Jonathan and Charlene discuss Moderne’s use of virtual reality—specifically, the Oculus VR system—as a collaboration tool for its disparate developer team and demonstrate how the groups works in the Workroom app. The video is above and a transcript of the conversation is below.
Interviewer: This is Digital Anarchist.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to Techstrong TV. I am Charlene O’Hanlon, and I am here now with Jonathan Schneider, who is the cofounder and CEO of Moderne. Jonathan, thank you so much for getting on the Zoom and talking with me today. I really do appreciate it.
Interviewee: Always a pleasure.
Interviewer: So, I wanna talk to you about something that I’m super stoked about, actually. It’s the virtual reality and the way organizations can actually use virtual reality to their benefit. And I know your organization has kind of started doing a lot of your work in a virtual environment, in the Workrooms app on the Oculus, too. So, tell me a little bit about that, why you guys decided to go that route, and maybe some of the benefits that you guys have noticed with it.
Interviewee: Absolutely. I think it is good to say, upfront, that we started with a great degree of skepticism about this whole technology and approach, and I’m sure many of your listeners will, as well. I heard of podcasts three or four months ago, really, talking about how virtual reality could really start in the business first, and move towards more of a consumer use case, and I just needed to really understand. So, _____ we started small, we actually ordered one headset, initially, just to understand it, experience it, ’cause, you know, I’d never had any experience with VR. Then expanded it to two other employees, and it’s kind of gradually expanded since then. We just, we’ve been working on Zoom, our company is all remote, there’s 12 of us, we’ve actually never met in person, that’s probably not surprising, and we just felt a lack of presence and connection. So, it’s just a way of actually sitting together, and, surprisingly, that feeling comes across more than you think it would.
Interviewer: You know, it’s really interesting technology, and, you know, we’re gonna show the audience, in just a few minutes, exactly what it looks like and how you guys interact in the room. But, you know, it’s really fascinating to hear about the different ways that organizations are kind of dealing with this hybrid or all-remote work environment. And I remember, at the beginning of the pandemic, there were some companies that were trying to do standups in, like, Animal Crossing and different environments, just to kind of mix it up and make it seem like, you know, it’s not just like every day is an endless Zoom meeting. So, it’s really fascinating to me that we have kind of harnessed, if you will, this technology, and made it so much more than, you know, an endless Zoom meeting. And I wonder, when you guys set out to do this, I mean, were you actively looking for another approach to collaboration? Or is this just something that you guys decided, “Well, we’ll give it a try and see how it works”?
Interviewee: We did it opportunistically. I feel like more modes of communication are rarely a bad thing. You know, of course, we already had Zoom – really, it’s just, it was an inexpensive investment. You know, these headsets are about $300.00 each, relative to the cost of a laptop, which, you know, we regularly send out to employees, is very little. And so I thought, you know, if it would give us a greater sense of presence or, you know, connection, it’s worth that kind of investment, and so, that’s how we really approached it. You know, it’s gonna be easy, I think, as a skeptic, to say, “Look, we should be meeting in person, we should be, you know – we shouldn’t be escaping into a virtual world to escape reality.” And I think we’re not at all about escaping reality; it’s about adding additional modes of communication that can help when we aren’t able to be together in person.
Interviewer: So, what exactly are you doing in the Workroom? Are you spending all day long in it, or are you doing standups, or just ad hoc meetings? Or what is your kind of mode with the Workroom?
Interviewee: It’s sometimes standup, although not every day, and, you know, it’s generally ad hoc. So these headsets, right now, are wireless, the battery life is about an hour-and-a-half, so, you know, you don’t stay in there the entire day. We’ve reached a point where we’re comfortable being in there for an hour-and-a-half, if we want to be. But, you know, just to relay an event from a couple weeks ago, I was working on a production issue with one of our engineers, and there were two of us sitting side by side in this room, one of our screens was projected largely on the board in front, and we were working through this issue. Another member of the team joined the room thinking, “Maybe I’ll contribute to solving this problem.” He actually wasn’t able to; he just, like, he didn’t have the context.
But he just kept sitting there, and he was here looking at desk working, and just kind of absorbing this background information debugging this problem. And I thought, “That is an experience I haven’t had since, you know, I’ve sat in an open-floor plan office, in years.”
