Microsoft’s Jared Spataro: Pandemic Sped Up Technological Change (Moving Us Closer to the Metaverse)

20:55For those who have been tracking the NBA, pick that up then and use that for virtual fans experiences during their in the bubble season. We were really proud of that. We still think there's a lot of application of together mode, but that's going to be morphing, I think, into something that we're calling front row now, which is all about how you present digital attendees in more of a physical setting. So I think we'll see less of together mode just in a purely digital sense and more of that in the shared kind of some people physical, some people digital. We're also doing some really interesting things about kind of putting you, you know, within the content that you're presenting.

21:28We have this really cool feature called Cameo. It kind of allows you to be almost like a weatherman or weatherwoman who stands up in the midst of their weather map and kind of points things out. We think it's going to be the future of kind of walking through digital content, whether you are physically present or not. And so it's even small things like that that can make a difference. Really, what you'll see is the theme is the fuse going forward, the fusing of the digital and the physical. I think that's going to be a huge theme in the technology here over the coming years. Well, one of the things, one of the tools that we probably would like is, you know, I think particularly when in a hybrid situation or remote situation, you can't tell if your colleagues are okay.

22:06And you ask them, are you okay? And you're like, yeah, I'm okay. Are you developing tools that can tell us if our team members are okay? You know, here's what I'd say. The idea of being okay, well-being and mental health, by the way, was cited as one of the most important things that people value going back to that equation. So you've really put your finger on something that's very important. However, it's also a source of, I think, a lot of discussion because of the privacy implications of being okay, if you will, and projecting how okay you are. So a lot of what we're doing right now is working with customers.

22:42We actually work with government entities. We're working with research to try and understand, you know, what do people want to share about themselves and what do they want to keep private? Some of the work that we have done with our products that allow you to help with your own well-being, for instance, customers, individual users will tell us, I don't want that information shared. You know, you can tell me that I'm overbooked. You can give me signals that I'm stressed out. Please do not project those out to my boss or the company or my colleagues unless I choose to do that. So I think you're really touching on a subject that's really important.

23:17People do want to work on their well-being, but they aren't very excited about projecting that out. You know, and I don't blame them. I kind of am in that camp where we all go through ups and downs. This episode is brought to you by Credit Karma. When it comes to your money, Credit Karma keeps you ahead of the game. You can count on Credit Karma to keep up with your financial needs as they evolve, helping you monitor your progress and giving you personalized recommendations so you can make strides towards your goals. Make sure you're on the right track, no matter where you are on your financial journey.

23:49Intuit Credit Karma. Karma you can count on. Download today. Trying to be a bit more mindful of things you buy for you and your family? Well, when it comes to laundry, choose All Free Clear. 100 % free from dyes and perfumes. All Free Clear uses only essential ingredients that tackle tough stains and odors. And it's gentle on the skin. It's a powerful clean you can feel good about. So go on, pick up a bottle of All Free Clear for your next laundry day. Yeah. And look, a lot of your technology is, you know, it's analyzing email

24:28Jared Spataro:and, you know, there's a whole level of, is that helpful? Is that creepy? How do you find the balance where it just seems helpful. And so you mentioned a couple of things about kind of physical virtual interaction, and that leads inevitably to the metaverse. You know, when your boss, Satya Nadella or, you know, Mark Zuckerberg talk about the metaverse, people get excited because we're wondering if that's the next big thing. But I'd love to hear, you know, you're inside and you're thinking about all this stuff. You know, to what extent do you think metaverse will be a significant part of our business and social lives in the not so distant future.

25:07Well, again, I think framing helps, or at least it helps for me. So you often hear me stand back and say, okay, what are the issues here? For us, a metaverse is a shared digital space that brings together people and really places because it's creating the shared space and things so that people can accomplish certain tasks. Sometimes that's an entertainment oriented task. In my domain, it would be a much more commercially relevant task where they're trying to get some business done. If you use that broad definition for a moment, we started our journey towards the metaverse in March of 2020. And the reason I say that is all of a sudden, so much of what we did moved from basically being physically mediated to being digitally mediated.

