Turn down the lights and turn up the Marvin Gaye, because we're talking about VR in recruiting on this episode. Turns out, there's a really cool organization called VisionThree that's raising $80 million to advance virtual reality in schools and partnering with corporations and local governments to increase the level of talent in the workforce. Heather Jackson, chief revenue officer at VisionThree breaks it all down for us.
Spoiler alert: It's all Mark Zuckerberg's fault.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPTION sponsored by:
INTRO (1s):
Hide your kids! Lock the doors! You're listening to HR’s most dangerous podcast. Chad Sowash and Joel Cheesman are here to punch the recruiting industry, right where it hurts! Complete with breaking news, brash opinion and loads of snark, buckle up boys and girls, it's time for the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Joel (22s):
Oh, yeah. What's up everybody? It's your favorite meatheads, aka the Chad and Cheese podcast. I'm your co-host, Joel Cheesman. Joined as always, the Stockton to my Malone, Chad Sowash. And today we welcome Heather, Mrs. Jackson, if you're nasty Jackson. She is the CRO, that's Chief Revenue Officer, kids of VisionThree. Heather, welcome to the show from Plano, Texas of all places.
Heather (50s):
Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate that. And Chad and Cheese, it's appreciating that time and it's good to be here.
Joel (56s):
No problem. Now you're in Plano, but you do live in Indianapolis. Correct?
Heather (1m 1s):
I actually live in St. Pete, Florida, and I'm in Indianapolis pretty regularly for business with VisionThree.
Joel (1m 7s):
Woman of the world. You should get to know Chad. He's got like eight homes around the world.
Chad (1m 12s):
I do not.
Heather (1m 14s):
Every one of them comes with a yacht and there are some extra features. Right?
Joel (1m 21s):
So, so ultimately what's probably you next to a plate of fajitas and a lone star cold one. Give us a little bit about Heather Jackson, what makes you tick, and then we'll get into some of the news.
Heather (1m 33s):
Well, that might take up the whole show. I'll give you the abbreviated version.
Joel (1m 37s):
Twitter, we call 'em Twitter bios.
Heather (1m 38s):
Yeah, the Twitter bio on me. I've been with VisionThree for three years. I am what I typically term a chronic entrepreneur. I've been doing entrepreneurial endeavors across a number of different verticals for a really long time. And I tend to like very off the wall crazy ideas that nobody else has thought of. Those are the types of things that I tend to gravitate toward, and I never would've imagined starting with VisionThree that there would become this really cool intersection of my previous work. Some of my businesses were involved with education, teaching kids, and the intersection of those things with virtual reality and the ability to change this recruiting game, you know, has has just been on an absolute fast track ever since it sort of came together for us.
Joel (2m 26s):
I'm sorry, Heather,did you say virtual reality? I,
Heather (2m 29s):
I did. I wasn't sure if VR or virtual reality qualified for the music. So,
Joel (2m 34s):
So listeners of our show will know we talked about this news, but let's refresh everyone. So the headline here is VisionThree announces $80 million Initiative to Reimagine Recruiting through the Power of Virtual Reality. Tell us what VisionThree is exactly and then talk about this initiative.
Heather (2m 53s):
Sure. So VisionThree, we've been around for 20 years, so we've been doing this for a really long time. Not all of it in VR. We started out as an agency doing everything from app development, web development, kind of cutting edge flash, which now sounds very, not cutting edge, but at the time we were pushing the envelope and you know, we rolled into doing a lot more work with Touch Interactive, custom touch glass and, you know, those types of things. And we did a lot of trade show work. And then one of our clients, Rolls Royce said, Hey, you know, we'd really like to try to do some stuff in VR. And we said, Well, so would we, So we all put our heads together on some VR training and figured out that it was pretty much the coolest thing we'd ever seen.
