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Welcome back to the collaboration space.
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I'm your host, Matthew Defratis.
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At AVISPL, we create personalized technology solutions strategies to improve how we work, from collaboration to training to well-being and inspiration.
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So in this episode, we'll explore how to use experience technology to build a more motivating and engaging workplace, and one worth returning to regularly.
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Joining me from AVISPL's Experience Technology Group, XTG, to discuss this topic is Director of Strategy and Markets, Mark Coxon.
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Mark, welcome to the collaboration space.
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Hey, thanks so much for having me, Matthew.
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I appreciate it.
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Yeah, again, thank you for joining me.
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Uh excited to talk about this topic today.
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Um, Mark, so people are back in the office, and there's a growing desire to make the workplace a meaningful destination while collaboration tools are consistently advancing collaboration.
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There's a whole world of opportunity outside the clock the conference room.
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How can experiential technology help?
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Yeah, I think, you know, I think the first thing we need to do is kind of have a little bit of a paradigm shift, right?
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And I know when we've talked in the past and we've talked about some of these things, I get obviously I get really passionate and kind of run away on this topic.
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But I think there's a big difference between digitizing the past and transforming the future.
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And so if you think about digital transformation, we've spent a lot of time trying to create a digital workflow that reflected the way we used to do meetings when we were all in person.
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And then we had this, you know, evolution, revolution of the way that we work that includes these second and third spaces, the home, or maybe even an off-site space.
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And then the hybrid kind of piece came into mode.
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But what we've been doing in our offices is really trying to represent or replicate like this old workflow with new technology.
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And so I think first and foremost, when we think about these spaces and outside of the conference room, et cetera, is really getting beyond that mindset and to stop thinking of things as small, medium, and large.
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You know, too many times in AV and design, we think of rooms and we think of, well, how many people are going to be in the room and how large is the space?
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And all of a sudden we start designing technology for that size and shape of a room.
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But we haven't even asked, what are people doing in here?
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Because a marketing team is going to use a four-person room way different than an engineering team is, or way different than maybe an executive would be if they brought in their most important customer to have an intimate conversation.
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So those three room types, although they may be the same number of seats and the same footprint within the floor plan, actually need to facilitate much different experiences for the people coming in to use them.
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And, you know, I think many times we design for flexibility, which we need to be flexible.
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We need to be able to rearrange things and we need to have spaces that aren't dedicated to only one purpose, but we should be tilting the scale towards outcomes in those spaces.
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And maybe if you have collaboration or collaboration spaces on a marketing floor, maybe those should be slightly different than the ones that are down in the engineering department or that are up next to the C-suite.
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So one of the ways that I think, you know, we can help as technology designers is we can really start thinking about those very specific outcomes.
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And then what does the experience need to be and what kind of technology would we use, or how would we tweak that slightly differently to get those outcomes?
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And now we're creating spaces that are highly valuable because people go in and those spaces tilt them towards the intended task.
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One of the biggest kind of you know pieces of negative feedback I get about um our current situation is that when many people are remote and some people are in person and we're going back and forth, it's not even so much about the audio quality, the video quality, the collaboration tools anymore.
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We can now see each other, hear each other, and communicate digitally, you know, through a whiteboard app, those things.
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We can do that.
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The main thing is that, you know, when you go into those spaces, that those spaces are vanilla.
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And oh, I could do that same thing from my house, right?
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Or the other piece you see is that when you're doing the remote meetings, there's a stall in the decision or the outcome.
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We get to the end of the meeting and we're all scheduled back to back to back.
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Everybody has to leave.
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And now maybe the next open time on everyone's calendar is two weeks away.
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And now we've delayed that business decision.
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We've slowed down our speed to market, we've slowed down our innovation because we're only reliant on calendars and space in the piece.
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Whereas if everybody's in the room, many times we get to hammer that out, right?
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Especially if the room tilts us in to the task at hand.
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So I think there's all this opportunity around thinking about the outcomes of those spaces and the different experiences that different stakeholders may have when they're doing a meeting like that.
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Well, and so Mark, you and I had also talked about previously, there's this opportunity to look at the workplace as much more of rather than just purely a destination, uh, you could, like you said, in connection to outcomes, think about the spaces that are in between those uh those outcomes of the different collaboration spaces.
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Could and maybe looking at uh the angle at which we approach those spaces from a different uh from a different angle.
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Could you speak to that?
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Yeah.
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So I think you know, when we start to think about workplace, we think about very specific things.
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Well, I need a room to do a meeting, I need a room to do a private phone call, I need a room to do some deep focus work or a desk to do some deep focus work.
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And we really start thinking much more about um very, very specific tasks and the utility of a space, right?
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And so utility is one thing, you know, a pen works, right?
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A you know, a gel pin with a nicer tip might glide better across a piece of paper, right?
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So like you can get utility.
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I I heard uh David Duane, who works for Geniant, a really cool design firm that works focuses on workplace.
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I heard him say this once, you know, he goes, if we think about what works, you know, a semi-trailer with a desk in it can work, right?
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But is it a good experience?
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Does it actually provide the best experience for the person?
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So we think about those individual spaces and we think about what works, but then the other thing we have to think about is the transitions that we have to go through as we're going from task to task.
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So in the in the workplace, we're going through this workflow of maybe we're doing something where we create, we review, we pitch, we uh we collaborate, we we go through a focus work piece of work where we actually have to produce, you know, produce something um individually on our own.
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So we're going through these pieces.
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One of the biggest problems with back-to-back just remote meetings without having different spaces is that many times we're trying to do all of those things from one location, right?
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And there's no demarcation between you having to be creative at 1059 and then you going into an accounting review at 11, right?
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There's no physical transition.
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And we know that humans, you know, a physical transition can denote a mental transition, can give you that space to breathe.
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Like when you walk onto a basketball court, you're getting ready to play a sport, right?
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When you walk into a classroom, you're getting ready to learn.
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When you walk into a concert, you're getting ready to listen to music.
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And that journey from wherever you were at to that place, your body is slowly transitioning between the thing it was just doing and the thing it's about to do, right?
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And the mindset that you need in order to do it, to participate and to be efficient, to be productive comes with that.
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And we don't get that when we sit at one desk all day long and just looking through.
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So, you know, thinking about ways like as you walk through a hallway, you know, what does that need to look like?
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Or if you've ever heard people say five-minute rule, people have five-minute rule when they get home, right?
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Like when you walk in the door, I don't want to hear about problems real quick.
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Just give me the five-minute rule.
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Like, I just need to decompress, I need to adjust to being back home, I need to let things from the work day go.
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And they need that five-minute rule.
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And many times we don't do that in this, in this world of virtual, right?
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And so, and even in the office, if we do things back to back to back.
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So, how are those spaces in between saying, you know what, this person came out of this thing?
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How do we get them back to a neutral state to then allow them to start to transition into whatever the next task and state is?
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And so when you're thinking about hallways, when you're thinking about things like biophilic soundscapes, or you're thinking about spaces that might be uh maybe dampened to just kind of like, ooh, wait, it's kind of, it feels different in here.
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I'm not hearing acoustic echoes, I'm not hearing it's giving me a little bit of zen, or maybe there's a place where there's some ASMR going on, or there's a social space that you can stop at between the two locations.
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Um, those are the type of things that I think about um that help us kind of like get ready for that next task at hand.
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And I think too many times we ignore the hallway, the lobby, the space adjacent to the conference room, what happens right next to the cafe, et cetera, right?
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And those are very important spaces as well.
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Absolutely.
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And the the way you framed it there, I picked up on one word, and it's the idea of a journey, uh, the the the worker or the employee or even the customer journey throughout the day.
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And it's interesting and pretty powerful to think about the idea of, you know, the workplace is not just a destination, it is a person's daily journey.
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And the spaces along that route essentially are what someone will experience every single day.
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And so what I'm curious about is for someone that may be kind of looking at their own spaces from a whole new lens, what would you say from an experiential technology standpoint would be some uh simple steps for an organization to get started?
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Yeah, I mean, I I think it's I think it's thinking about how we're connecting to the human on all the other levels besides the task.
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Gensler put out a really good study pre-pandemic that was about the experience index and why people go to public spaces.
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But really, if you think of work as one of the one of the most frequently visited public spaces, a lot of the tenants hold true, right?
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So when somebody leaves their house to go work at the office, they're not only going to do the task, right?
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They're also going there to have a social experience.
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They're going there for some element of entertainment, they're going there for some element of discovery.
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There's an aspirational goal, there's a social goal.
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All of those things, all of those human motivations are at play all the time because we never stop being human, even as we walk through these spaces.
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So if you think about that and you think about, okay, how could I design a workplace that makes someone feel whole?
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When they come here, they feel like they're being talked to in many different ways.
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And it's not just this chamber where you come to have enhanced productivity, right?
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Or where somebody gets to extract from you.
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You know, it's this place that actually feeds all of those other elements when you go in.
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You know, I don't get a social experience sitting here at my desk when I'm just doing work.
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But if I was able to go to work and maybe something that wasn't as intensive and I could do that work in a work cafe, and people are walking by and I'm getting some kind of social experience that might I might get at a coffee shop.
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But then as I'm walking through the hallway, I'm seeing digital signage that's talking about the importance of the mission of the organization, that's talking about the uh outcomes we provide our customers, the, you know, the things that we provide value to the market in.
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Now all of a sudden, me going to answer 15 IT tickets, which is a pretty tedious task, maybe is softened a little bit by the fact that I know that when I do that, it enables my people here, if I'm a biomed company, to actually help cure cancer, right?
