Episode released on: 30. January 2023
Approaching the Metaverse with Anna Noakes Schulze – miniseries 2/3 – Customer Experience Goals with the CX Goalkeeper
Click on your preferred platform to follow the podcast and get on a weekly basis the latest episodes:
 |  |  | ||
 |  |  |
The CX Goalkeeper had the great opportunity to interview Anna Noakes Schulze
LinkedIn Headline: Head of Community Experience @TheNTWK | Keynote Speaker | Bestselling CX Author | Top CX Influencer for 2022
Highlights:
- 00:00 Game Start
- 00:45 Anna’s Introduction
- 2:00 Anna’s Value
- 02:27 The definition of the Metaverse
- 05:13 Web3 and Metaverse
- 7:59 Is the Metaverse still empty?
- 12:10 Use Cases in the Metaverse
- 22:26 How does CX need to adapt in the metaverse?
- 33:32 what should companies do to move into this world?
- 37:07 How will the metaverse impacting our life in 2030?
- 40:30 Book suggestion
- 43:30 Contact Details
- 44:27 Golden Nugget
and much more
Guest’s Contact Details:
Her books suggestion:
- The Experience Economy, by Joe Pine and James Gilmour
- The Metaverse: And How it Will Revolutionize Everything, by Matthew Ball
- The Metaverse: A Professional Guide: An Expert’s Guide to Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Immersive Technologies, by Tom Ffiske
- The Augmented Workforce: How the Metaverse Will Impact Every Dollar You Make, by Cathy Hackl and John Buzzell
Anna’s Golden Nuggets:
- Four C’s’: Communcity, Collaboration, Connection and Creativity.
Communcity, Collaboration, Connection and Creativity. Anna Noakes Schulze on on the CX Goalkeeper Podcast
Tweet
#customerexperience #leadership #cxgoalkeeper #cxtransformation #podcast
| | | ||
| | |
What did we discuss?
Gregorio Uglioni
Ladies and gentleman welcome to the CX goalkeeper podcast your host, Greg will have smart discussions with friends, experts and thought leaders on customer experience transformation and leadership. Please follow this podcast on your preferred platform. I am sure you will enjoy the next episode with the guest I selected for you.
Ladies and gentleman today. It’s really a big pleasure because Anna is back on the CX goalkeeper podcast. And if you’re watching the video, she looks like as an avatar and not as the real Anna. Therefore, Hi Anna, how are you?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Hi, Greg. It’s great to be back on your show.
Gregorio Uglioni
Thank you very much for your time. And please, please for the people who are also listening to the podcast. F quickly I look on the picture because Anna did an outstanding job. So I am speaking with an avatar and it’s really looking great. I am thrilled from from this discussion. And as you know, and as you can see, we are going to discuss about the metaverse. But before we speak about this topic, we would like to learn a bit more about you and could you please introduce yourself?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Thank you, Greg. Well, as you know, I recently started in a new role as head of community experience at the network, which is an online community for digital business professionals based in Barcelona, Spain. I’m also a founding member of the women in CX community, and a co author of customer experience three alongside wonderful colleagues like yourself. My career began in user experience. And to this day, I’m still all in for digital. I work at the intersection of UX and CX and digital business innovation, with a mission to extend the human touch into the virtual world. My goal for today is to help customer experience professionals understand that the metaverse will be the greatest experimental space for experienced design we’ve ever seen.
Gregorio Uglioni
Oh, thank you very much for this great introduction. And perhaps also based on what you are saying which values drive you live.
Anna Noakes Schulze
I think for me, it’s always about connection community, and creating value for each other. And that’s those I guess that might be my big three C’s.
Gregorio Uglioni
Oh, this is very interesting. And I would add at least one see creativity because I was never speaking to an avatar.
Anna Noakes Schulze
Thank you. I guess that’s true. I do value creativity as well.