Heather (3m 32s):
So, we started our new product called V3 Reality or newer product where we started out in touch interactive, built a platform for that. Now we've built a platform for VR. I don't know if you need to throw the soundbite in there, but
Joel (3m 46s):
We're gonna spare Chad.
Chad (3m 47s):
Thank you.
Heather (3m 49s):
We built a platform for VR that makes several different really cool tools that are used by Rolls Royce and a lot of our clients that we can bake content on top of, meaning that then those tools become available regardless of industry. And the networked capability is one of the key components of that, meaning that you can use it for sales training and recruiting. And as we started talking with clients about V3 reality and really pushing that into the marketplace over the last couple years, the answer, we keep asking to the question getting back from people when we ask the question, you know, Hey, what's your biggest problem? What's the challenge you're trying to overcome? It was recruiting, talent pipeline, recruiting talent pipeline, time and time and time again. That was the top problem that they needed to solve. And we realized that because of what we know how to do in the storytelling agency world paired with this digital technology, we probably had the right set of tools to figure out and the right storytellers to figure out how we change that storytelling approach using this new, new technology.
Heather (4m 46s):
And we've always been a holistic solution. We know we're hardware dependent, so we've always built that part of it into what we do. So we just figured why not do that and drop it into schools and make this something that then is really universally accessible. And the minute we talked about it to a couple of key stakeholders like Ivy Tech and others who have kicked this off with us, everybody said, Yeah, how quickly can we get on the train and hit go? You know, so, so it's just been a whirlwind ever since.
Chad (5m 13s):
Okay. So I can see the practical application for training. That to me is easy. In the military we used VR for training on the battlefield and those types of things. So that makes a lot of sense. But for recruiting, how does this work for recruiting, especially when you're trying to recruit somebody, do they have to have goggles? I mean, how does this all work? What's the practical application?
Heather (5m 35s):
Sure, great question. And so I'm gonna separate the two pieces of it. Right? So there's the talent pipeline development, which we're giving a bit of, we're getting a giving of a different treatment than our V3 reality platform. And so I'll start with V3 reality. The way that we approach recruiting there is, you know, it's all about getting to the prospect fast. Now, that's the other complaint we hear is how, how do we get them before somebody else gets them, right? There's that huge competitive factor. Well, if you've gotta fly them in and, you know, give 'em a room and all that and you know, there's just a cadence to that that slows down the process. What you can do with V3 reality is I can be here in Plano, and you guys can be in Timbutu, you can be in Indianapolis, you can be in Florida, you can be on the east coast.
Heather (6m 20s):
I ship you a headset, I have my concierge service, walk you through how to set that up and turn it on and use the controllers if you're not familiar for just a couple of minutes. And then I meet you in VR. And so we are standing together in a room, we are avatars that are just headsets, which strips away some element of bias potentially. And then we could be standing in a solution room. We could be standing in a lobby for your company. We can be standing next to one of your pinnacle products, which you're training on. But we're just seeing a really cool version of, and maybe we just wanna explode it and stick our heads inside the engine or you know, do some things we couldn't do in the real world while we're talking. Then 30 minutes later, one of my, you know, partners in another city, chimes in on their headset, comes into the space and takes over the interview.
Heather (7m 3s):
So we have an opportunity to actually have very one-to-one realistic, it feels very real. Our version of VR feels very real. So when you're sitting in that space, you really feel like you're there and you can really talk with people and you can see, get an idea of gestures, nods, all those types of things. So you can accelerate that process to connect with a prospect on the recruiting side. So does that answer your question on that piece of it? And then I'll talk about pipeline?
Chad (7m 27s):
Yes. So we're talking about mainly the interview process at this point?
Heather (7m 33s):
Correct. I mean you could also do introductory meetings, but you know, to me it's, you kind of qualify the lead, right? And then you decide to send them a headset because you wanna show them how cool you are. In the talent pipeline version of this though, this is gonna be a little more what we call Disney ride. So not a rollercoaster cuz everybody will throw up. But, this is where we approach the content in a self-guided way. It's not network, okay. For a number of reasons one of the biggest ones being security. But we wanna give the users, I say kids, but we've gotten interest all the way from, you know, can we talk to kids in the sixth grade and younger and can we talk to people at work one who've lost their jobs or wanna see, you know, make a change in their career?