Interviewer: So, I imagine your employees also, when you guys first started doing this, they were also a little skeptical of it? Or were they just really gung-ho to give it a try?
Interviewee: Mostly skeptical, I would say. You know, the first two – you know, I said we did three headsets, originally. We picked two people that were interested and engaged, but most people were skeptical. And again, I was, too. It’s just a low-cost investment. I suggest try it. And it won’t be for everybody, I think.
Interviewer: And have you had more people in your organization say, you know, “Count me in. This is the way I wanna work from now on”?
Interviewee: I think it’s gradually that way. I think, right now, the technology is – it’s pretty polished, but there’s definitely rough edges. I think the next-generation devices resolution is gonna be significantly better, you know, _____ _____ _____ battery life will increase. This very much feels like the early PC era, and being a business that’s adopting a technology that ultimately will be pretty ubiquitous, I think. And so, it’s really an organization question: do you wanna be on the leading edge of this or do you wanna be behind? I think, you know, I run an enterprise B2B software company, and we work on developer tools, and we work with developers all the time. We’ve actually had customer engineers voluntarily join us in our room, to work with us on an implementation issue, but then they’ll come back and just hang out later.
So, I mean, there’s this mode of connection, even with customers outside the company, that I think is really compelling. Especially, you know, small companies, we’re always looking for any advantage we have [laughter], ’cause we have plenty of disadvantages. And this is one, I think, that we can really.
Interviewer: Well, that’s great, that’s great. So, why don’t we go ahead and jump into the Workroom, and we can check it out and you can kind of give me the grand tour, as it were. Sound good?
Interviewee: [Crosstalk] See you there.
Interviewer: All right, great, great.
Well, this is an amazing environment, here. I love the fact that you guys are all able to get together. So, where is everybody located, in real-life?
Interviewee: I’m in Chico, California.
Interviewee: I’m in Portland, Oregon.
Interviewee: Austin, Texas.
Interviewee: Southwest Missouri.
Interviewee: Sacramento, California.
Interviewer: Okay, all right, great. So have you guys ever met each other in real-life?
Interviewee: A few of us, yeah, like, we used to – some of us worked together, previously. And then, we’ve had an opportunity to go up to Seattle and meet folks up there.
Interviewer: Okay, great. So, how do you guys like working in this virtual environment? I mean, do you notice any limitations to it, or do you find it pretty easy to use?
Interviewee: Mm, that’s a big question. [Laughter]
Interviewee: I thin both of those are true.
Interviewee: They are, yeah.
Interviewee: It’s really nice to be able to get together and work collaboratively on something in what feels like a physical space, but this is, and Jonathan talks about, this is a Generation One technology of this. And, like, you can see some people’s keyboards, like, I can see Jonathan’s keyboard over here, but you can’t see mine, because my keyboard’s not supported, yet. So I have to have this pass-through mode, so it looks like a ghost version of my desk right in front of me.
Interviewee: Yeah, text input for me is still a little – I’m kind of – I guess I have high expectations and I’m a little picky [laughter] about, you know, the typing and then being able to see it. And, you know, I recently had to get contacts, so, the Quest 2 headset uses your distance vision as, you know, like, of your prescription, so I have bifocals, normally. So, you know, your options are, like, third-party _____ that go on your lenses, or I went the contacts route, so that I could see [laughs], so that I could actually see things inside. So, that’s, yeah, that’s something to be concerned about.
Interviewer: Interesting. From a collaboration standpoint, though, are you guys finding it easier to be able to see, like, the same thing all at once and actually manipulate it or make edits to it? It seems like more real-time than real-time.
Interviewee: It did remind me a little bit of going to the WeWork [crosstalk] company we had at WeWork, and, you know, just being able to kind of hop in and out while other people are kind of doing their thing. And, you know, you’re sitting here and you’re actually talking, and it’s more real-life than Zoom, because it’s three-dimensional, you know, and there’s spatial awareness that, you know, you’re turning your head and things that you’re not doing on Zoom. So, Zoom, it’s very artificial, you know, it’s very 2D. So, those parts of collaboration, in my mind, are, like, the main benefit to it. The, you know, the various, like, logistical things, I think, like, Jonathan’s right, it’s, like, it needs to mature, significantly, before it will be not an annoyance, you know, to your normal workday, right? Like, you don’t want anything slowing you down; you only want to get the good value out of things, and it’s gonna take some maturation for that to happen, in the technology itself.
