How to Improve Brain Health with VR - Amir Bozorgzadeh

In today's episode I chat with Amir Bozorgzadeh, a market researcher, games publisher, and tech writer, currently working at the intersection of frontier tech and social impact.

He is also the Co-Founder & CEO of Virtuleap, a Lisbon-based organization that combines neuroscience and virtual reality to help increase attention levels, and address cognitive illnesses, disorders, and learning challenges. They've created a library of VR games designed by neuroscientists in order to test and train a range of cognitive abilities and make that data accessible through our enterprise platform. And they're working with leading institutions like Roche, the VA Health Care System and MIT to validate their solution as an effective diagnostic and treatment for attention deficit and cognitive decline.

It's interesting stuff. And over the cause of nearly an hour, Amir and I geeked out on the applications and use cases for virtuleap's technology, what the organization has learned as a result of the pandemic, and how virtual reality may hold the key to improving brain health globally.

It's always such a pleasure connecting with smart, purpose-minded leaders with Amir... and I hope you enjoy it. 


Amir Bozargzadeh

Amir is cofounder and CEO at Virtuleap, a VR startup that unlocks neuroscience in order to detect and delay the early onset of cognitive illnesses like Alzheimer’s. Previous to Virtuleap, Amir founded Gameguise, a mobile games studio based in Dubai, and Time Dirham, the first social impact startup to introduce time banking to the Middle East. 

He is an alumni of York University and THNK School of Creative Leadership. Amir has previously contributed to tech blogs like VentureBeat and Tech Crunch on the topics of emerging tech, spatial computing, and startup ecosystems.

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Constraints drive innovation. We tackle the most complex issues related to work & culture. And if you enjoy the work we’re doing here, consider giving us a 5-star rating, leaving a comment & subscribing. It ensures you get updated whenever we release new content & really helps amplify our message.

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Matt Burns

Matt Burns is an award-winning executive, social entrepreneur and speaker. He believes in the power of community, simplicity & technology.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Guest 1: The B2B use cases are extremely mainstream. The FDA created its own category, a category, extended medical reality. A couple years ago, because of applied VR in particular, showing that the pain receptors in the brain were dampening because we're not designed to live in two realities at once. This is the first embodied digital [00:00:20] format.

So when it comes to those use cases, you're not gonna see VR go away anymore. But for b2, It's still like a cowboy. Wild, wild west. Country[00:00:40] 

[00:00:42] Matt: Constraints drive innovation. Hey everyone, it's Matt here for another episode of Thinking Inside the Box, a show where we discuss complex issues related to work and culture. If you're interested in checking out our other content, you can find us@bentohr.com and wherever you find your favorite [00:01:00] podcasts.

By searching, thinking inside the box, and if you enjoy the work we're doing here. Consider leaving us a five star rating, a comment and subscribing. It ensures you get updated whenever we release new content and really helps amplify our message. In today's episode, I chat with Amir Bozos [00:01:20] today. Market researcher, games publisher and tech writer currently working at the intersection of Frontier Tech and Social Impact.

He's also the co-founder and CEO of Virtual Leap, an organization that combines neuroscience and virtual reality to help increase attention levels and address cognitive illnesses, [00:01:40] disorders, and learning challenges. They've also created a library, a virtuality games designed by neuroscientists in order to test and train a range of cognitive abilities and make that data accessible.

They're working with leading organizations like Roche and the VA healthcare system, along with MIT [00:02:00] to validate their solution as an effective diagnostic and treatment for things like attention deficit and cognitive. It's really fascinating stuff. And over the course of nearly an hour, Amir and I geeked out on the applications and use cases of virtual leaps technology, what the organization has [00:02:20] learned as a result of the pandemic, and how virtual reality may hold the key to improving brain health globally.

It's always such a pleasure connecting with smart purpose mind leaders like Amir, and I hope you enjoy it. And now I bring you Amir Bo. 

[00:02:39] Guest 1: Mayor, how's it [00:02:40] going? Really happy to be with you here on Matt. 

[00:02:42] Matt: Yeah, it's gonna be good. I think we're gonna have a good conversation today and I'm looking forward to, uh, you know, just getting into a topic that I've been spending a lot more time on the podcast discussing, which is XR in general, but I think we're gonna go a bunch of different directions with that topic, so I'm excited to get in today's conversation.

Before we do that, we'd love [00:03:00] to learn a bit more about you, your background, your experiences, and what led you to. 

[00:03:03] Guest 1: Yeah, so I was super happy or surprised to see that you are in my hometown of Vancouver. I grew up in, in British Columbia. Got into, uh, market research, quantitative studies right from the get go.

Moved into, um, games publishing. Funny enough, [00:03:20] during the. The, the first recession, I'm not sure if we're in one right now. Uh, in 2008, 2009, I, um, became a pretty prolific writer about VR and specifically on tech blogs like Venture Bead and, and Tech Run during the, the hype period of 2015, uh, onwards. And then around [00:03:40] 2018, I launched my, my Startup in the Space Virtual Leap, which is all about the intersection of the neurosciences with this next generation of spatial.

[00:03:49] Matt: We're gonna have an awesome conversation. I'm super excited. And for those, uh, who didn't get a chance, a little bit of inside baseball before we had a chance to hit record, we were just discussing kind of our experiences. And aside from the [00:04:00] Vancouver connection, there's other connection around the Global HR Summit and our work in VR as well.

So we're gonna be able to talk a lot about our shared experiences and some of the things we've seen over the last several years. I, I think before we get to the latest trends, it would be super helpful talk a bit about where we've come from, so, You mentioned it starting out [00:04:20] in 2015, writing for TechCrunch Venture Beat those, those types of organizations.