Heather (8m 13s):
So we're focused right now cuz we know that we can't be all things to all people outta the gate. So our messaging and our approach right now is gonna be focused content-wise on ninth grade and high school through late twenties. You know, like basically that's the Ivy Tech average student age. So we're focusing on speaking to that particular group of people right now. So I'll say kids or you know, younger users, when they go into the headset. What we are doing now is spending a ton of time with a Vanderbilt researcher named Chris Kaufman and also Rich Whitney, who's a Cummins, he's been at Cummins for years doing global leadership and strategic training for them, developing a lot of their empathetic approach to product development as well.
Heather (8m 54s):
He's a human designer. And so what we're doing is taking our learnings from these two gentlemen and meshing it into our process to develop this message, craft this message and say, Hey, we know how to talk to businesses selling b2b, but do we really know how to talk to kids? I mean, as a teacher I know that I may think that I knew how to talk to kids, but at the end of the day, are they gonna give you a review that tells you, you did a great job with that. What we're really trying to focus on now in the talent pipeline conversation is we're serving up, I'll call it a social media feed. When they enter the headset, there's gonna be an age relevant. Like right now it's gonna be some more casting, very energetic young man named Carrington who's gonna welcome them into VR. He's gonna, you know, tell them how cool it is.
Chad (9m 35s):
Is the character a unicorn? That's the question.
Heather (9m 38s):
You know, I wish that he was, he's actually, when you see him in virtual reality, you might be like, man, that guy really kinda is a unicorn. Like when we all saw him, like in his audition tape, we were like that guy! So a bit of a unicorn, but not in the way. You may wish. Okay. Although I could dress him up. I mean it is virtual reality there. Anything's possible in the metaverse, right?
Chad (9m 58s):
Yes.
Heather (9m 58s):
So, you know, what we're doing is welcoming them. We wanna set the space, it's very modern, sleek room and once they've gotten acclimated to how we're using hand tracking with Oculus headset as opposed to trying to deal with controllers. So we're working on our interface to optimize that feature and then they'll actually be brought into this social media feed. I've gotta figure out a name for that. Our team has been working on that. We are all trying to come up with different ideas. It'll look kind of like Instagram or Facebook, but it's meant to be a kind of non-confrontational, non quiz like assessment tool that tells us a little more about what they're interested in. So if it's a kid that's more mathematically inclined that they're gonna see content that's more relevant to them as they move through the experience.
Chad (10m 38s):
Okay. Okay.
Heather (10m 39s):
And so, so they go through this social media feed, they tell us a little bit more about what they like out of these different posts that we've created, and then they're gonna be brought into a room that will kind of shift around and you're going to be presented with all of the companies that have job opportunities that would be related to you! And, it could just be, it doesn't necessarily have to be companies, it could also be industry focused, right? So we're talking with the electrical workers unions or you know, trades, entrepreneurship. We're gonna capture those types of stories as well as traditional company stories. Working with different stakeholders in the community to identify who owns those pieces. Inside our experience. Once the student selects what they want, then they're gonna be presented with some crafted messaging around each of those companies that's designed to help them understand the mission, vision, values, purpose over paycheck.
Heather (11m 28s):
And then when they go into what I'm calling the opportunities room, this is where we really get to play around and have a lot of fun with the corporate partners because, or I'll call them content partners because if it's in our pilot version, Acme Engine let's say, or in the aerospace, we're making up a name making up a client there, they're gonna be able to explode this engine and interact with it a little bit, but we don't want 'em get too distracted. And then we've created customized panels that show all the different job opportunities that are available right now inside the headset for that particular content partner. And so then they'll be able to open up a hotspot, we call 'em hotspots. And then there's more rich media content that tells them information about career tracks, shows them what the entry level looks like, what's the growth opportunity, what's the pay scale gonna be for this type of a job, What's the type of person that would be the right fit for this job?