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So now you're connecting mission to someone who's going through that space.
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Maybe it gives them access to as they're walking through, you make sure that your workplace is um is arranged in a way that everyone gets to go by where the executives sit as they come to one of their common hoteling spaces.
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And now you get access to mentorship or open hours or any of those things that you automatically walk through.
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Maybe it wasn't in your mind, but now you can go sit down and maybe talk about your aspirational goals, where you want to go, what kind of professional development you need, et cetera.
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Um and then so all of those things that we're talking about, right, um, are really, really important.
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And wellness, you know, the wellness piece where we can create these escape rooms where people can go and decompress, or maybe they can go in and sit in a bath of certain light and pick a soundtrack.
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And instead of just having, you know, a lot of companies have mothers' rooms, which are very important, right?
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Maybe we actually have to have some rooms that are wellness and not just these privacy rooms, but places where people can go to decompress from hard tasks or from a difficult meeting or from a challenging customer interaction.
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Instead of letting that color the next interaction they have with a customer or an employee, we give them space to breathe and do those things, right?
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And so I think there's so many areas we can use technology to do some of that.
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And I think it's really just thinking about what are my people doing throughout the day as they move from task to task?
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What do they need in order to be ready to get to those tasks?
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And what are the challenges and other needs outside of work that I could feed here so that when people come here, I'm I'm uh honoring them as a full person and not just as a resource.
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That's why I hate the term human resources, honestly.
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I think it should be human assets or something else, but but not just a resource that I'm extracting work from, but something that I'm actually feeding as well in more ways than just giving them a paycheck.
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What would be a few, and I think you touched on this a little bit earlier in our conversation uh briefly, but you know, what are some human-centric or employee-centric, you know, scenarios where you see the immersive technology uh coming into play and really like transforming engagement and that well-being of the person that comes in and does that day-to-day uh work that you described?
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Yeah, I mean, some really I'll just I'll just talk to some really interesting ideas, applications that I've seen because I think sometimes examples speak more than theory, right?
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In a way.
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So, you know, when I was, I was uh, you know, I was listening to someone talk about uh a film company where people have to go into editing bays.
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And if you've ever done video editing, which you do with this podcast, obviously, you know, matching everything up, finding the markers, especially if you're recording voice and video separately, and then having to match tracks and do all these things or go back and know where you need to cut, where you need to transition.
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That's a tedious work, right?
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Like the Oscars for film editing, like those people earned every ounce of gold in that statue for sure, right?
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Because that's some tedious work.
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So, you know, they were using um clips of movies and the awards they won and everything else to line these hallways.
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So as you walk down these editing bays, you got a sense of gravity, a sense of purpose, a sense of the type of work that was done here, the excellence that this organization pursued.
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And that could fuel, you know, this tedious task that you went in to do in a way.
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So I think I thought that was a really, really interesting way to do that.
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Um, we talk about surprise and delight, right?
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Like in the world, we like to like I talked about discovery, entertainment, those other human needs, surprise and delight in the workplace.
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You know, what if you walked into a company library where they're, you know, you're sitting there and you're doing some work, but if you picked up an artifact or you picked up something historic about the business, you were, you were given a story, or you were given some type of Easter egg of of information that like was like, oh, that was kind of cool.
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I didn't know that about what we do, or hey, that I didn't know that we were tied to this, you know, famous, you know, philosopher and the way that we did our mission when we wrote our charter as a company or any of those kind of things, right?
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And so, you know, having places that can spur that exploration, the, the playfulness, the gamifying things.
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You know, as humans, we like to explore and discover.
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We're good at pattern recognition.
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We like solving puzzles.
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Like these are all really cool things that we can build into office spaces.
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They need they may they may seem extravagant or superfluous or whatever.
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Like if you, but if we're really thinking about the way that people work and what motivates them, those are really cool ways that like we can start to build technology into spaces to do things like that.
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And I think it's I don't think uh moving forward, it's gonna be something that is rare.
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I think we're going to see more and more companies embrace this kind of workplace that meets all those human needs.
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Well, and it speaks all of all of those examples that you just shared really speak to the idea that we are humans and we uh do have those feelings and emotions that really guide us throughout our day.
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And so ultimately, we want people to be happy when they enter into the workplace and get through that day and then exit.
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They want to feel good about what they've done.
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And sometimes, like you said earlier, you are gonna need some like uh spaces where you need a little time, and then there'll be other times and spaces where it's gonna be good to be able to experience uh that historical artifact from the organization to help uh you remind you essentially, like, oh yeah, this is what I'm doing all of this for.
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Um, so I think those examples like really paint a vivid picture of how you know tech can support employees on that human level.
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Um, but a lot of these same principles, emotion, personalization, and you know, elevating that atmosphere could also apply to the customer as well.
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Where do you see uh immersive and experiential technology really making a meaningful impact on the customer journey?
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Yeah, and I I love this topic because you know, I think it's it's so important when we think about these spaces, that these spaces are employee-facing, but they're also customer-facing spaces.
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Um, they're assets.
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Uh often I refer to them as revenue generating space.
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You know, if you can get a customer on an airplane to come to your office and they sign a deal with your company, what what is the impact of that?
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Um, and what is the opportunity cost of someone leaving and not understanding uh what you do, what the goal was, what the next step is, what the action item is, or not having an emotional connection to your brand or to your product or service.
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And that's a huge thing for businesses, right?
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If we're gonna, if we're going to invest in space, uh we need to think about all the ways that we can use that.
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So from a customer journey perspective, I always say, you know, many times we hear people say, I want wow factor, you know, I want this big, you know, monolithic thing in the lobby that catches everybody's attention and and, you know, hits them right away with this energizing, you know, compelling message.
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And maybe sometimes that is exactly what you need.
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Um, but what I always say is, you know, what we want to do is we want to make sure that we're we are thinking about where people just came from, what they may have done, and how do we get them in a state that's ready to absorb that?
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Because if somebody's still kind of in fight or flight mode, if they're under a little bit of stress, they've been running around, they were late, they were in a cab, they got off an airplane, they ran right from your place, trying to figure out where to put their suitcase in your lobby so it doesn't get lost, all of those things, right?
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It might not be the best time to hit them with loud audio and huge visuals, right?
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There might need to be some kind of moment of welcome, reassurance, build trust, um, and then create some foreshadowing towards this big moment to get some excitement going before you go on the journey of the rest of the meeting, right?
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So you have to kind of think of what that customer journey is and how you get everybody to a common platform so that when you do deliver that message, that it's received well, right?
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People, people receive information better uh in rest and digest, right?
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So fight or flight gets somebody's attention, but then we need to get them into a mode where they're in a we're in a place where they actually can remember specific details, actions, and things like that.
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And when we're in fight or flight, we don't.
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We're reacting to stimuli.
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That's a good place where you get somebody's heart rate up, get them excited, create an emotional anchor.
00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:28.480
But then you have to transition them into a space that's a little more calm and safe to deliver the thing you really want them to remember and hold on to.
00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:32.160
The thing, so I always say we have to go from wow to woe.
00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:38.079
We have to go from that's really cool to, oh, I need to do something about that.
00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:46.160
And when we can take somebody from wow to woe, now we've got a workspace, we've got a customer experience center that really takes somebody through that journey.
00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:51.119
And we have some great creative partners that we work with that talk about chapters in these journeys, et cetera.
00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:54.000
Um, we just went to an EBC uh on our retreat.
00:20:54.079 --> 00:21:04.400
We were at a summit this week, and we just went to an EBC where the, you know, they're they make human genomic equipment, you know, they make sequencers and and uh flow cells for doing DNA testing.
00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:06.880
Um, and the customers that they face are wide.
00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:17.119
You know, they they have um oncologists and medical uh practitioners that come in who are using the genome to like to create biomarkers for customized cancer treatments and things like that.
00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:27.519
Um, they have people that are coming in that are are um regulators who are regulating medical equipment, data privacy, all those things, and they have to tell them why this is important.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:35.359
They have insurance companies coming in because most insurance companies won't pay for your genome to be done, although that might shortcut your medical treatment.
00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:43.680
And so, how do we get legislators, regulators, insurance companies to understand that this actually saves them money long term and actually saves lives long term?
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:54.240
So they have this amazing experience center where you come in and you it actually the building itself kind of is a wide in the beginning and it narrows you down through this chapter.
00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:58.720
And so it goes from what is genomics, why is it important?
00:21:58.799 --> 00:21:59.759
and it goes into this circle.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:08.160
Where people are telling stories about how their biomarkers actually got them to be able to survive stage four cancer without getting killed by the chemotherapy along the way.
00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:17.519
Or, you know, and then it goes back down into the end, where then it's actually the sequencers, the products, and how they actually then facilitate all this big story that you were just in.
00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:34.240
So you have this nice introduction, welcome moment, calming into an intimate space with an emotional hook, into some self-exploration to explore things on your own, and then into what does this company actually do to participate in that story and why it was what we do here very important.
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:41.519
And then they have social spaces, they have indoor, outdoor dining, and then they have discrete meeting spaces to talk about very specific things up on other things.
00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:45.440
But throughout the the uh the environment, they keep echoing.
00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:50.559
So if you go to the bathroom, there's a mural on the wall and it's Morse code and there's a key there.
00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:59.440
And if you want to read that, it might have a famous saying by a philosopher, or it may have some quote by a historic figure that's that's relevant to what they're doing in their space.
