epiphany. Just think You know, think about because I'm Caucasian. I remember talking to this one guy. Then he was just talking about something totally different walking into somebody's house. And he said, Well, before I went up, I gave him a call. Because you don't want to be a black guy walking up somebody's driveway without going ahead.
Bill West :
7:21
Wow. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And one of the things we do, because of situations
like these, in these programs, there's not often a right or wrong answer. There's sort of a good, better, best situation, really bad situation. And so what we do is we created this concept of archetypes. And so in a program, what we'll do is we'll define four types of personalities that kind of fit with, you know, great, good, neutral, bad. And so for example, in the sexual misconduct, it was a number One was gentlemen, number two was respectful. Number three was flirtatious. And number four, we called it at risk, but the women call it the creep. And so as you're going through these scenarios that the office hours one, but then also we have one of the programs, you walk through the office and you encounter people on the way, women, other co workers that are males, different races, different ages, and you have to interact with them. And we really focus on new office, depending on what they say to you and what you say to them. You're accumulating points and one of those four categories. And so you get to the end, yeah. And we throw a curveball at it because not, not every conversation has a 123 and four, some of them might have two ones, and then a three and a four or one particular one where you're interacting with the young intern. There's a four and there's three ones. There's a little bit in the center. There's one way to interact with a young intern, you know, you don't joke with her you don't flirt with There's just you know, one way. So at the end, you get the buckets. And it comes back and says, you know, you were flirtatious. And here's the difference between flirtatious and being a gentleman and your scenario. So before, and then we send them back to it again. And so they go back and repeat, because we have really discovered is that everybody will, by nature, attempt to get the right answers the first time. Because they want to have, you know, they want to have the score and so much. But encouraging to go back through is when they are free to pick the right answers, and see how people behave and how they react when you're not as respectful and that's really where the learning takes place.
The people that are at risk,
you know, they're getting it close, but maybe they're kind of on the edges at times. And maybe they're they're more respectful when they're talking to the older woman but not quite as respectful when they're talking to him pretty Yeah,
Jeff Hrusko :
9:59
I think A very important point that you said there. It's like the so much of traditional training and elearning is always like there's one right answer. And I think in the last couple years, we've been trying to get away from that a little bit, but it's tough, especially in any sort of business where it's regulated because an auditor comes in and says, show me that their score or whatever, something like that, but it's like so much learning you what learning it Have you had by hitting a home run for the first time, right? It's the it's the mistakes where I think a lot of impactful burning is so that sounds very interesting. How did you develop You said you were inspired, you know, in that one scenario by real life, but did you work with experts in the field or, like, how did that process happen?
Bill West :
10:56
Yeah, we we did we started out raw Bay Basically soliciting scenarios, you know from from ourselves and then for the network of people just trying to gather as much I gather as much really awful one liners and war stories and things and that happened as we could. But then we worked with Indian universities, Kinsey Institute, and Kinsey Institute studies, humanity and sexual relations.
Jeff Hrusko :
11:27
Ah, see,
it is based on actual Kinsey that
Bill West :
11:33
Alfred Alfred Kinsey was an Indiana graduate for the program. They study human sexuality. And so we partnered with them because we wanted to in the first edition, it was just sort of, we rolled out from we'll call them subject matter experts, but we're rolling out from from people who have experienced different things. But the second round through we wanted to make sure is we're rolling out something that that would have valid data to it, that there was there was an essence of us being able to use research to come up with really good scenarios. So it's a sort of half marketing, you know, we would we would ambulance Chase and find all the companies that were getting in trouble with for compliance issues, specifically sexual misconduct and there was no shortage, everything like every week, somebody else came out and we would go right to the scenario where they got busted on. And we will grab that scenario and pull it into the course. So for example, when McDonald's got busted, it wasn't because they weren't entirely following through at the lower level in terms of when people reported misconduct. They weren't taking that to the next level. So the stores were just building up these files of all these misconduct events and and the company wasn't finding out about that. So it was no corrective. whatsoever. So that was one of our scenarios instantly is the woman comes to to the manager and says, you know, that she's been harassed. He's been harassed by your manager. So we make it really complicated to get to work your way through it. And, and we ran that thing across a number of people throughout his 360. And then the feedback I got it, they would women would walk up to me and say you absolutely nailed it. And so we collected more stories through, you know, through the media through networking and stuff to make sure they were really authentic scenarios
Jeff Hrusko :
13:24
of you personally, because I would imagine, I know, anytime that I start a project, I always take something away that I didn't quite know. Have you learned? Or did you get some insights yourself?
Bill West :
13:39
You know, I didn't know how I didn't know how prevalent it was, especially with the the social environments that after work. We knew it was the right scenario, because we'd seen it happen. I didn't know until we started testing it. We ran a series of MBA students through it and listening to their feedback afterwards. I did not I personally did not realize just how difficult it is right now. And and how prevalent the misconduct is. Whether it's as mild or seriously overt that was it was kind of shocking to me to see that. So
Jeff Hrusko :
14:17
So how many companies or employing this right now like what stage is Yeah, we deploy it. This is fully employed in the field last fall,
Bill West :
14:28
November and such and,
and so, critical acclaim, we've had a number of goals, global blogcast and demos in the E learning guild in such as been really kind to us on that. We had a lot of traction with the sale of the course. A lot of things kind of came to a screeching halt with with COVID but our goal is, is October because October is when typically the companies have Have all their training completed, or each year manual, check the box type of training. And so we're expecting more of a pickup as we get closer and closer to that. And the way we built. It sits on top of existing compliance courses. I know we're getting a little off target and target from the VR, but related to what VR is really good at is rehearsal.