Heather (12m 17s):
And then there's gotta be a there there. So cool. We don't want it to just be like, wow, that was really nice billboard that I got to watch in VR. So when they come outta the headset, we're partnering with Pivot CX and Field of Talent to actually have a connection point. So if they're interested in more information about what they saw right now, it'll be a bit more of a manual process. But in the final iterations they're gonna actually be connected through the V3 Connect app and they can actually say, I want more information about this job opportunity at Pace Dairy in Crawfordsville Indiana. Or I wanna go, you know, learn more about opportunities at Lilly and then they will be connected with a human who will help them get connected to the other humans that can help them make that happen.
Chad (12m 58s):
So it sounds like every single company would have an entirely different experience, which you guys need to build from the ground up. Is that correct?
Heather (13m 6s):
Exactly.
Chad (13m 7s):
Okay. So I mean that in itself, especially at this stage is, I would assume that's not cheap VR, you know, is, I know it's not new new, but it's still new compared to most of the other technologies that are out there. Do you have a huge dev team that actually, who do you interact with with the company to actually build these experiences?
Heather (13m 28s):
We have a really interesting structure internally where we have what I call the storyteller team and Jason Morris who leads that team, he's brilliant. He's really, really fast on his feet at listening to the company's story, understanding the need and figuring out how we translate that to VR. We've spent painstaking time figuring out why VR, right? Like if it's just watching a video, is that really worth it in VR? Identifying the right benefit for the customer. So we focus on it from a storytelling aspect and then he works with our 3D artists, you know, UI designers, production artists, and also with the development team to figure out which pieces of this make the most sense right now. That's our approach with B2B content, generally speaking. What we're trying to do now is bake down what are the key elements that make this more impactful for the corporate partners so that there's a little bit more plug and play to this than there would be in our V3 reality conversations?
Heather (14m 19s):
So that we're not reinventing the wheel every time, but also so that there's still that uniqueness to the experience. So if it's gonna be a healthcare partner, you know, and there's a hospital room and they want that room to do a few things, it's maybe not as complicated as it is with a whole engine. We figure out how to tell those stories more appropriately in not a cookie cutter fashion, but at least in something that gives the corporate partners, content partners an opportunity to understand what they need to give us to be successful. Cause what we don't wanna do is create an experience where only the big guys, look good. So, there's an MVP component to it.
Chad (14m 52s):
So, quick question around the content, because the type of content that you are creating sounds amazing and could be used more than just in a place where somebody has VR goggles, right? So you could be able to do like little teaser videos and those types of things. Are you repurposing some of that content outside to be able to drive more of a value proposition outside of just being in VR?
Heather (15m 14s):
Absolutely. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, VR is just cooler than anything else. I'm not just saying it cuz that's my business, but there, that was the right moment. Yes, thank you. Perfect moment showing pictures and slides and doing videos and YouTube. It's never quite the same. But what we've built into our core platform already is the ability to actually video inside the experiences. So there is a very, it's not easy to get it off the headset if it's not tethered cuz they don't make that as easy with mobile units. But there is the ability for us to then yes, optimize those experiences and put them in the the 2d, irl you know, be able to showcase those things to share, you know, we, I mean we anticipate there's an advertising component, right?
Heather (15m 58s):
You have to let young people know that this is available to them and it's not lame.
Chad (16m 2s):
Right.