00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:10.319
And so everywhere they're reinforcing this idea of the code, the code, the code, and how we decode it and how what once you get decoded, you get relevant information that's really cool.
00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:10.720
Right.
00:23:10.799 --> 00:23:17.279
And so every little touch is very well thought out, and everything you do in there leads into this story.
00:23:17.519 --> 00:23:22.079
And so when I'm thinking about spaces like that, like how are companies looking at who their customers are?
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:24.480
What are those personas, just like marketing would do?
00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:26.480
What are the personas of the people that come in here?
00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:28.720
And what do we want those people to do when they leave?
00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:30.480
We need actionable insight.
00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:37.839
How do we leave them on this elevated plane of what's possible with that piece of actionable insight that they remember to go on their way?
00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:43.200
And the way that we design spaces and you use technology can go a long way to tell that story.
00:23:43.599 --> 00:23:52.480
That that example is one extremely well thought out way of approaching uh the different aspects of that medical journey in itself.
00:23:52.720 --> 00:24:23.599
Um, one of the things, and you kind of alluded to this uh as you're wrapping up, but I am curious because everything is so well thought out, because there it does seem to just from our conversation, it might be very intricate in how we uh portray all of these different types of stories for the many different people that may be coming in out of and out of the workplace or into uh a medical facility or uh uh an another uh entertainment type environment.
00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:42.000
How do you build out essentially that personalized track of I'm gonna just speak to it plainly, uh video wall immersive uh lighting experience that specific to a person?
00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:43.440
Yeah.
00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:46.880
So I think I think what we have to do is we have to allow for this, right?
00:24:47.039 --> 00:25:00.960
Where we know that that journey is gonna be uh like every person who comes through there, whether I get them to neutral or not, everybody has their own um their own sensory capabilities, limitations, maybe sensitivities, they're all those things, right?
00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:10.240
Um, I think I think if you're thinking of principles um in this, I think you want to create moments that are big and wow, I think you want to create moments that are quiet.
00:25:10.400 --> 00:25:16.720
You want to create scripted moments where you have short, punchy information that doesn't require a long attention span.
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:26.799
And you want to have places where if somebody wants to be a student where you give them agency and time to potentially explore technology on their own, touch screens, maybe artifacts, objects that they can pick up.
00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:36.240
Um, I think, like I mentioned with like the decoding at the bathrooms and things like that, like those are spaces when you have your own time and you're walking through and you may choose or not choose to absorb that piece of information.
00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:37.039
And it's okay.
00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:38.799
You don't have to absorb everything, right?
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:40.799
You still get the basis of the journey.
00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:48.319
Um, I think for you know, neurodivergent people that may be overwhelmed, you know, not every moment can be in a in an immersive theater, right?
00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:56.480
Because you're not going to get that um rest and digest moment with them ever because they respond to stimuli different than maybe someone else does, right?
00:25:56.640 --> 00:26:00.960
And so I think the contrast between the way that we use the technologies.
00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:07.119
Um, Joe Whitesides, our director of creative technology, one of his favorite ideas is to just walk people through a dampened hallway.
00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:19.440
So if you took something and made it completely acoustically absorptive and you can't even hear your footprints, all of a sudden you haven't done anything, but you've you've used auditory to create some kind of sense of, oh, something just happened here.
00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:21.279
It's dead quiet, right?
00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:28.559
It's just dampened and quiet, and you walk through and it makes somebody notice the lack of anything going on.
00:26:28.799 --> 00:26:32.400
And maybe that's what you need before you go into another space, right?
00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:35.279
So I think there are ways that we can play with technology subtly.
00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:41.519
I had uh someone else talk about we have this huge window, and this huge window overlooks the San Francisco Bay.
00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:43.279
And I don't want to use technology in this room.
00:26:43.359 --> 00:26:54.960
I've got this great portrait window, but I don't know, you know, how to augment that space and said, well, what if you did something where as you approached the window, you actually started hearing sounds of the harbor?
00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:59.519
You're using AI-generated harborscape that you can hear a tugboat or you can hear seagull start.
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:05.519
And as you get closer and closer, those things start to beckon you right towards the window to do this thing, right?
00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:07.359
So, and to look out and see all that.
00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:17.599
So I think there are ways that we can subtly use technology, and not everything has to be, you know, uh LED screen, you know, four feet from your face at 20 feet tall.
00:27:17.839 --> 00:27:22.000
Technology can be used in a lot of these ways or putting physical artifacts in somebody's hands.
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:24.240
I love, I love that idea, an object theater.
00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:35.039
I can pick things up and interact with the room, and I might get a story, whether that's audible, whether that's video, or maybe even that's something that when I pick it up, it go talks to an app on my phone and it just catalogs that for later.
00:27:35.200 --> 00:27:39.440
Um, whereas I manipulate it in real 3D space, a model manipulates.
00:27:39.519 --> 00:27:43.039
And so now I'm playing with something with my hands, articulating it.
00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:47.200
And if that's actually articulating the digital version of that for me to learn about it.
00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:51.440
Um, so I'm not just swiping, pushing, swiping, pushing like I always do.
00:27:51.599 --> 00:27:56.720
So novelty, contrast, um, variation, right?
00:27:57.119 --> 00:28:04.000
And I think all of those things are really, really important when we're talking about technology design, whether it be workplace experience or customer experience.
00:28:04.160 --> 00:28:12.960
So I think we have to think about the way we design content, where things are at, what they're adjacent to, who's actually going to be absorbing that passively versus actively.
00:28:13.119 --> 00:28:16.079
Like, and we have to think about all those things and make decisions.
00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:29.119
And so, you know, it's it's it's a complicated issue, but it has a lot of simple solutions, especially if you can break down the problem like we're kind of doing through like a customer journey, personas, who's using it, what's doing it.
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:33.200
If we've apply all those filters, the answers start to become very obvious, right?
00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:41.759
And it's just working with somebody that's able to help you break down that problem and then uh introduce the solutions that we think best fit that scenario.
00:28:42.640 --> 00:28:56.480
Just to touch on that, that persona journey aspect, it seems like it uh obviously it's kind of tailored into uh its very own unique experience that you'd separate out amongst other personas.
00:28:57.039 --> 00:29:20.000
And so I'm curious, you know, with those with those different aspects, building out the the journey aspect that some organizations may have going throughout the the workplace, you know, can our XTG team support them by helping craft, say, uh or deploy uh a holistic yet tailored solution?
00:29:20.319 --> 00:29:20.640
Yeah.
00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:27.039
So I I think when you think about this from uh from again, zooming out sometimes is the best way to approach some of these problems, right?
00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:38.400
So um we zoom out a little bit and we say, okay, we're going to have, we're going to have several personas that come through the space, and there may be different messaging that appeals to those personas, we need to make sure that we have that.
00:29:38.559 --> 00:29:46.160
Um, we also know that content is expensive, and we can't make a very specific piece of content for every single person that comes in here because it's unsustainable.
00:29:46.319 --> 00:29:50.000
And as the story changes, we'd have to recreate those assets over and over and over again.
00:29:50.079 --> 00:29:54.319
And that's when experiences become irrelevant, is when they're not contextual anymore.
00:29:54.480 --> 00:30:10.400
And so if you don't have a plan to refresh that content as the business's goal changes, the macro uh economic environment it changes, the world changes, it does every day, then you'd risk losing the impact, right, of what you've done.
00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:16.000
So if you think about that, what you want to do is you want to make sure you have a robust like content management system.
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:18.319
How are we loading new files and new assets in?
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:20.160
Is it something I have to hire a creative firm for?
00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:22.240
Is it something that we can manage internally?
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:27.680
Are those assets custom aspect ratios or custom files or are they standard file types?
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:37.359
Um, if I do have custom aspect ratios, let's say I have these really long format walls because I don't want everything to be a 16-9 rectangle, because that's formulaic and boring.
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:38.079
Great.
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:45.359
Um, if you have that, you know, if you have a long curved one and a long straight one, maybe those two are the same aspect ratio, even though they're in slightly different formats.
00:30:45.599 --> 00:31:00.160
One may be 20 feet long, one may be 10, but if they're both in a 32, nine aspect ratio, that piece of content can easily scale up and down between the large wall and the small wall without having to re-render it, crop it, finish it, reproduce it, do a lot of post-production, et cetera, right?
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:18.640
So how do we, even if we're not doing extremely standard things, how do we create platforms, whether it be a CMS, whether it we be a way that we uh uh a set of best practices in how we do aspect ratios and content and file sizes and file types, resolutions.
00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:25.359
So we create a platform, a set of standards within the organization that we can utilize that we all know so we can get the most out of these things.
00:31:25.519 --> 00:31:30.240
Also, the other thing is is the AI is a huge push or a huge helper in this, right?
00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:46.720
So if I have um an idea of personas and I've built these out, you know, I can I can badge someone, you know, and if they come through the piece and they're in a room and their NFC tag, scanned in when they came through the room, we know who's in the room, we know what the persona, the CMS system plays relevant messaging to the person standing in the room.
00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:58.400
Um, that takes a lot of the a lot of the headache out of, you know, having to try to curate that on the fly or pick the right files or or rely on, you know, uh physical staff to have to touch and know how to do everything.
00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:00.480
Um, also in generative content.
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:05.279
So, you know, a lot of places where we just want ambient content, like we're talking about the wellness areas earlier.
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:12.079
I could spend a lot of money going and filming the redwood forest and creating custom content for a 3D immersive room.
00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:17.440
Or I could say, hey, I want, I want to have four or five sliders based on mood.
