The Way We Win Matters

TL;DR

• Reaching goals without regard for how you do it costs companies and societies far more than money.
• Activities are more than fun, they're for learning, bonding, achievement, and more.
• Fulfilling employee needs is a profitable business model.
• Leading with values is the best way to care for and grow a business.

I recently watched the movie Ender's Game, and one line stood out to me. Ender is in a military institution, and one of his superiors is pushing total destruction of the enemy, including at the cost of their own army. Ender fervently replies, "No, the way we win, matters."

I can't get this out of my head. It's a cornerstone in my life, and especially in how business should be done. A good business leader should bring not only results, education, direction and mentorship, but do it in a way that's interactive, collaborative, adds variety, and even fun.

Variety and Fun

With variety and fun, I don't mean Nerf dart fights in the hallways, I mean activities that take the monotony out of meetings, help a team understand a concept, or increase participation and motivation. In the pressure-cooker of business, it's important to not just deliver, but deliver in a way that promotes stability, unity, and even enjoyment. Would you rather deliver, or deliver with a workforce and customer that feels valued?

I like to bring that value to the workplace. Jane McGonigal has been on the leading edge of serious games for quite some time. Her book Reality Is Broken is all about how games have been educating and bonding us for centuries. She describes how we can leverage activities to educate, and even do work for us. Do you retain a lesson better from a PDF you read on your screen, or from an activity that you shared with your colleagues? People benefit more from interpersonal activity, and those are the things that make a difference in the work environment.

Games, variety and activities will encourage motivation, and break the monotony of work. Many struggle to get the everyday work done on time, few are those who consider the enjoyment of the environment as part of the process. However, the benefits are tangible. Employees who enjoy their workplace will grow in value to the company, and will commit to the place that values them.

The Best Talent Responds to Leadership, Not Command

I feel like this is old news, yet command-and-control is everywhere. I think it's because we're not brought up to be collaborative thinkers and problem solvers. The opposite of command-and-control is servant leadership. It means that your ego is not what comes first. You're there to help others achieve the common goal. Servant leadership is harder because it takes patience, compassion, and thought. Hierarchy filters out all of that, and leaves you with simply "do what is told."

Hierarchy also filters out transparency and agency from those you lead. Without these, the people who do the work can't be relied upon to create the best solutions. It hides information, removing the opportunity to create more value and growth for the business. The business itself is stunted. Flexibility is lost. I have often seen one unquestioned bad apple near the top spoil a whole vertical of business. Yes, there is a need for tie-breakers and people to make a final decision. Good servant leaders make space for safety, autonomy, and respect, which in turn builds commitment, creativity, flexibility, and satisfaction. Scrum done well also promotes this environment.

Lead With Your Values

To be a good leader, you have to be a good human yourself. If you're a leader who hasn't set aside time to consider values, then now is a great time. I promise it will benefit you in unexpected ways.

Human Values

Autonomy, respect, to be listened to, to feel safe. These are all basic human emotional needs. There are many more, and these are the bare minimum to valuing people. If a company or interaction doesn't offer this to employees or customers, how can we expect them to respond well? What are your own human values that you need, and should give to others in return?

Scrum Values

Traditional project management extols the virtues of doing the right thing, while acknowledging there are grey areas. That's about it. Scrum goes further by identifying and placing at the center of its framework the values to keep the project, and people on-track.

Each Scrum value below has both human & business meanings, can you find examples of both?

• Focus, Respect, Openness, Courage, Commitment

Business Values

What does your business value? What drives its goals beyond profitability? When making your business values, they shouldn't be repeats of the human and Scrum values listed above, they should be in addition to those. You can also think more globally, since that's how your business likely operates. Once you have business values, then ask what is your business doing to actively put them into practice? The answer to this question is the difference between what I call public relations values (a false pretense established to make a business look good), and authentic values.

Let's Get Over Differences

People process information differently, respond to stimulus differently, and everything can be done in ways that are different from what we might expect.