Interviewee: So, one of my favorite things about this is, you can see me holding the controller, here, and then, it doesn’t show you my other hand, but this bottom part, here – so this becomes a marker, as you get close. And so you just, like, writing, like, in this format, so. And I’m not writing on any physical surface, but it really feels like I am.
Interviewer: Huh –
Interviewee: Yeah, the controller gives you haptic feedback, when you get close to the whiteboard. You also can do the whiteboard on your local desk, and if you have your desk height set correctly, then you get the physical sensation of touching the controller to your desk, which is also another way to draw on there. You know, fine details and things like that, I think, are easier to communicate using that rather than just relying on [crosstalk].
Interviewee: Oh, [crosstalk].
Interviewee: Hello. [Laughter]
Interviewer: Okay. You guys, like, blend into each other, here.
Interviewee: Apparently, I picked the same location [crosstalk]. There we go.
Interviewee: And, you know, interestingly, I feel like personal space is still a thing, even in VR. You wouldn’t think that it would be, but, you know, if somebody, like, appears next to you in the table, it’s sort of like, “Oh, wait a minute, you’re kind of closer than you would be in real-life.” [Laugher] You know, you’re, like, in real-life, we’d never be sitting this close to each other, right, unless we were, like, directly communicating over a shared topic.
Interviewee: And it’s weird when they go to reach for something in their area, but, you know, it’s actually your area in the virtual space.
Interviewee: Yeah, you go to set down your controllers and you’re, like, putting your hands through your neighbor [laughter] [crosstalk].
Interviewer: This is awesome. So, are you guys, I don’t know, would you consider yourselves sold on this technology? Is it something that you guys wanna continue doing and utilizing, especially as it becomes more advanced and maybe user-friendly?
Interviewee: Hundred percent.
Interviewee: Yeah, I’m not sure that “sold” is, like, there’s nothing to sell. It is the future, right, like, it’s coming. Even if you don’t like it, like, this is the future of how we’re gonna do remote work. I’m just pretty convinced that that’s the case. I don’t see, you know, any other trend or anything in remote work that’s going to, like, overtake. This is going to just continue to get better, and, you know, the graphics and resolution, the frame rate’s gonna get better, you know, mixed reality rather than complete virtual reality, all of these things are gonna contribute to just a better remote work experience, I think, all the way around.
Interviewer: Well, that’s cool. Yeah, well, I would say that just this short introduction has really kind of shown me the capabilities and how it really can – I mean, I think this would’ve been awesome, well, even more awesome, if we had this two years ago at the beginning of the pandemic, when everybody was trying to, you know, figure out how they’re gonna work remotely fulltime. This would’ve been the way, you know, and then we wouldn’t be having these conversations about whether people should go back into the office or work fully remote or hybrid. I think that this would just be the way, moving forward, and everybody would recognize that. I think if I had one complaint about it, it’s the fact that these headsets are heavy. [Multiple “yeah” remarks] But, so, you know, I think as the technology improves, we’re gonna see a lot more companies adopt this.
Interviewee: Mm-hmm, totally agree, yeah. I mean, all of the mobile technology that has been building in all of the, you know, like, Apple devices, just consider the amount of complexity that’s in a handheld iPhone. And, you know, that’s all gonna be going into the headsets, you know, that high-resolution retina screens, you know, the game development algorithms, and the, you know, unity and all of the libraries that go with it, like, all of this stuff is – it’s not disconnected. It’s, like, totally, you know, the ecosystem that is sort of coalescing around this idea of augmented reality but virtual reality, right, totally made up reality that’s augmented by, you know, our presence. So, in that sense, it’s [crosstalk].
Interviewer: Yeah, it’s an immersive reality [crosstalk], yeah, awesome.
Interviewee: Yes, that’s a good way to look at it.
Interviewer: Well, guys, thank you very much for walking me through. This has been fascinating, and I gotta tell you that I am – I was a bit skeptical, but not anymore. I think that this is a great technology and you guys are doing great stuff with it, so, thanks again for showing me. I do appreciate it. All right, thank you, Jonathan.
[End of Audio]