00:32:17.519 --> 00:32:19.279
I'm I'm feeling stressed.
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:20.559
I like blues and greens.
00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:26.640
I usually go to the ocean when I go on vacation and I love the smell of pine trees.
00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:33.680
And they move those sliders, and now those sliders create generative AI content that mimics those parameters that you've set up, right?
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:36.880
And now you're not producing 18 different pieces for 18 personas.
00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:41.759
You've created a an AI-based engine that can then generate content like that.
00:32:41.920 --> 00:32:44.720
And we'll see that in lobbies and things of that nature as well, right?
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:48.480
They may react to the number of people there, they may react to the weather or the rain.
00:32:48.720 --> 00:32:59.519
Um I had one company that wanted to create a piece of generative content that every time they put a new product off the line, they wanted a new piece of the art to be completed, like a new brushstroke went on.
00:32:59.680 --> 00:33:06.000
So this piece of art was going to take multiple years to actually manifest because it was based on their production run rates, et cetera.
00:33:06.079 --> 00:33:06.319
Right.
00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:09.759
So those kind of ideas are really cool and they take some of the lift off.
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:23.279
There's a little bit of money in the beginning in investing in something that's using sensor data to create generative content, a little more expensive than one piece of content, but definitely way less expensive than a hundred pieces of content over five years, right?
00:33:23.839 --> 00:33:27.279
And so I think we're we're seeing a lot of that in that as well.
00:33:27.519 --> 00:33:37.440
And so, and with the ability to do things like Unreal Engine and some of these 3D platforms that are accessible now, creating um digitized digital content, computer aided content.
00:33:37.519 --> 00:33:47.279
We know Midjourney, Sora, all these AI, you know, image generators, we can use those as launch pads to create stuff that is very relevant to the business and that's working better and better every single day.
00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:54.480
So I would say for firms you know that are thinking about this, it's it's all about creating the platform in the back end.
00:33:54.559 --> 00:33:56.319
Well, how much of it do you want to own?
00:33:56.880 --> 00:33:58.000
What do you want to manage?
00:33:58.160 --> 00:33:59.359
What do you want to support?
00:33:59.519 --> 00:34:00.480
What do you want to own?
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:04.559
And then building something, working with someone to build something that mirrors that.
00:34:04.720 --> 00:34:06.160
Some people want it completely hosted.
00:34:06.240 --> 00:34:07.359
I'm gonna have a content company.
00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:10.239
We already have a marketing budget, we're gonna do quarterly refreshes.
00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:11.920
Our marketing team produces content.
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:21.280
We use our creative partner to format it, create, or and we have an on-site managed service person that sits here and does all the tours that are in our space anytime a customer comes through.
00:34:21.519 --> 00:34:22.719
Great, that's one way to do it.
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:25.199
And if you have that in your organization, you can do that.
00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:33.119
And maybe in that one, you don't uh you don't have to uh set it up exactly the way you want to, or the way that I talked about.
00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:40.320
But it is really understanding how much of that cycle you want to own and support, and then building the technology that supports that.
00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:44.559
And that's that's the art sometimes of of what a team like ours does.
00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:50.639
Well, Mark, I'll just say first off, thank you so much for uh joining me today.
00:34:51.039 --> 00:35:01.920
This has been an incredibly insightful discussion about just the different variations and the ways that we can impact uh people in the workplace.
00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:10.320
Um and it's very clear to me that uh experiential technology, like you kind of said earlier, it's it's not just about the wow factor.
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:13.519
Sometimes it's you know, you definitely, like you said, it's the woe factor.
00:35:13.760 --> 00:35:24.719
And um, you know, it can be used to create more human, purposeful content in the workplace, um, you know, from supporting employee well-being to enhancing the customer journey.
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:27.360
Um, you know, I'm I just keep thinking about it.
00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:35.199
And I'm like, these experiences have the power to transform how people feel and work where and about where they work uh on a daily basis.
00:35:35.280 --> 00:35:40.000
It's been uh a very big uh eye-opener for for me here.
00:35:40.079 --> 00:35:42.960
Uh I just want to say thank you again for chatting with me today.
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:44.480
Yeah, I I agree.
00:35:44.639 --> 00:35:45.599
Thank you so much for having me.
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:59.519
And I just I'd leave everybody with this like, imagine if the workplace was somebody that was a place that people were like, man, I really need to get out of my home office and get into work because I feel so much better when I come back from there than when I sit here all day at my desk.
00:35:59.679 --> 00:36:06.239
I mean, that is an aspirational goal that I think Experiential Workplace is is capable of providing.
00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:09.599
And uh, you know, maybe a North Star that we all think about.
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:11.119
Absolutely.
00:36:11.360 --> 00:36:15.840
Um to everyone watching and listening, thank you for joining us today.
00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:20.400
Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode.
00:36:20.639 --> 00:36:28.480
If you prefer the audio version of this podcast, just search for the collaboration space on your favorite podcast app.
00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:31.119
Thanks again, and goodbye for now.
00:36:31.440 --> 00:36:36.880
For more information, visit avispl.com slash XTG.
00:00:07.679 --> 00:00:09.679
Welcome back to the collaboration space.
00:00:09.839 --> 00:00:11.679
I'm your host, Matthew Defratis.
00:00:11.839 --> 00:00:22.480
At AVISPL, we create personalized technology solutions strategies to improve how we work, from collaboration to training to well-being and inspiration.
00:00:22.719 --> 00:00:32.640
So in this episode, we'll explore how to use experience technology to build a more motivating and engaging workplace, and one worth returning to regularly.
00:00:33.520 --> 00:00:42.399
Joining me from AVISPL's Experience Technology Group, XTG, to discuss this topic is Director of Strategy and Markets, Mark Coxon.
00:00:42.719 --> 00:00:44.640
Mark, welcome to the collaboration space.
00:00:45.359 --> 00:00:46.880
Hey, thanks so much for having me, Matthew.
00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:47.679
I appreciate it.
00:00:48.479 --> 00:00:50.000
Yeah, again, thank you for joining me.
00:00:50.079 --> 00:00:52.240
Uh excited to talk about this topic today.
00:00:52.560 --> 00:01:04.799
Um, Mark, so people are back in the office, and there's a growing desire to make the workplace a meaningful destination while collaboration tools are consistently advancing collaboration.
00:01:04.879 --> 00:01:09.040
There's a whole world of opportunity outside the clock the conference room.
00:01:09.359 --> 00:01:12.959
How can experiential technology help?
00:01:14.079 --> 00:01:18.719
Yeah, I think, you know, I think the first thing we need to do is kind of have a little bit of a paradigm shift, right?
00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:24.959
And I know when we've talked in the past and we've talked about some of these things, I get obviously I get really passionate and kind of run away on this topic.
00:01:25.120 --> 00:01:29.840
But I think there's a big difference between digitizing the past and transforming the future.
00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:38.640
And so if you think about digital transformation, we've spent a lot of time trying to create a digital workflow that reflected the way we used to do meetings when we were all in person.
00:01:38.799 --> 00:01:46.719
And then we had this, you know, evolution, revolution of the way that we work that includes these second and third spaces, the home, or maybe even an off-site space.
00:01:46.799 --> 00:01:49.599
And then the hybrid kind of piece came into mode.
00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:57.439
But what we've been doing in our offices is really trying to represent or replicate like this old workflow with new technology.
00:01:57.599 --> 00:02:10.479
And so I think first and foremost, when we think about these spaces and outside of the conference room, et cetera, is really getting beyond that mindset and to stop thinking of things as small, medium, and large.
00:02:10.719 --> 00:02:17.360
You know, too many times in AV and design, we think of rooms and we think of, well, how many people are going to be in the room and how large is the space?
00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:22.960
And all of a sudden we start designing technology for that size and shape of a room.
00:02:23.120 --> 00:02:25.840
But we haven't even asked, what are people doing in here?
00:02:26.080 --> 00:02:38.800
Because a marketing team is going to use a four-person room way different than an engineering team is, or way different than maybe an executive would be if they brought in their most important customer to have an intimate conversation.
00:02:38.960 --> 00:02:50.560
So those three room types, although they may be the same number of seats and the same footprint within the floor plan, actually need to facilitate much different experiences for the people coming in to use them.
00:02:50.800 --> 00:02:54.960
And, you know, I think many times we design for flexibility, which we need to be flexible.
00:02:55.120 --> 00:03:05.840
We need to be able to rearrange things and we need to have spaces that aren't dedicated to only one purpose, but we should be tilting the scale towards outcomes in those spaces.
00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:16.960
And maybe if you have collaboration or collaboration spaces on a marketing floor, maybe those should be slightly different than the ones that are down in the engineering department or that are up next to the C-suite.
00:03:17.120 --> 00:03:24.719
So one of the ways that I think, you know, we can help as technology designers is we can really start thinking about those very specific outcomes.
00:03:24.879 --> 00:03:32.479
And then what does the experience need to be and what kind of technology would we use, or how would we tweak that slightly differently to get those outcomes?
00:03:32.719 --> 00:03:40.479
And now we're creating spaces that are highly valuable because people go in and those spaces tilt them towards the intended task.
00:03:40.719 --> 00:03:55.599
One of the biggest kind of you know pieces of negative feedback I get about um our current situation is that when many people are remote and some people are in person and we're going back and forth, it's not even so much about the audio quality, the video quality, the collaboration tools anymore.
00:03:55.680 --> 00:04:02.080
We can now see each other, hear each other, and communicate digitally, you know, through a whiteboard app, those things.