The ability to practice and
and it's not that great at just delivering content, right? Leave a delivery to the E learning programs that they already have they purchased and basically the VR then sits on top of it. So they go through one of the rules regulation, then they go into the VR system and
Jeff Hrusko :
15:45
that is beautiful. Yeah, so that's if you follow like the, you know, like Bloom's Taxonomy or something like that you're really doing the higher level cognitive, more than cognitive
experiential learning
Through the VR, once you get the basic
because I was wondering about that, too, like, I remember
you probably due to the different trends and elearning. And I remember Second Life, when it came out, there was like a rush to second life, which is an online community where you had an avatar and you flew around. And it was just silly because you would go into a room as a virtual person and then taking the learning, it's like, this is just adding complexity to it. So I like I like what you said that, that, that that is you have a traditional or more traditional method for the do's and don'ts, but you take it a step further in. And this is something when I was speaking a few episodes ago with a psychologist.
And we were saying that one of the
requirements for change in person to happen is in a safe environment, you know, environment where you can fail, right? This is not the future. Right, if you say something stupid, this is where you're supposed to say something stupid. So if you, it seems like the VR space can sort of create that safety. Is that part of it?
Bill West :
17:10
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, think about the alternative is to be in a classroom where you can, you can play act and have, you know, role playing for these things, but no one's going to, no one's going to pick the wrong answer. And nobody's going to stand there in front of their co workers and embarrass themselves by you know, being insulting and thanks, you can't it's not a safe place. Versus in the in the headset, I can do whatever they want, you know, and they're, and they can be as vulgar as they need to, to learn and they can be as you know, proper, but it's just it is a safe place where they can, they can experiment. And it gives us a lot more freedom as instructional designers as well, to really push the edges of the scenarios and
how authentic they can be.
Jeff Hrusko :
17:58
And just on the geeky So, my own curiosity, which what all of you had, you know what engine used to build the environments and what hardware are you using? Or can you use different hardware?
Bill West :
18:13
It runs on both the
it runs on the HTC Vive, it runs on Oculus quest that runs on HPS devices. We use the Unity for most of it. We also have a version ported over to try mantises. So scenario VR. And so what was nice about scenario VR is that it allows us to get a desktop version, which is essential, you know, VR being a new technology, really disruptive technology, you have to have an alternative that people are already comfortable with. So what we do is we build the programs so that they work on the desktop as well. Now you don't get the immersion. You get the full power of the scenario. So you are not really Laura But you can see and hear and feel what Mark's saying and relies on appropriative. But it does allow a company that has 80,000 employees to roll it out very fast, even if they only have 1000 heads up,
Jeff Hrusko :
19:14
right. Yeah, that was one limiting factor I was wondering about because the go necessarily one issue. Everybody had said they might not have the technology. Yeah, so that seems like a good so you're using advances I haven't seen. I haven't checked them out for a while and check them out again, see if they've improved
Bill West :
19:35
the salad tronic they've done a really good job with it. So we use it for quite a bit of stuff.
Jeff Hrusko :
19:42
So beyond where where do you kind of see this going? an accent, we don't have to stick with just anti harassment. But you're talking about ethics or diversity or even things that you like you see it applying In the future where VR would be a good fit, you think? Yeah,
Bill West :
20:07
I'm going to stick with the sort of the the asynchronous stuff. First. There's a wide range of areas where VR could be applied. But I'm going to pick the two that I think are the most vital, and they kind of encapsulate. The first thing is the technical skills. And so the ability to create an environment that looks like a lab or the machinery, you know, or hospital environment where the person has to manipulate items that may be expensive or dangerous to do. And the idea to recreate these environments so they put on the headset, they feel like they're in the engine room or they're in the lab. And when case we're doing a symbol golf clubs, they feel like they're actually there and they have two hands, they can manipulate things, and practice over and over and over again. To make as many mistakes as possible without dangering themselves or breaking equipment, the one particular company with the golf clubs they have a real issue with the consistency across all the assemblers and, and waste. And so the idea is that we're able to take the assemblers and put them in this program, and make sure that they do it over and over again to learn the right way to do it. And then those have that business impact. So the technical skills is on one side, you see most of those are graphical, highly rich CGI type of environment. On the other end of spectrum is the ability to rehearse, to rehearse personal interactions. It could be compliance related, like we just talked about sexual misconduct or the varsity. It could be sales reps, pharmaceutical sales, for example, you know, the sales reps, get, you know, 60 seconds in front of the doctor to introduce their drug and all the indications and such about the drugs. So they have to mail it, they have to mail the message really cleanly. So here's a chance for, for us to, you know, to get it and have them practice over and over again, before that, you know, I like to the phrase, you know, you only get one chance for a first impression. And a VR headset, you can take as many chances is you need, right. And that way, when you actually have the opportunity, you're, you're ready to go. So lots of examples of where interpersonal relationships across a lot of domains would be used. So those are the two key areas to me. On top of that, then is the growing market for synchronous, just to keep the terms that we used in elearning. But the idea that I can create a collaborative environment in VR, where I've got a headset on so I have my own presence, but then I can see other people in the room with me. And those are real people that have headsets on and they could be all across the country. But we're in the same room and we're doing things together and it could be educational. It could be working through a project. It could be teaching each other. It could be a number of things. I've seen this use a number of forums that I'll tell you the Coronavirus is making it the the top usage for VR right now people are trying to figure out how to collaborate work together other than being on a zoom session. And this is a very compelling way to use VR. So expect to see a lot more of that.
Jeff Hrusko :
23:29
I can imagine. I'm just thinking my you know, My son is in school to be an auto mechanic and talk about something where this COVID has affected that quite a bit. I mean, there's just so much you know, you could learn you really need to touch and feel things and and
be there with an instructor. So
I would imagine a collaborative space
like that, and especially if you could manipulate virtual objects would be would be pretty amazing. There. And the the amazing thing that that. So long time ago I studied acting and there was this concept called sense memory. And one thing I found so powerful about VR and what made me think about this so much is that even though there is nothing there beyond your controllers, right, you couldn't swear almost. So you pick something up, you feel like you're picking up an object. If you're pressing a button in this, some of it, there's feedback in the controller, you know, like, Xbox controller, you get a little vibration or something like that, but it's just amazing. Your brain is filling in a lot because it's like, Okay, I'm fine with this. I'm fine. I don't know it's not real.