Talking about the XR market, what was it like in 2015? 

[00:04:29] Guest 1: Well, back then, you know, virtual reality was only, well, at least from journalist point of view, a lot of the media, they were positioning it as a gaming device. So anything that was like [00:04:40] serious use cases, healthcare, education, anything that you see right now as being really, really taken very seriously.

Back then, it wasn't so much. You know, a lot of the universities, uh, hospitals, clinicians, uh, all sorts of very, very serious research oriented, science driven use cases, in which [00:05:00] I believe virtual reality has always been positioned to shine the brightest. They were kind of ignored. Instead, it was all about escapism, entertainment and the, you know, the forecasts were wild.

People were like in two years X hundreds of millions of users. It was all sensationalism and hype driven, and at that time I wasn't very, [00:05:20] Very popular because I was, wasn't really following that tune. I was very much, you know, interested in how does VR take things to the next level when it comes to, you know, traumatic brain injury and, and cognitive behavioral modification of, of, you know, uh, alcohol abuse, these kind of use cases.

And so when things didn't go in the direction the [00:05:40] media said, which is about 2017 ish, uh, almost 2018, then they started saying VR is, You know, cause all, it's either, either, it's a, it's a gaming device, uh, play and it's only for escapism and entertainment and for shooting zombies in, in, you know, six degrees of freedom.

Or [00:06:00] nothing. And, uh, at that point, you know, I, um, a lot of, a lot of companies, uh, died out. I have a lot of skeletons around me from that time. Uh, we, we were, we went into cockroach mode and, and survived throughout this period. I can 

[00:06:12] Matt: relate to that, uh, as kinda a lot of entrepreneurs during the years leading into and coming out of the pandemic.

I think you're right, [00:06:20] uh, one of the great privileges. Our experience in virtual reality, uh, was our opening keynote being delivered by Tom Ness, who invented the technology 50 plus years ago. And the use case then was, Virtual cockpits for the US Air Force so they could teach pilots how to undertake missions without having to lose [00:06:40] pilots and or aircraft.

And he expressed to me multiple times during the process and then again in his keynote, just his strong desire to have the legacy of his contribution to the world not be limited to that. And he spent the majority of his last 10 years working really in the [00:07:00] educational. And trying to provide access to the tool to children of all ages, some as young as 10, 11 years old, and having them work with virtual reality in a similar mechanism to how some people's kids might play with Minecraft today.

Where people are building worlds in the way my generation built science fair projects with, you know, [00:07:20] cardboard, paper, and, you know, physical models and took them to the gym and showed your parents nowadays. You're building digital worlds in Unity or other types of VR applications, and you're showing your friends about the pyramids of Egypt and the Pharaohs and just the amount of immersion, just incredible.

But I, [00:07:40] what I, what I get excited about from educational perspective is most of us can understand that one of the best ways to learn is to teach. And now we're activating completely different parts of the brain, and we're looking at education in a completely different way. And, you know, I grew up in a, in a, in a paradigm that most of us did, where education looked a lot like, you know, lectures and recitation [00:08:00] and memorization, and not the way the human mind works and not the way that we are wired to ingest information and certainly not how we intend to apply it.

I'm curious. Back then, was the sciences strong around the use cases for things like education and healthcare? Was it just hidden [00:08:20] or was it stuff that we just really weren't paying attention to 

[00:08:22] Guest 1: at all? Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Tom Fairness, and then you, you have to look at OGs like, uh, you know, Albert, skip Rizzo of ucla.

You have to look at, you know, um, a lot of the people at. At various, uh, institutes from the eighties, from the nineties, uh, from the [00:08:40] early two thousands. You know, you have to look back even, uh, before that where, you know, Terrence McKenna and Timothy Leary were talking about this, you know, new dimension of, of activity out there.

Uh, there's about, you know, I can't haven't counted it myself, um, but Brennan Spiegel of Cedar Sinai, another. [00:09:00] Pioneer and communicator of the very serious use cases of VR healthcare particularly. He wrote that and published that book, VRX, um, I think a couple years ago now. Time flies, uh, when you're in a pandemic.

Uh, and, and he mentions like 8,000 plus studies. I at least it's plus 5,000 and it's all around the world. You see tons coming outta [00:09:20] China and Asia. You see tons coming out of Europe, uh, north America of course, and they overlap quite a bit, but they're typically inaccessible to a lot of us cuz we're not following, you know, the, the research, uh, pipeline of what studies are coming out.

And we actually miss out that. In 2005, there were like eight articles on this particular area, just [00:09:40] on education. So I guess to answer your point, is it's, it's a, it's something that when you start looking, you see so much about, and then you wonder whether it was always coming out in that aggressive way.

The main point is that VR has not just appeared. You know, we all know it's been like through several. It's just about this wave, whether this is the [00:10:00] time because of the, the sophistication and the sexiness and the light weightedness of, of the, of the hardware and the amount of funds that are being pushed out there artificially to force a market like this and see if it will catch on the B2C side.

I don't think it's catching to be, to be honest. I know there's money being made by a lot of B2C creators and so on, but I don't see [00:10:20] it as a stable, um, market because for one, the manufacturers like MEA don't release transparent, uh, enough data about retention. Like how many of these headsets that are purchased in one month are now collecting dust in X months later?

We don't really know much about b2c, but b2b, thanks to all that research, thanks to all these [00:10:40] trailblazers like Tom, And skip. Um, and so many of these people who were, uh, building use cases for the Army and for VA and for, for, for kids with learning challenges, um, several decades ago. The B2B use case cases are extremely mainstream.

