The Future Awaits
My head is spinning about the metaverse. Earlier this week I shared an article with the team about how the metaverse will change fashion and the fashion industry. I was struck by the last piece of advice:
“There are zero limitations to design in a virtual world,” Aghayan continues. “And I think that’s why so many people get it wrong. The designers who are doing it right are … not following any of the limitations of ‘real’ life.”
Doesn’t that remind you of when we spoke about not replicating print in a digital world? That’s what I love about this industry: 99% of the digital transformation going on ‘out there’ already happened ‘in here.’ Just about every vertical is thinking about its digitization, and we faced that reckoning over the past two decades — shoot, since the days of CDs! Crazy how so much changes but still stays the same. Thinking about our place in the metaverse means completely reinventing what we do in the physical or digital world. Whether it’s corporate training, product demos, new ways of delivering news, market travel excursions, or — maybe one day — the way we experience trade shows. But whatever we do, we have to think about reinventing and reimagining for a completely new mode.
What’s this new world look like? I just got off Zoom with Professor Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, who is delivering our closing keynote at the Outsell Signature Event co-produced with JEGI CLARITY. I could have stayed on the digital line for hours.… I was fascinated by the experiences, what’s going on today in the world’s largest corporations and their B2B applications in the metaverse. We discussed the pitfalls as employers, as well as those who are delivering these experiences — or have the potential to — in our commercial offerings. (That would be us in spades.) And how do we think about privacy or other ethical issues, especially with Meta having dominance in this emerging space? So much to think about, so little time.
Don’t miss this topic at our upcoming event. Every leader we know needs to be thinking about this new mode of experiential delivery, and Professor Bailenson is a don’t-miss expert. Join us and register today. The future awaits.