It's it's simply amazing.
getting to the point of
the holodeck and start to become a geek.
Bill West :
25:00
That's exactly and you know, it's not real, you know, but all the sensory around you is is convincing you that it is real. And so when you know you're in the Star Wars game and the monster comes out of nowhere you will jump. Your mind says, This is not real. And so even though the creep in the bar is coming on to you, and you know, you're not actually in the bar, actually a woman, your brain is saying, you know, is basically sending all those signals that you're a danger. And it doesn't take long. In fact, we have this thing, build a program, we call it toddler mode. And what that is, is when they put the headset on for the first time, we don't try to teach them anything. We stick them in a room where they can do stuff, they may be able to walk around and be able to pick things up, push buttons, whatever it might be, but just a place where they can start to get oriented to the controllers and to being in headset and really kind of grab on to what they want to do. And then then there'll be a button that says go or start over again, and then start the education. Because what we've learned is that if you don't create that, and you try to teach them something right away, they won't pay attention to you. Just, once they put the headset on, you lost them, and you've lost them until they're ready to be found, again. It's all new, right? They're just trying to get things up. And like, they can pick up a coffee cup and not pick up a telephone. So they'll play with the telephone forever. It's like you're gonna pick you know, whether it can be picked up or not. And we found that we did test you know, developing VR is an interesting process. A lot of like, elearning, but has just enough differences. And when we did testing, prototyping, user testing, and we had the groom, we beat their own fight because we didn't want them to have to fumble with the controllers and lose sense of what they're actually supposed to be reviewing because they couldn't quite get the right right. We would be there to kind of help by a little bit, and what we've discovered is they put the headset on you lost them, don't even say anything to them for the next 20 seconds, because they won't hear you, they won't be paying attention to you because they get you get absorbed into that environment instantly. If you got to see it to believe it really is something pretty spectacular.
Jeff Hrusko :
27:18
And to any of our listeners, yeah, if you want to because you know, they're a little expensive headsets, but there are compromises there, these cardboard headsets, if you sort of want a little taste of that experience. And my first experience with VR was using a pen. It's basically a device that goes over your phone, right in the certain apps that will give you that experience. But what opened my eyes and this was, I don't
know about two years ago, maybe
this was during the height of the refugee crisis from the Syrian conflict and they had created This is a photograph, but it was a three dimensional photograph that you could see what was happening, you could sit in the middle of this refugee camp and just among these people, and Wow. So the ability for this to build empathy seems amazingly powerful, especially, you know, numbers, you know, here, you know, with COVID in the United States, we're almost at 230,000 people, your mind can't get around that but this I think can can help in that respect a lot. I know. And I don't know if you looked into this, he probably I know was somewhat familiar with this but for a while now, and there's been kind of like Miss mixed results on it, but for exposure therapy for somebody so suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I think they been starting to use or they have used some VR headsets, but some. I think I've started using them a couple of years ago. I think I read that. And that's beyond my scope. But I think that'd be interesting.
Because like we were talking about before,
it provides safety.
So it might be useful for that, too. What do you what are your thoughts?
Bill West :
29:35
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, that's been our Cornerstone over the last year is, is empathy. It takes a lot of efforts to create a program that can can replicate that with VR is the format that we've never had before. That has the potential. You know, we're doing programs. You mentioned PTSD, but programs dealing with all timers and dementia. is a two fold and both really targeted to build an individual's empathy to help one. And one fold is to do it from the, from the patient's perspective. So you can see what the world looks like from their perspective and and build out that understanding and that empathy so that you can become a better caregiver. That's really hard stuff. I mean, it's really hard for us to know exactly what the world does look like, to somebody who's in the late stages of dementia. The ones that I really like are the ones that prepare the caregiver for for what's going to happen next, I had an uncle, who unfortunately passed and went through the dementia cycles. And I remember my cousins talking about the fact that they were always trying to stay ahead of the disease, but they really never knew what was going to happen next. And I thought if we could create a program where they would be able to actually visualize and experience the next day that they're about to go through It would better prepare them to be able to handle it when you know when their loved one is actually experiencing that.
It's it's quite spectacular, I believe so to
way outside the corporate environment.
Jeff Hrusko :
31:14
Yeah. And that that reminded me or another use for this but a while ago too, I was putting something together to try to make people understand the importance of ADH accessibility. And, and I think here too, cuz you mentioned like any of your program where when you put it on, you're all of a sudden you're dyslexic or color blind, or blind.
Bill West :
31:52
Yeah, yeah. It would be very, very convincing and the kind of things that we're going to be able to do as a result, so yeah, The corporate case is really, really, really, really good. But the kinds of things are happening outside the corporate environment are pretty inspiring.
Jeff Hrusko :
32:09
And that's almost like the, the Golden Fleece, you know what I'm thinking? Because I've been in compliance and ethics training for such a long time. And it's like, yeah, I can create a really good elearning program about it. But there's some things that you don't learn in the book. Right? And this, I think, takes a step towards that direction. Real, virtual experiential learning,
Bill West :
32:38
and doing it doing it quickly. So you know, if you're, if you're a healthcare worker, and you've been working with, you know, people with dementia and Alzheimer's, or you're a healthcare worker, and you've been working in the ER, for many years, and you've seen almost everything that's come through and you've, you've experienced The chaos that might occur on certain moments when there's a mass casualty. You know, you innately you know what to do. But if you're a new graduate of the School of Nursing, and you've never experienced this before, and we're over your head really quick, when things get hairy, or you just haven't had a chance to, like, you're treating an individual who's really upset. And you've not had that experience to be able to build the empathy to really help that person work through what's going on. So you can treat them correctly. We can, we can replicate that and the headset, we can take these nursing students and they have simulations at the nursing schools, but typically, you know, their, their, their hands on so they don't get quite the time that they want. And you don't get the variety of what we could do. So we built a program that they put the headset on, and now they're in the middle of an ER and we can replicate you know the chaos we can replicate certainty Types of, you know, injuries that come through, we can throw a curveball down, right? So it's not the same thing every single time, when we can focus as much energy on, on, on treating, as we do on comforting the patient. so remarkable opportunity for us just one example to be able to prepare somebody for something that's really, really hairy. So that they, you know, they don't have 20 years experience, but they've seen a lot more when they start the night they would have before.