Gregorio Uglioni
Thank you very much. And let’s really start deep dive in the metaverse, you are a really big expert in this topic. I was able are allowed to follow you and you were already sharing on several stages. Your experience with the metaverse and also sharing different avatars. But to make that understandable for for everybody. What is your definition of the metaverse?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Well, as you probably heard, there are many definitions of the metaverse out there ranging from Matthew balls, comprehensive everything but the kitchen sink definition to Cathy hackles simple idea of the metaverse being simply a merging of our physical and digital lives. But since you’ve so kindly asked me for my definition, I’d like to offer you something a bit more personal. I see the metaverse as a blanket term covering many different types of Metaverse, worlds with the core idea being an immersive, interactive 3d virtual world where we can meet to work, play, create, collaborate, learn transact, express our digital selves, and enjoy intentional digital experiences that entertain and create value for ourselves and for each other. So you can see that my focus is not on any existing or future technology requirements, but rather on how and why we choose to be there. Before we can understand how to make the metaverse part of the customer journey, we’ll need to understand what attracts new users into different Metaverse worlds in the first place, what they want to do and what keeps them coming back. The important thing to keep in mind is that there’s no one Metaverse, and no one company can claim to own it. Instead, what we have is a wide variety of Metaverse type worlds, all experimenting, learning and reiterating as they go along. The early adopter brands that are already present in the metaverse are doing the exact same thing. They’re starting small, taking risks failing sometimes, and figuring out what what resonates with the consumers and the creators they want to engage with. The idea of the metaverse is not new either. Neil Stevenson first mentioned the metaverse by name is 1992 science fiction novel Snow Crash in real life. The oldest Metaverse world is Second Life, which was launched nearly 20 years ago, with users represented as avid TARS, a marketplace of digital goods and real estates and its own in game economy. Today some of the newest Metaverse worlds are blockchain enabled, and web three ready.
Gregorio Uglioni
And you are touching perhaps the next relevant topic for to really understand what is the metaverse. You mentioned blockchain. You mentioned web3 is the metaverse related to web3, how is this connection?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Well, I’m sad to say there is a lot of confusion about the metaverse and web three right now. And you probably seen even the big consulting companies putting out resort reports saying the metaverse is the future version of the internet. No, not really. But we’ll get to that. Other say that web three is the future version of the internet. That’s a little bit closer to the truth. But if they’re both being called the future version of the internet, then you can understand why so many people talk about web three in the metaverse as if they are wondering the same thing. So let’s break this down. So we can be clear about how web three and the metaverse are two different things. Since 2021, we’ve been transitioning to web three from the web 2.0 era, also known as the social web, which gave us social media platforms, user generated content, influencer marketing, all of that attention, grabby stuff. Web 2.0 also delivered major privacy violations, exploitation of user data, and explosion of misinformation, propaganda and conspiracy theories. And the result was real world negative consequences on a massive scale. We even saw a few tech companies become incredibly powerful during this time, generating massive wealth for the few while entrenching inequity. Web three is meant to address some of these issues. The basic idea is that web three will be built on secure blockchain enabled decentralized applications that support a token economy of user owned and controlled crypto assets and data. So instead of competing for customer attention, web three paradigm is the shift towards competing for loyalty and investment from individuals as well as communities. The next evolution of the Internet actually involves multiple converging technologies, including really importantly, 5g Mobile, plus the blockchains. The cryptocurrencies and assets are already mentioned, and extended reality tools. So web three is an important part of the future internet, but it’s not actually everything. And the metaverse is also not the future internet. But here’s a way you can think about it. Think of it instead, think of the metaverse as a 3d interaction layer that we can use to access virtual worlds in the internet. And I see it as the greatest experimental space for experience design that we’ve ever seen. So how’s that going? So far would probably be the next question.
