When Facebook rebrands to 'Meta' and the CEO of Microsoft, Satya Nadella, says: "The metaverse is here, and it's not only transforming how we see the world but how we participate in it - from the factory floor to the meeting room", you know it's time to listen.
And whether or not you're still getting to grips with social media, or considering how to secure your brand's best digital real estate in Decentraland, the fact is that the metaverse has arrived. What's more, a multitude of brands, businesses, groups, and governments are creating homes there.
Businesses are waking up to the fact that the metaverse offers innumerable benefits, which include better customer service, new markets, products, and channels, and better ways of training employees and engaging with stakeholders.
Here are some key things to know about the metaverse:
The metaverse is undoubtedly the future as far as digital business is concerned. After all, look at some of the main benefits that businesses can enjoy:
Whatever your thoughts on the metaverse, it's here to stay. This will especially be the case as enabling technologies - such as headsets, AI, and wearables - evolve. So for businesses, the question then becomes, how quickly can you create your metaverse strategy and enjoy early adoption advantages?
There is no doubt that brands that can build their position in the metaverse quickly will gain experience, knowledge, reputation, customers, critical mass, and early-advantage insights and consolidation. These businesses will enjoy early gains, and prime digital real estate, before their competitors.
Discover the benefits of VirtualSpeech VR training over classroom and self-paced e-learning.
Download eBookThis drive to rapidly adapt to a transformative, entirely new paradigm world of immersive digital life brings about significant challenges. For businesses, access to the metaverse relies on developing and hiring the right skill sets.
Many leadership teams will find that their internal knowledge of the digital universe is varied. Some leaders may be getting to grips with social media whilst others have only heard of the metaverse in its current leisure and entertainment direction.
But with every challenge comes a superb opportunity. Not only does the metaverse offer businesses the chance to build their brand and business online, but it also provides a chance to deliver a wide range of training and learning opportunities in a richer, more engaging, more connected, and more cost-effective way than ever before.
To ensure your business can be at the forefront of the metaverse, it's vital to upskill your staff at all levels of your organization. Here are some key focus areas and considerations:
Today's executives need to have communication, interpersonal, teamworking, management, and problem-solving skills to succeed in a complex and ever-changing world. The metaverse can offer highly immersive and effective learning experiences delivered through VR technologies.
By putting the physical environment to one side, learners can embrace new ways of doing things and fresh ideas, pushing through boundaries and reaching new ground.
The same metaverse learning environment can be deployed to deliver technical and functional training to complex or highly-skilled industries. These include construction, energy, and manufacturing. As a hugely expansive learning platform without borders, the metaverse can offer learner-centered experiences with truly immersive functions.
This training doesn't require any physical space and can use mass collaboration to allow learners and employees at all levels to develop, train and upskill.
Similarly, the metaverse can replace traditional classrooms for sales training by allowing sales personnel to engage with experienced internal sales professionals for rapid learning. Techniques such as branching scenarios and storytelling combine with immersive scenarios, visuals, experiential learning and more to create enhanced results.
It's worth noting that the metaverse can be designed to deliver any kind of training environment too, whether that's a practical task scenario, a classroom, seating space, podium or theatre. Trainers can appear as fictional or real avatars depending on preference!
Gartner Group predicts that a quarter of workers will be on the metaverse for an hour or more each day in just three years. The research company has also found that experiential learning enhances retention and learning outcomes by 75%.
The metaverse certainly lends itself well to induction or onboarding training. Rather than reading long and arduous policies and product descriptions, new hires can experience the organization's culture, values, and ethics, with faster learning deployment, lasting impressions, and the chance to engage with all kinds of other employees without physical travel.
Another vital area where the metaverse can offer huge gains is health and safety training. The immersive, border-free learning environment allows users to experience relevant simulations that are designed around their roles and working environments, trying out solutions and gaining immediate feedback.
Learners can experience the risks and dangers present in any workplace whilst being completely safe in the online world.
Discover the benefits of VirtualSpeech VR training over classroom and self-paced e-learning.
Download eBookWhatever the type of training your business is considering, the metaverse potentially offers a digital learning solution that is:
The other angle to preparing for the metaverse, of course, is to ensure your internal workforce is trained to understand the metaverse and prepare to build your business and brand in this digital space. Key considerations here are to:
In summary, the metaverse offers businesses and brands previously unimaginable ways of operating. Training and learning are greatly enhanced with powerfully immersive, targeted, measurable, and flexible learning environments. Together, these features offer higher engagement and better results than ever before.
If your business isn't yet on the metaverse, now is the right time to make your move and gain that early adopter advantage!