Jeff Hrusko :
34:34
Yeah, I'm very excited to see what comes next with VR. And just as you were saying that I'm thinking of amazing applications when especially uncovering maybe a unconscious bias or maybe you can police training, especially dealing with somebody who's mentally ill on the escalation, proof. So much.
Yeah, you're in a very good field.
Well built You have any final thoughts? And I want to thank you so much for spending the time with me and talking about this really interesting issue.
Bill West :
35:08
Yeah, I mean, VR is new. We're some early adopters out there. There's a scattering of programs, companies that are piloting IT companies that are adopting it in different areas. But it is a disruptive technology. It's completely new. It's got a, it's got to get across what we call the chasm where we go from the early adopters, and people that are tech savvy, and they want to grab the latest things and they have the budgets too. So to what we call the pragmatists, which are the people that want to stay with the herd. So once this thing is proven, they don't want to be left behind. They don't want you know, all the other farmers are doing compliance and beyond. You're not right. They want to make sure they stay with her. But you got to start convincing the pragmatist that there's a strong business case for this. And that's where we are we are and we will definitely get there the cases there will see more and more great examples in the industry of people doing Amazing things with VR and that will slowly build a case. So you're going to see it, you know, it will explode in corporate, and in the next year, easily, it would have gone, it would have exploded this year, if it wasn't for the fact that everybody went home and set it to work for three or four months. But you're going to see it explode on many levels, and really is pretty exciting. It is very much like mobile learning was 10 years ago. This is absolutely the most revolutionary addition to elearning since the smartphone, and we're going to see the adoption and they use it.
Jeff Hrusko :
36:39
One thing that's exciting about it is it seemed like and I'm sure you've been through this too, with each with each leap in technology, there was almost from design standpoint, there was almost a limiting factor, right? If you remember, from CDs to web, all of a sudden you had to pull back on the internet. A couple of years to get there.
You had
to pull back on the video and
graphics and then when mobile,
yeah, same sort of thing, but then it caught up. But this one, you're actually now taking a leap where it's a full blown out media experience, right? You're scaling up your skills, developing in this not not down.
Bill West :
37:24
Just bandwidth is definitely always going to be an issue. A lot of better devices or wireless 5g can help you got the firewall issues that we've never had before. So a lot of things are different. Integration with the learning management system is new and different because the LMS doesn't know what to do with VR. And VR is never talked to an LMS before. So you know, there's it's not without complications. And there's a lot of really good companies, including ours, that are tackling these issues at lightspeed because I want to make sure that my client calls and says, Hey, can I do this? To be able to say yes, I want to know that I'm telling the truth. And those are some of the things a lot of behind the scenes stuff that we have to deal with with mobile. Same stuff. Exactly. And but it's all really exciting.
Jeff Hrusko :
38:16
Alright, thanks again. And thank you all for listening.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
0:07
Hello, and welcome to another episode of cog podcast by compliance creep, where we explore why we learn why we don't and some of the things and make the difference. And today I'm joined by Bill West, who's a vice president of immersive learning solutions at an IIT limited. He has also started companies in the space of VR space and, and other other fields. And today, we're going to look at and talk about virtual reality, augmented reality, and the immersive experience and their use in ethics and anti harassment training. Hi, Bill, thank you so much for joining,
Bill West :
0:50
exploitation justice.
Jeff Hrusko :
0:52
So
how long have you been into virtual reality?
Bill West :
1:00
Just going on two years now, I've been in elearning, pretty much before it was even called e learning and part of the evolution of different methods and different modalities that we use to create really effective online learning. Two years ago, I put a headset on for the first time and it absolutely just changed the way I saw online training and really highlighted something new that I thought we could achieve that we never achieved before.
Jeff Hrusko :
1:30
Yeah, that that, that does it, just having my limited experience with VR. It is astounding how it puts you into the places where there's like nothing else. There's something I don't know the exact science behind it, but something about the plasticity of the mind where it kind of creates a body image and and so the body or in feels like you so tell me how you've been able to use That for ethics and specifically, anti harassment training.
Bill West :
2:08
Yeah, the problem we've had traditionally with those topics is that you can't build empathy. You could watch, you could watch a movie, video, you know, on the, on the desktop and the small window provided, and we could get a really good scenario so they can understand that, yes, this stuff does occur. And I'm seeing somebody do those things. So you can build this awareness, bit of understanding and such, but we can ever make them feel. And what we're able to do with the VR is actually stick them in the shoes of an individual who's in the scene. So for sexual misconduct, we take a man who puts a headset on and next thing you know, he's a five foot two inch female. And she's at a after our social work and her team leader is coming on to her very, very strong and You feel it, there's a visceral reaction you see people physically step back when they win when the team leader approaches them in the headset. And we're able to use that for for diversity to help people really understand not just what it feels like for someone to be biased against you but to really pick up on the nuances when people don't intend to be biased but they are and you can really feel and sense what's going on there. These are things we couldn't do just on a flat screen in any learning it's pretty spectacular.
Jeff Hrusko :
3:29
So you're just about I would say literally, but it is virtually going into somebody else's skin. My only experience with that is playing games where I could be Luke Skywalker or or or a little creature. But I could imagine that I would love to try that out that must be unbelievably jarring and give must give somebody perspective they never had before. Is that some of the feedback that you've gotten from the people that have taken this? Oh, absolutely.