Gregorio Uglioni
Exactly. But before before we deep dive in that you explained really in a clearer way, what it is. And if I share my experience, I was in decentraland. And it’s not to be bad with them. It’s the only one that I found out, I can log in and use that and my experience in decentraland decentraland. It took us quite a lot of time to get in. I had a lot of issues to get in. And when I was in there, from the starting point, there were a lot of people, a lot of avatars, and then you start walking around. And in 20 minutes, there’s that I was in there. I didn’t really met people. I saw a lot of construction and so on. And therefore, this this Metaverse, this 3d environment, it looks like that it’s still empty. Is that true? Or what? What’s your view on that?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Yeah, well, you know, part of it is is a function of the fact that there is no limit on the amount of space that Metaverse world can contain. So if you create this vast number of individual worlds, or spaces, or zones within a Metaverse world, all of those users who are there at any given time are going to be spread out among them. So it’s going to seem very, very empty. But that, actually is the experience that many people had, including myself when in the worlds that I visited. But what’s kind of new lately is we’ve been seeing criticism in the press and online about Metaverse, worlds that are either overstating their usage digit six, or they’re missing their growth targets by a wide margin margin. So I guess last month, a blockchain data aggregator called DAP radar claimed that decentraland In particular, had no more than 675 daily active users over a single day period, and no more than 4503 for sandbox at the same time. So both of these Metaverse worlds which are Built on the Ethereum blockchain, then claimed that DAP Raiders numbers totally misrepresented activity on their platform. Why? Because DAP radar wasn’t actually counting login users or visitors, it was counting unique digital wallets transacting with the platform smart contracts. So in other words, if you didn’t buy or sell an NF T on the platform that day, you didn’t count as an active user. decentraland then claimed on Twitter that they have nearly 57,000 monthly active users. And the sandbox claimed that they had 201,000 monthly active users or 36,000 daily active users. Now obviously, that sounds a lot better. But let’s stop and think for a minute. This is pretty minimal for Metaverse, worlds with market caps valued at $1.3 billion each. That spreads, spreads pretty thin. Now another example of Metaverse disappointment is obviously Metis horizon worlds. They had a target user base of half a million in the first year, and they’ve come up with about 200,000 monthly active users, including however many employees are required to be there. So horizon worlds has been called out for being this sad, empty place with terrible graphics and avatars that don’t even have legs. And that after meta invested on the order of $10 billion into Metaverse development since last year. Now in contrast to that, Second Life, has had the tiniest fraction of that level of investment, maybe 1 million as much over a period of nearly 20 years. Second Life was way ahead of his time, and it fell victim to an early wave of hype, but it was far from a failure. Even today, Second Life has about 200,000 daily active users. It’s a global phenomenon despite being overshadowed by some of the newer and cooler virtual worlds. And I can tell you, when I’m in Second Life, I get a slinky avatar with a nice dress, who knows how to walk in heels? That’s already way better than what I can expect from Horizon worlds.
Gregorio Uglioni
I think what you’re saying it’s explaining the reality of the metaverse and I think two things, or two to two thoughts from my side. The first one is, as you mentioned, that that was also a big news and a lot are in the press about the legs because Mark Zuckerberg had some issues creating the legs of these avatars and aligning them with the normal walking of people. It’s getting better and better. But from a user point of view, I would say absolutely track they’re about a you know, I am a soccer fan or football fan for our European fans. And when I was playing FIFA or soccer with all these games already in 98 or 2002 years, the legs were working pretty well not perfectly, but we’re working pretty well. And therefore I think this is a bit the big, big expectation from this generation that are also played a lot with these online games or these these games. But on the other side, it’s clear what you are saying we are at the beginning of the metaverse of this 3d worlds. And let’s think back how many people were using emails 30 years ago, were trying to go into the internet and how difficult was to get in there thinking about the modern 56k and all this stuff? Indeed, perhaps thinking about now which which use cases which could be the first use cases or which are possible use cases in the metaverse but also speaking about threads. What’s your view?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Well, if that is early stage, there are more Metaverse use cases. And we even have time to mention here. So just let me highlight some of the key areas. So first of all, and quite obviously, advertising and marketing. We’ve seen a huge amount of interest in the fizziness about the metaverse in the marketing world. And not surprisingly, since the metaverse is more than just another channel. It actually represents entirely new markets, new products, new revenue streams, new ways to connect with consumers and creators, and all new ways to engage with brand fans and communities. Another area, again, quite obviously immersive games and entertainment. Gaming is already the tip of the sphere. The sphere as far as Metaverse development goes, so it’s the ultimate testing ground for fun and immersive experiences with real stickiness. And as things stand now, it’s easy to go into Metaverse, worlds like Roblox or fortnight and laugh at the poor quality graphics. But Roblox is all already welcomed 21 million visitors to Nikes virtual store called Nike land. And Travis Scott’s first concert in fortnight grew over 12 million fans in 20. 