S1 E5 AR & VR
Episode Audio
Destery Hildenbrand is a Learning Experience Producer who shares about AR & VR.
Connect with Destery on LinkedIn.
Transcript:
The following transcript was auto-generated and may contain typos or spelling errors.
Amy Petricek
Welcome, I'm Amy Petricek, learning enthusiast and your host, the share what you learned podcast is for learning professionals to share something they're learning in the field of instructional design. Today, I'm talking to destory hildenbrand. About augmented reality and virtual reality. industry is a senior learning experience producer at motive and is going to share what he's been learning of late. Welcome to the show dustry. All thanks so much for having me. I mean, I'm glad to be here. It's a treat to have you as well. Could you introduce yourself to my guests so they can get to know you a little bit?
Destery Hildenbrand
Sure thing. So my name is dustry hildenbrand. And as Amy just said, I work@motive.io. So we are a VR development Learning Company. And I have spent the last 15 years in learning and development in some way. So I started way back when, when there was less when Amazon sold books, alright, I won't date myself, but I'll just say when Amazon only sold books, that's when I started this. And I was sort of reluctantly put into place by you know, they were like, Hey, who wants to stand up in front of a group and talk? And I was like, I'll do it. And then that was it, a learning development professional was born. So So I spent the last 15 years really kind of as a facilitator, and then as a developer. And then as of the last five years, I've really, I've really kind of jumped into more of the immersive reality for learning and more technology for learning.
Amy Petricek
Industry. Now we're talking just a brief bit before we started recording, and he was talking about how his children are kind of tech savvy. And I said, Well, that makes sense. Because you're super tech savvy. dustry. So, of course, you have children that are tech savvy.
Destery Hildenbrand
Yeah, everybody gets really excited. So I always, just the other day, my eight year old I was building right now, for a client, we're building an open pit mine in virtual reality. So it's where they can go in and they can move around and identify potential hazards in an open pit mine. And there's a lot of them. So I'm in there, and I'm building stuff. And I'm moving the little mechanic character around in my eight year old comes in and he goes, Hey, can I try that? And I was like, yeah, so he's, you know, in the middle of my workday, I got my eight year old with a virtual reality headset on. And he's going through saying, Hey, I can't reach this over here. And I'm like, nope, move that closer. Okay. So
Amy Petricek
I think some user experience testing and,
Destery Hildenbrand
exactly, they helped me do it, you know, and for me, when I test it out, I usually like that you can either like bend over and grab something, or you can like use a remote grab kind of a thing. And I always use the remote grab, because I don't know, I'm older, my back hurts a little bit. But, but I can always test when they come in. And they're like, I'll just bend over and grab it. So I can see if it actually works or not. So yeah, it's great. Because all the stuff that I'm working on, it's a lot of fun. It's kind of cool. And all my kids are really into it. So that is cool.
Amy Petricek
That's so fun. So we're talking AR and VR today. dustry. Can you tell us? I mean, you shared like kind of briefly, but can you maybe share a little bit more about how you got into these modalities?
Destery Hildenbrand
Sure. So it was 2000. It was 2015. It was the very first time I'd ever been to a conference. And it was devlearn. And I went there and I had, I had no idea that there were groups of people that did what I did, that could help me grow and be better. And I was like I have I found my people, right, the you know, the clouds parted the lights and everything, you know, and it was the, you know, everybody was singing. And I was like, I got to come back, I have to come back and do this. And I have things that I want to share too. So the week I came back from devlearn, I was I found a calendar. And they were like this is augmented reality. And if you scan it, the I don't know one of the rainbows like grow and then move over to the other side. Like it was very, very simple. And I was like, This is amazing. Can you imagine if you scan to this, and it did this, and this and this. And from there, I was absolutely hooked. So I started doing as much research as I could on what it was. And then as soon as I knew some stuff, and I started talking to other people, I realized they didn't know quite what I knew. And there was things that they knew that I didn't know. And I was like, Oh, I should start talking to everybody about this. And everybody in my small circle was very glad, because then I would stop talking to them about it. Because I was so excited about the technology. So I am so yeah. And then after that I started, you know, going out to everywhere, they'd let me so wherever I could stand up with a bullhorn. Usually at the beginning it was in those big Expo halls, you know, the ones that are really hard to hear anybody in the corner on the stage. So I'm just out there going. This is amazing. You should come listen to what I'm talking about. So I was talking about augmented reality and 360 video. So those were a couple of the big things that I was really pushing. And then as it kind of evolved these last like five years, six years now almost, I kind of really started getting into the virtual space as well. So virtual reality too.
Amy Petricek
I know you but I don't know you super well. And I do know that I see lots of things popping up on LinkedIn where You're doing this training here facilitating that showcasing here. So he really is, when when he says he's out there doing this, he really is. And if you just follow him on LinkedIn, you'll see what I'm talking about.