25:46These video conferences we've been in, this experience you and I are having right now that sometimes would have previously happened with us in the same studio, they're happening in digital spaces now. So for me, if I frame it up that way, the metaverse is nothing more or less than the continuation of the development of digital spaces. As I look at where we're headed, you know, we kind of see three important mileposts coming up. The first would be the adding of avatars into these digital spaces. Today, most of what we've done is camera on. You and I are talking. People get to see us. But adding this idea of an avatar, essentially kind of a character that's digitally represented to represent us, that's an important step.

26:26We'll be doing some of that work in this first half of 2022, adding that to teams. And we've got some interesting research I can share on how people feel about avatars. Then the next stop for us would be what we call augmented reality. This is the ability to project digital things. They can sometimes be people or things into physical space. that already with HoloLens is being done all across the world in all sorts of industries. And then the third one we get into is fully immersive virtual reality. And you're just starting to see some of that in the industry. And that will take a little bit longer, though the experience is pretty impressive right now as you kind of move into a digital space that feels like, wow, I'm here with other people.

27:04So moving from where we are today to that first, if you will, milestone or mile post of avatars, that's not too hard. And you're going to see that in the near future. So that all sounds pretty cool. On the other hand, you know, we were talking about sort of social capital and, you know, there's nothing like physical connection to, you know, for certain building that social capital. You know, avatars seem to be somewhere in between that sort of, you know, connection that we're valuing. And so talk more.

27:37Jared Spataro:So for those of us who might think avatars seem somewhat alienating from even this kind of Zoom type, Teams type interaction, talk about the value of avatars for people who maybe don't get that. People who are doubtful, maybe. I don't blame you for being doubtful. People are skeptical. Yes. Right. It's a new thing. Look, we're learning like everybody else. So we're doing a lot of experimentation ourselves. the the the place that I'd start is by saying today if you want to indicate that you're you're engaged with a conversation you you basically have you know a binary decision my camera's on or my camera's off there are a lot of situations in which having my camera on is not conducive to us talking when I'm in transit as an example a norm that's developed over the pandemic is we don't keep our video videos on video feeds on while we're eating you know that's another example There are a number of you can be in a very loud or kind of visually busy environment if you happen to be in a manufacturing environment, just as simple examples.

28:37So in the research, what we found is that people are awfully interested in ways of indicating I'm in, I'm listening and I'm participating, even when they can't show kind of what's going on at the time. And so, you know, there is an immediate need for avatars. When we've gone into the lab and we've used avatars in meetings, and then we have pulled the people who are non-avatars and asked them, what was that like? And would you consider doing it? After attending a meeting with an avatar, people are more likely to consider using an avatar themselves. So we have been encouraged by that. And then just recently in this work trend index that we talked about earlier, we asked a lot of questions about the metaverse.

29:13As a simple example, 52 % of the people we surveyed said that they were open to using digital immersive spaces within the metaverse for meetings as teams in the future. And then we also saw kind of some variation between the demographics of people. And you would probably expect that. And as a simple example, if I went to one side, we see 28 % of boomers who thought that metaverse technologies like avatars would be useful and they were open to that. Whereas when we get up to Gen Z, we see 51 % of people open to it. So you see kind of the expected changes in terms of openness based largely, I think, on their exposure already to these technologies and other domains like gaming.

29:54So we're getting some questions and actually a lot of them are coming from our people who are watching on YouTube.

29:59Jared Spataro:So we're now broadcasting on LinkedIn and YouTube. So it's great to see the questions coming in. And, you know, really asking about it, you know, how do we deal with some of the technology fatigue, Zoom fatigue, whatever you call it? But here's a question, and this is from Dustin in Boston. It's interesting. So what can companies do to offset the increased workloads that kind of balloon during the pandemic? You know, that's sort of the burnout question I asked before. You know, how do we how do we offset that so that employees can, you know, be able to build that social capital? Yeah, I'll get really practical for a moment because we've both done research on this.

30:37And then just within Microsoft and my own team, we've been trying some of these things out. And there's some things that really worked. So, you know, I guess what I would say is going back to this flexibility means everybody can work at different times. Part of the onslaught that we feel is that like, wow, everything is coming at me all at once. So we have found that instituting team norms around communication makes a tremendous difference. For instance, on my team, we've decided that unless it's an emergency, we're not going to email each other after 6 p.m. That makes a huge difference. especially managers.