00:04:02.159 --> 00:04:03.039
We can do that.
00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:10.240
The main thing is that, you know, when you go into those spaces, that those spaces are vanilla.
00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:14.479
And oh, I could do that same thing from my house, right?
00:04:14.719 --> 00:04:22.800
Or the other piece you see is that when you're doing the remote meetings, there's a stall in the decision or the outcome.
00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:26.319
We get to the end of the meeting and we're all scheduled back to back to back.
00:04:26.399 --> 00:04:27.839
Everybody has to leave.
00:04:28.079 --> 00:04:31.920
And now maybe the next open time on everyone's calendar is two weeks away.
00:04:32.079 --> 00:04:34.000
And now we've delayed that business decision.
00:04:34.160 --> 00:04:41.040
We've slowed down our speed to market, we've slowed down our innovation because we're only reliant on calendars and space in the piece.
00:04:41.120 --> 00:04:45.279
Whereas if everybody's in the room, many times we get to hammer that out, right?
00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:49.040
Especially if the room tilts us in to the task at hand.
00:04:49.199 --> 00:04:57.439
So I think there's all this opportunity around thinking about the outcomes of those spaces and the different experiences that different stakeholders may have when they're doing a meeting like that.
00:04:59.759 --> 00:05:29.199
Well, and so Mark, you and I had also talked about previously, there's this opportunity to look at the workplace as much more of rather than just purely a destination, uh, you could, like you said, in connection to outcomes, think about the spaces that are in between those uh those outcomes of the different collaboration spaces.
00:05:29.439 --> 00:05:38.079
Could and maybe looking at uh the angle at which we approach those spaces from a different uh from a different angle.
00:05:38.240 --> 00:05:39.519
Could you speak to that?
00:05:40.399 --> 00:05:40.639
Yeah.
00:05:40.720 --> 00:05:44.399
So I think you know, when we start to think about workplace, we think about very specific things.
00:05:44.560 --> 00:05:55.199
Well, I need a room to do a meeting, I need a room to do a private phone call, I need a room to do some deep focus work or a desk to do some deep focus work.
00:05:55.439 --> 00:06:02.959
And we really start thinking much more about um very, very specific tasks and the utility of a space, right?
00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:06.879
And so utility is one thing, you know, a pen works, right?
00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:13.920
A you know, a gel pin with a nicer tip might glide better across a piece of paper, right?
00:06:14.160 --> 00:06:16.000
So like you can get utility.
00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:21.439
I I heard uh David Duane, who works for Geniant, a really cool design firm that works focuses on workplace.
00:06:21.519 --> 00:06:28.720
I heard him say this once, you know, he goes, if we think about what works, you know, a semi-trailer with a desk in it can work, right?
00:06:28.879 --> 00:06:30.240
But is it a good experience?
00:06:30.399 --> 00:06:33.519
Does it actually provide the best experience for the person?
00:06:33.759 --> 00:06:43.680
So we think about those individual spaces and we think about what works, but then the other thing we have to think about is the transitions that we have to go through as we're going from task to task.
00:06:43.839 --> 00:07:01.759
So in the in the workplace, we're going through this workflow of maybe we're doing something where we create, we review, we pitch, we uh we collaborate, we we go through a focus work piece of work where we actually have to produce, you know, produce something um individually on our own.
00:07:01.920 --> 00:07:03.839
So we're going through these pieces.
00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:14.959
One of the biggest problems with back-to-back just remote meetings without having different spaces is that many times we're trying to do all of those things from one location, right?
00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:26.560
And there's no demarcation between you having to be creative at 1059 and then you going into an accounting review at 11, right?
00:07:26.800 --> 00:07:28.480
There's no physical transition.
00:07:28.560 --> 00:07:36.399
And we know that humans, you know, a physical transition can denote a mental transition, can give you that space to breathe.
00:07:36.480 --> 00:07:40.720
Like when you walk onto a basketball court, you're getting ready to play a sport, right?
00:07:40.879 --> 00:07:43.199
When you walk into a classroom, you're getting ready to learn.
00:07:43.279 --> 00:07:46.160
When you walk into a concert, you're getting ready to listen to music.
00:07:46.319 --> 00:07:55.360
And that journey from wherever you were at to that place, your body is slowly transitioning between the thing it was just doing and the thing it's about to do, right?
00:07:55.519 --> 00:08:02.560
And the mindset that you need in order to do it, to participate and to be efficient, to be productive comes with that.
00:08:02.720 --> 00:08:07.279
And we don't get that when we sit at one desk all day long and just looking through.
00:08:11.439 --> 00:08:16.319
So, you know, thinking about ways like as you walk through a hallway, you know, what does that need to look like?
00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:21.120
Or if you've ever heard people say five-minute rule, people have five-minute rule when they get home, right?
00:08:21.199 --> 00:08:23.360
Like when you walk in the door, I don't want to hear about problems real quick.
00:08:23.439 --> 00:08:24.560
Just give me the five-minute rule.
00:08:24.639 --> 00:08:30.480
Like, I just need to decompress, I need to adjust to being back home, I need to let things from the work day go.
00:08:30.639 --> 00:08:32.240
And they need that five-minute rule.
00:08:32.399 --> 00:08:36.159
And many times we don't do that in this, in this world of virtual, right?
00:08:36.240 --> 00:08:39.440
And so, and even in the office, if we do things back to back to back.
00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:43.600
So, how are those spaces in between saying, you know what, this person came out of this thing?
00:08:43.759 --> 00:08:50.320
How do we get them back to a neutral state to then allow them to start to transition into whatever the next task and state is?
00:08:50.559 --> 00:09:01.759
And so when you're thinking about hallways, when you're thinking about things like biophilic soundscapes, or you're thinking about spaces that might be uh maybe dampened to just kind of like, ooh, wait, it's kind of, it feels different in here.
00:09:01.840 --> 00:09:11.919
I'm not hearing acoustic echoes, I'm not hearing it's giving me a little bit of zen, or maybe there's a place where there's some ASMR going on, or there's a social space that you can stop at between the two locations.
00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:19.919
Um, those are the type of things that I think about um that help us kind of like get ready for that next task at hand.
00:09:20.000 --> 00:09:28.559
And I think too many times we ignore the hallway, the lobby, the space adjacent to the conference room, what happens right next to the cafe, et cetera, right?
00:09:28.639 --> 00:09:30.879
And those are very important spaces as well.
00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:32.159
Absolutely.
00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:43.200
And the the way you framed it there, I picked up on one word, and it's the idea of a journey, uh, the the the worker or the employee or even the customer journey throughout the day.
00:09:43.360 --> 00:09:51.279
And it's interesting and pretty powerful to think about the idea of, you know, the workplace is not just a destination, it is a person's daily journey.
00:09:51.440 --> 00:09:58.080
And the spaces along that route essentially are what someone will experience every single day.
00:09:58.320 --> 00:10:16.559
And so what I'm curious about is for someone that may be kind of looking at their own spaces from a whole new lens, what would you say from an experiential technology standpoint would be some uh simple steps for an organization to get started?
00:10:17.120 --> 00:10:23.759
Yeah, I mean, I I think it's I think it's thinking about how we're connecting to the human on all the other levels besides the task.
00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:30.320
Gensler put out a really good study pre-pandemic that was about the experience index and why people go to public spaces.
00:10:30.559 --> 00:10:37.120
But really, if you think of work as one of the one of the most frequently visited public spaces, a lot of the tenants hold true, right?
00:10:37.200 --> 00:10:42.399
So when somebody leaves their house to go work at the office, they're not only going to do the task, right?
00:10:42.720 --> 00:10:45.279
They're also going there to have a social experience.
00:10:45.440 --> 00:10:49.440
They're going there for some element of entertainment, they're going there for some element of discovery.
00:10:49.600 --> 00:10:52.080
There's an aspirational goal, there's a social goal.
00:10:52.320 --> 00:10:59.519
All of those things, all of those human motivations are at play all the time because we never stop being human, even as we walk through these spaces.
00:10:59.679 --> 00:11:06.799
So if you think about that and you think about, okay, how could I design a workplace that makes someone feel whole?
00:11:06.960 --> 00:11:10.960
When they come here, they feel like they're being talked to in many different ways.
00:11:11.120 --> 00:11:15.440
And it's not just this chamber where you come to have enhanced productivity, right?
00:11:15.600 --> 00:11:18.320
Or where somebody gets to extract from you.
00:11:18.480 --> 00:11:23.679
You know, it's this place that actually feeds all of those other elements when you go in.
00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:28.320
You know, I don't get a social experience sitting here at my desk when I'm just doing work.
00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:38.320
But if I was able to go to work and maybe something that wasn't as intensive and I could do that work in a work cafe, and people are walking by and I'm getting some kind of social experience that might I might get at a coffee shop.
00:11:38.559 --> 00:11:51.519
But then as I'm walking through the hallway, I'm seeing digital signage that's talking about the importance of the mission of the organization, that's talking about the uh outcomes we provide our customers, the, you know, the things that we provide value to the market in.
00:11:51.679 --> 00:12:06.159
Now all of a sudden, me going to answer 15 IT tickets, which is a pretty tedious task, maybe is softened a little bit by the fact that I know that when I do that, it enables my people here, if I'm a biomed company, to actually help cure cancer, right?
00:12:06.240 --> 00:12:10.159
So now you're connecting mission to someone who's going through that space.