Destery Hildenbrand
You know, it was really neat, because I really found, I found a topic that hadn't been talked about a lot. And there was a lot of interest at the time. So I sort of just I fell into this a little bit, you know, I'm lucky that I have a little bit of charisma, you know, that I can, when I get up, people are like, okay, I'll listen to him talk, no problem. But so I'm lucky that it was a cool topic, and I could talk about it, you know, intelligently. So people really excited. And it's really grown to the point now, where, like you said, a lot of a lot of places are reaching out, they want to talk to me, they want to talk to other, you know, leaders in the industry, about what's happening with AR VR, immersive reality in general, and how we can start to really leverage that for learning and development.
Amy Petricek
Okay, so I'm gonna piggyback off of that. Let's talk a little bit about AR and VR, tell me some of the differences between them. Because I think maybe for people who are newer, they're just a bunch of letters that are thrown out in the world. And what does that mean? And also, for people that are more seasoned? I think there's a lot of complexity to it. And you have, I'm sure a great perspective to bring to the table.
Destery Hildenbrand
Yeah, no, that's a really great question. So when you start thinking about it, it's it's one of those things that I hear a lot, you know, what AR versus VR, there's an MMR that people throw out there, there's even an xR which actually looks pretty cool when you write it, but you know, it's, it's kind of a little bit of everything. So when you're talking about augmented reality, augmented reality, the biggest difference is that augmented reality keeps us in the real world. So it's a device that allows us to overlay digital content into the real world. So I can usually have my phone, there are wearables that we can put on, but what it does is it allows us to put, you know, pictures or models or videos, you know, but it keeps us attached to what's actually happening around us, when we start talking about virtual reality, it's a, it's a very big difference, what happens in virtual reality is that we create simulated areas, or simulated spaces that are completely cut off from the outside world. So you put on a headset that completely immerses you into this space. So I think the biggest difference that people need to understand is that augmented keeps you in the real world, and virtual really takes you out of that of the real world, and puts you into the simulated experience. So they don't really like they're in the same umbrella. And when we talk about the umbrella that they're under, that's when xR comes in. That's called extended reality. So extended reality is all of the other pieces underneath it. So AR keeps us in the real world, but gives us that digital overlay. And VR takes us out of the real world and puts us into that simulation, that simulated environment.
Amy Petricek
I have built augmented reality. So I can I can speak to that. And I've I've only interacted with virtual reality once and it was very exciting. It was like an underwater experience. And I was a deep sea diver looking for things underwater. And but I really, I don't think I could have articulated that as well, as well as you did. So he's the real expert. That's why he's here. That's why we're learning from Destiny today. So thank you for that.
Destery Hildenbrand
Yeah, I've had a chance to really kind of think about it a lot. Because when I very first started, you know, it was people sometimes think and I was in that same group where they were like, Hey, you know what, we'll start an AR, and we'll move to VR. And and really, they're two, they're under that same umbrella, like I said, but they're so different that you really need to commit to one or the other, or have enough bandwidth to commit to both. It's not really I'll do AR for a while and evolve to VR. It's it's a, it's a commitment, like it's a it's a whole nother modality that you have to design for plan for build your team around. So it's significantly, you know, you want to make sure you understand the differences there and don't think, Hey, I'll start an AR for a while, and then we'll just gradually build into VR. It really doesn't work that way.
Amy Petricek
Yeah, I think one of the things you're highlighting is like the buzzwords in the industry. And that people just kind of like to like we'll do this and then we'll do that and to really understand the ramifications or what that all actually entails, my mind is getting a better picture of Yeah, that actually doesn't make sense. I I've heard a lot of people say I'm going to do AR and then transition to VR. But as you're describing it, it is two totally different things. And one doesn't necessarily naturally lead you into the other and so you have to be ready to embrace two very different things.
Destery Hildenbrand
I think so and then especially when you're thinking from, like the kind of team that you need to work on something like that, like instructional designers, you know, we start to think a little bit more outside of the norms when we usually we're designing for that rectangle in front of us usually, right. So when we start thinking about, you know, AR and VR, we have to start thinking a little bit different. We have to start thinking about hey, I have an control or the option to do more, I can look to the left, I can look to the right, I can look up, I can turn all the way around, you know, like, Where, where do these things make sense? Do they make sense, these are all extra things that we have to start thinking about. So there are some skills that we look at, you know, that that'll help us transition to design for each of them. But when it comes to actually thinking about, I'm gonna build for this versus build for that. That's where the differences really really shine, kind of like you said, you know, you're, you're completely underwater swimming, doing the thing, you know, or the open pit mine that I was talking about, you know, you're you're completely immersed in this other space, so that you can practice in a in a space that looks like you know, what the space is supposed to look like, wherever they're at.