31:05You know, if managers don't do that, they create this expectation that I'm not going to send you something after six. We've done the same thing for weekend work. We've applied liberally what we call, you know, delayed delivery from Outlook. You can process your email, but just delay deliver it so that people don't get it until a work, kind of in work period, like a Monday morning. That already makes a huge difference. We've also made some changes to kind of how we think about meetings. We have experimented things with like no meeting Friday afternoon, We've done no meeting days, as an example.

31:35I know some teams have done no video conferencing days. You can meet, but you must meet in person. So people are just experimenting with various norms. And I think they're making a difference. You know, again, if I go back to some of those simple ones where you're just signaling, hey, I'm not going to email you after six, you kind of lower everyone's blood pressure and feel like I may choose to work after six. But I'll choose to do the work that I can do without essentially creating pressure for other people.

31:59Jared Spataro:So you started this conversation by talking about the expectations gap that, you know, employers are starting to think, yeah, we want people back in the office more, maybe like the old days and employees not sure they're ready for that. So this is a question, again, from YouTube from Gordon in Canada. You know, so what's your advice? How can leaders close that expectation gap so that there is better alignment on how we're going to work going forward? Well, I think they're just two different mental models. You know, there are two data points that really caught my attention as I was combing through the data looking for what's going on here.

32:34What do people really think in those camps? 80 percent of the general employees. So these are people just working to say that their productivity has remained the same or has been even better as they've worked from home. It's a pretty high number. Whereas over 50 percent of leaders say that they believe productivity has suffered and innovation has suffered. So you have the people thinking this has been great and leaders thinking, I'm not so sure about this. And again, getting to very practical hints, what we're finding is it's just important to bridge that gap by having the two talk to each other.

33:03What I'm seeing is kind of the biggest misstep out there right now is leaders sitting in conference rooms, virtually or otherwise, you know, deciding it's time to go back. And off they go and they kind of issue an edict without really talking to employees. We would encourage people to get down, use listening systems. You know, Microsoft, we literally listen to our employees every day. We do a poll every day of a percentage of the population. We're constantly trying to understand what's employee sentiment towards some of these really important issues. And we're trying to create that two-way dialogue.

33:33I had just the other day, I was asking someone about this and he said, yeah, my leaders don't want to do that though, because they're afraid that there's going to be pressure to do things that they don't want to do. And my simple answer for that is, look, have the leaders stand up and say, I may not do everything you want me to do, but I really want to know what's on your minds. And that creates, I think, a bit of a free space where a leader can listen carefully, deliberate, take input, take counsel, and then say, well, you know, I've heard what you had to say, but I've chosen a different path.

34:00I think the listening gets you much further than most leaders would recognize. So for you personally, how has your, you know, compare your workday, let's say, you know, February 2020 versus now. To what extent is it the same? To what extent has it changed? February 2020, I was in every day. You know, I worked kind of a standard schedule in the office from seven to probably five, six. I think I went home at six. I was on that typical commute pattern, you know, with everybody else in the greater Seattle area moving into their employer, you know, at those two times of the day. Now, it's not like I don't go into the office.

34:37There have been a couple of weeks here over the last few weeks I've been in every day. But the interesting thing is my traffic patterns have varied. The traffic patterns here have varied. I go in at different times. I'm often in for a few hours or half a day as opposed to a full day. So that's very different. I find myself, I have implemented what we referred to earlier as time blocking is something very important that I do. And I've been even more draconian about kind of when I work. Start at seven, I'm finished at six. I have commitments outside. I'm a community church leader and I have commitments outside.

35:10So I really am not working after six for Microsoft. I kind of have other things that are important to me. So I feel like I've shifted, you know, much like the survey results kind of indicate. I'm right there along with what we're seeing in that survey. Yeah, that's really interesting. Thanks for that. So here's another question. This is from James, a YouTube commenter. And this isn't exactly your field, but everything's so related these days. So the question is, so the commenter mentions that, you know, your neighbors in Seattle,

35:41Jared Spataro:Starbucks and Amazon have been, you know, dealing with organized labor issues that have come up. And so the question is really, you know, would Microsoft support that kind of worker-led agency or, you know, is there a view about organized labor in Microsoft now? You know, I'm not the best person to comment on that. I'm sure that our HR folks could give you a position. What I can talk about would be to say it's really important for us here at Microsoft to build a work environment where we feel like everyone's work is valued and everybody has a voice and we're working together towards common goals.