00:12:10.320 --> 00:12:24.320
Maybe it gives them access to as they're walking through, you make sure that your workplace is um is arranged in a way that everyone gets to go by where the executives sit as they come to one of their common hoteling spaces.
00:12:24.480 --> 00:12:29.360
And now you get access to mentorship or open hours or any of those things that you automatically walk through.
00:12:29.519 --> 00:12:37.919
Maybe it wasn't in your mind, but now you can go sit down and maybe talk about your aspirational goals, where you want to go, what kind of professional development you need, et cetera.
00:12:38.159 --> 00:12:44.639
Um and then so all of those things that we're talking about, right, um, are really, really important.
00:12:44.720 --> 00:12:53.279
And wellness, you know, the wellness piece where we can create these escape rooms where people can go and decompress, or maybe they can go in and sit in a bath of certain light and pick a soundtrack.
00:12:53.360 --> 00:12:57.679
And instead of just having, you know, a lot of companies have mothers' rooms, which are very important, right?
00:12:57.840 --> 00:13:09.360
Maybe we actually have to have some rooms that are wellness and not just these privacy rooms, but places where people can go to decompress from hard tasks or from a difficult meeting or from a challenging customer interaction.
00:13:09.519 --> 00:13:17.279
Instead of letting that color the next interaction they have with a customer or an employee, we give them space to breathe and do those things, right?
00:13:17.360 --> 00:13:21.919
And so I think there's so many areas we can use technology to do some of that.
00:13:22.080 --> 00:13:28.799
And I think it's really just thinking about what are my people doing throughout the day as they move from task to task?
00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:31.440
What do they need in order to be ready to get to those tasks?
00:13:31.600 --> 00:13:43.440
And what are the challenges and other needs outside of work that I could feed here so that when people come here, I'm I'm uh honoring them as a full person and not just as a resource.
00:13:43.600 --> 00:13:45.679
That's why I hate the term human resources, honestly.
00:13:45.759 --> 00:13:57.360
I think it should be human assets or something else, but but not just a resource that I'm extracting work from, but something that I'm actually feeding as well in more ways than just giving them a paycheck.
00:13:57.919 --> 00:14:21.840
What would be a few, and I think you touched on this a little bit earlier in our conversation uh briefly, but you know, what are some human-centric or employee-centric, you know, scenarios where you see the immersive technology uh coming into play and really like transforming engagement and that well-being of the person that comes in and does that day-to-day uh work that you described?
00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:29.919
Yeah, I mean, some really I'll just I'll just talk to some really interesting ideas, applications that I've seen because I think sometimes examples speak more than theory, right?
00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:30.559
In a way.
00:14:30.799 --> 00:14:39.039
So, you know, when I was, I was uh, you know, I was listening to someone talk about uh a film company where people have to go into editing bays.
00:14:39.279 --> 00:14:53.440
And if you've ever done video editing, which you do with this podcast, obviously, you know, matching everything up, finding the markers, especially if you're recording voice and video separately, and then having to match tracks and do all these things or go back and know where you need to cut, where you need to transition.
00:14:53.679 --> 00:14:55.200
That's a tedious work, right?
00:14:55.279 --> 00:15:01.519
Like the Oscars for film editing, like those people earned every ounce of gold in that statue for sure, right?
00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:02.960
Because that's some tedious work.
00:15:03.200 --> 00:15:08.799
So, you know, they were using um clips of movies and the awards they won and everything else to line these hallways.
00:15:08.879 --> 00:15:17.200
So as you walk down these editing bays, you got a sense of gravity, a sense of purpose, a sense of the type of work that was done here, the excellence that this organization pursued.
00:15:17.519 --> 00:15:22.720
And that could fuel, you know, this tedious task that you went in to do in a way.
00:15:22.879 --> 00:15:26.799
So I think I thought that was a really, really interesting way to do that.
00:15:26.960 --> 00:15:29.679
Um, we talk about surprise and delight, right?
00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:35.600
Like in the world, we like to like I talked about discovery, entertainment, those other human needs, surprise and delight in the workplace.
00:15:35.840 --> 00:15:50.799
You know, what if you walked into a company library where they're, you know, you're sitting there and you're doing some work, but if you picked up an artifact or you picked up something historic about the business, you were, you were given a story, or you were given some type of Easter egg of of information that like was like, oh, that was kind of cool.
00:15:50.960 --> 00:16:02.879
I didn't know that about what we do, or hey, that I didn't know that we were tied to this, you know, famous, you know, philosopher and the way that we did our mission when we wrote our charter as a company or any of those kind of things, right?
00:16:02.960 --> 00:16:09.840
And so, you know, having places that can spur that exploration, the, the playfulness, the gamifying things.
00:16:10.000 --> 00:16:12.399
You know, as humans, we like to explore and discover.
00:16:12.559 --> 00:16:14.000
We're good at pattern recognition.
00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:15.679
We like solving puzzles.
00:16:15.919 --> 00:16:20.559
Like these are all really cool things that we can build into office spaces.
00:16:20.639 --> 00:16:25.279
They need they may they may seem extravagant or superfluous or whatever.
00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:34.559
Like if you, but if we're really thinking about the way that people work and what motivates them, those are really cool ways that like we can start to build technology into spaces to do things like that.
00:16:34.720 --> 00:16:40.080
And I think it's I don't think uh moving forward, it's gonna be something that is rare.
00:16:40.320 --> 00:16:46.879
I think we're going to see more and more companies embrace this kind of workplace that meets all those human needs.
00:16:48.240 --> 00:17:03.759
Well, and it speaks all of all of those examples that you just shared really speak to the idea that we are humans and we uh do have those feelings and emotions that really guide us throughout our day.
00:17:03.919 --> 00:17:11.519
And so ultimately, we want people to be happy when they enter into the workplace and get through that day and then exit.
00:17:11.680 --> 00:17:13.759
They want to feel good about what they've done.
00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:33.440
And sometimes, like you said earlier, you are gonna need some like uh spaces where you need a little time, and then there'll be other times and spaces where it's gonna be good to be able to experience uh that historical artifact from the organization to help uh you remind you essentially, like, oh yeah, this is what I'm doing all of this for.
00:17:33.599 --> 00:17:41.200
Um, so I think those examples like really paint a vivid picture of how you know tech can support employees on that human level.
00:17:41.359 --> 00:17:51.200
Um, but a lot of these same principles, emotion, personalization, and you know, elevating that atmosphere could also apply to the customer as well.
00:17:51.440 --> 00:17:59.839
Where do you see uh immersive and experiential technology really making a meaningful impact on the customer journey?
00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:10.960
Yeah, and I I love this topic because you know, I think it's it's so important when we think about these spaces, that these spaces are employee-facing, but they're also customer-facing spaces.
00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:12.319
Um, they're assets.
00:18:12.400 --> 00:18:15.279
Uh often I refer to them as revenue generating space.
00:18:15.440 --> 00:18:21.440
You know, if you can get a customer on an airplane to come to your office and they sign a deal with your company, what what is the impact of that?
00:18:21.759 --> 00:18:35.440
Um, and what is the opportunity cost of someone leaving and not understanding uh what you do, what the goal was, what the next step is, what the action item is, or not having an emotional connection to your brand or to your product or service.
00:18:35.759 --> 00:18:38.480
And that's a huge thing for businesses, right?
00:18:38.559 --> 00:18:43.519
If we're gonna, if we're going to invest in space, uh we need to think about all the ways that we can use that.
00:18:43.680 --> 00:19:01.039
So from a customer journey perspective, I always say, you know, many times we hear people say, I want wow factor, you know, I want this big, you know, monolithic thing in the lobby that catches everybody's attention and and, you know, hits them right away with this energizing, you know, compelling message.
00:19:01.359 --> 00:19:04.559
And maybe sometimes that is exactly what you need.
00:19:04.799 --> 00:19:15.759
Um, but what I always say is, you know, what we want to do is we want to make sure that we're we are thinking about where people just came from, what they may have done, and how do we get them in a state that's ready to absorb that?
00:19:15.920 --> 00:19:28.880
Because if somebody's still kind of in fight or flight mode, if they're under a little bit of stress, they've been running around, they were late, they were in a cab, they got off an airplane, they ran right from your place, trying to figure out where to put their suitcase in your lobby so it doesn't get lost, all of those things, right?
00:19:29.039 --> 00:19:34.160
It might not be the best time to hit them with loud audio and huge visuals, right?
00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:48.640
There might need to be some kind of moment of welcome, reassurance, build trust, um, and then create some foreshadowing towards this big moment to get some excitement going before you go on the journey of the rest of the meeting, right?
00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:57.920
So you have to kind of think of what that customer journey is and how you get everybody to a common platform so that when you do deliver that message, that it's received well, right?
00:19:58.000 --> 00:20:03.359
People, people receive information better uh in rest and digest, right?
00:20:03.440 --> 00:20:12.079
So fight or flight gets somebody's attention, but then we need to get them into a mode where they're in a we're in a place where they actually can remember specific details, actions, and things like that.
00:20:12.160 --> 00:20:13.519
And when we're in fight or flight, we don't.
00:20:13.599 --> 00:20:14.880
We're reacting to stimuli.
00:20:15.440 --> 00:20:20.000
That's a good place where you get somebody's heart rate up, get them excited, create an emotional anchor.
00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:28.480
But then you have to transition them into a space that's a little more calm and safe to deliver the thing you really want them to remember and hold on to.
00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:32.160
The thing, so I always say we have to go from wow to woe.
