Since the 90s, corporate training has gradually made the step from in-person training in training institutes or companies’ meeting rooms to online training via Learning Management Systems (LMS) and Learning Experience Platforms (LXP).
Now, the next challenge is to tackle the Metaverse and seize the opportunities it offers.
Are you interested in knowing how to leverage the Metaverse for your training? Stay tuned and register to our INGAGE Newsletter!
Good stories are one of the best ways to engage people, and in our case, our learners.
Therefore, as you might have noticed, at INGAGE, we enjoy good story-telling and always keep an eye for films that deal with at least one of our 3 core topics: 1) Education, 2) Insurance and 3) Technology.
Indeed, they are the 3 “pillars” that support our niche offering of “Effective Training for Insurance Professionals” based on cutting-edge technologies!
In this case, the present film is about technology, more precisely, the Metaverse / virtual world, as this is where we conduct some of our training.
What is the story about?
Greg Daniels‘ series presents an interesting mix of technologies, including metaverse, virtual world and even the Hyperloop.
A man is able to choose his own afterlife after his untimely death, by having his consciousness uploaded into a virtual world. As he gets used to his new life and befriends his angel (real world handler), questions about his death arise.
Upload is an American science fiction comedy-drama television series created by Greg Daniels. The series premiered on May 1, 2020, on Amazon Prime Video and was renewed for a second season seven days later. The second season premiered on March 11, 2022, with a shorter season of 7 episodes compared to the first season, which had 10 episodes.
In this series, the corporation behind the Metaverse is called Horizen and at some point one of the main characters says something like “Don’t be evil”.
I guess that these are pure coincidences, right? 😉
Good stories are one of the best ways to engage people, and in our case, our learners.
Therefore, as you might have noticed, at INGAGE, we enjoy good story-telling and always keep an eye for films that deal with at least one of our 3 core topics: 1) Education, 2) Insurance and 3) Technology.
Indeed, they are the 3 “pillars” that support our niche offering of “Effective Training for Insurance Professionals” based on cutting-edge technologies!
In this case, the present film is about technology, more precisely, the Metaverse / virtual world, as this is where we conduct some of our training.
There are several films that present a virtual world. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them are rather dystopian…
I found the film quite entertaining and IMDB gives it 7.4/10 which is quite a good mark. Well, the director is nothing less than Steven Spielberg himself!
What is the story about?
When the creator of a virtual reality called the OASIS dies, he makes a posthumous challenge to all OASIS users to find his Easter Egg, which will give the finder his fortune and control of his world.
Ready Player One is a 2011 science fiction novel, and the debut novel of American author Ernest Cline. The story, set in a dystopia in 2045, follows protagonist Wade Watts on his search for an Easter egg in a worldwide virtual reality game, the discovery of which would lead him to inherit the game creator’s fortune.
Cline sold the rights to publish the novel in June 2010, in a bidding war to the Crown Publishing Group (a division of Random House). The book was published on August 16, 2011. An audiobook was released the same day; it was narrated by Wil Wheaton, who was mentioned briefly in one of the chapters. Ch. 20 In 2012, the book received an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association division of the American Library Association[5] and won the 2011 Prometheus Award.
A film adaptation, screenwritten by Cline and Zak Penn and directed by Steven Spielberg, was released on March 29, 2018. A sequel novel, Ready Player Two, was released on November 24, 2020, although to a less positive reception compared to its predecessor.
Way before everybody, in 2003, Second Life created a virtual world where people could hang out, learn and experience different scenarios. In 2017, there were almost 1 million active users.
Have you ever been in a virtual world? This will impact the future. How will you be part of it?
Since Mark Zuckerberg started mentioning the Metaverse – and renaming his company from Facebook to Meta – there has been a lot of discussion about the topic.
Indeed, in 2020, there were several major companies offering “a metaverse” and many more creating blockchain-based ones. For example, you might have heard of Decentraland or The Sandbox which are very interesting projects.
Quick note: There are different views on what a Metaverse is, but we will use here the definition of the Metaverse being composed of different virtual worlds. The analogy could be: While the Internet – or rather the World Wide Web – contains websites, the Metaverse contains virtual worlds.
All this shows that there is a renewed interest in virtual worlds, whatever the technology behind them might be.
In our experience, learning in a virtual world opens a whole new range of possibilities compared to regular Learning Management Systems (LMS) or Learning Experience Platforms (LXP). Virtual worlds can be extremely immersive and help learners experience use cases rather than read about them or watch videos.
Do you know how the Metaverse will influence your own reality, and specially your own business, clients and way of training your employees?
The idea of a second virtual world has been around for some time. With Second Life one of the biggest projects started in 2003. But the project did not achieve real success. Now Facebook is also trying to take the step into the VR worlds with Facebook Horizon. But Facebook is not alone. There are also some other approaches to create new worlds in VR. All about it in this video. What do you think about these VR worlds?
Good stories are one of the best ways to engage people, and in our case, our learners.
Therefore, as you might have noticed, at INGAGE, we enjoy good story-telling and always keep an eye for films or books that deal with at least one of our 3 core topics: 1) Education, 2) Insurance and 3) Technology.
Indeed, they are the 3 “pillars” that support our niche offering of “Effective Training for Insurance Professionals” based on cutting-edge technologies!
In this case, the present book is about technology, more precisely, the Metaverse / virtual world, as this is where we conduct some of our training.
A bit of background
The story opens in Los Angeles in the 21st century, an unspecified number of years after a worldwide economic collapse. Los Angeles is no longer part of the United States since the federal government has ceded most of its power and territory to private organizations and entrepreneurs. Franchising, individual sovereignty, and private vehicles reign supreme. Mercenary armies compete for national defense contracts, while private security guards preserve the peace in sovereign gated housing developments. Highway companies compete to attract drivers to their roads, and all mail delivery is by hired courier. The remnants of government maintain authority only in isolated compounds, where they do tedious make-work that is, by and large, irrelevant to the society around them. Much of the world’s territory has been carved up into sovereign enclaves known as Franchise-Organized Quasi-National Entities (FOQNEs), each run by its own big business franchise (such as “Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong”, or the corporatized American Mafia), or various residential burbclaves (quasi-sovereign gated communities). In this future, American institutions are far different from those in the actual United States at the time the book was published; for example, a for-profit organization, the CIC, has evolved from the CIA’s merger with the Library of Congress.
Training in virtual worlds? Second Life, does this still exist? Wasn’t it a fade 10 years ago?
Virtual worlds have been used for training for quite a while by now, but never have they reached this level of engagement, speed and design. Students from around the world can feel as if they “were there”.
Thanks to our CTO, we are now able to set cars on fire, but also buildings, planes and even oil platforms. We can also create earthquakes and much more! Anything that leads to claims, our CTO and his team can create it!
Written by Philippe17 May 2022 
