Welcome to the Metaverse. Or maybe not…
“This is Boris pulling the whole damn rug from underneath our feet and ripping up the floor behind him!”
That’s the first time I’ve used a quote from an MP to start the blog, but it seems appropriate this week. It’s Naz Shah, Labour MP for Bradford West, commenting on the news that leaked out over the weekend. The Government is likely to water down proposals for investment in the UK’s infrastructure, especially in the North. So no high-speed rail link between Leeds and Manchester, and it seems that HS2 won’t go any further than Birmingham.
Northern ‘Powerhouse’ Rail? It will continue to trundle sedately through Stalybridge. So much for levelling up…
In fact, there’s plenty of bad news around this week for anyone who wants to be Mr Grumpy. Growth slowed to 1.3% in the third quarter thanks to those endless supply chain problems, and business confidence is down to a 12-month low – the supply chain again and worries about inflation. Mind you, while the UK worries about inflation, the US simply said ‘hold my beer’ as its inflation jumped to 6.2%, the fastest rate of growth for three decades.
Rather than wallow in the gloom, though, let’s peer into the future. As you know, we’ve just moved into new offices in Leeds.
Why?
Why did we bother?
Give Mark Zuckerberg a few years and offices will become a thing of the past. We’ll all be living in the Metaverse. Facebook are going to hire 10,000 people in Europe to work on it: the next big thing that will change our work, our leisure and our lives.
First things first though. What is the Metaverse?
The word comes from Snow Crash, a 1992 novel by Neal Stephenson. The blurb describes it as a ‘cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons, where anything and just about everything goes.’
More prosaically, Wiki describes the Metaverse as ‘a hypothesised iteration of the internet, supporting persistent 3D virtual environments through conventional personal computing.’
As one advocate put it, the Metaverse will be to current VR what your iPhone is to your first Nokia. A virtual world with the potential for just about everything – life, leisure, work and education.
So no more need for the 10:30 from York. A virtual Ed Reid enjoying the full match experience at St James’ Park as the Magpies go ten points clear at the top. And all without leaving the sofa…
There has, unquestionably, been plenty of previous hype around ‘virtual worlds.’ The feeling in the tech community is that this time they are ‘nearly there,’ as advances are made in VR gaming and connectivity rapidly improves. Several of the big tech companies are making sizeable bets on the Metaverse, with Mark Zuckerberg saying it has the potential to “unlock access to new creative, social and economic opportunities.”
Right now the Metaverse still sounds like it belongs in the realms of science fiction – but then so did your iPhone and so did virtual reality. (And so did Newcastle spending £200m in the January transfer window…)
At first glance the idea of wandering round a virtual world with your avatar sounds appealing. As we turn the central heating up, sitting in the sun outside a French café has a lot going for it.
But do I want my virtual self to meet my virtual colleagues in our virtual office to talk about our virtual clients?
No, I don’t.
Number one – I’m enjoying being back at work. Really back at work. It wasn’t until we were back in the office that I – like I suspect a lot of people – realised how much I’d missed face-to-face meetings and everything that comes with them.
Yes, the world of work is different: yes, the pandemic has changed what some people want from work and life. But it has not changed the basic human need to meet other people.
We’re social beings and however good the tech becomes that’s how I want it to stay. We’re only now recognising what a toll Covid – not meeting people – has taken on our mental health. As Sajid Javid admitted on Thursday morning, the proportion of adults with depression has doubled since the pandemic.
Secondly, we all know the damage that was done to the commuter economy and our high streets by endless lockdowns. Well, if we’re all in virtual offices and going into virtual shops at lunchtime the damage done to the real world will be incalculable.
So for now I’m going to treat the Metaverse with caution. I’m going to enjoy meeting people, I’m going to embrace the return to normal – and standing on the platform waiting for the Newcastle train.
Unless, of course, the Metaverse can guarantee a home win…