00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:38.079
We have to go from that's really cool to, oh, I need to do something about that.
00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:46.160
And when we can take somebody from wow to woe, now we've got a workspace, we've got a customer experience center that really takes somebody through that journey.
00:20:46.319 --> 00:20:51.119
And we have some great creative partners that we work with that talk about chapters in these journeys, et cetera.
00:20:51.279 --> 00:20:54.000
Um, we just went to an EBC uh on our retreat.
00:20:54.079 --> 00:21:04.400
We were at a summit this week, and we just went to an EBC where the, you know, they're they make human genomic equipment, you know, they make sequencers and and uh flow cells for doing DNA testing.
00:21:04.559 --> 00:21:06.880
Um, and the customers that they face are wide.
00:21:06.960 --> 00:21:17.119
You know, they they have um oncologists and medical uh practitioners that come in who are using the genome to like to create biomarkers for customized cancer treatments and things like that.
00:21:17.200 --> 00:21:27.519
Um, they have people that are coming in that are are um regulators who are regulating medical equipment, data privacy, all those things, and they have to tell them why this is important.
00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:35.359
They have insurance companies coming in because most insurance companies won't pay for your genome to be done, although that might shortcut your medical treatment.
00:21:35.440 --> 00:21:43.680
And so, how do we get legislators, regulators, insurance companies to understand that this actually saves them money long term and actually saves lives long term?
00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:54.240
So they have this amazing experience center where you come in and you it actually the building itself kind of is a wide in the beginning and it narrows you down through this chapter.
00:21:54.480 --> 00:21:58.720
And so it goes from what is genomics, why is it important?
00:21:58.799 --> 00:21:59.759
and it goes into this circle.
00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:08.160
Where people are telling stories about how their biomarkers actually got them to be able to survive stage four cancer without getting killed by the chemotherapy along the way.
00:22:08.400 --> 00:22:17.519
Or, you know, and then it goes back down into the end, where then it's actually the sequencers, the products, and how they actually then facilitate all this big story that you were just in.
00:22:17.680 --> 00:22:34.240
So you have this nice introduction, welcome moment, calming into an intimate space with an emotional hook, into some self-exploration to explore things on your own, and then into what does this company actually do to participate in that story and why it was what we do here very important.
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:41.519
And then they have social spaces, they have indoor, outdoor dining, and then they have discrete meeting spaces to talk about very specific things up on other things.
00:22:41.599 --> 00:22:45.440
But throughout the the uh the environment, they keep echoing.
00:22:45.599 --> 00:22:50.559
So if you go to the bathroom, there's a mural on the wall and it's Morse code and there's a key there.
00:22:50.720 --> 00:22:59.440
And if you want to read that, it might have a famous saying by a philosopher, or it may have some quote by a historic figure that's that's relevant to what they're doing in their space.
00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:10.319
And so everywhere they're reinforcing this idea of the code, the code, the code, and how we decode it and how what once you get decoded, you get relevant information that's really cool.
00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:10.720
Right.
00:23:10.799 --> 00:23:17.279
And so every little touch is very well thought out, and everything you do in there leads into this story.
00:23:17.519 --> 00:23:22.079
And so when I'm thinking about spaces like that, like how are companies looking at who their customers are?
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:24.480
What are those personas, just like marketing would do?
00:23:24.559 --> 00:23:26.480
What are the personas of the people that come in here?
00:23:26.559 --> 00:23:28.720
And what do we want those people to do when they leave?
00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:30.480
We need actionable insight.
00:23:30.640 --> 00:23:37.839
How do we leave them on this elevated plane of what's possible with that piece of actionable insight that they remember to go on their way?
00:23:37.920 --> 00:23:43.200
And the way that we design spaces and you use technology can go a long way to tell that story.
00:23:43.599 --> 00:23:52.480
That that example is one extremely well thought out way of approaching uh the different aspects of that medical journey in itself.
00:23:52.720 --> 00:24:23.599
Um, one of the things, and you kind of alluded to this uh as you're wrapping up, but I am curious because everything is so well thought out, because there it does seem to just from our conversation, it might be very intricate in how we uh portray all of these different types of stories for the many different people that may be coming in out of and out of the workplace or into uh a medical facility or uh uh an another uh entertainment type environment.
00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:42.000
How do you build out essentially that personalized track of I'm gonna just speak to it plainly, uh video wall immersive uh lighting experience that specific to a person?
00:24:42.880 --> 00:24:43.440
Yeah.
00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:46.880
So I think I think what we have to do is we have to allow for this, right?
00:24:47.039 --> 00:25:00.960
Where we know that that journey is gonna be uh like every person who comes through there, whether I get them to neutral or not, everybody has their own um their own sensory capabilities, limitations, maybe sensitivities, they're all those things, right?
00:25:01.200 --> 00:25:10.240
Um, I think I think if you're thinking of principles um in this, I think you want to create moments that are big and wow, I think you want to create moments that are quiet.
00:25:10.400 --> 00:25:16.720
You want to create scripted moments where you have short, punchy information that doesn't require a long attention span.
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:26.799
And you want to have places where if somebody wants to be a student where you give them agency and time to potentially explore technology on their own, touch screens, maybe artifacts, objects that they can pick up.
00:25:26.960 --> 00:25:36.240
Um, I think, like I mentioned with like the decoding at the bathrooms and things like that, like those are spaces when you have your own time and you're walking through and you may choose or not choose to absorb that piece of information.
00:25:36.319 --> 00:25:37.039
And it's okay.
00:25:37.200 --> 00:25:38.799
You don't have to absorb everything, right?
00:25:38.880 --> 00:25:40.799
You still get the basis of the journey.
00:25:40.960 --> 00:25:48.319
Um, I think for you know, neurodivergent people that may be overwhelmed, you know, not every moment can be in a in an immersive theater, right?
00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:56.480
Because you're not going to get that um rest and digest moment with them ever because they respond to stimuli different than maybe someone else does, right?
00:25:56.640 --> 00:26:00.960
And so I think the contrast between the way that we use the technologies.
00:26:01.039 --> 00:26:07.119
Um, Joe Whitesides, our director of creative technology, one of his favorite ideas is to just walk people through a dampened hallway.
00:26:07.279 --> 00:26:19.440
So if you took something and made it completely acoustically absorptive and you can't even hear your footprints, all of a sudden you haven't done anything, but you've you've used auditory to create some kind of sense of, oh, something just happened here.
00:26:19.680 --> 00:26:21.279
It's dead quiet, right?
00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:28.559
It's just dampened and quiet, and you walk through and it makes somebody notice the lack of anything going on.
00:26:28.799 --> 00:26:32.400
And maybe that's what you need before you go into another space, right?
00:26:32.559 --> 00:26:35.279
So I think there are ways that we can play with technology subtly.
00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:41.519
I had uh someone else talk about we have this huge window, and this huge window overlooks the San Francisco Bay.
00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:43.279
And I don't want to use technology in this room.
00:26:43.359 --> 00:26:54.960
I've got this great portrait window, but I don't know, you know, how to augment that space and said, well, what if you did something where as you approached the window, you actually started hearing sounds of the harbor?
00:26:55.200 --> 00:26:59.519
You're using AI-generated harborscape that you can hear a tugboat or you can hear seagull start.
00:26:59.680 --> 00:27:05.519
And as you get closer and closer, those things start to beckon you right towards the window to do this thing, right?
00:27:05.599 --> 00:27:07.359
So, and to look out and see all that.
00:27:07.519 --> 00:27:17.599
So I think there are ways that we can subtly use technology, and not everything has to be, you know, uh LED screen, you know, four feet from your face at 20 feet tall.
00:27:17.839 --> 00:27:22.000
Technology can be used in a lot of these ways or putting physical artifacts in somebody's hands.
00:27:22.079 --> 00:27:24.240
I love, I love that idea, an object theater.
00:27:24.400 --> 00:27:35.039
I can pick things up and interact with the room, and I might get a story, whether that's audible, whether that's video, or maybe even that's something that when I pick it up, it go talks to an app on my phone and it just catalogs that for later.
00:27:35.200 --> 00:27:39.440
Um, whereas I manipulate it in real 3D space, a model manipulates.
00:27:39.519 --> 00:27:43.039
And so now I'm playing with something with my hands, articulating it.
00:27:43.119 --> 00:27:47.200
And if that's actually articulating the digital version of that for me to learn about it.
00:27:47.359 --> 00:27:51.440
Um, so I'm not just swiping, pushing, swiping, pushing like I always do.
00:27:51.599 --> 00:27:56.720
So novelty, contrast, um, variation, right?
00:27:57.119 --> 00:28:04.000
And I think all of those things are really, really important when we're talking about technology design, whether it be workplace experience or customer experience.
00:28:04.160 --> 00:28:12.960
So I think we have to think about the way we design content, where things are at, what they're adjacent to, who's actually going to be absorbing that passively versus actively.
00:28:13.119 --> 00:28:16.079
Like, and we have to think about all those things and make decisions.
00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:29.119
And so, you know, it's it's it's a complicated issue, but it has a lot of simple solutions, especially if you can break down the problem like we're kind of doing through like a customer journey, personas, who's using it, what's doing it.
00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:33.200
If we've apply all those filters, the answers start to become very obvious, right?
00:28:33.359 --> 00:28:41.759
And it's just working with somebody that's able to help you break down that problem and then uh introduce the solutions that we think best fit that scenario.
00:28:42.640 --> 00:28:56.480
Just to touch on that, that persona journey aspect, it seems like it uh obviously it's kind of tailored into uh its very own unique experience that you'd separate out amongst other personas.