1. Primary bias comes from the false assumption that everyone is supposed to be mostly the same. Uniform.
2. Secondary bias comes from the idea that those within a group will always act the same.

By removing these bias, we open up to a higher diversity of people and ideas that can bring value to the business. Instead of working to tear down someone with a difference of opinion (or anything else), let's find out more about why there's a difference, and what can be done to create improvement for all sides.

A society forms by preserving a set of values, and its norms become culture. Whether or not the society can adapt to a changing environment will determine its success (a bit like Scrum). So let's recognize the differences, understand them, and work with them. People have differences, but there's always a lot more common ground that can bring us together. Until we consider all sides, no resolution will be final, because it's not just winning that matters.

The way we win, matters.

The "Problem" of Changing Requirements

TL;DR

• Change is often the thing we’re most afraid of in traditional PMO.
• Scrum done well turns change into opportunity, it's part of the process.
• To handle change, Scrum can't be half-baked into a waterfall process.
• Planning is good, rigid planning is painful.
• Only say yes to the changes that add value.

We’ve all experienced it. The thing we’re most afraid of in projects is change. Change to requirements, customer expectations, quality standards, budgets, to the market, and even changes to our product relevance while we’re building it. Typically, change means a higher burden on the dev team and management. It means extra work to rebalance expectations and baselines, change boards, and dev team overtime (on top of the OT they’re already working). It’s no wonder that change is what we typically try to prevent on a traditional project.

What if I told you that Scrum handles change quite well. Have you been working in Scrum for a while, and yet change is still killing your teams? Is it still an overall demotivating aspect to your projects? If change is something your teams fear, then you’re probably using a half-baked version of Scrum. I recently wrote about the systemic factors that disrupt the essence of Scrum. Basically it’s a combination of the contracts, timelines, and requirements structure. These are the main issues that prevent a true implementation of Scrum. When setup properly, Scrum handles change as a bend in the river, rather than becoming a steep drop-off in productivity.

How Does Scrum Handle Change?

Once your organization is setup to use Scrum, change will be handled as a flow. Here are ways Scrum supports change as a flow.

When Done is Truly Done

One of the key concepts in Scrum is that your Sprint features are in a complete state by the end of a Sprint. Product Backlog refinement is key to this concept. The Product Owner and Dev Team must refine and prioritize your backlog in a way that prevents features from being spread across multiple Sprints. This supports the ability to create a done, releasable product. This has several positive knock-on effects to handle change.

When you release a truly done increment...

• Change isn’t as big an issue when you release stable, done increments, there are no loose ends to tie up.
• Sprints can be made short enough to allow feedback and movement in another direction.
• Product Backlog refinement ensures features are broken up in a way to reduce dependencies.

Every Sprint is an Opportunity for Change

Whoah, wait, opportunity for change? But change is such a baaaaad thing! With done increments being delivered, there are no loose ends to tie up, so a change in direction isn’t as painful to the teams. It reduces resistance, and allows unexpected changes to be handled more like just another feature in the Product Backlog.

Flexible Planning is Good, Rigidity is Bad

Flexible Routes

There’s a difference between planning for an outcome, and following a pre-planned path to a specific output. Let’s say I need to drive to my friend Ned’s house. Before I start, Google maps says the best route is to take the main highway route. While driving, traffic gets backed up, and Google tells me there’s a better route to take. Do you stay on the path you’re on, just because it’s what you chose when you started your journey? Heck no, you take those side streets, and arrive with less stress, and on-time. This is what Scrum is like compared to traditional project management. Scrum is veering off in the other direction when you need to, and still achieving the same goal (or getting there even faster).

Flexible Destination

Another flexible aspect of Scrum is allowing changes to an outcome, rather than hitting a specific output. Let’s say I call Ned when I see traffic is backed up. He says, “We can meet at the restaurant instead of meeting at my place, since we were going out to eat anyway.” Scrum would respond with an emphatic “Yes! Let me shift this old route to the new one, and I’ll see you soon.”