Joel (16m 2s):
Okay, so, so help me visualize this. I know Ivy Tech was one example, but I wanna break it down to like the high school level. Are you envisioning this as, you know, hey, I'm a student and I can pick a few, you know, not extracurriculars, but classes and specific areas of study. Like I might take journalism or engineering or robotics, that this VR would be something that I could do during the day and from that VR experience based on what I wanted to do. It could be build to learn, you know, a V8 engine or learn how to code through VR. Like help me like from an experiential irl, how does this thing play out for a 16 year old kid at, you know, Carmel High School?
Heather (16m 46s):
What I would say is that we're not anticipating, well we would think of this as, I'll call it more of an exposure tool, right? We're just trying to expose young people wherever they are to opportunities they might not have known about. But where VR can go and where we see this opportunity going is if you've already got headsets in the school and you've already got people doing VR, then there's an opportunity to expand content, to be training focused. And we are talking with a lot of groups about type of content at Ivy Tech, for instance with Ivy Tech Academy. So, I wouldn't anticipate that the goal of V3 connect in and of itself is to train them on anything. It's meant to be more of a high level exposure tour that's constantly got fresh content in it, but then it's meant to help guide their choices in terms of what they're gonna pick to do when they're in school.
Heather (17m 30s):
If I'm a 16 year old Carmel High school and I'm not totally sure should I take robotics or the EMT class for instance, then what we are gonna do is either pair them, I mean, at Carmel High School I'm sure they probably, and I could be misspeaking and making assumptions here, you know, the statistics is something in their neighborhood, I think statewide of one guidance counselor to four or 500 students.
Chad (17m 53s):
Yeah.
Heather (17m 53s):
And that is an insurmountable number when you're trying to talk about personalized conversations. So, you know, I feel like there's pressure in certain schools and I would lump Carmel into this cuz, I'm from there originally, but is that there's a, I gotta be a doctor or lawyer, but I grew up in a tiny little town in northern Indiana where it was like, well you gotta do what girls do, right? So, so getting exposure to those young people, whether they are in Carmel, Indiana or they are in a rural America type of environment, or they're in urban Gary for instance, giving them that equal opportunity to see what's possible. And then what privacy X allows us to do is not put a burden on the guidance counselors necessarily to have to figure out what they do when they figure out they wanna do something they've never heard about before.
Joel (18m 34s):
So it may be more like something at in the library, like you would have headphones and you could listen to albums or something. Like there might be a corner in the library where you could, VR, what would it be like to be an engineer and here's Cummins explaining how that would look to you. It's not an actual class that you would take.
Heather (18m 50s):
We're imagining this to be something that integrated, like let's say a STEM teacher wants to give extra credit for doing more experiences in VR. Everybody's forced to integrate that way, right? We can, and you can't see me, but I'm putting this in four air quotes, gamify cuz that word gets dropped a little too much and used inappropriately, but gamifying the experience later, right? So we have the opportunity to add points, badges, you know, the more things you do, the more IRL opportunities maybe that you get. So, we wanna see it expand to that we're not starting there, but that's definitely where we see it going.
Joel (19m 21s):
In the release, you said that you were looking to raise $80 million, is that mostly from companies? Are there some government funding? Like talk about raising the money and then what are you guys plan to do once it is raised?
Heather (19m 32s):
All of the above. We have some really exciting conversations going on at the philanthropic level that I can't really spell out a whole lot about, but I mean it's had me jazzed the whole weekend! Our conversations last week with this particular group. And then on top of that then, so there's the philanthropic piece in the middle, right? And that may go towards helping, that could be state funding, that could be individual philanthropists, can be foundations, can be community economic development corporations. We're in talks with all of those groups as well as at, just at the state level. And every stakeholder's got a little bit different interest, right? So what we wanna do is make sure that that rural high school in Indiana can have, we call them pods. So we envision that every school has at least four headsets so that it looks significant, right?