The FDA created its own category, a category [00:11:00] extended medical reality. A couple years ago, because of applied vr in particular, showing that the pain receptors in the brain were dampening because we're not designed to live in two realities at once. This is the first embodied digital format. So when it comes to those use cases, you're not gonna see VR go away anymore.

But for B to C, It's still like a cowboy, wild, wild 

[00:11:19] Matt: [00:11:20] west country, and yet one influences the other. And you've spent a lot of time thinking about this because you're obviously personally incentivized with your business to be paying attention to the broader market and the applications of it. And when we were looking at this same, same market in 2020, the pandemic was in full swing [00:11:40] and.

The world that I grew up in, involved organizations at the enterprise level and technology vendors and consultants and service providers all meeting together many times a year in conferences. It was the place where information was exchanged, relationships were built, deals were struck, [00:12:00] and that that process really hadn't evolved much over the preceding 50 or so years.

You know, since the advent of commercial travel, we've been meeting together in industry conferences and, and, you know, subject oriented events. Um, and that business model in of itself has kind of stayed largely the same. You just pick your flavor and they're all [00:12:20] kind of, um, the same in that regard. Then all of a sudden we're in a world where we're not allowed to see each other anymore.

In a lot of cases, we're jurisdictionally forbidden from leaving our countries we're locked down. Travel restrictions make that difficult. Some of the venues we would've accessed aren't available anymore. Business had to materially shift [00:12:40] overnight, both in how it was conducted internally, which we can talk about a bit later, but also how it inter interacted within the broad.

Economy and how it sourced customers and how it nurtured and fostered relationships, which makes it doubly hard when you're working in an organization that's trying to establish itself like yours. [00:13:00] So I'm curious for you in your organization, what were those first few months of the pandemic like? And at the time, I'm just curious about.

Stepping into a bit about your mindset. Did you see this as an opportunity and an exciting and a chance as a, you know, a fundamental, you know, shift in consciousness and that's [00:13:20] gonna be moving in the right direction and finally the world's cut up to you? Or was that a Oh no, we now have to completely pivot because the world has changed overnight and we're not sure that we still have relevance in this new world.

Like, I'm curious, given where you were with the product, given where you were with the offer, given where you were with the business, what was your thinking as kind of the whole game changed? An. 

[00:13:39] Guest 1: [00:13:40] The silver lining of the pandemic, and it wasn't really apparent right away because you're just so confused as an individual and what's going on, uh, running a startup, uh, you know, struggling like a cockroach like I mentioned.

But the silver lining was that these stubborn sectors of healthcare and stubborn sectors [00:14:00] like education, these are really. Status quo, incumbent hardcore, hard to penetrate. Uh, get to the right people, make change happen sectors, and our, our startup is, is situated to, you know, overlap between the two of them.

And what the pandemic did was grease the wheels, uh, [00:14:20] shaked a lot of assumptions. On how work can be managed, what tools you can use, made people much more receptive to leveraging emerging technologies to help them navigate these murky waters of the pandemic. Forced them into, uh, so it kind of was a boon [00:14:40] for, uh, companies like us, uh, that were offering virtual reality based, you know, like the best sort of tool that could kind.

Allow them to better manage the situation with telehealth solutions. Uh, being able to kind of push forward innovations that they were kind of sluggish on before. [00:15:00] It really was a very positive period in terms of looking backwards. During that time, I did not have a positive. Feeling towards any of it. It was just work and trying to, you know, make use of the opportunities that were opening up.

But it was definitely just as stressful because whatever, like goods came out of the, the, you know, macro [00:15:20] situation for our company, it was compensated by a lot of negative, you know, uncertainty for the personal situation. So it's a lot of fuzzy memories about it. But overall, if I look, you know, retrospectively at what happened, For anyone who is in VR healthcare, anyone in vr, he, uh, you know, education, training, telehealth of any kind.

It [00:15:40] was a time in which the FDA was much more open minded, um, to even pushing out digital therapeutics in which we also sit within that category. And if you look at what digital therapeutics was before the pandemic and now globally, how the regulatory bodies that be. Every major market are so, [00:16:00] uh, much more open-minded to these types of use cases.

I think it accelerated, um, the roadmap for these kinds of applications, these kinds of, you know, emerging technologies by at least a few, if not five or more years. I 

[00:16:12] Matt: think you're spot on. I think there was obviously a, a seed change in a regulatory context. Let's go a bit deeper. [00:16:20] So we've talked about this at the 20,000 foot view.

We've discussed the broader market we've discuss. Some of the, at a high level, at least the use cases of the technology, but let's really bur in deep on some of the use cases. So I think for some of our audience, they may still be asking. Okay, I get it. Like conceptually vr, um, [00:16:40] maybe let's start with why it's so much better.

Then linear 2D communications like this. So for those who are listening to this podcast, we're recording this over Zoom. So I'm talking to, we're having a conversation. Many of you experience this several hours throughout the day for work and for family. We're having a linear two way communication over Zoom.[00:17:00] 

Why is VR so much better 

[00:17:03] Guest 1: than Zoom? Number one is again, this point that we're not designed as human beings to live in more than one reality. Simultaneously. So when the visual sense is, is shown a different reality, I mentioned the pain receptors in the brain actually dampen, you know, all of the, you know, other senses typically [00:17:20] kind of follow suit with the, with the visual sense in, in some sort of way.

It's the master sense it. Literally allows virtual reality as the first embodied digital format to hijack the autonomic nervous system and the vestibular balance system and our proprioception into believing that I'm actually standing on tall, top of a very [00:17:40] tall tower. And so let's say in the. Point of view of, uh, phobia treatment and specifically my phobia of heights.