20 So what’s easy to overlook in this space is the role of groups and communities. Going into Metaverse, worlds by yourself, as you know, is still pretty underwhelming, but show up with friends or meet them there and you have a whole different experience. togetherness, shared experience and fun are a huge part of the value proposition in the metaverse and that’s the thing that keeps users coming back. It’s not necessarily the graphics quality. So another area digital assets and utilities. This is probably gotten the most attention in recent years, especially with the rise of NF Ts. Traditional in digital endgame assets like avatars, skins, tools, weapons, virtual real estate and other resources. Were already big business before NF T’s were first spawned on the Ethereum blockchain in 2014. The NFT market really took off in 2021 with explosive growth in art and trendy collectibles like the board apes, crypto punks, and World of women. And although the appetite for NF TS as collectibles is definitely cooled this year, there’s still a huge potential for NF T’s with utility. And that means NF T’s that offer tangible value through perks, privileges, access to exclusive events and other cool real world privileges. So then an area that I cannot neglect to mention is customer experience. The Metaverse will eventually become part of an omnichannel CX strategy. For most brands. virtual stores will create personalized, engaging, buying experiences that blur the boundaries of the physical and digital worlds. For example, luxury brands are betting on a digital strategy pairing designer goods with an NFT digital twin that certifies authenticity and deters counterfeits. Brands are even experimenting with fan designed or CO created digital goods, some of which go on to be produced in real life as well. So it’s a whole new frontier of customer engagement and connection. The Metaverse will make traditional loyalty programs obsolete, since brand loyalty will be built on more powerful emotional drivers than just points and difficult to claim rewards. So for example, brand loyalty in the metaverse can and will be built on shared values, group identity, investment, co creation and opportunities to own a unique piece of the brand experience through NFT drops, token gated spaces and events and other exclusive privileges. And that brings me to education and training. This is another fascinating use case for the metaverse during our lengthy pandemic lockdowns we were thrust into this all remote way of living and working and learning. In Germany teachers went home on a Friday and literally had to be ready to start teaching online by that Monday. It was the most incredible mobilization of non techie people into the digital world. It wasn’t perfect by any means. But teachers and students had to make it work. So an interesting story is that the founders of the spacial Metaverse world were surprised to find universities and colleges setting up courses there during the pandemic. They quickly adapted and found that immersive learning in the metaverse would be a more creative and memorable experience that in real life, they could teach greater numbers of students without losing the quality of the experience. And the students were no longer limited to just schools in their vicinity. In addition, professional training using virtual simulations is actually more effective than traditional training. It engages the trainees more, it expands their skill sets and improves knowledge retention. It enhances problem solving capabilities. And it generates a lot more satisfaction with the learning process. So this is just the tip of the iceberg, really. And there are a lot more that we can go into. But you’ve asked me also about threats and I think that those things are important to address as well. So as you might expect, there are threats associated with the metaverse and it’s a long list as well. But some of the main ones are security standards, legal and regulatory issues, crypto volatility and social harm. Metaverse, worlds crypto exchanges and NFT marketplaces can be subject can and will be subject to cyber attacks, scams, frauds and other crimes, adding up to a cool $12 billion Hall according to some observers, and that’s just so far. The Metaverse today consists of 1000s of separate worlds that don’t connect with each other. That’s why there’s no one metaverse. We don’t have the interoperability standards that would allow us to move seamlessly between worlds, nor do we have portability for our digital assets. For brands This means not only having to choose where in the metaverse to be pressed And it also means having to start again from scratch if they move to another world. Technology advances also tend to run ahead of the legal and regulatory frameworks that we live by. So early adopters might find out the hard way that the NFT they think they own isn’t recognized as legal property almost anywhere in the world, except for the UK, which only ruled on it in April of this year, by the way, and there’s also a wide variation in the world as to cryptocurrencies and exchanges being regulated or not. And that can also increase the risk involved with investing in crypto. Probably everyone, by now has heard the term crypto winter us this year. And that refers to a sharp decline in most cryptocurrencies earlier this year after a long phase of rising values that, quite honestly was mostly driven by speculation. There are 1000s of cryptocurrencies, but only a few like Bitcoin and Aetherium are considered to be relatively safe investments so people never invest more than you can afford to lose. Then we come to social harm, harm in the form of harassment, bullying and mental health risks. And that’s another issue getting a lot of attention right now. In a recent survey, more than three quarters of people believe that the metaverse will have a negative impact on society. That is a massive thumbs down for the metaverse and that’s something we’re going to have to address before this ever becomes mainstream popular. Many people worry that the metaverse will immerse us so deeply into virtual worlds that will become disaffected and disconnected from real life, leading to problems like addiction dissociation, depression, antisocial behavior, and losing touch with reality, among other things. Bullying and harassment in digital spaces had been a problem for as long as there’s been an internet. But the immersive nature of virtual worlds intensifies the sense of violation and everybody needs to understand that you will feel it much more personally in an immersive environment than you would say in an online chat forum or something. So when horizon worlds beta tester was groped by other users, meta had to consider new measures to prevent harassment and safeguard personal space around your avatar. We still have a lot to learn about how our digital sense of self perceives these interactions in the metaverse and just how real it can seem to us.
