Where to start with enterprise XR?

Takeaways from the Metacenter Global Week tech conference

Photo by Razvan Chisu on Unsplash

Extended Reality (XR) technology allows enterprises to simulate environments and create scenarios which are either too dangerous or too costly to physically replicate safely.

Although consumer entertainment takes up the bulk of attention of XR technology, there are many enterprise use-cases that are growing especially in the areas of Healthcare, Training, and Collaborative Design.

Cole Engineering Services booth at Metacenter Global

For the uninitiated, it can all become overwhelming. Digital solutions using emerging technology are often tailor-made to fit the problem, and XR is no exception.

This is currently due to competing standards, device maturity, and the concepts used throughout the industry that mix together to create complexity and unequal understanding of the technologies.

In the amazing “Digital Twins: Status Update” panel discussion, Dr. Carolina Cruz-Niera put it best…

“It isn’t horizontal or vertical, it’s a spaghetti!”

There is a need to engage across multiple disciplines in order to make digital transformations successful.

Great series of panel discussions hitting upon common themes for success

Key Tips Gleamed from Metacenter Global

A few common themes emerged on approaches to using XR technology:

1. Like any other digital transformation journey, one must *NOT* focus on the technology. Instead, work backwards from the objectives sought and ensure organizational leadership is aligned. This point was driven home by Damon Shackelford and Richard Entrup in another great panel called “Scaling XR and Emerging Tech in Enterprise.”
2. Master the methodologies that can make digital transformations successful including Design Thinking, Human Experience Design, and Agile ensuring you can deliver experiences instead of tech and iterate faster. Importantly, don’t just engage 3rd parties to execute on your behalf; build these into your organization’s culture.
3. Start by describing the problem and then develop the data needed to back up the problem. Along a similar vein to point #1, data will always be your friend! Whether the data is used to unwind a problem, develop key performance indicator (KPI) metrics, or help confirm qualitative findings.
4. Education and knowledge sharing are fundamental to building an organization’s culture for success. Engage stakeholders within and without the organization and encourage an atmosphere of learning. The president of the University of Central Florida Dr. Alexander Cartwright, put it best: create and foster life-long learners always. In several sessions, fostering learning at governments and private organizations enabled robust digital solutions to be delivered.

Plenty more learnings…

If you enjoyed this article, check out my Design Bootcamp article about the metaverse and be sure to subscribe to catch an upcoming article describing my overall experience at this conference compared to last year’s predecessor event Immerse Global Summit.

Connect with Demetrio Wazar on LinkedIn. He is the founder of Cloud Weaver Solutions, a digital transformation consultancy developing new employee experiences with data at the core. His firm specializes in integrating processes and data together to empower employees to achieve more with technology.