If I am standing in that, you know, really cool simulation, that content called, uh, plank vr, then my knees will buckle and shake as they certainly did. You know, a few years ago I was at a conference, actually, maybe it was five years ago. [00:18:00] The pandemic screws up my, my, my time perception. But a bunch of years ago I was at a conference in Switzerland that I was in this VR simulation called Birdie, or Burley.

It was a French, uh, studio that created a situation where I'm actually in a contraption with, like, with wings and I'm flying above New York City and my wife, I remember my wife [00:18:20] came over cuz I blacked out almost, I think. And she came over to me and whispered breathe because I, when that simulation turned on my phobia of.

Like, shut me down. It was so viscerally engaging. So the nonverbal circuitry of the human condition believes that the virtual reality simulation is literally real. Now, that creates a [00:18:40] profound, uh, you know, uh, paradigm shift compared to anything that is sitting in your pocket. And everyone has, but it doesn't engage.

Those systems that those experiential, those emotional circuits are not engaged. Um, I might know I'm in my living room, but it doesn't matter if I have any fear of spiders and that little Sprite [00:19:00] starts going towards me, I will repulse because that is the part of us that tells the truth during a lie detector test.

That same kind of element of yourself that you don't understand that isn't verbal, that isn't conscious. It has a very much a, a element of, of your life and who you are and what you are and how that all stems [00:19:20] towards, you know, education, training, healthcare, all these areas that I think VR shines the brightest, brightest because of its, you know, transcendental nature.

It's because fundamentally it engages the whole body and that reflects in higher levels of, of adherence and retention. Uh, in any study I've seen, retention and adherence is always way higher than [00:19:40] anything 2D based. Anything pen and paper of. It is the next best thing to real world simulations, real world actual experience.

Except beyond that it's, it's scalable and the quality can be maintained. Um, the data quality is far superior. And in terms of the last point I'll just say is that it's the first medium that actually captures [00:20:00] volume at dataset. So, for example, our, uh, data infrastructure for our company. Collects and captures not just the psychological and psychometric data, but the physical postural data, the gesticulation of the arms data can detect even the most subtles of, of hand tremors and shaking and knees shaking.

And um, and on top of that with the [00:20:20] latest headsets, we even, we even have integrated biosensors physiological sensors like dilation tracking heart rate variability. Skin connectivity, and we actually have algorithms that take those three biosensors and calculates a person's cognitive load. We know if a person's focused, we know whether a person is bored out of their mind or stressed out.

These are [00:20:40] like, this is like, it's just, it's insane what this technology can do when it's applied. Or use cases like, you know, treating phobias, treating learning challenges like adhd, treating phobias of of people, phobia. Training people for surgical, uh, situations and scenarios, um, [00:21:00] at such a great fidelity that perhaps, you know, outcomes can be maximized.

So it, it's, it's profound across all of these use cases.

[00:21:12] Matt: Hey everyone, it's Matt here. I hope you're enjoying today's discuss. And before we continue, I want to make you aware of my latest creative [00:21:20] project this week at Work presented in partnership with my good friend Chris Rainey of HR Leaders. Each Friday will live stream on LinkedIn at 7:00 AM Pacific Standard Time.

That's 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time and 3:00 PM GMT for our European viewers. And together bringing the latest trends, [00:21:40] news on topics emanating from organizations, everything from culture to technology, and the future of work. Joining is easy. Just follow me on LinkedIn. Click the bell at the top right hand side of my profile and you'll get notified when we go live each.

And whether you do experience the content live or later, if you've been following [00:22:00] me for a while, you'll no doubt recognize the fun banter Chris and I have developed over the years and whether it's been podcasts or digital events. We're so excited to, again, bring you the topics affecting today's workplaces and their leaders.

And now back to our discussion. It's profound under a number of different [00:22:20] perspectives. So I think I wanted to spend a bit of time waiting in what you just said cause there's a lot there and maybe elucidate and bring some more things to life. So we talked about a couple examples. You share the example of a phobia where your case heights.

I have a similar phobia. Where I don't wanna be close to something, you know, near the edge. A ledge that's very [00:22:40] high up. I know it's entirely in my head, but I also feel it in my body. We get that shortness of breath, that tightness into your chest, sweaty palm, sweaty feet. We have those somatic, those physiological reactions to psychological stress and.

That might happen to you when you write exams or drive on the [00:23:00] highway or meet new people or have to do a job interview or, you know, like talk to your boss or what, what any number of things could trigger that for any number of reasons. What you've said is that, Unlike all the existing resources available on the market, so you think about all the tools available right [00:23:20] now to deal with phobias.

I could Google search and do a bunch of reading. I could pay for an online course on mindset. I could see a therapist, I could talk to my friends, I could journal, I could meditate. All these things I could do, and all those things would have varying degrees of effectiveness, likely more effective when [00:23:40] compound.

What VR is offering is an opportunity to either replace, but let hopefully compliment those things and actually to a degree, accelerate that learning and that retention of knowledge. So that what could have been a process that takes weeks or months or [00:24:00] even years, could take days or hours because of the level of immersion and intimacy.

I think that that immersion piece is, is a key point. I just wanna touch on because of all the examples that you provided of value, which were. Very, very good. What's thought out for me as somebody who is borderline ADHD is [00:24:20] attention economy and the full immersion of being in VR means that in that interaction provided you or I are in that virtual world together, we have each other's complete attention, whereas, If you're operating on Zoom or on the phone or sending emails, most of us are living with two to three screens operating at any given [00:24:40] time, and you don't, you're splitting your attention between multiple activities.

So as we look at things like learning and this case, learning around very sensitive topics like phobia and healthcare and, and education in those areas, clearly they're enhanced by intimacy. They're enhanced by having greater degree of connection to the [00:25:00] interaction, and then anybody in it. I wanna transition now to the enterprise applications.