Heather (20m 17s):
It's not just a stand with a headset sitting in the corner by itself looking lonely. So, it's got this pod component to it, there's a touch screen there, it's interactive, it tells them more about what's happening and that's using our touch interactive technology to tell those stories and then those the schools could opt to pay for that. And we have some schools that are willing and have budgets that are available to pay for the ongoing cost to cover that. But we have many who aren't. This is where philanthropy comes in. This is where state funding comes in, is the opportunity to make sure that that's sustainable for those schools to keep the headsets there. And then on the other side of that, there's gonna be, we hope some of this economic development type funds that would go towards helping smaller corporate partners not have to share, like carry the load where if a Lilly or a Cummins maybe can afford that because they have that kind of budget, but a Paysterier and Acuity Lighting cannot.
Heather (21m 7s):
So, we anticipate that central bucket of community partner funding, philanthropic funding, helping to aid on both sides as well as then each side funding some portion of what they're doing as well.
Chad (21m 17s):
I could see some real awesome connections and synergy between not just high school but university and the college to be able to try to, first and foremost, if I'm, you know, a university and I want to be able to draw great talent from, you know, obviously local high school levels throughout the entire, you know, United States, let's say into my university because Cummins engine company or Rolls Royce or whoever it might be, they want engineers coming outta Purdue. Right? So to be able to tie that together, and this is one of the things that I think that we have not been able to execute on here in the United States. We used to have a great vocational program that would automatically send kids pretty much as plumbers or carpenters or electricians right out into the community to do jobs, right?
Chad (22m 5s):
Well we fell down on that and we allowed that to go away and die. Now we can do the exact same thing with that old version for plumbers and carpenters. But we can also do that from an engineer standpoint. And instead of just going into the local community to be able to have those positions, they have to go to school, what schools support that? And then after that, what companies need that type of talent that actually support that as well. I mean, I see this as an ecosystem more than just, you know, little, you know, rural school here and there.
Heather (22m 39s):
That is exactly how we see it being an ecosystem for talent, talent pipeline. Absolutely. You're hired, Chad, you got the whole thing down.
Chad (22m 48s):
So this also sounds like something that government would just be clawing for because again, they have fallen down over the past few decades, not just a president, all the presidents left, right, center, they've all fallen down when it comes to being able to focus on ensuring that, you know, we keep hearing about the quote skills gap. So is there any opportunity for government to be able to spur on this, other than just funding?
Heather (23m 17s):
Yes, a tremendous amount of opportunity. I mean the conversations we've had, it's really just a matter of getting everybody in the same room because from the DWD to the CHC, again the, it's, you know, the acronym salad of all of the different stakeholders at the government level that are interested in this. We've spoken with all of them at a high level at separate moments, but what we wanted to be able to do to bring them all together is have our initial experience in the headset. For that exact reason I was saying earlier that you just gotta see it in VR. And so yes, they are clamoring to figure out exactly how they wanna structure state fundings. I think there's probably bigger opportunities for funding talking with like federal transportation, you know, they're all different kinds of groups and stakeholders who can benefit from this and every one of them is interested.
Heather (24m 2s):
We haven't talked to one that's like, oh no, I don't think that's for me. So, I think they all see this as a solution too, without putting words in the mouths of any of the great partners that we have been speaking with already. For sure there is just, they see this as a pathway. One of the gentlemen that I've been speaking with called it the backpack of opportunities and I love that. Like the visual of that is for me just makes my hair stand up actually. Just very cool. And so I think everybody sees this and the key is just showing them at it in VR so they can continue to imagine the art of the possible.
Joel (24m 40s):
So the release focus is specifically on Indiana, but also hints at national sort of growth. What does that look like? What's the timeline for that? Talk about global domination of this program.
Heather (24m 53s):
Well, you know, as I said, I may not have mentioned this in my about me, but global domination definitely on my sort of bucket list. So in the past to that, Thank you. Thank you. I'm bowing.
sfx (25m 6s):
What did you say?
Chad (25m 7s):
You're gonna need more than $80 million, but okay.