Traditional project management might say, “That’s not what we agreed upon before I left. I’ll consider it, but since it’s not the original agreement, let me document what you’re suggesting, estimate this traffic backup, call my parents for advisement, plot a new course on Google maps, compare it to my current path, write down the differences between the two, text it to you, and then have you and my parents text me back in agreement on this new plan. If there’s a difference in cost between these paths, I’ll bill you.”

I don’t know about you, but one definitely sounds like a better approach than the other.

Final Notes on Planning

Scrum’s method allows for planning on a just-in-time basis, which means you have more information to make your best decision, when you need it. Hold until the latest responsible time to make a decision, so you have the best data to decide with. Second, Scrum also doesn’t advise saying yes to every proposed change, but to say yes to the right changes that add value. This area is where a good Product Owner shines most.

Conclusion

Following a rigid, overly preplanned waterfall path may get you to success, but at what cost? If your customer is the cause of change, they will be very unhappy if their needs aren’t met. If the market needs have shifted, you won’t deliver the necessary product. If change means your team adds more work within a rigid timeline, they end up burnt out. These are all reasons true Scrum projects can outshine waterfall delivery. Setup your projects in Scrum, and make fear of change a thing of the past!

Why Your Scrum is Getting Pushed Over the Waterfall

TL;DR

• Fixing 2 major waterfall habits will greatly improve your Scrum success.
• Flexible contracts provide better outcomes for your business, employees, and customer.
• Iterative end-user delivery, or flexible requirements will pave the way to success.

When problems arise, I don’t want to just fix the aftermath of the problem, I strive to fix the root of it. With this in mind, I’ve seen 2 major systemic problems in Scrum adoption that force Scrum to fail. This often happens when Scrum is used as a thin veil over a waterfall setup. You’ve probably seen this happen, or are managing it now. Businesses choose to use only the events and artifacts of Scrum, while it’s truly guided by the waterfall. This is fine for a transition period, but offers little improvement over the long-term. The value earned is often the same employee burnout, lack of ability to handle change, and reduced ability to handle risk. Since you may now ask, "why adopt Scrum at all?" I’ll give a brief overview of benefits.

Proper Scrum setup provides...

• a graceful way to handle your customer/user’s changed needs over the project
• faster time to market, and real market validation
• stress reduction at all levels of the project
• higher skilled talent, and retention of talent
• adoption of discovered innovations/needs that would otherwise have been missed
• increased customer relationships and buy-in.

If you don’t need these things, then you don’t need Scrum. Beware that waterfall simply cannot provide these benefits in the graceful way that Scrum does. That said, here are 2 major systemic waterfall habits that must be fixed for your successful Scrum adoption.

The Root Cause May Be Your Contracts

When I see a project with an improper Scrum implementation, I immediately go back to the contract. Scrum handles change gracefully, but at the root, it must be supported by the contract. The bane of Scrum’s existence is the fixed price contract. If your contract has a firm budget, and a firm full-features date, you’ll fail to gain the benefits of Scrum.

A non-fixed price contract will be the firmament upon which the Scrum framework needs to do its work properly. Although the idea can be a challenge for traditional businesses and customers to embrace, once they do, they find a completely different world of development based upon true accountability, trust, and quality of service.

What’s keeping your organization/customers from embracing Scrum and the non-fixed price contract? Most likely, what's needed is an exposure to, and an education of the way work can be done iteratively. Done well, Scrum will bring strong coupling between the business, customer, and end users, operating nearly as a single organ with a purpose. It just takes the right knowledge and guidance.

Contract Risk

Using contracts that aren’t fixed price can place risk on the seller. It may allow the customer to back out before the entire product is complete. However, many contracts already have a clause which allows a customer to pull out early if quality standards aren’t met. An iterative contract is not much different, and there are ways to structure a contract to reduce this risk, while also keeping the customer happy.