Bill West :
4:07
It's been quite popular. And people are able to map it to other topics pretty easily. But you hear the guys go away, walk away from it go. And I never realized, and you hear the women walk away from home, that's all too familiar. And we actually modeled part of it on real life. We had a conference that we went to for VR. And I had one of my sales reps. Female is very attractive. And she was at one of the open, the happy hours afterwards, the open houses that one of the vendors was sponsoring. And there was a particular individual from a conference that was coming on to her very, very strong. And what occurred is that the two gentlemen who've been following us for this for the sessions had attended a lot of our sessions. One of them's name was cliff, and he came over and he de escalated the situation and sort of rescued her from from this guy. escorted her back to her to her hotel room safely. And that was the sort of the the genesis of the program we saw. Wow, what if we could replicate that? And the guy in the in the misconduct course actually, his name is cliff. And so you're in the woman shoes until you can't tolerate it on longer. And you signal cliff, who's your friend, and he comes across the room and we transport you then from Mora, who's the woman's shoes, and eclis shoes, and now you're the guy and now you have to de escalate the situation to say, Laura without it becoming this altercation.
Jeff Hrusko :
5:39
Wow. Wow, that's, that's tough. And that that is actually powerful. I'm really glad that you have those two perspectives in there because it's an ugly situation for everybody involved. And it's interesting what
you said.
I think the best scenarios in training happen are inspired by real life. I mean, it wasn't virtual reality, but I did something very similar. My fiance was working with somebody and they were wasn't overt. Right. And that's what I wanted to hit that kind of gray area there, but he would just say weird things like, I like it when you have your hair down. You know? And if she called I called him out on that he was putting up the defense, you know, no, no, no, no, no. How could you take that the wrong way? Yeah,
Bill West :
6:29
exactly. Yeah, really?
Jeff Hrusko :
6:32
Yeah, it gives you he gives you the best material. So yeah, that was my revenge than putting him not his real name but a story in a training.
Bill West :
6:41
Yeah. Yeah. What that line is in the script. Something about the fact I really like the way when you wear your hair that way, something along those lines in the script. Yeah.
Jeff Hrusko :
6:52
It's chilly. And then I could imagine in diversity training, and I know I've had some moments of epiphany. Just think You know, think about because I'm Caucasian. I remember talking to this one guy. Then he was just talking about something totally different walking into somebody's house. And he said, Well, before I went up, I gave him a call. Because you don't want to be a black guy walking up somebody's driveway without going ahead.
Bill West :
7:21
Wow. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And one of the things we do, because of situations
like these, in these programs, there's not often a right or wrong answer. There's sort of a good, better, best situation, really bad situation. And so what we do is we created this concept of archetypes. And so in a program, what we'll do is we'll define four types of personalities that kind of fit with, you know, great, good, neutral, bad. And so for example, in the sexual misconduct, it was a number One was gentlemen, number two was respectful. Number three was flirtatious. And number four, we called it at risk, but the women call it the creep. And so as you're going through these scenarios that the office hours one, but then also we have one of the programs, you walk through the office and you encounter people on the way, women, other co workers that are males, different races, different ages, and you have to interact with them. And we really focus on new office, depending on what they say to you and what you say to them. You're accumulating points and one of those four categories. And so you get to the end, yeah. And we throw a curveball at it because not, not every conversation has a 123 and four, some of them might have two ones, and then a three and a four or one particular one where you're interacting with the young intern. There's a four and there's three ones. There's a little bit in the center. There's one way to interact with a young intern, you know, you don't joke with her you don't flirt with There's just you know, one way. So at the end, you get the buckets. And it comes back and says, you know, you were flirtatious. And here's the difference between flirtatious and being a gentleman and your scenario. So before, and then we send them back to it again. And so they go back and repeat, because we have really discovered is that everybody will, by nature, attempt to get the right answers the first time. Because they want to have, you know, they want to have the score and so much. But encouraging to go back through is when they are free to pick the right answers, and see how people behave and how they react when you're not as respectful and that's really where the learning takes place.
The people that are at risk,
you know, they're getting it close, but maybe they're kind of on the edges at times. And maybe they're they're more respectful when they're talking to the older woman but not quite as respectful when they're talking to him pretty Yeah,
Jeff Hrusko :
9:59
I think A very important point that you said there. It's like the so much of traditional training and elearning is always like there's one right answer. And I think in the last couple years, we've been trying to get away from that a little bit, but it's tough, especially in any sort of business where it's regulated because an auditor comes in and says, show me that their score or whatever, something like that, but it's like so much learning you what learning it Have you had by hitting a home run for the first time, right? It's the it's the mistakes where I think a lot of impactful burning is so that sounds very interesting. How did you develop You said you were inspired, you know, in that one scenario by real life, but did you work with experts in the field or, like, how did that process happen?
Bill West :
10:56
Yeah, we we did we started out raw Bay Basically soliciting scenarios, you know from from ourselves and then for the network of people just trying to gather as much I gather as much really awful one liners and war stories and things and that happened as we could. But then we worked with Indian universities, Kinsey Institute, and Kinsey Institute studies, humanity and sexual relations.