Gregorio Uglioni
It’s really great what what you’re sharing, showing, and these are really key topics on each topic. I think we could spend one podcast because you have a lot of knowledge. And and it’s really extremely important. And what you said and only taking two points is pay attention of what you are doing. And even if it’s a beautiful word, we are still human beings in there. It is extremely, the most important thing that I would like to mention. I would have 200,000 Question on on what you said. But taking care of the time of your time and the audience time. Perhaps s we are all customer experience professional or interested in in customer experience. How does CX need to adapt in the metaverse?
Anna Noakes Schulze
I think where it stands for me right now is to adapt our CX practices to the metaverse, I really think we need to focus on three key concepts or lenses that really need our attention. One of them might surprise you. And that is getting clear about how CX differs from marketing. We need to be 100% clear about that, too. We need to understand the value of transformative experiences. And three, we need to recognize that engagement and loyalty work differently in the metaverse. So let’s let’s take all of those three in turn, marketing versus CX in the metaverse. First, let’s just once and for all acknowledge that our flashy cousins in marketing are just great, great at getting out in front of trends. They are fabulous at it. And the metaverse is no exception. And that’s why the marketing world is an absolute Firehose about information about the metaverse, including all the cool latest news about Metaverse brand initiatives. In fact, there’s such an overflow of fuzziness around the metaverse that you might be tempted to think there’s nothing here but just hype. And that’s where we need to get really clear about how marketing works differently than CX. Let’s simply marketing is the art of leveraging desire and persuasion to convince a customer to buy. That means that marketing is always going to be drawn to the excitement and opportunity of hype, because it’s highly effective for driving sales in the short term. We’re just being who they are. So new products, new markets, new audience, new customer segments, new ways of engaging people’s attention. These are all things that light up the marketing world so don’t hate on them for that. Now customer experience is a little different, because we optimized for the longer arc that includes customer retention and advocacy, not just acquisition, our job doesn’t stop there. So we focus on creating positive experiences for customers as well as employees and partners to help businesses solve problems, remove pain points, generate loyalty, and increase customer lifetime value, among other things. So CX is naturally more of a long game, where creating the more durable and profitable relationship with the customer is the ultimate goal. Not to my second point, transformative experiences create value. The global pandemic accelerated this massive shift to digital that was already happening, and then it just had to happen a lot faster. So now there’s much wider consumer acceptance and uptake for engaging with brands via digital channels, and is virtual buying experience has become the norm. We’ll need to find out ways to seamlessly connect our virtual and physical worlds omni channel strategy will have to extend to the metaverse now. And even brands that don’t have an immediate plan to enter. The Metaverse should be preparing a strategic glideslope that will get them there in a way that’s consistent with their brand values and goals. But it’s not just about values with an S, it’s also about value for the customer. For years now, it’s been clear that CX is not only a key brand differentiator, it’s also the primary driver of value in our modern world. This will be just as true in the metaverse, here quality, the experience is actually much more important than having first mover advantage. So don’t worry about being late. Instead of trying to wrap a positive customer experience around the goods and services on offer, we’re going to be creating emotionally engaging and rewarding experiences that are complemented by goods and services. So you can see what I’m getting at here. This is a complete inversion of our traditional CX approach. And for anyone who wants to go deeper on this topic, I can strongly recommend the experience economy by Joe Klein and James Gilmore, if you want to know more about that. And it’s also worth saying for the record, that CX is not about exploiting desire or human weakness to get something we want from the customer. It’s about continually working to understand customer needs, solve their problems, and create value that they appreciate and will gladly pay for for all the right reasons. And that’s what CXOs need to focus on to innovate in the metaverse and that leads to my third point about loyalty and engagement. The loyalty and engagement work differently in the metaverse I would even say, and I don’t think it’s going out on that much of a limb honestly, I would even say that traditional customer loyalty programs, most of them being more trouble than they’re worth will soon be a thing of the past. For those Metaverse worlds that are blockchain enabled. Nf T’s represent a unique opportunity for brand building, engaging with brand fan communities and identifying new ways to co create and deliver value. Now, as I mentioned, NF T’s have gotten a lot of attention over the last couple of years, but mostly for the volatility of the NFT market. We have seen some absolutely crazy selling prices for some NFT collectibles