Cause I think we can learn something from the healthcare applications in an educational context and bring it over to enterprise applications. And I think about things like hiring, where we're bringing, you know, some of the most important decisions that you [00:25:20] make as an organization or as a leader is who you allow into the.

It usually takes place after job applications and multiple interviews and background checks and you know, there you'll, you will meet thousands and thousands of, of professionals and, you know, tens of thousands of websites and ar talking about how to get hiring, right? It's something we're always trying to crack.[00:25:40] 

What is the power of a, of a vehicle like virtual reality when bringing to things like hiring? What is this? What's the difference in value and utility when we introduce that technology in lieu of, again, a zoom call or a phone call interview? 

[00:25:53] Guest 1: I was, I was actually trying to, to make sure I know how to pronounce the Coba Coba, Yahi Maru, [00:26:00] you know, um, the Star Trek, uh, scenario.

That's unwinnable. You know, you, you from the point of view of, of. Understanding talent, uh, creating systems that appreciates talent and the way that people can be, that talent can be understood for what it is and for what it's not, and for where a person wants to go. [00:26:20] And you know, that, that, that, you know, quest for organizations to, to appreciate individuality in that way.

In the prospect of virtual reality that creates scenarios, um, like the Kohi Maru or, or situations in which a particular role is being applied for based on a job description that is very, very dead and, and. [00:26:40] And, and boring to so many ways. Uh, you know, trying to find their exact person who finds this, these fills, these parameters versus what can a person be stretched to do in scenarios that are, that are engaging the full, full human being in, in these moments.

And can that be a way of, of profiling people for jobs, you know, uh, completely overhauling [00:27:00] the way that we even approach hiring and approach, understanding a human being and what their predisposition. Make them very, very, uh, potentially good at a particular kind of, of function or, or maybe for a temporary period.

And, you know, virtual reality opens up a lot of these kinds of, uh, scenarios, particularly from the [00:27:20] point of view of our company. Uh, I have to just kind of make a plugin, which is that we're all about cognitive assessments and full body cognitive assessments. Uh, you know, assessing a person when their full body is engaged, of course, but also not.

Assessing memory and problem solving, information processing, but also the, the, the, the motor control [00:27:40] skills, the spatial orientation, the spatial audio awareness, the whole set of how to kind of assess a person in a multidimensional way. We. Are able with virtual reality to start to even correlate these kinds of assessments in VR with the traditional ones that people typically use in, in career [00:28:00] oriented, uh, you know, screening, uh, surveys and questionnaires, SATs, IQ tests, all these kind of things.

They're all kind of intersecting in a way that I think virtual reality opens the door for a of a order of magnitude, higher level understanding of who you. Um, as an individual and then giving [00:28:20] that perspective to the hiring manager, not just a 2D kind of a four report of how this person responded to a bunch of, you know, questions, but really experiences and translating that into quantifiable, uh, meaningful data that I think makes things much more relevant for what the company ultimately wants, which [00:28:40] is talent.

Talent. 

[00:28:41] Matt: And you hit on a key point, which is talent. Optimize to achieve its greatest potential. We're now moving if we haven't already officially moved into it. We are in a knowledge based economy now where the differences in contribution are unseen and largely difficult to measure, [00:29:00] and this is not the days of being able to look at.

Employee X versus employee Y and C who's putting together more widgets on the assembly line. Like how do we determine opportunity cost of somebody being engaged in their job or having the right tools to, to facilitate brainstorming and to push themselves and try risks and innovate. And it's really [00:29:20] hard to put a number on that and which is why it often gets, um, short, shr.

When budgets are being allocated and when organizations are determining priorities, it's, it's hard to make a business case for free time and it's hard to, um, to let go of traditional ways of thinking [00:29:40] in a top down hierarchical structure in organizations. One other really powerful thing that you said earlier that we kind of just glanced over that I wanna come back to, cause I think it's is really important.

When I first got involved in virtual reality, In the late part of 2019, I'm new by comparison to yourself [00:30:00] and a lot of the people in the industry. But 

[00:30:01] Guest 1: remember, Matt, it's dog years and VR a percent. You know, it's at least four. You know, it's at least four times that value 

[00:30:07] Matt: at least. And after putting in 16 hour days for six straight months, pulling a conference out of nothing, I can promise you, I feel very good about knowledge in that sense.

All that being. [00:30:20] One thing that struck me very early on in the process was how powerful this tool could be from a social connection perspective. And maybe it was because we were in a pandemic and I felt the sense of more social isolation than normal. Maybe it was because I was missing my team. It's based all over the world, and we couldn't come together like we normally would.

Maybe it's because [00:30:40] I couldn't see my friends as often as I normally would living in Vancouver. But I felt this real strong pull for social connection and found myself, you know, on club hosts like a lot of us when it first came out. And VR was part of that menu of things that I would access digitally to find and seek connection with people and meet new people and, and network and things of those, of those, uh, like [00:31:00] alongside that, I was struck by how inclusive the technology.

How I was meeting people from all over the world, from all walks of life and entering into worlds of alt space and VR chat and meeting people who were, again, from all stripes. And, um, I was just impressed with [00:31:20] how interfacing through avatars created a degree of comfort and security. Such that people were so much more honest and real, and that was really, really fasting for, for me, having come from a corporate world where I think we, most of us would agree that reality sometimes can be in short supply, [00:31:40] in service to.

Adhering to company culture and playing politics and navigating yourself in a complex social environment. Virtual reality didn't seem to have many of those same constructs. And it could be because maybe it's in its early days and it might mature over time, but I was just blown away by the opportunity for people to come [00:32:00] together who would otherwise not do so.