Jeff Hrusko :
11:27
Ah, see,
it is based on actual Kinsey that
Bill West :
11:33
Alfred Alfred Kinsey was an Indiana graduate for the program. They study human sexuality. And so we partnered with them because we wanted to in the first edition, it was just sort of, we rolled out from we'll call them subject matter experts, but we're rolling out from from people who have experienced different things. But the second round through we wanted to make sure is we're rolling out something that that would have valid data to it, that there was there was an essence of us being able to use research to come up with really good scenarios. So it's a sort of half marketing, you know, we would we would ambulance Chase and find all the companies that were getting in trouble with for compliance issues, specifically sexual misconduct and there was no shortage, everything like every week, somebody else came out and we would go right to the scenario where they got busted on. And we will grab that scenario and pull it into the course. So for example, when McDonald's got busted, it wasn't because they weren't entirely following through at the lower level in terms of when people reported misconduct. They weren't taking that to the next level. So the stores were just building up these files of all these misconduct events and and the company wasn't finding out about that. So it was no corrective. whatsoever. So that was one of our scenarios instantly is the woman comes to to the manager and says, you know, that she's been harassed. He's been harassed by your manager. So we make it really complicated to get to work your way through it. And, and we ran that thing across a number of people throughout his 360. And then the feedback I got it, they would women would walk up to me and say you absolutely nailed it. And so we collected more stories through, you know, through the media through networking and stuff to make sure they were really authentic scenarios
Jeff Hrusko :
13:24
of you personally, because I would imagine, I know, anytime that I start a project, I always take something away that I didn't quite know. Have you learned? Or did you get some insights yourself?
Bill West :
13:39
You know, I didn't know how I didn't know how prevalent it was, especially with the the social environments that after work. We knew it was the right scenario, because we'd seen it happen. I didn't know until we started testing it. We ran a series of MBA students through it and listening to their feedback afterwards. I did not I personally did not realize just how difficult it is right now. And and how prevalent the misconduct is. Whether it's as mild or seriously overt that was it was kind of shocking to me to see that. So
Jeff Hrusko :
14:17
So how many companies or employing this right now like what stage is Yeah, we deploy it. This is fully employed in the field last fall,
Bill West :
14:28
November and such and,
and so, critical acclaim, we've had a number of goals, global blogcast and demos in the E learning guild in such as been really kind to us on that. We had a lot of traction with the sale of the course. A lot of things kind of came to a screeching halt with with COVID but our goal is, is October because October is when typically the companies have Have all their training completed, or each year manual, check the box type of training. And so we're expecting more of a pickup as we get closer and closer to that. And the way we built. It sits on top of existing compliance courses. I know we're getting a little off target and target from the VR, but related to what VR is really good at is rehearsal.
The ability to practice and
and it's not that great at just delivering content, right? Leave a delivery to the E learning programs that they already have they purchased and basically the VR then sits on top of it. So they go through one of the rules regulation, then they go into the VR system and
Jeff Hrusko :
15:45
that is beautiful. Yeah, so that's if you follow like the, you know, like Bloom's Taxonomy or something like that you're really doing the higher level cognitive, more than cognitive
experiential learning
Through the VR, once you get the basic
because I was wondering about that, too, like, I remember
you probably due to the different trends and elearning. And I remember Second Life, when it came out, there was like a rush to second life, which is an online community where you had an avatar and you flew around. And it was just silly because you would go into a room as a virtual person and then taking the learning, it's like, this is just adding complexity to it. So I like I like what you said that, that, that that is you have a traditional or more traditional method for the do's and don'ts, but you take it a step further in. And this is something when I was speaking a few episodes ago with a psychologist.
And we were saying that one of the
requirements for change in person to happen is in a safe environment, you know, environment where you can fail, right? This is not the future. Right, if you say something stupid, this is where you're supposed to say something stupid. So if you, it seems like the VR space can sort of create that safety. Is that part of it?
Bill West :
17:10
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, think about the alternative is to be in a classroom where you can, you can play act and have, you know, role playing for these things, but no one's going to, no one's going to pick the wrong answer. And nobody's going to stand there in front of their co workers and embarrass themselves by you know, being insulting and thanks, you can't it's not a safe place. Versus in the in the headset, I can do whatever they want, you know, and they're, and they can be as vulgar as they need to, to learn and they can be as you know, proper, but it's just it is a safe place where they can, they can experiment. And it gives us a lot more freedom as instructional designers as well, to really push the edges of the scenarios and
how authentic they can be.
Jeff Hrusko :
17:58
And just on the geeky So, my own curiosity, which what all of you had, you know what engine used to build the environments and what hardware are you using? Or can you use different hardware?
Bill West :
18:13
It runs on both the
it runs on the HTC Vive, it runs on Oculus quest that runs on HPS devices. We use the Unity for most of it. We also have a version ported over to try mantises. So scenario VR. And so what was nice about scenario VR is that it allows us to get a desktop version, which is essential, you know, VR being a new technology, really disruptive technology, you have to have an alternative that people are already comfortable with. So what we do is we build the programs so that they work on the desktop as well. Now you don't get the immersion. You get the full power of the scenario. So you are not really Laura But you can see and hear and feel what Mark's saying and relies on appropriative. But it does allow a company that has 80,000 employees to roll it out very fast, even if they only have 1000 heads up,
Jeff Hrusko :
19:14
right. Yeah, that was one limiting factor I was wondering about because the go necessarily one issue. Everybody had said they might not have the technology. Yeah, so that seems like a good so you're using advances I haven't seen. I haven't checked them out for a while and check them out again, see if they've improved
Bill West :
19:35
the salad tronic they've done a really good job with it. So we use it for quite a bit of stuff.