Heather (25m 9s):
Right. Yeah, I don't think anybody's handed me the keys to that kingdom anytime soon. But our path to global domination, as you say, you know, we're focused on Indiana and part of that was just, you know, we put this out out there earlier this year and had no idea. I mean, you come up with something new and as every entrepreneur hopes that it takes off and everybody gets it and you don't have to explain yourself a lot, but that has ended up being what's happening. So we set the goal of two years, we're gonna have this out there knowing that there's a herculean effort between here and there and all of the barriers just keep falling away the minute that we make that announcement, right? So what I see happening is that not only are we gonna hit that goal, but what we're talking about now is expanding beyond just the high schools and the colleges and putting them in libraries and putting them in chambers and putting them in other accessible areas, Boys and Girls clubs, YMCAs, opportunities like that, that there's a lot of interest in at the state level because it helps to just expand the reach, right?
Heather (26m 10s):
You make the content once and you can project it to as many different headsets across the world as you want. So we're focused on the US first obviously, but I don't see that there's a boundary necessarily. Does Indiana wanna attract people from Ohio and you know, Illinois to come to Indiana? Absolutely. So, I see that growing kind of organically that it just starts to expand as we put the word out. We have had so many schools reach out to us completely cold, just like we saw this, we want in, we haven't pushed it much beyond Indiana. We focused our press release on Indiana. So once we focus outside of that, I think that very naturally progresses. How fast? Really is only limited by obviously who wants to write the checks in at what level.
Joel (26m 54s):
And what Heather meant to say was, we heard about you on the Chad and Cheese podcast.
Heather (26m 57s):
Yes.
Joel (26m 57s):
That's what she meant to say.
Heather (26m 58s):
We heard about you on the Chad and Cheese podcast, therefore. What's totally gonna happen, actually, I mean, like I said, one of our stakeholders from actually from PivotCX was like, Hey, did you guys hear you were on the Chad and Cheese podcast? I'm like, we're everywhere, so maybe you are. So, the point being though, I do think what we're attempting to arrive at in Indiana though is a rinse and repeat, right? Let's understand how we effectively get these messages out there, make it faster, make it updateable, continue to expand. The metaverse doesn't have a limit. So how far can we go? You know, those are questions that we're gonna continue to answer, but in terms of the geographic boundaries, I don't think there is a limit, especially at least within the contiguous US.
Chad (27m 44s):
So you bring up the metaverse and one of the biggest opportunities in the metaverse today are platforms like Xbox, PlayStation, right? Are are you guys looking at perspectively allowing or starting to inject apps into, you know, those versions of the metaverse so that, you know, you might be able to drag them into the VR, but at least they're getting a taste of it.
Heather (28m 9s):
Yes. The app side of it is something, actually our CTO was just kind of, he was like, Hey, I don't wanna pull us way too far off topic, but I'm just thinking about app development. And I said, my brain's there already. What that looks like. Definitely no idea. You know, I do think there's a, there, there. But, I wouldn't jump ahead of Eric and say for sure how he sees that playing out. But I do think that an app makes a lot of sense and at least gets them enticed to wanna go maybe actually physically see a headset at a facility. But as people have more and more headsets, you know, I realize they try to say that it's still emerging tech, but I forget, there's, you know, what, 16 million headsets or something.
Heather (28m 50s):
There's a lot of headsets out there. I do think that that becomes a bit of a ubiquitous tool. I know that meta themselves would like them to be in every household and replace your iPhone. I don't know if that's gonna happen, but it does definitely expand your reach if we're already in the headsets and maybe there's an app that you can just download at home to see this content.
Joel (29m 8s):
Heather, you say $16 million is impressive and I say it's a little underwhelming and I don't wanna like throw a total wet blanket on this conversation.
Chad (29m 17s):
He always does.
Heather (29m 19s):
That's a bit of your job though, right? Point, counterpoint.