Once you have teams that have worked on a project and know their velocity, there are opportunities to use fixed price contracts, but there are also caveats for the Scrum Master and Product Owner to consider, before doing this.

The Full-Feature Release Date

Secondly, successful Scrum adoption must have either a flexible feature list, or a flexible release date/release chain. Without one of these, Scrum won’t have the portability to become the most valuable, and mangeable product it can be.

Your MVP is your MVP

When planning for a flexible feature set or iterative market delivery, know your minimum viable product (MVP). Minimum is the keyword here.

• Contains a small feature set.
• Minimal (but stable) operable capability.
• Can be deployed with stability on all initial platforms.
• Preferably deployed by the Dev Team.

Plan for Iterative End User Release

When your end user’s release expectation matches your production process, this is ideal. Iterative delivery is also an industry standard now, with only a few industries still holding onto the release-all-at-once cycle. If you're in a large release industry, examine why large release cycles are still being held onto. Customer absorption and adoption of updates are concerns to take into consideration, but there are so many more benefits to an iterative release cycle.

Build for the minimum viable product, and plan to add updates after launch. Launching early with fewer features is better for quality, too. You must release a stable, “bug free” product, but you can’t hire enough testers to find the type of issues that your end users will find. Releasing a smaller, fully tested product early makes unforeseen user reported bugs easier to triage (and re-release) than with a larger feature set that's full of dependencies to work around.

Flexible Final Feature Sets

Change happens in every project. If you have a firm date where all features must be released at once, work out a way to use a flexible feature set. Again, knowing your MVP (minimum viable product) is critical here. Prioritize your features in a way that leaves room for the least necessary features to fall off when unexpected changes, or better ideas occur.

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To be clear, there are many more reasons why Scrum adoption may not be working yet for a business, but a good Scrum Master will help identify, mitigate, and correct those issues. What I listed here are the 2 main waterfall habits that most businesses overlook, and how to navigate those waters for project success.

Various Realities

Most of us know virtual reality (VR) is a completely fake, computer generated space in which we can interact. Augmented reality (AR) is the term used for computer stuff on top of real space. It typically moves around with the user. Think of Google Glass, where you have an interface that's always at the same distance, and in front of you, no matter where you go. Mixed reality (MR) is a new term to replace AR that classically used markers to anchor items in space around you.

Got our acronyms down? Good. Now that we know what these things are, I'm going to ignore VR and AR, and share the potential of mixed reality, because exciting!

Productivity

Yes, mixed reality has great potential to be awesome, but we have yet to see anything that makes Minority Report seem like it's going to happen soon. The interactions for everyday and office use are so varied that until we come up with some kind of interaction system as killer as the mouse, there's a long way to go (I may or may not have some ideas on that though ;) This is Magic Leap's concept of productivity usage so far, which just makes me go "meh." I know they've got to be thinking bigger and better than this.

Gaming

This is the easiest use case to see. Games will happen in your environment around you. One Microsoft crime mystery game makes you the detective, and hides clues for you around your home. You could find a critical thumbprint on the kitchen counter, or a hidden clue under the coffee table. Or you're sitting on your couch next to a game character you're talking to.

More sweet videos at the bottom of this post

Education

Am I more excited about the educational, or the gaming aspect of MR? What I'm most excited about is the convergence of both. One of my longtime dreams has been to make learning so engaging and interactive that it's nearly indistinguishable from gaming, and something that makes you want to learn.

• Students could read books with QR codes on pages that bring up 3D movable models of items related to the subject matter! Maybe it's a 3D or 2D video that illustrates the concept being learned.
• Interactive grammar lessons where you choose the correct suffix or spellings.
• Immediate feedback for right and wrong answers!
• Practice safely taking apart an engine, before working on the real thing
• Better yet, overlay parts of the engine and easily see what you should stay away from (in red), and parts (in green) that you should work with.
• Content for more complex and memorable learning

Everyone learns better by immersion. MR creates an immersive learning experience that is both visual and auditory. Now if only we could find some tactile immersion! Oh wait, I think I have some ideas for that, too!