00:28:57.039 --> 00:29:20.000
And so I'm curious, you know, with those with those different aspects, building out the the journey aspect that some organizations may have going throughout the the workplace, you know, can our XTG team support them by helping craft, say, uh or deploy uh a holistic yet tailored solution?
00:29:20.319 --> 00:29:20.640
Yeah.
00:29:20.799 --> 00:29:27.039
So I I think when you think about this from uh from again, zooming out sometimes is the best way to approach some of these problems, right?
00:29:27.440 --> 00:29:38.400
So um we zoom out a little bit and we say, okay, we're going to have, we're going to have several personas that come through the space, and there may be different messaging that appeals to those personas, we need to make sure that we have that.
00:29:38.559 --> 00:29:46.160
Um, we also know that content is expensive, and we can't make a very specific piece of content for every single person that comes in here because it's unsustainable.
00:29:46.319 --> 00:29:50.000
And as the story changes, we'd have to recreate those assets over and over and over again.
00:29:50.079 --> 00:29:54.319
And that's when experiences become irrelevant, is when they're not contextual anymore.
00:29:54.480 --> 00:30:10.400
And so if you don't have a plan to refresh that content as the business's goal changes, the macro uh economic environment it changes, the world changes, it does every day, then you'd risk losing the impact, right, of what you've done.
00:30:10.720 --> 00:30:16.000
So if you think about that, what you want to do is you want to make sure you have a robust like content management system.
00:30:16.160 --> 00:30:18.319
How are we loading new files and new assets in?
00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:20.160
Is it something I have to hire a creative firm for?
00:30:20.319 --> 00:30:22.240
Is it something that we can manage internally?
00:30:22.480 --> 00:30:27.680
Are those assets custom aspect ratios or custom files or are they standard file types?
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:37.359
Um, if I do have custom aspect ratios, let's say I have these really long format walls because I don't want everything to be a 16-9 rectangle, because that's formulaic and boring.
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:38.079
Great.
00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:45.359
Um, if you have that, you know, if you have a long curved one and a long straight one, maybe those two are the same aspect ratio, even though they're in slightly different formats.
00:30:45.599 --> 00:31:00.160
One may be 20 feet long, one may be 10, but if they're both in a 32, nine aspect ratio, that piece of content can easily scale up and down between the large wall and the small wall without having to re-render it, crop it, finish it, reproduce it, do a lot of post-production, et cetera, right?
00:31:00.240 --> 00:31:18.640
So how do we, even if we're not doing extremely standard things, how do we create platforms, whether it be a CMS, whether it we be a way that we uh uh a set of best practices in how we do aspect ratios and content and file sizes and file types, resolutions.
00:31:18.799 --> 00:31:25.359
So we create a platform, a set of standards within the organization that we can utilize that we all know so we can get the most out of these things.
00:31:25.519 --> 00:31:30.240
Also, the other thing is is the AI is a huge push or a huge helper in this, right?
00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:46.720
So if I have um an idea of personas and I've built these out, you know, I can I can badge someone, you know, and if they come through the piece and they're in a room and their NFC tag, scanned in when they came through the room, we know who's in the room, we know what the persona, the CMS system plays relevant messaging to the person standing in the room.
00:31:46.880 --> 00:31:58.400
Um, that takes a lot of the a lot of the headache out of, you know, having to try to curate that on the fly or pick the right files or or rely on, you know, uh physical staff to have to touch and know how to do everything.
00:31:58.559 --> 00:32:00.480
Um, also in generative content.
00:32:00.720 --> 00:32:05.279
So, you know, a lot of places where we just want ambient content, like we're talking about the wellness areas earlier.
00:32:05.359 --> 00:32:12.079
I could spend a lot of money going and filming the redwood forest and creating custom content for a 3D immersive room.
00:32:12.400 --> 00:32:17.440
Or I could say, hey, I want, I want to have four or five sliders based on mood.
00:32:17.519 --> 00:32:19.279
I'm I'm feeling stressed.
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:20.559
I like blues and greens.
00:32:20.640 --> 00:32:26.640
I usually go to the ocean when I go on vacation and I love the smell of pine trees.
00:32:26.720 --> 00:32:33.680
And they move those sliders, and now those sliders create generative AI content that mimics those parameters that you've set up, right?
00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:36.880
And now you're not producing 18 different pieces for 18 personas.
00:32:37.359 --> 00:32:41.759
You've created a an AI-based engine that can then generate content like that.
00:32:41.920 --> 00:32:44.720
And we'll see that in lobbies and things of that nature as well, right?
00:32:44.799 --> 00:32:48.480
They may react to the number of people there, they may react to the weather or the rain.
00:32:48.720 --> 00:32:59.519
Um I had one company that wanted to create a piece of generative content that every time they put a new product off the line, they wanted a new piece of the art to be completed, like a new brushstroke went on.
00:32:59.680 --> 00:33:06.000
So this piece of art was going to take multiple years to actually manifest because it was based on their production run rates, et cetera.
00:33:06.079 --> 00:33:06.319
Right.
00:33:06.480 --> 00:33:09.759
So those kind of ideas are really cool and they take some of the lift off.
00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:23.279
There's a little bit of money in the beginning in investing in something that's using sensor data to create generative content, a little more expensive than one piece of content, but definitely way less expensive than a hundred pieces of content over five years, right?
00:33:23.839 --> 00:33:27.279
And so I think we're we're seeing a lot of that in that as well.
00:33:27.519 --> 00:33:37.440
And so, and with the ability to do things like Unreal Engine and some of these 3D platforms that are accessible now, creating um digitized digital content, computer aided content.
00:33:37.519 --> 00:33:47.279
We know Midjourney, Sora, all these AI, you know, image generators, we can use those as launch pads to create stuff that is very relevant to the business and that's working better and better every single day.
00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:54.480
So I would say for firms you know that are thinking about this, it's it's all about creating the platform in the back end.
00:33:54.559 --> 00:33:56.319
Well, how much of it do you want to own?
00:33:56.880 --> 00:33:58.000
What do you want to manage?
00:33:58.160 --> 00:33:59.359
What do you want to support?
00:33:59.519 --> 00:34:00.480
What do you want to own?
00:34:00.559 --> 00:34:04.559
And then building something, working with someone to build something that mirrors that.
00:34:04.720 --> 00:34:06.160
Some people want it completely hosted.
00:34:06.240 --> 00:34:07.359
I'm gonna have a content company.
00:34:07.440 --> 00:34:10.239
We already have a marketing budget, we're gonna do quarterly refreshes.
00:34:10.400 --> 00:34:11.920
Our marketing team produces content.
00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:21.280
We use our creative partner to format it, create, or and we have an on-site managed service person that sits here and does all the tours that are in our space anytime a customer comes through.
00:34:21.519 --> 00:34:22.719
Great, that's one way to do it.
00:34:22.800 --> 00:34:25.199
And if you have that in your organization, you can do that.
00:34:25.360 --> 00:34:33.119
And maybe in that one, you don't uh you don't have to uh set it up exactly the way you want to, or the way that I talked about.
00:34:33.280 --> 00:34:40.320
But it is really understanding how much of that cycle you want to own and support, and then building the technology that supports that.
00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:44.559
And that's that's the art sometimes of of what a team like ours does.
00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:50.639
Well, Mark, I'll just say first off, thank you so much for uh joining me today.
00:34:51.039 --> 00:35:01.920
This has been an incredibly insightful discussion about just the different variations and the ways that we can impact uh people in the workplace.
00:35:02.000 --> 00:35:10.320
Um and it's very clear to me that uh experiential technology, like you kind of said earlier, it's it's not just about the wow factor.
00:35:10.400 --> 00:35:13.519
Sometimes it's you know, you definitely, like you said, it's the woe factor.
00:35:13.760 --> 00:35:24.719
And um, you know, it can be used to create more human, purposeful content in the workplace, um, you know, from supporting employee well-being to enhancing the customer journey.
00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:27.360
Um, you know, I'm I just keep thinking about it.
00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:35.199
And I'm like, these experiences have the power to transform how people feel and work where and about where they work uh on a daily basis.
00:35:35.280 --> 00:35:40.000
It's been uh a very big uh eye-opener for for me here.
00:35:40.079 --> 00:35:42.960
Uh I just want to say thank you again for chatting with me today.
00:35:43.280 --> 00:35:44.480
Yeah, I I agree.
00:35:44.639 --> 00:35:45.599
Thank you so much for having me.
00:35:45.679 --> 00:35:59.519
And I just I'd leave everybody with this like, imagine if the workplace was somebody that was a place that people were like, man, I really need to get out of my home office and get into work because I feel so much better when I come back from there than when I sit here all day at my desk.
00:35:59.679 --> 00:36:06.239
I mean, that is an aspirational goal that I think Experiential Workplace is is capable of providing.
00:36:06.400 --> 00:36:09.599
And uh, you know, maybe a North Star that we all think about.
00:36:10.000 --> 00:36:11.119
Absolutely.
00:36:11.360 --> 00:36:15.840
Um to everyone watching and listening, thank you for joining us today.
00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:20.400
Don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode.
00:36:20.639 --> 00:36:28.480
If you prefer the audio version of this podcast, just search for the collaboration space on your favorite podcast app.
00:36:28.800 --> 00:36:31.119
Thanks again, and goodbye for now.
00:36:31.440 --> 00:36:36.880
For more information, visit avispl.com slash XTG.