that went up like a rocket and then crash right back down to earth. And one absolutely notorious example is the NFT of Twitter co founder Jack Dorsey’s first ever tweet, which sold for $2.9 million in March of 2021. A year later, the buyer attempted to resell it on the open sea marketplace, but with through when it failed to attract any bids over $14,000 Oops. So NF T’s that only offer intangible value like bragging rights. trendiness or desirability are always going to be subject to people’s short attention spans and tendency to move on to the next big thing that is so hot right now. But let’s not write off NF TS because real lasting value tends to be tangible, rather than intangible. And a great way to give an NF T tangible value is through utility. And here utility means that there are perks and benefits to owning that NFT not only in virtual, but in the real world as well. And just to cite a few examples, it could be things like exclusive access to an owner or member community tickets and passes to physical events like concerts, meetups and parties, access to token gated online spaces and events as well in the virtual world. Additional NF T drops or even crypto coins in your wallet. I have IP rights to monetize your NF tea, which is a big deal with the board apes for one thing, and also collaboration and co creation opportunities. Some of the use cases regarding NF T’s haven’t even been drempt up yet. Adding utility gives NF T’s that tangible value that makes them worth a higher price in the first place, and can also make that price more likely to be stable over time. They can even grow in value depending on scarcity and any additional perks or privileges that get added. And also really important to think about is that NF T’s bring this level of emotional connection with the customer that is otherwise very difficult to create. And we all know this. Nf T’s help customers and fans feel like they’re part of the brand. They become invested. They have a small piece of ownership, they have a role to play in supporting the brand. They help build brand equity, and they have a part of their identity attached to the brand and the community. So from the brand perspective, there are opportunities to show customer appreciation or to provide rewards for top employees. We haven’t talked about employees very much. But that’s an opportunity that can broaden their pool of good ideas by leveraging NFT holders for collaboration, co creation, and product launch perks. There’s also the opportunity to enhance the brand through NFT driven philanthropy and crypto donations to causes that really matter to their customers and their fan community. So in short, we’re going to use NF T’s to identify superfans to offer perks and rewards to incentivize the desired actions and behaviors, encourage loyalty, and build communities around brand purpose and values. And if tees are actually an incredibly powerful tool for building a deeper, more meaningful and more invested customer relationship. And just one final point about adapting cx to the metaverse, we urgently need to prepare ourselves professionally to understand new digital environments and emerging business models. This is something that you and I have spoken about before when I joined you on the show last year to talk about CX and platform businesses. We live in a world that is increasingly built around platforms and digital ecosystems. So we need to understand how they work and how that affects our practice of CX. Then order to design for intentional experiences in the metaverse, we need to experience it firsthand. So CX professionals will need to upgrade their skill set with firsthand experience of web three virtual environments, and the supporting tools and technologies that make it possible to blend our physical and digital worlds.
Gregorio Uglioni
It’s really incredible the quality of the explanation that you that you are failing also, in this case, I would have two examples. But the best the best, or the thing that I would like to add, it’s exactly what he was saying. For example, we friends from Gary Vaynerchuk is exactly creating what you are doing, going through all these three main topics that that you share. Because if you are owner of one of their nfts, then you are allowed to join the community, you are allowed to join the events. And this is make it really extremely valuable also for the community and for being part of such a community. But now we are. I am still in this year. I think with your avatar, you’re already in the future. And now the big question is, how do you see the metaverse impacting our life in 2030?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Well, I think there’s something else that we should address before we get into that and is what should companies do to move into this world? I think that’s that’s really important. So let’s, let’s digress a little bit and talk about that. Because I’ve talked about things more in a theoretical way. And I want to just give some practical tips to companies that are thinking, maybe we should be there. How can we tell if we should be there? What should we do? How should we start? And all of this? So I really want to address that first before we talk about future possibilities. And the first thing that every brand needs to realize is that it’s not too late. It’s actually early days still, there are still a lot of technical hurdles to clear in the coming year as well as these legal, social and practical barriers to mainstream adoption of the metaverse. So for the time being, it’s still a very niche environment. The second thing to remember is that a basic principle of CX