HoloLens

Running at 240 frames per second (good games run at 60, video at 30), HoloLens uses Kinect-like infra-red lasers to map the room around you. From there, it can project images into the lenses in front of your eyes based upon its gathered spatial data.

It runs on Windows 10, so it's already compatible with Windows 10 applications. I know, you're just dying to use Excel in real space. HoloLens has HUGE potential though. Coupled with Project Spark, this could be an unbeatable platform for content creation, communication, and game development.

Limitations   HoloLens currently has a very limited interactive field of view that does not immerse the viewer's eyesight entirely.

Magic Leap

This is a very secretive company building a competitor product to the HoloLens. In a recent interview with Wired they only described their version as less bulky than the HoloLens, and "as comfortable as slipping off sunglasses." We've only seen a couple of concept videos, so there's not much to go on, but Wired seemed to indicate that it surpasses HoloLens in its believability. Magic Leap's product also does not seem to have the limited interactive area that HoloLens has.

Differences from HoloLens   Magic Leap won't run Windows 10, they have to develop their own operating system. That said, it will lose lots of productivity apps, and any applications that HoloLens will have out of the box. However, with Google as a backer, will they simply ride off of the free Google productivity apps? Will it run some flavor of Android to increase its market capability?

Hurdles

With VR, it's very easy to lose spatial awareness. That's much less so in MR because it's not an entirely fake area surrounding your vision, preventing you from running into furniture, or tricking you into thinking you can lean on a table that's not really there.

• MR is not like Kinect, you couldn't play Dance Central with it and have the system know what your legs are doing.
• It will take time to build usable content for MR.
• Gesture improvement
• Body/limb tracking
• Bulky, no fast moves
• When will it connect to my mobile device?
• When will it become my mobile device?
• How will we socially abuse this tech?

VR is really just a stepping stone into MR. I'm excited about VR because it's coming first, but it's a mere stepping stone on the way to greater things. What are your thoughts and ideas?

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Check out this HoloLens Minecraft Demo to see more potential (skip to 1m48s).

More MR video links
The Verge tries HoloLens
C|Net tries HoloLens
Ars Technica tries HoloLens

How Interstellar Almost Broke Physics For Me

I have largely taken the 2 dimensional accretion disc to be proof that we live in a 3 dimensional universe (and not 4 or more) because of this

That's why when I saw Interstellar, and Gargantua had a strange accretion disc that wasn't flat 2D-ish rings, my world almost broke.  These rings went in 3 dimensions, flowing up and around it, which challenged my conception of the mere 3 dimensional universe.  Can Gargantua have a 3D disc when everything else in the universe (planets, solar systems, galaxies) flattens out to essentially 2D?

The answer is yes, and no.  It's possible to appear that way, and here's how.

Gravity Bends Space (and the light travelling in it)

The gravity around a black hole is so intense that it bends space in drastic ways. Fast forward to about 40 seconds in this video. Watch the inset image of this video when compared to the angle we're viewing, and the way light is gravitationally bent around the black hole. This is called gravitational lensing.

So now when we see an accretion disc like Gargantua's such as this, which shows the matter apparently travelling up and around the black hole, we can understand that the disc is really travelling along a path that is the same as Saturn's rings. It's the massive gravity of the black hole bending the light from the other side of the object that makes the accretion disc appear to travel upward and around a black hole.


This video may also help you visualize what's happening

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Thus, black holes still have accretion discs that even out to 2D-ish planes, and physics is saved. My world, and physics, is not shattered. Did this post shatter any preconceptions for you?

Feedback Loops in Learning

The feedback loop is required for all learning. You can encode responses to stimulus in DNA or programming, but learning is the ability to selectively change thought or response based upon feedback. The internet wouldn't exist without feedback loops, and neither would education. There is a multitude of other factors involved in human learning, but feedback loops are one of the most basic, and most easily resolved factors.