And I bring that back to things like we talked earlier about therapeutic applications and educational applications. The opportunity to provide these experiences to. And not necessitate they all be in the same room as us. Is a complete game changer when it comes to closing knowledge gaps and understanding and bringing people [00:32:20] along and giving them experiences that excites people.

Virtual reality as much as anything is, it can be a great democratizer of experience and knowledge. And I'm curious. 

[00:32:29] Guest 1: Yeah. Matt, one thing, one thing I had to say about that, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's so profound. It's the one sidedness that you say it breaks away. You know, you think about Twitter, uh, folks [00:32:40] who get keyboard confidence and start trolling people, and that that phenomenon of social media making us into really the worst versions of ourselves.

And, and the way you mentioned that your experience of going into VR simulations, uh, where people are more authentic and honest because it is, from my point of view, engaging that side of them that it's [00:33:00] multifaceted, multi-sided. Mm-hmm. , you know, it's that authenticity comes out more likeliness, you know, when you have one sidedness of, of uh, just typing with your fingers, you.

That little troll in you can come out more easily, I guess. I don't know. I, I try to avoid social media in the comment section. It's like my number one way of not feeling great about humanity [00:33:20] is by reading the comment section of anything about, let's say, what Will Smith did to this guy or that person did to this or that one.

It's like the worst experience of my life in terms of understanding, um, of being empathetic. You know, um, whereas what you're saying, really just, I never actually expressed it that way, so I thank you for sharing that cuz I, it makes me [00:33:40] really think, why is that the case that you had more of those authentic experiences?

[00:33:43] Matt: Well, and it gets me excited about things like educational and therapeutic applications because we both know that they're predicated on trust. And one of the big barriers right now to this technology really taking off in a commercial context in terms of the B2C area is, well, you and I [00:34:00] can talk about VR for 10 hours, and I know we could probably talk about VR for a hundred hours and going nonstop until you put on the headset.

These are words on a podcast, right? Once you put on the headset, Then your mind lights up in a million different spots and you realize, oh wow, this and this and this. I could use it for this. I could use it for that. I could, you know, [00:34:20] we could, I could visit with my friends. I could go to a museum. I could travel, I could, you know, watch movies.

I can go to events. I can, you know, um, learn, I can meet with, you know, it's just, there's so many opportunities to use this as another tool. I think where the technology sometimes can be a bit of a, um, enemy of itself is [00:34:40] people can tend to view this technology through a binary lens, where it's like they don't want to live in a world where the headset's on 24 7 , but I don't think anybody's saying that they should.

You know, you use the word offline about the surgical precision of use case. Like to me, virtual reality is very effective for very specific and [00:35:00] defined use cases as a compliment to a broader suite of communication tools that include your laptop and your phone, and your voice and your presence and writing and other things that you can have.

But if you want the intersection of digital immersion and inclusion, I don't know that there's a better communication tool [00:35:20] presently available to us. 

[00:35:21] Guest 1: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think, I couldn't agree more. Uh, if it's, if it's, you know, when I was doing, um, quantitative research, uh, surveys and such, we knew that the respondent fatigue moment was seven minutes.

Like people can only do a questionnaire up to seven minutes and actually be engaged beyond that period, whatever period of time they have [00:35:40] to do to finish that survey, they will start to just do it with their more mechanical. Uh, side the part that's not really focusing on the questions, it's just kind of answering as fast as they can respond and fatigue, and I think that fatigue or engagement fatigue is, is quite a bit longer, but certainly not more than two times that length.

So, you know, 15 to [00:36:00] 20 minutes max is what I think. In terms of serious use cases, we want the engagement of the individual. It's educational. It's good for you. It's wellness, it's productivity based. We care about you focusing. We're not there to be another distraction in your life. We want you to come in, uh, do something that can help you transcend space and time in some [00:36:20] way that wasn't possible.

Without vr it shouldn't be like, VR is a nice to have. The use case, has use case, has to be a critical use case and, and a critical use. Has a critical period of time in which it can, it's a window of time in which it can, it can pierce. Into you and have an effect that is lasting, hopefully, you know, [00:36:40] mission complete and get back into the real world with something that VR, hopefully augmented or revealed in a, in a, in a cool way that you're going to wanna go back to when the time is right.

As, as a supplementary, complimentary, uh, sidekick. 

[00:36:57] Matt: Couldn't agree more. And the fundamental shift we have to make in [00:37:00] mindset is that learning can take place in 20 minute incre. I think our historical thoughts around education, that that takes time. It takes effort, and it's like, you know, you do a master's degree in two years, you do an undergraduate degree in four years, it takes five years to go through high school.

You think about the a cumulative [00:37:20] aggregate knowledge you've acquired during those periods of time, you actually can accelerate this process. Do this in 20 minute increments and go on with the rest of your day and be better. Have having had that experience that I think people need to also understand is we're not talking about VR for two years in an MBA program.

We're talking about very specific use cases and very specific [00:37:40] learning opportunities where you're gonna benefit from your earlier point simulation. So whether it's assembling. Parts for a jet engine. When you work for Boeing, whether it's operating a, the passenger vessel and learning how to be a captain of it, whether it is being a paramedic and having to understand what trauma [00:38:00] looks like, um, going into accidents through simulation, we can teach ourselves things that.

Will otherwise not be possible, um, or require a significant amount of investment in time and resources 

[00:38:11] Guest 1: to do that. You know, I was just thinking when you're saying this, you're, you're like the best person to talk about this with. And we, we, VR creators get a little bit lonely, uh, if [00:38:20] we're not having people who have, uh, geeked out sufficiently about, you know, the, the dimensions of it.

