Do avatars have a place in the workplace? Many of us have been reporting zoom fatigue - and until video conferencing tools are made better - using avatars in meetings instead, might be a possible solution. Gartner has predicted that by 2028, “employees will use avatars, language software, conversational interfaces and real-time dialect translation to work and speak with team members”.
Then there is the stress of managing all our online social media personalities. Each social media platform requires you to post in a particular way: Instagram wants a strong visual brand identity; Twitter’s fast-paced model needs you to stay on top of your game; on Facebook you need to play a fine line between appearing social but not too salesy. And once you sort of have this part figured out, then you have to try not to get too addicted to constantly socially comparing and seeing how many “likes” each of your posts get.
As Eni Subair in Vogue notes:
We’re stuck in a never-ending cycle of polished presentation; editing our lives to fill Instagram squares up with professional highs, lucrative side hustles and glossy personal posts. Everything is up for promotion.
Sound stressful?
Maybe there is a solution. In this episode, Mahesh Ramasubramanian, co-founder and CEO at Loom.ai says avatars can help with regards to the zoom fatigue problem. Mahesh spent 17 years at DreamWorks Animation, leading visual effects for major movies Shrek and the Madagascar franchises. His LoomieLive app uses 3D avatars and works with popular video conferencing tools like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
Highlights
Mahesh explains why we experience ‘zoom fatigue’ with video calls
How avatars can give you back your privacy and take your place in meetings - leaving you to focus on other tasks
How he customises his outfits for work
On what makes avatars different
Avatars are not hyper-real, they are meant to be easier to see and easier to read. You can move them closer to the screen or a little further away and its easy to adjust the layout. All of that reduces strain.
On what causes zoom fatigue
One of the reasons for people feeling fatigue with video conferencing is always being on camera and staring at the camera on your monitor. Also, you’re forced to look at real human faces at close range and that puts a lot of strain on human beings because of us constantly trying to read everyone’s expressions.
In the second part, I catch up with James Andrews, head of product & founding team, partner, Humans at Genies. Targeted mostly at the Generation Z market, Genies is an avatar startup that is releasing a software development kit (SDK) in the autumn that will let users on mainstream platforms create their own avatar. And on each platform the avatar appears, it will learn key personality traits.
The aim is to encourage users to be their authentic selves and be rewarded on their personalities rather than how they look.
Highlights
The stress of juggling multiple social media identities - and the toll this is taking on Generation Z
How the Genies avatar will learn about your personality and integrate it on social media
Avatars and acceptable social norms in the workplace
On the stress of juggling different social media personas
Every single one of these platforms requires a different you to be expressed. You might go on Instagram and you might see someone that looks like they know what they are doing. Maybe its a model or an athlete - and if you go and look at them on Tiktok - they’re super awkward. It’s because they don’t know what part of them needs to be expressed on TikTok. They have to kind of learn the culture and a new identity in a way.
On taking control of your social identity
[The avatar] is almost my alter-ego and I can use it to express these things that I can’t normally express on all these platforms because these platforms are designed to teach you a single way to express.
Recommended reads
You can find more podcast episodes on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and other platforms. If you would like to facilitate a discussion or even send some feedback, you can email me at: theofficereset@gmail.com
The Office Reset podcast #06: Avatars and juggling multiple identities, part 1