36:14And under our CEO, Satya Nadella, I think that's been one of the biggest changes during his time as the CEO of the company is really trying to move into what he would call growth mindset and apply that even to the employee experience overall, you know, everything about the employee experience. So over the last two years, I've been continually amazed by what our HR group is doing. And instead of, you know, reacting to what employees are saying, I feel like they've been very proactive, again, using listening systems to engage on topics. And we have taken stands that have been different than some of our competitors, you know, on difficult issues.

36:47But as we've done that, we really try to engage with a position, a point of view, and then some openness to discuss. We really do try, though, to take counsel as leaders and then to decide and commit and to line up once we have a good discussion about things. So I'm not the best to comment on the first topic, but I can definitely talk about the overall employee experience we're trying to great. Yeah, no, no, no. I appreciate you're taking that on. So we're a little over time, but if you have another minute, I'd love to sort of end with, have some fun here and project out,

37:16Jared Spataro:we've been talking about kind of new technology, metaverse, whatever that's sort of within our grasp, but project forward a little bit. I mean, you must have sessions where you really think about, all right, what does the world of work look like in, I don't know, 2050 or something like that. And, you know, I'd love to hear, you know, some of the possibilities for what this will be, you know, how we'll work together, you know, a decade out or two decades out. What are some thoughts? There's a lot going on here, a lot going on. You know, I would say that the focus for us right now, as we think about a decade out, two decades out, is about that human connection we started with.

37:56You know, at the end of the day, whether it's social capital or anything we're trying to do, the deeper the connection, the higher the kind of exchange of information and connection, we feel like the more people are able to be productive together. That's kind of our underlying assumption. So some of the stuff that gets me really excited is about the use of holograms as a simple example. We kind of pointed to those earlier. When you put a representation of a person who's not physically there into the physical space that you're in, there is an amazing feeling of like, wow, Joe or Sally is right here, but they're not.

38:25And I'm getting information because they are three-dimensional. I have kind of a richness to this exchange that we don't otherwise have. And so as we project out what we're trying to do into that decade out is to think, boy, how can we make it feel like we can transcend time and we can transcend space? What does that look like? And what would the technologies be? Holograms are the easiest ones to visualize because we can already do some of that today in a lab. Some of it also requires, for instance, using something like the HoloLens. And we want to understand what would it take to do that without a HoloLens?

38:59Or what would it take to shrink the technology so it just feels like a pair of glasses, nothing more? That's where things are going. It's all in service, though, I'd say, Adi, of that deep human connection. For us, that is the future. You know, we believe that deep human connections, they make all the difference. They make the difference in world peace, frankly. They make the difference in innovation. They make the difference in us being able to move the human family forward. That's a great answer. I just want to follow up, though, quickly.

39:25Jared Spataro:So, you know, a couple of those things you mentioned, you know, the hologram approach, you know, the kind of VR glasses that are that are not big goggles, but are more, you know, organic part of your clothing, whatever. You know, are those close or are those years and years away? Well, I wouldn't say they're years and years away. We're trying to get the technology smaller and smaller when it comes to things that you're actually wearing. There are also ways to do that without ever putting anything on your body. And that's another angle or dimension that we're looking, you know, what can we do to create some of these experiences so that you can just experience them?

39:58What's the tech required around you to make that possible? As you as you simply look at these spaces that are being outfitted for connections, you know, a conference room, as an example, people are willing to pay for the hardware. And so we're really trying to look at, hey, for commodity hardware prices, can we start to create some of those experiences that feel magical? So both directions, I wouldn't say that they're years and years out, but they're not ready for production here this summer yet. Got it. Jared, I want to thank you for being on the new world of work. Really fascinating to see what you're up to, the research you're doing, the thinking you're doing about the future.

40:33Thanks for coming on the show. My pleasure. Thank you, Adi. All right. So fantastic. That was Jared Spataro, who again is really heading a lot of Microsoft's very interesting

40:41Jared Spataro:work in thinking about the future of work and the technology that will take us there. Our guest next week, so that's Wednesday, March 23rd at 12 noon Eastern time, will be Gregory Hayes, who is the CEO and chair of Raytheon Technologies. We'll talk about the war in Ukraine and how that has affected the company's business. And we'll talk about how the pandemic has changed how Raytheon operates in terms of R &D, in terms of its own approach to hybrid and remote work. So we will see you next week. Thank you for joining us.

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