And you are certainly a hard. Geek, uh, in this space. What you have made me really focus on as you've been talking, um, is the fact of, you know, education, uh, you know, the presion, uh, school education [00:38:40] style. Everyone sit in row, focus on the. I won't say, you know, dictator, but it's kind of like a, like, sure it's a lecturer, but you're not allowed a lecturer is a nice way of saying it.

I remember in my school I was not a great student if I didn't follow the lecturers, uh, you know, uh, rules I got in trouble. [00:39:00] But there was a sort, sort of, Forcing you to learn in this particular way. It doesn't matter if you're a visual learner, kinesthetic learner, an auditory learner. It doesn't matter who you are as an individual.

Doesn't matter about customizing to the individual. We don't have the resources for that. It's just. Everyone has to learn in [00:39:20] one way. And when you're talking about simulations and I'm talking about simulations, what we're really saying is an ultimate, like just, it's the masterpiece of mediums for being able to cater to multiple dimensions of the human experience and cater and not leave anybody out.

If you're not oriented to learning it in that [00:39:40] way, virtual reality has the opportunity of catering to all ways, to the human being and, and, and having the facets and channels of communicating the lessons and the training opportunities in different ways that communicates best to any type of learner. So it's just, uh, it's a profound, uh, [00:40:00] way of, of reinventing or, or redefining, and.

Course correcting things that I think have often been, you know, ignored just because of lack of resources. Lack of practicality. 

[00:40:14] Matt: Well, and not to get too far into the clouds here, but at, we're living in a time where [00:40:20] we've never been so wealthy when it comes to knowledge and never been so poor when it comes to dissemination of knowledge.

Right. And when I think about. If the situation we find ourselves in knowledge really is the solution for all that ails us in the sense that if we wanna make meaningful [00:40:40] change with climate change, Well, knowledge is gonna help that and boosting knowledge and innovation and science and accelerating that path is only gonna help us, whether it's gaining deeper knowledge in service to the current state of global events and boosting knowledge about all the interdependencies and what, what, what [00:41:00] we're actually looking at from these situations.

I believe that we are entering into a phase of existence that is going to be challenging for a number of macroeconomic reasons. That's okay. We've been done this before and it will be easier if we are more efficient and more effective at [00:41:20] curating. Synthesizing and disseminating knowledge in a way that's compelling so that people can be better for the experience, even if, even if that means that people become more mindful over the next 10 years on mass.

That's gonna be a necessity. I think given the rate of change and the [00:41:40] absolute fire hose of information coming at us with all the things that are on the horizon and across a number of disciplines, as we've talked about enterprise, the world of work has materially shifting. Demographically speaking, we hit a peak around 2019 in North America, where that was the last year where more people from the workforce [00:42:00] entered than left.

Now with the shift of baby boomers into retire, The aggregate, the total workforce in North America will decrease. It's projected to decrease over the next, at least the next 10 years, unless we make material shifts to, for example, things like immigration policy, which will be done unevenly across Canada, US, and Mexico.

So on again, on aggregate, what is that gonna [00:42:20] look like? Uh, Automation's gonna come into play and AI's gonna come into play, which is gonna help offset some of those jobs being performed. Today will be performed by technology and there will remain a misalignment between the skills that are needed to operate in this new world and the skills that are currently available in the present world.

And. [00:42:40] It's not gonna be acceptable to say to somebody, Hey, I know you used to be an accounts payable clerk, but there's nothing for you in this new world. Like, we're gonna have to help those people, or they're gonna have to help themselves, or likely a combination of both. Acquire new skills so they can translate.

And be effective and earn a living and do all the things that [00:43:00] they want to, and, and feel profe professionally fulfilled in a new world where some of the skills that we undertook just won't be skills that we undertake going forward, which has happened at many other inflection points throughout society, the industrial revolution, et cetera, et cetera.

But I think what is unique now is the rate at change at which is happening, the days of you and I being able to [00:43:20] join a job Amir, and 30 years later collect our pension and just route from the sunset. Over and they're over in every single profession. Even some of the more cherished ones you mentioned, like healthcare and education, which whether it was tenure, whether it was longstanding service, like in healthcare, like the days of those professions, being able to acquire a 6, [00:43:40] 8, 10, 12 year degree and go, Hey, I'm good for the next 40.

It's done. So we're gonna have to get better. Learning and teaching and, and, and embodying knowledge if we're gonna have success in this new world. And I, that's why I get excited about meeting people like you is because I know you're, you're thinking about that problem and it's a problem that we need to fix for a whole bunch [00:44:00] of really good reasons.

You, you've 

[00:44:01] Guest 1: inspired me, but the same time unnerved me in the same. It's my unique brand. It's really, really phenomenal. I've never had that joint dual experience and it kind of takes it to home. What, what a lot of people are trying to do. I mean, we could go and sell hotdogs online with the e-commerce site, you know, [00:44:20] and, and, and make it really profitable very easily with some meaningless, okay, maybe there's someone out there who's selling hot dogs online.

I don't wanna disparage them. Why are, am I focusing on something so difficult of a task? And a lot of the people I know and the privilege of knowing these people cuz you're in these sectors, is people who are really dealing with these tough [00:44:40] problems because they really care. And, and what you're saying is just so close to home.

But there's an apathy, uh, such a strong apathy amongst, um, so many, the, the approach to this problem by a lot of the people I run into, like my social circle. Most people aren't really [00:45:00] talking about this. You know, even though we got climate change with 40 degree heat in the uk, in Europe, it's a completely unprecedented situation going on.

But you know, these things are real. It's almost like putting our heads in the sand. And then at the same time, we have these technologies that are readily available that help us get empowered with the knowledge that you suggest [00:45:20] is, is possible to be empowered. And to be, you know, use it to reskill people and to adapt at an unprecedented way.