I’d like to describe how the feedback loop can be optimized in human education with software. However, first we must briefly explore the feedback loop in its simplest, most efficient form.

The two key parts are highlighted in red. Both of these must exist in the feedback loop for learning to occur. Without one, it degrades into either random response, or simple stimulus/response. When no feedback is collected, an entity may act based on pre-programmed behaviors to a changing stimulus, but it will not be intelligently defined action. When the entity does not select a response to the stimulus, it is doomed to either perform the same response for eternity, or give no response at all.

Now we come to optimization factors. The example below is a common school feedback loop.

1. Student gets homework assignment
2. Student answers all homework questions (Response Selection)
3. Student turns in homework assignment
4. Time passes
5. Teacher grades all questions
6. Time passes
7. Teacher returns assignment
8. Student reviews graded assignment (Feedback Collection)

The above homework assignment creates a feedback map like this:

It takes 35 steps to complete 1 feedback improvement loop. This type of feedback loop is good for a final examination of learned knowledge, but not for practice homework. So how do we fix this?

Loop Steps

A measure of efficacy for a feedback loop is the number of steps involved before a loop is closed. Most feedback loops are more complex than the basic 4-step example. Like our homework example, often there are multiple process loops interwoven into a single feedback loop. Reducing steps in a loop can decrease complexity of response selection, reduce variables in response, reduce time, thus increasing efficacy.

Loop Speed

Fewer steps should also decrease loop time, which is another important factor. In this homework example, the student may respond incorrectly several times before getting feedback, reinforcing incorrect concepts. While waiting for grades, the student will make the same mistakes as in the assignment, crystalizing incorrect learning. The faster a feedback cycle is complete, the more informed subsequent responses will be.

Loop Efficacy

The last measure of performance for a feedback loop is effectiveness. Was the proper response chosen? Was a concept only partially learned? Was the response detrimental? Did the response change based on new data? Can it be applied in different contexts, or combined in novel ways and still used properly? These are all ways to view the efficacy of response selection after a feedback loop. It is up to the validation manager (or teacher) to ask these types of questions when evaluating studies.

The Solution?

Using software, we could greatly improve the feedback loop speed as shown below:

Since we can't all have teachers in our home, but we can have software, programs and apps can unlock capability that was previously impossible. Duolingo is one of my favorite learning apps because it does exactly this. It reduces the feedback loop of an assignment to its simplest form, improving accuracy with each question answered. Proper feedback is given for both correct and incorrect responses. If all education could be performed in this way with shorter and more engaging feedback loops, we would have higher participation, and higher efficacy in learning.

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What other measures of performance for a learning feedback loop can you think of? Please feel free to share if you come up with any!

Virtual Reality Movies

I'm going to say it right now. The next disruptive advance in movies is VRM. Virtual Reality Movies. We're at a time where VR technology has finally caught up with the idea. The only question is, can the media creators keep up with the technology?

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UPDATE: 1/4/2015
Here are a couple of links that show the technology for this shift is quickly approaching. The first made-for-VR movie, and the VR video camera.

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The Frame

Media creation hinges upon "the frame." It's a limitation imposed by the medium itself. It's what you see through in TV, movie screens, monitors, smartphones, photos and paintings. These all have a frame that becomes your window into fantasy. If you were to look a few feet away from what the frame shows in movies and TV, you'd see half-finished walls, green screens, actors and crew sitting around in an area that is completely alien to the content you've had framed for you. The frame is a safe, limited viewpoint that allows imaginary worlds to be created very cheaply. What happens when you remove that artificial frame?

Frameless Media

Google Cardboard and the Oculus Rift brings the opportunity to remove the frame entirely. The new frame becomes your own eyes. A 360° horizon, everything you see when looking around you. The potential is great. For example, you're watching a murder mystery movie and you could look around at clues and people as if you were in the scene. What if you were in a Lord of the Rings movie walking along mountain vistas and were able to look anywhere around you?