is to meet your customers where they are. If your brand skews towards a younger demographic, or has anything to do with gaming, sport, fashion, music, entertainment or consumer technology, then you’ll need to start planning your Metaverse strategy sooner rather than later. The third thing is to engage authentically in the metaverse. Can your brand represent its values and its mission and purpose in an authentic way in this space, would customers and fans understand why you’re there? What kind of interactions can you design for the would anybody care? And what kinds of customer value can you deliver by being in the metaverse? These are all really good questions to ask as you develop your strategy. Finally, it’s really important not to get so caught up in the flashy technology that you forget to design for a human centered Metaverse experience. And I’m a huge proponent of putting human beings at the center of everything we do. So that means your customers interests have to be at the heart of what you’re doing. And a human centered Metaverse experience for your customers would include things that that will be familiar to anyone from the UX world, in particular, intuitive, natural and frictionless ways to interact and engage with each other and the brand, enjoyable, memorable and rewarding experiences that create a sense of stickiness and belonging, reliable, accessible and inclusive participation with some lower tech options also available that’s important, and payment mechanisms that enable trusted digital transactions, or else trustless transactions via the blockchain. So how can you brand start building a presence in the metaverse I see this as five simple steps, discover, explore, experiment, create an iterate. So start with discovery, customer discovery. Find out where in the metaverse your present, or future customers are going now. What other options are there? To explore get to know some of the popular virtual worlds? Do they offer something that would resonate with your customers and your brand values? Three, experiment, start small track your results and check in with customers about how it’s going for CO create leverage community and customer goodwill to create more value by designing Metaverse experiences with their help. And five, iterate, not every initiative is going to be successful. Don’t be afraid to learn while failing and learn your way to success. Now then, you may also well maybe you’d like to add
Gregorio Uglioni
to No, no, I’m not willing to add anything because the you are explaining that like a book and therefore it’s in there is no additional additional question. Now coming back to my questions about the future. How is the metaverse impacting our life in 2030?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Well, that’s actually a really difficult thing to predict. Out. It’s hard to say even what the next few years will be like honestly, because so much depends on overcoming current Technology and Standards limitation that Matthew ball in particular describes in great detail in his new release the metaverse. This book for those who are interested also offers a great overview of big tech strategy, the choices that they make and the consequences of those choices, and is really fascinating read. Current predictions are that there could be as many as 5 billion Metaverse users by 2030. Maybe it will take until 2040. We don’t really know. But the metaverse will become more and more a part of our everyday lives in what’s predicted to be a market size of 10 trillion by 2030. Give or take about 5 trillion, some estimate saying much more than that. So probably the best indicator of the meta versus potential for our lives is the sheer amount of money and talent being poured into it right now. We don’t know yet what it will look like. But we do know that something profoundly consequential is going to come out of it. There will be for sure, large ecosystems of connected devices that are integrated into our everyday lives will have smart clothing, wearable technology, and access to a network knowledge ecosystem. This will offer us all kinds of new ways to do our usual things, including for work in industry to. And that said, the greatest potential may be for a new kind of third place between the physical and digital worlds. And that’s the promise of augmented reality or AR, which can offer us a digital information layer on top of our real life experience. So imagine you’re walking down the street, and you’re getting personalized offers from stores about deals on products that you’re actually interested in. It could be a restaurant that pings you with a lunch invitation when a friend is already there. It could be getting player stats and replays while you’re watching a live sporting event. I know that would speak to you. It could also be like having a virtual assistant who’s with you at all times. And what makes AR so exciting is it doesn’t require anything more complicated than a Smartform a smartphone, which already has 86% market penetration on this planet. So 86% of the world’s population is already using a smartphone. The pandemic taught us that real human contact still matters. But it also taught us that we could find a place of connection fun and fulfillment online as well. So I don’t think most of us will want to spend all of our time in the metaverse, but we will find it a compelling and meaningful idea to be there at least part of the time. And if we focus on human centered design that puts people first, we can design a metaphors that we can all be invested in. And that creates real value in our lives. And I hope you’re as excited about that as I am.
