The Creativity Conference continues on its second day with many thought-provoking, insightful conversations on the implementation of creativity across major enterprise sectors.
With extended reality (XR) becoming an increasingly key focus for Industry 4.0, creative solutions are essential to building a lasting, solid effort to develop virtual, augmented, and mixed reality (VR/AR/MR) solutions.
XR Today has spoken to Maxim Jago, Conference Director, Creativity Conference, and Samantha Tauber, Founder and Chief Executive, VNCCII, to explore the significance of the Creativity Conference. The event is in its third instalment and has been hosted in numerous other locations like Dubai and New York City.
Amy Peck, Founder and Chief Executive, EndeavorXR, joins XR Today for a brilliant fireside chat on the sidelines of the event. Along with Tauber, Peck remains a regular contributor to the XR Today Big News Show and a tour de force across the XR sector via her consultations, speeches, and work with major global brands.
XR Today: What are your thoughts on the Conference, and why have you decided to attend it?
Amy Peck: There are several reasons, not the least of which is the founder, Maxim Jago, who is a very good friend of mine. I’ve known him for years since the event was just a glimmer in his eye.
I’ve watched him evolve the Creativity Conference over the years and participated in two of the three live events so far. One took place in Dubai and the other in New York City, where I spoke at the latter one.
I’ve spoken at the online event last year and this year’s. I initially saw a podcast for the Creativity Conference; he was a really interesting guest. We come from completely different sides of the coin, and I think that’s what makes the Creativity Conference as such.
He has a very different background to mine, and we’re going to talk about how creativity impacts our respective work. There’s no interviewer or interviewee per se — It’s really just going to be a good conversation.
That in itself, I think, is an interesting construct as opposed to what normally happens with a fireside chat, where you have someone who moderates, and another is the subject of the chat.
XR Today: Why do you think creativity is such an important focus for the XR community? Isn’t the XR enterprise about finding ways to increase revenues?
Amy Peck: It’s interesting because I think we understand creativity, especially relative to gaming and entertainment. However, in my work, which is largely focused on the enterprise and innovation, I think it’s equally important but somewhat undervalued.
Even when we talk about science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education, I firmly believe it’s STEAM education because it’s the arts — it’s creativity. It’s not necessarily pure play creativity in the way we think about it, in terms of output, but the way that we solve problems, which is also creative thinking.
I coined a term back in 2014 around volumetric storytelling and volumetric thinking. It’s the notion that you take disparate thoughts and concepts that maybe have nothing to do with one another, even when there’s no [apparent] thread connecting them, but compile those ideas together and form something new.
It’s actually something that we will eventually be able to train artificial intelligence (AI) on, but I think it’s a uniquely human talent and skill, especially with AI having been let loose now and the genie’s out of the bottle. Overall, I think very positively, but [there are] certainly some dangers that come with that.
Despite this, creative thought is going to be an important skill set. It’s going to be as important as analytical thought and critical thinking, and as important as incremental innovations and technology moving forward.
XR Today: Regarding creativity and Industry 4.0, how has EndeavorXR contributed to the creative process in relation to its attendance at the event? What did you discuss with your audiences?
Amy Peck: I communicated a much more personal story the last time I spoke and presented. These were things I don’t always talk about on stage, although I do talk about to my kids sometimes — my statistically insignificant data set of two — that I’ve used over the years as the testbed for technology and their sentiments about it.
I took a very kind of personal tack to why I do what I do, what drives me, and where creativity fits along the way. I think a lot of people don’t know that I’m also a photographer, and have been one for years.
I also had a fine art photography business while I was very, very pregnant and couldn’t travel on my job at the time, which was producing music videos and television commercials.
I had all this energy and built a photography business out of it, because I loved it, and creativity has always been a through line for me. In my work, especially, I have crafted our own signature brand of creative future visioning, which has elements of design thinking.
It even has neuroscience behind it, like the science of mindfulness, which I think is a misnomer in the industry. People are thinking more about that in terms of meditation and wellness. There is that component, but there is a science behind how the mind opens up neural pathways with mindfulness techniques.
This is the exercise in agency and presence in the way you think. It’s not just relying on the things you think, but dynamically assessing data put in front of you to make quick, informed decisions. Creativity is a linchpin in that.
Our future envisioning isn’t as much about designing the future, although that is a part of that. It’s about changing the way that you think, because we don’t realize how much of a dynamic we are in, especially in work.
We’re already constricted by investments, quarterly reporting, our boss, and what we need to push out the door on a day-to-day basis. Rather, companies can allow their employees to sit back and form cross-functional creative teams to explore other more productive, interesting ways of doing things more about invention, instead of incremental improvement. Those companies are going to be positioned for this deluge of technology that’s coming towards us.
XR Today: What are your thoughts on the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest 3? Will they empower creativity in the XR industry’s future?
Amy Peck: I think that everyone’s busy trying to compare the Apple Vision Pro and the Quest 3. Now that the Quest 3 has much better passthrough capabilities, they’re doubling down on gaming. I think enterprises will find use cases within that, especially being able to stream XBOX games.
We’ve known the device was coming for a while, and it certainly makes sense for Meta to release it into the hands of consumers before the Apple Vision Pro launches.
In terms of hardware adoption relative to smartphones and laptops, it’s an infinitesimal market now, right? They’re very small numbers compared to what the opportunity is.
The more devices out there and everyday consumers — not just early adopters and gamers — start engaging with these devices, the better. This is because they’ll start to build a market, more funding will come, and then devices will improve. It will follow the normal path for new hardware.