Problems, or Opportunities?

360° view in a single frame

Without the frame, movie production gets expensive. The expense of replacing narrow stage slices with scenery and action for entire 360° areas adds up quickly. Then we must consider the story and actors. How do you position actors and action in a way that ensures story delivery is relevant no matter where the viewer is looking? With the ability to look around as if you were there, is a new genre created where you are a silent participant in the scene? Do actors act toward you, as if you were in the scene? Z-axis blocking becomes a thing of the past. The new technique is central axis blocking, where instead of filming for a single direction, you have more than 6 to contend with (including above and below). There are several existing solutions to these questions, and many more to be found. I'm very excited to see the different ways these will be handled by imaginative directors.

Interaction

Come to think of it, if we're essentially in the scene with the ability to look around us, why stop there? Why not create stories in the style of Choose Your Own Adventure books, where you make a few key decisions, then watch the story unfold before you. This adds return viewers, as people will want to see how the VRM plays out with different decisions. But wait...don't we do this already?

Game Frame

Not  the future of VRM

When you add interaction to a movie, it essentially becomes a video game. Games are the primary platform for VR tech, and they've been handling the frameless movie for a couple of decades now, with interactivity. The primary differences between movies and games is interaction, and the believability of scenes. Games have a decades-long jump on movies in interactivity. Movies have an advantage over video games in big budgets and reality of scenery and acting.

VRM games will surpass VRM theatres in the immersion factor. Anything shot in film (or pre-rendered) has limited immersive capability, whereas a world of digital scenery and digital actors will have unlimited immersion potential. The believability gap between games and movies is quickly closing, allowing games to create highly believable, and 100% responsive environments at the same time.

How Will It Happen?

A bit closer to the final destination

VRM will still be disruptive to movies, but it won't happen in theatres. It will happen in your home. VRM will become an outgrowth of video games. A subgenre. From an interactivity standpoint, VRM in a movie theatre would be like playing Dragon's Lair on the old arcade, whereas playing it on your game console would be like playing Dragon Age to the nth degree. When VR devices quickly become as ubiquitous as the Wii remote or Kinect, it will empower game companies to release media more as interactive films. Some games have already taken this turn by releasing games such as Final Fantasy XIII that are essentially movies with only a bare minimum of interaction.

Budgetary constraints, technology, convenience, interaction demand, and personal comfort factors will prevent widespread success of VRM from theatres. Over time, movie theatres will become like gigantic record players of an age gone by. With any luck, entrepreneurs will turn those defunct movie/VRM houses into live stage performance venues updated with the latest performance advances (light projection, stage drone actors, audience voting, etc.).

Antisocial Media

"It's time that we learn to examine the humanity in any technology we create or use."

As a final note, movies are a social medium. We rarely attend alone, and we revel in sharing the experience with others. They're an excuse to go outside and be with the people we care about, and an excuse to be with people we've only just met. Socially, movie theatres are a huge success. They enrich our lives by connecting us in close proximity with other people in a shared experience.

In a VRM theatre, we are disconnected from those who go with us. Everyone has their own separate view, no longer sharing the same experience. Most likely, we'll use this media alone in our homes instead of going out with friends and family, opting to be "social" by playing online in separate homes across the country with people we may or may not have ever met. Will this be yet another physically disconnecting experience in space and attention?

We should not ignore the social effects of our media and just "let it play out," knowing most creators/publishers truly only care about taking your money. It's time that we learn to examine the humanity in any technology we create or use. It's time to be thoughtful, and teach responsibility in both usage and creation. As creators, take some time to examine the social effects of VRM, and plan its use responsibly, socially. I'm not talking about the half-social experience of current social media. I'm talking about ways to get people in physical spaces together, sharing experiences. Let's engineer the genre so that it becomes less of a separation medium, and more of a medium that can bring us together.

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I'm excited to see what VRM will bring us, and how it ultimately turns out. Do you have any comments on the idea?