Joel (29m 21s):
Agree or disagree that it's underwhelmed at this point. I assume that you disagree, but if you do agree on the outside chance, what do you think turns VR around as a real ubiquitous, in every home kind of solution. If you disagree outside of $16 million, do you have any other metrics that might change my mind in terms of what VR has done up to this point?
Heather (29m 44s):
I agree with you in that I thought meta would do a better job at it.
Joel (29m 48s):
Where have they failed?
Heather (29m 50s):
Well, I mean I just don't think, you know, they came out and announced it, but it was like, I don't know if they had an action plan. I mean, maybe Mark Zuckerberg's gonna call me tomorrow and be like, Hey! But you know, I just, I expected them and I really feel like a lot of people in the industry expected them to, because of their reach and, and just sheer advertising power and connection to people across the world that they were going to deliver at a bigger level on what Meta was supposed to be doing. And I think it's just been kind of cloudy, you know? So I think that actually what happens is, I mean, we were all already out here doing it to begin with, right? They jumped in the fray like we're the cool cats Meta, Meta, Meta.
Heather (30m 31s):
Honestly, I think what it takes is organic growth. When you're trying to do something like this, there's just exposure and understanding. And, it's the same battle that we fought as we've made our way into the business clients and business partners that we have, is that there's just a resistance to stuff people don't know. There's also, I think, and to your point about what changes it, it is conversations, it is getting people in headsets with which a program like this can do. Because what we have found is, first of all, there is crappy VR, right? Like there's really not great VR, just like there's not great websites and if it's crappy VR, people are gonna get sick, they're gonna have problems with vertigo.
Heather (31m 14s):
They're, you know, that's too busy and so they don't understand what the heck they're doing there, you know. So there are a lot of efforts that we're actually putting in that's part of our Vanderbilt research to figure out why we do it better on a messaging side and how we craft the story. And also using, not getting super brainy, but he calls it our researchers looking at seductive detail and desirable difficulties. Thank you. I'm snapping too in the background.
Chad (31m 38s):
Seductive, Yes.
Heather (31m 39s):
Seductive. I just like being able to say seductive. So, so, you know, we're trying to really, it's a wild west out there and I I think until there start to emerge and we feel we are one of those thought leaders who are changing the conversation to this as a powerful tool instead of just a fun video game. That's what starts to change.
Joel (31m 60s):
Sounds like you're saying we're in AOL and dial up days and the good old days are around the corner. Is that what I'm hearing you say? Basically.
Heather (32m 9s):
It's not quite Napster, but you know, I mean maybe we're halfway in between Napster and streaming on iTunes, right?
Chad (32m 17s):
Well Heather, I have to say we have the answer for you. It's called the Chad and Cheese Virtual Experience coming to you in 2023 by VisionThree.
Heather (32m 26s):
I love it.
Chad (32m 27s):
Heather Jackson, everybody CRO at VisionThree. Heather, if anybody wants to find out more about what you guys are doing over there, this is exciting stuff. No question. Where would you send them?
Heather (32m 39s):
I would send them to Visionthree.com. You spell it all out, all one word and they can email us, contact us there, our phone number's right there. And you know, reach out and tell us a little bit more about you and let's get connected.
Joel (32m 50s):
Mrs. Jackson, if you're nasty.
Heather (32m 52s):
We out.
Chad and Cheese (32m 52s):
We out, we out.
OUTRO (33m 48s):
Thank you for listening to, what's it called? The podcast with Chad, the Cheese. Brilliant. They talk about recruiting. They talk about technology, but most of all, they talk about nothing. Just a lot of Shout Outs of people, you don't even know and yet you're listening. It's incredible. And not one word about cheese, not one cheddar, blue, nacho, pepper jack, Swiss. So many cheeses and not one word. So weird. Any hoo be sure to subscribe today on iTunes, Spotify, Google play, or wherever you listen to your podcasts, that way you won't miss an episode. And while you're at it, visit www.chadcheese.com just don't expect to find any recipes for grilled cheese. Is so weird. We out.