You know, it's, it's. We have the means to navigate these waters. So, you know, inspiring but also terrifying. And the terrifying side, I think is not as present in our dis discourses at [00:45:40] the moment because for some reason we don't feel it. And then in those situations, I think VR also has a special power of creating those, awakening, um, empathy, uh, in people as well.

So there's a role to be played there as well. 

[00:45:51] Matt: I think people are overloaded, like, yes. Yeah. Like people are just, I've been overloaded at points during the pandemic. Like it's a lot. [00:46:00] And whether it's in a commercial context as a business, whether you're an employee, whether you're an entrepreneur, family, friends, health, travel, the uncertainty, the restrictions, and it's been a challenging period of time.

And again, varying degrees. Some people have obviously gone through this experience with much less impact than others, but we've all been impacted in our own way [00:46:20] and. I, I think the, the realities that we talk about are important to get out there, and I think that they're important to get there because it's the beginning point for the conversation that we have to have if we're actually gonna move this.

So I remember talking to. Tom fairness about this three years ago, and we were talking about this very same challenge, and he was lamenting [00:46:40] the, the cognitive dissonance between what's available and what we're actually using. And I believe then, as I do now, that this is about transformation in the broadest sense.

And my bias is for the corporate world. That's my, that's my learning, that's my, that's my lessons, that's how I apply transformation other than myself probably most frequently. [00:47:00] And knowledge is a privilege. And it's a privilege. You can create space for that privilege, but it's gonna require us with, require us to look at our mental health.

I think if you ask most people now, Hey, I can give you an experience in virtual reality, but it's gonna require you to [00:47:20] spend an hour of your time with me so I can teach you how to use the headset and that I can orient you to the technology. I think that there would be a large portion of people who would.

I'm not really interested. I don't have any more space in my brain to accommodate something new. I'm already over my capacity with all the things I talked about, family, friends, work, health time, whatever it is. I [00:47:40] just don't have anymore room to do this. So I think part of the challenge with the technology, like virtual reality, which is so experiential, is you have to help people create the room for curiosity.

Before they even engage in the technology, because you have to be open to experiencing wonder. If you're [00:48:00] not open to experiencing wonder of the technology, you're just not gonna want to go through the path to get there, cuz it does. It's not an easy path because when you have to enter into a new reality, there's friction.

There's not friction by the way, after the first time you do it. But that first time, I remember my first time going through it and just being like, I don't know what I'm doing and I feel silly, and why [00:48:20] are these people avatars and what's going on? And like, I don't, like I understood the application of it, but I, when I actually embodied the experience, I was like, I am, I'm kind of underwhelmed, like what are we doing here?

And then it was once I started to kinda like stretch my legs and kind of suspend my judgements and really, Start to be present in the experience and go, oh no, there's a [00:48:40] world of potential. This is a blank canvas. We can, what can't we do in here? And that's when my mindset shifted. But I wouldn't have been able to have had that mindset shift if I wasn't in a place where I was open to.

Discovery and open to curiosity and open to leaning into something new and seeing what was there. There have been plenty times in my life where I, I've been like, I just don't have that capacity. [00:49:00] So I think, Amir, when I think about the problem, I think about how do we create enough of a compelling message that causes people to do that kind of pattern reset and go, okay, I'm gonna take a minute here and see what's under this.

And if, if, if there's something cool here, I'm gonna lean into it. Cause I do think there's massive [00:49:20] applications for this, but I also think it's an incredibly large change management undertaking to get people alongside 

[00:49:26] Guest 1: the idea. Well, you know, as a per, as a founder who's, uh, been be beleaguered for. You know, in doggy years, uh, throughout the, the period that VR was only a gaming device, you know, conceptually, um, to the [00:49:40] then, uh, pandemic years, um, until now, uh, things take a toll, uh, being in, in the, you know, in the bunkers of, of this sector.

And you've, uh, reinspired me for what it's worth. I, I think a lot of the things that you're saying right now are things I'm gonna have to digest as well. They're not necessarily new points, but they're refresh points and they're, and you've [00:50:00] compiled them in a, in a way, That really makes sense. I think one thing I I I, you know, we don't have time for it.

I think in, in this initial session, like you say, we could talk for hours. Um, one thing that I, I do feel like is a force of, of a friction of a different sort is the way in which social media mediums tend to. [00:50:20] It's a hard word to, to find. It's, it's a kind of a, it's a, it's a black hole of, of distraction in, in some cases.

And, and I think, like, like you mentioned earlier in this podcast, virtual reality has this ability to bring our focus back into a very concentrated way in, in terms of owning our cognitive [00:50:40] load, re, re reclaiming our presence. In the immersive environments. Um, you know, I think there is a way of, of solving even that with, with the power of vr.

So how do we communicate that power? 

[00:50:54] Matt: I couldn't agree with you more. It's been a really fascinating conversation. Thank you so much for your time [00:51:00] today. I'm looking forward to keeping this 

[00:51:01] Guest 1: check going offline. Thank you so much for having me, Matt.

[00:51:13] Matt: N O HR is a digital transformation consultancy working at the intersection of strategy, technology, and people [00:51:20] operations. We partner with organizations, private equity and venture capital firms to accelerate value creation and identify the organization's highest leverage initiatives. And this can take place in many form.

From strategic planning and alignment to technology, procurement, implementation and integration, along with organizational [00:51:40] design process, re-engineering and change management. With our proven track record of working with complex high growth organizations, we provide a lens that goes beyond the balance sheet, increasing enterprise readiness, resilience, and value.

For more information, check us [00:52:00] out@bentohr.com.