Hello, Jamaica. at the JTDA our vision is to enable people and businesses by providing access, influence, and empowerment through technology. We decided to experiment with new technologies, and last month decided to test out a possible future way of work in the metaverse.

Metaverse was coined in a science fiction book from 1992 called Snow Crash; the author Neal Stephenson imagined lifelike avatars who met in realistic, 3D environments. The big draw of the metaverse is entertainment, the ability to have impossible experiences. you want to fly like a bird? Do you want to play a concert with thousands of fans? Or act in your favourite movie? The metaverse offers this and so much more eventually, but that is for another time. We wanted to test something a little more down to earth — a workday in the metaverse.

The question seemed simple enough: Can we spend most of a workday in the metaverse doing productive work? That question was the start of an exciting journey. We got some virtual reality (VR) equipment and Meta’s Oculus Quest headsets, which were not sponsored. The rules were simple, spend most of the workday in the metaversewith VR, and we could leave for lunch and bathroom breaks so that no work unions could come after us. In this my first use of virtual reality, I came in with a healthy level of scepticism. I’ll be the first to say I was pleasantly surprised at the results.

Hour 1 was fun, getting used to my 3D avatar, fighting monsters and flying planes to get accustomed to using the hand controls. Some of us experienced eye strain and dizziness; we took a break and adjusted the headsets. In hours two to four, we worked in our virtual office called workrooms. The day’s priorities were looking at ideas for our sponsorship drive and reviewing last year’s BizTech conference. We could present files, make notes in midair and move images around easily with our hands. The most interesting part was collaborating on designs in virtual space and walking around them.

For lunch, we watched a movie in a virtual movie theatre, complete with metaverse popcorn. The rest of the day, we had ideation sessions in the virtual office and did a few minutes of exercise in an app called OhShape. We dodged virtual blocks that look bigger than a bus that motivates health and wellness. To end the day, we watched a launch of a SpaceX rocket. All in all, the metaverse offered many events and made collaborating easier, but to assess the metaverse as a future way of work, we ranked the experience based on four criteria; collaboration, human connections, productivity and comfort.

Let’s start with collaboration; setting up and connecting to the virtual meeting room was straightforward, and hand controls made the experience immersive; within a few minutes, we quickly picked up items, drew in the air and threw paper planes. Collaborating on whiteboards as a team was very intuitive. It felt like we were all in the same room; we could walk around and speak directly to one another just by facing someone’s avatar, a feeling we hadn’t got in Zoom meetings. Collaboration scored a four out of five for a great experience.

Next is the human connection. Looking at our teams as animated 3D versions of themselves was entertaining but gave us video game vibes. The metaverse used sound, fans and vibrations to trick our brains into thinking someone was in front of us, but seeing a cartoony figure that looks like a 90s DJ kind of takes you out of the experience. We gave human connection a three out of five for “better than the uncanny valley”.

Productivity was a big surprise. we were able to quickly bring up and share videos, take notes, and switch between tasks effortlessly. The headset also allowed us to use our real-life keyboards in VR. We gave productivity a four out of five.

Comfort was the most diverse in terms of scores; the initial dizziness skewed the ratings. Comfort got a three out of five, with the caveat of using sparingly. Based on this experiment, I can see teams using the metaverse for one- to two-hour meetings or ideation sessions. Would you spend part of your workday in the metaverse? Stay innovative, Jamaica!

Adrian Dunkley is president of the Jamaica Technology and Digital Alliance; founder of StarApple AI. Send your feedback to marketing@jtda.org.