Jeff Hrusko :
19:42
So beyond where where do you kind of see this going? an accent, we don't have to stick with just anti harassment. But you're talking about ethics or diversity or even things that you like you see it applying In the future where VR would be a good fit, you think? Yeah,
Bill West :
20:07
I'm going to stick with the sort of the the asynchronous stuff. First. There's a wide range of areas where VR could be applied. But I'm going to pick the two that I think are the most vital, and they kind of encapsulate. The first thing is the technical skills. And so the ability to create an environment that looks like a lab or the machinery, you know, or hospital environment where the person has to manipulate items that may be expensive or dangerous to do. And the idea to recreate these environments so they put on the headset, they feel like they're in the engine room or they're in the lab. And when case we're doing a symbol golf clubs, they feel like they're actually there and they have two hands, they can manipulate things, and practice over and over and over again. To make as many mistakes as possible without dangering themselves or breaking equipment, the one particular company with the golf clubs they have a real issue with the consistency across all the assemblers and, and waste. And so the idea is that we're able to take the assemblers and put them in this program, and make sure that they do it over and over again to learn the right way to do it. And then those have that business impact. So the technical skills is on one side, you see most of those are graphical, highly rich CGI type of environment. On the other end of spectrum is the ability to rehearse, to rehearse personal interactions. It could be compliance related, like we just talked about sexual misconduct or the varsity. It could be sales reps, pharmaceutical sales, for example, you know, the sales reps, get, you know, 60 seconds in front of the doctor to introduce their drug and all the indications and such about the drugs. So they have to mail it, they have to mail the message really cleanly. So here's a chance for, for us to, you know, to get it and have them practice over and over again, before that, you know, I like to the phrase, you know, you only get one chance for a first impression. And a VR headset, you can take as many chances is you need, right. And that way, when you actually have the opportunity, you're, you're ready to go. So lots of examples of where interpersonal relationships across a lot of domains would be used. So those are the two key areas to me. On top of that, then is the growing market for synchronous, just to keep the terms that we used in elearning. But the idea that I can create a collaborative environment in VR, where I've got a headset on so I have my own presence, but then I can see other people in the room with me. And those are real people that have headsets on and they could be all across the country. But we're in the same room and we're doing things together and it could be educational. It could be working through a project. It could be teaching each other. It could be a number of things. I've seen this use a number of forums that I'll tell you the Coronavirus is making it the the top usage for VR right now people are trying to figure out how to collaborate work together other than being on a zoom session. And this is a very compelling way to use VR. So expect to see a lot more of that.
Jeff Hrusko :
23:29
I can imagine. I'm just thinking my you know, My son is in school to be an auto mechanic and talk about something where this COVID has affected that quite a bit. I mean, there's just so much you know, you could learn you really need to touch and feel things and and
be there with an instructor. So
I would imagine a collaborative space
like that, and especially if you could manipulate virtual objects would be would be pretty amazing. There. And the the amazing thing that that. So long time ago I studied acting and there was this concept called sense memory. And one thing I found so powerful about VR and what made me think about this so much is that even though there is nothing there beyond your controllers, right, you couldn't swear almost. So you pick something up, you feel like you're picking up an object. If you're pressing a button in this, some of it, there's feedback in the controller, you know, like, Xbox controller, you get a little vibration or something like that, but it's just amazing. Your brain is filling in a lot because it's like, Okay, I'm fine with this. I'm fine. I don't know it's not real.
It's it's simply amazing.
getting to the point of
the holodeck and start to become a geek.
Bill West :
25:00
That's exactly and you know, it's not real, you know, but all the sensory around you is is convincing you that it is real. And so when you know you're in the Star Wars game and the monster comes out of nowhere you will jump. Your mind says, This is not real. And so even though the creep in the bar is coming on to you, and you know, you're not actually in the bar, actually a woman, your brain is saying, you know, is basically sending all those signals that you're a danger. And it doesn't take long. In fact, we have this thing, build a program, we call it toddler mode. And what that is, is when they put the headset on for the first time, we don't try to teach them anything. We stick them in a room where they can do stuff, they may be able to walk around and be able to pick things up, push buttons, whatever it might be, but just a place where they can start to get oriented to the controllers and to being in headset and really kind of grab on to what they want to do. And then then there'll be a button that says go or start over again, and then start the education. Because what we've learned is that if you don't create that, and you try to teach them something right away, they won't pay attention to you. Just, once they put the headset on, you lost them, and you've lost them until they're ready to be found, again. It's all new, right? They're just trying to get things up. And like, they can pick up a coffee cup and not pick up a telephone. So they'll play with the telephone forever. It's like you're gonna pick you know, whether it can be picked up or not. And we found that we did test you know, developing VR is an interesting process. A lot of like, elearning, but has just enough differences. And when we did testing, prototyping, user testing, and we had the groom, we beat their own fight because we didn't want them to have to fumble with the controllers and lose sense of what they're actually supposed to be reviewing because they couldn't quite get the right right. We would be there to kind of help by a little bit, and what we've discovered is they put the headset on you lost them, don't even say anything to them for the next 20 seconds, because they won't hear you, they won't be paying attention to you because they get you get absorbed into that environment instantly. If you got to see it to believe it really is something pretty spectacular.
Jeff Hrusko :
27:18
And to any of our listeners, yeah, if you want to because you know, they're a little expensive headsets, but there are compromises there, these cardboard headsets, if you sort of want a little taste of that experience. And my first experience with VR was using a pen. It's basically a device that goes over your phone, right in the certain apps that will give you that experience. But what opened my eyes and this was, I don't
know about two years ago, maybe
this was during the height of the refugee crisis from the Syrian conflict and they had created This is a photograph, but it was a three dimensional photograph that you could see what was happening, you could sit in the middle of this refugee camp and just among these people, and Wow. So the ability for this to build empathy seems amazingly powerful, especially, you know, numbers, you know, here, you know, with COVID in the United States, we're almost at 230,000 people, your mind can't get around that but this I think can can help in that respect a lot. I know. And I don't know if you looked into this, he probably I know was somewhat familiar with this but for a while now, and there's been kind of like Miss mixed results on it, but for exposure therapy for somebody so suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I think they been starting to use or they have used some VR headsets, but some. I think I've started using them a couple of years ago. I think I read that. And that's beyond my scope. But I think that'd be interesting.
Because like we were talking about before,
it provides safety.
So it might be useful for that, too. What do you what are your thoughts?