Gregorio Uglioni
I’m extremely excited, because I think what you’re saying, and if you’re we apply what what you’re saying, then it will help our life it will improve our lives. And they will do a lot of things easier and simple. And we could save a lot of time to spend on real experiences or older experiences that bring us really additional value. We are coming to an end from of this discussion. But in the last two, three minutes, I still have three questions to ask you. Before we go into this discussion, it was really great, great discussion. It was two these were outstanding insights about what we discussed, perhaps, is there a book that you would like to suggest to the audience that help you during career or during your life or it help you learn about the matters?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Oh, my goodness, I have I have four actually one I’ve already mentioned to you. I really think that everyone is Cx right now should read the experience economy. That’s that’s where it’s at. I’ve also mentioned the metaverse and how it will revolutionize everything by Matthew ball. I think you just cannot get a better overview of the metaverse than that. There’s also another one that I think is really important if you’re interested in immersive technologies. There’s no better guide to that than a guy called Tom Fisk. And he’s written a book also released this year I believe, called the metaverse, a professional guide, an expert’s guide to virtual reality, augmented reality and immersive technologies. And I think for experienced designers, it’s going to be really important to know that. There’s also another book if you’re interested in how the metaverse will affect employee experience in all various ways. A really good book by Kathy Hackl and John buzzle is the augmented workforce. How the metaverse will impact every dollar you make. So those are the big four. Right now. There are a lot of books being published about the metaverse right now. But I’d say if you can’t find the author of those books on LinkedIn, there may be a good reason for that. So you really want to learn about the metaverse from people who really have an authoritative voice in that space. I think Kathy Hackl has over 100,000 followers on LinkedIn, she really is a top voice and has a newsletter that’s extremely useful. Tom Fiske also has, has an email newsletter that will keep you up to date on immersive tech. I’m not sure about Matthew ball, have to check into that. But basically, the more you can learn from people who really know what they’re talking about, the less time you’ll waste on ideas that are maybe a little bit misleading, or won’t help you progress in your own work in your own career. Like I say, anyone who says that the metaverse is the next internet or web three is the next internet maybe doesn’t know the details well enough to be helping you to learn.
Gregorio Uglioni
Oh, sure. Thank you very much for sharing these four books. And for the audience. The first one from Joe Pyne experience economy. Joe was on the CX goalkeeper podcast episode 101 101. And, and therefore feel free to listen to this episode. And if somebody would like to contact you, what’s the best way?
Anna Noakes Schulze
Well, the best way is to contact me on LinkedIn and an oak shelter. I think there’s a contact email address there too. You can DM me, and I’m connection friendly. So don’t worry that I’ll reject your request if you want to connect with me because I’m just, you know, really, really happy to connect with like minded people who are interested in CX interested in digital business models. Interested in the metaverse interested in web three. It’s a brave new world out there. And I think the more we gather together around these these topics, the more we’re going to learn from each other and the veteran experience that will be
Gregorio Uglioni
Thank you very much. And the last question is as Golden Nugget, it’s something that we discussed or something new that you would like to leave to the audience.
Anna Noakes Schulze
Oh, I totally forgot about the golden nugget. Well, maybe it has to be the was it the 3C’s or was it the 4C’s? I forget.
Gregorio Uglioni
It was the three C’s and we understood why
Anna Noakes Schulze
Community, collaboration, connection and creativity, I guess that’s your four C’s right there.
Gregorio Uglioni
That’s perfect, I think and with these four C’s we can concluded discussion. It was a great pleasure. And please stay with me to the audience. I hope that you enjoyed this discussion as much as I did. Thank you very much for your time.
Anna Noakes Schulze
Thanks for joining us, everybody. Meet you.
Gregorio Uglioni
If you enjoyed this episode, please share the word of mouth. Subscribe it, share it. Until the next episode. Please don’t forget, we are not in a b2b or b2c business. You’re in a human to human environment. Thank you
⚽️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The CX Goalkeeper Podcast ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⚽️
👍 Do you like it?
Please tell 2 friends, colleagues or family members about the CX Goalkeeper Podcast. Only with your support I can continue share amazing discussions!
PLEASE 🙏 don’t forget to
✅ follow my podcast
- Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/3qYr4nh … if you are an Apple User please rate it & review it!
- Google Podcast: https://bit.ly/3rxRm0aCXGK
- Spotify: https://bit.ly/3GhCGXeCXGK …if you are a Spotify fan, please rate it
- Amazon Podcast: https://bit.ly/3xYYDaECXGK
- Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3pws7ISCXGK
📹 as a Webcast you can subscribe it on YouTube with this link:
THANK YOU – feedback always welcome, please DM me!
Create amazing audios and videos with Headliner, please use this referral link
Need help taking notes and transcribing audio? Get Otter with 1-month FREE Pro Lite by signing up here. Please use my referral link:
How to create a new webpage? it’s super easy with WordPress! Please use my referral link:
Leverage the power of StreamYard – to stream you discussion on all social media including LinkedIn
THANK YOU SO MUCH! STAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT EPISODE!
THE CX GOALKEEPER 