Bill West :
29:35
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, that's been our Cornerstone over the last year is, is empathy. It takes a lot of efforts to create a program that can can replicate that with VR is the format that we've never had before. That has the potential. You know, we're doing programs. You mentioned PTSD, but programs dealing with all timers and dementia. is a two fold and both really targeted to build an individual's empathy to help one. And one fold is to do it from the, from the patient's perspective. So you can see what the world looks like from their perspective and and build out that understanding and that empathy so that you can become a better caregiver. That's really hard stuff. I mean, it's really hard for us to know exactly what the world does look like, to somebody who's in the late stages of dementia. The ones that I really like are the ones that prepare the caregiver for for what's going to happen next, I had an uncle, who unfortunately passed and went through the dementia cycles. And I remember my cousins talking about the fact that they were always trying to stay ahead of the disease, but they really never knew what was going to happen next. And I thought if we could create a program where they would be able to actually visualize and experience the next day that they're about to go through It would better prepare them to be able to handle it when you know when their loved one is actually experiencing that.
It's it's quite spectacular, I believe so to
way outside the corporate environment.
Jeff Hrusko :
31:14
Yeah. And that that reminded me or another use for this but a while ago too, I was putting something together to try to make people understand the importance of ADH accessibility. And, and I think here too, cuz you mentioned like any of your program where when you put it on, you're all of a sudden you're dyslexic or color blind, or blind.
Bill West :
31:52
Yeah, yeah. It would be very, very convincing and the kind of things that we're going to be able to do as a result, so yeah, The corporate case is really, really, really, really good. But the kinds of things are happening outside the corporate environment are pretty inspiring.
Jeff Hrusko :
32:09
And that's almost like the, the Golden Fleece, you know what I'm thinking? Because I've been in compliance and ethics training for such a long time. And it's like, yeah, I can create a really good elearning program about it. But there's some things that you don't learn in the book. Right? And this, I think, takes a step towards that direction. Real, virtual experiential learning,
Bill West :
32:38
and doing it doing it quickly. So you know, if you're, if you're a healthcare worker, and you've been working with, you know, people with dementia and Alzheimer's, or you're a healthcare worker, and you've been working in the ER, for many years, and you've seen almost everything that's come through and you've, you've experienced The chaos that might occur on certain moments when there's a mass casualty. You know, you innately you know what to do. But if you're a new graduate of the School of Nursing, and you've never experienced this before, and we're over your head really quick, when things get hairy, or you just haven't had a chance to, like, you're treating an individual who's really upset. And you've not had that experience to be able to build the empathy to really help that person work through what's going on. So you can treat them correctly. We can, we can replicate that and the headset, we can take these nursing students and they have simulations at the nursing schools, but typically, you know, their, their, their hands on so they don't get quite the time that they want. And you don't get the variety of what we could do. So we built a program that they put the headset on, and now they're in the middle of an ER and we can replicate you know the chaos we can replicate certainty Types of, you know, injuries that come through, we can throw a curveball down, right? So it's not the same thing every single time, when we can focus as much energy on, on, on treating, as we do on comforting the patient. so remarkable opportunity for us just one example to be able to prepare somebody for something that's really, really hairy. So that they, you know, they don't have 20 years experience, but they've seen a lot more when they start the night they would have before.
Jeff Hrusko :
34:34
Yeah, I'm very excited to see what comes next with VR. And just as you were saying that I'm thinking of amazing applications when especially uncovering maybe a unconscious bias or maybe you can police training, especially dealing with somebody who's mentally ill on the escalation, proof. So much.
Yeah, you're in a very good field.
Well built You have any final thoughts? And I want to thank you so much for spending the time with me and talking about this really interesting issue.
Bill West :
35:08
Yeah, I mean, VR is new. We're some early adopters out there. There's a scattering of programs, companies that are piloting IT companies that are adopting it in different areas. But it is a disruptive technology. It's completely new. It's got a, it's got to get across what we call the chasm where we go from the early adopters, and people that are tech savvy, and they want to grab the latest things and they have the budgets too. So to what we call the pragmatists, which are the people that want to stay with the herd. So once this thing is proven, they don't want to be left behind. They don't want you know, all the other farmers are doing compliance and beyond. You're not right. They want to make sure they stay with her. But you got to start convincing the pragmatist that there's a strong business case for this. And that's where we are we are and we will definitely get there the cases there will see more and more great examples in the industry of people doing Amazing things with VR and that will slowly build a case. So you're going to see it, you know, it will explode in corporate, and in the next year, easily, it would have gone, it would have exploded this year, if it wasn't for the fact that everybody went home and set it to work for three or four months. But you're going to see it explode on many levels, and really is pretty exciting. It is very much like mobile learning was 10 years ago. This is absolutely the most revolutionary addition to elearning since the smartphone, and we're going to see the adoption and they use it.
Jeff Hrusko :
36:39
One thing that's exciting about it is it seemed like and I'm sure you've been through this too, with each with each leap in technology, there was almost from design standpoint, there was almost a limiting factor, right? If you remember, from CDs to web, all of a sudden you had to pull back on the internet. A couple of years to get there.
You had
to pull back on the video and
graphics and then when mobile,
yeah, same sort of thing, but then it caught up. But this one, you're actually now taking a leap where it's a full blown out media experience, right? You're scaling up your skills, developing in this not not down.
Bill West :
37:24
Just bandwidth is definitely always going to be an issue. A lot of better devices or wireless 5g can help you got the firewall issues that we've never had before. So a lot of things are different. Integration with the learning management system is new and different because the LMS doesn't know what to do with VR. And VR is never talked to an LMS before. So you know, there's it's not without complications. And there's a lot of really good companies, including ours, that are tackling these issues at lightspeed because I want to make sure that my client calls and says, Hey, can I do this? To be able to say yes, I want to know that I'm telling the truth. And those are some of the things a lot of behind the scenes stuff that we have to deal with with mobile. Same stuff. Exactly. And but it's all really exciting.
Jeff Hrusko :
38:16
Alright, thanks again. And thank you all for listening.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