Amy Petricek
So to piggyback off of that, what, what are some applications for AR and VR? Maybe for people who aren't kind of familiar, okay, I have this, like head knowledge of it, but like, where were some practical ways to actually utilize us?
Destery Hildenbrand
Sure. And I think augmented reality right now, one of the, one of the things that holds us back a little bit with augmented reality is the hardware. So software wise, there's a lot of tools out there that we can use to build it. But we're all kind of stuck on our mobile device right now, our phones. So the good news is, is that everybody has one. And at this point, we're all conditioned to update it every couple years. Right? So we, we always have the latest technology, the latest and greatest is usually in our pocket. And with some of the things we've run into in the past year and a little bit before, organizations are more open to being BYOD. You know, bring your own device using some devices from home, things like that. So augmented reality, is great for when you need that, that instant piece of information, that moment of need that just in time learning talking about buzzwords, right, I'm throwing a whole bunch out here. So but but really, if you have, but if you have, if you're in a moment where you're you're at a workstation, let's say and you're you're building a widget, and you get to a step where you're like, Oh, they change this step, I have this one thing that usually takes should only take me about a minute, do I a go to an elearning, stop my work for the day, go to an elearning and sit there for 20 minutes, 30 minutes and watch any learning? Do I go to an actual in person class where I've got a schedule, wait for it to happen? You know, I mean, none of these things get you the information do I guess and just hope I get it right? Or can I use my augmented reality to scan, pull up a video, maybe pull up an overlay on top of it, and just solve that and just watch how to fix it right then and there. And that's really that just in time aspect of it. I need this now, so that I can still be productive, and I can move forward. And that's what augmented reality does great. It also really does. It's great at curating content, you know, we're always we always start organization, you know, everybody has stuff everywhere, right? I mean, Google Drive, SharePoint, everything you know. So if you started at an organization, imagine if you could scan something, and it just pulls up all the links right there in your phone. It doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to be overly complicated. But augmented reality really gives us this conduit to directly access information in that moment. So that's where augmented reality does great.
Amy Petricek
I think of augmented reality. I mean, maybe this is just continuing off of what you're already saying, but trades people or people who work with machinery, like a machine breaks or something and then scanning a code, the the code and being able to pull up potentially like videos on how to repair the machine or do some some light fixes on it to get it working again, is one of the ways I always kind of try and communicate a capability within it.
Destery Hildenbrand
I think that's a great, that's a great use case for something like that. And there are some wearable things that you can do to where it'll pull up information like that. And I think as that hardware evolves, as we get that, that we're all kind of waiting for that one device, right? I mean, remember when the iPod came out, and then the iPhone, and it was like, Whoa, now everything looks like this, like everything still to this day looks like that. There's going to be some big company that has that one device that gets us all going, Oh, I'll put that on my face. Sure, no problem. That's the, that's the thing. We have to we have to get there. Right now. There's, you know, it's expensive. It's goofy looking, you know. So once we have that one device, then we'll be able to do that even hands free. And that'll make an even bigger difference. I'm going down a different path here. But, um, but no, you're exactly right. I think that, you know, being able to scan a piece of machinery help you through a process, you know, it could even be where, you know, maybe you're just onboarding and you're looking for the next room that you can't find and maybe you scan a map and it pulls up a little animation that shows you where the next map is. I mean, there's so many things you could do with it. So with with augmented reality, yeah,
Amy Petricek
I realized I'm asking. It's probably quite painful to do a podcast episode The short and talk about two big ideas. Yes, no problem. destory. Right, just condense it all into 20 minutes, you got this?
Destery Hildenbrand
Exactly. And that will be fine. No, it works, I think it's a great place to get started. I do. You know, and I think virtual reality is when you talk about use cases for virtual reality, this is something where the the big ones that come to mind and that you'll hear everywhere is that if it's too dangerous, to get people out there to do it, let's say they're, I don't know, they're, you know, on an oil rig trying to fix, you know, potential problems that happen there, do we want to ship brand new people out on an oil rig, probably not, you know, we want to test them out and see what's going on. Maybe it's too dangerous, maybe it's too expensive to recreate. Maybe there's something that you're training with that it's fragile. And if you break it, it costs 1000s of dollars, you know, so we could recreate that in virtual reality, and they could do it in there too. So dangerous, you know, expensive, or just inaccessible, maybe it's someplace we can't get to very easily. So we can recreate whatever that room is, or it's a situation that can't be recreated safely or easily, we could recreate that situation, put them into it. And then in virtual reality, it's fantastic that we get to practice, potentially fail, learn, and then practice again, like we just keep to do just keep repeating that. And that's when we start to get that muscle memory within that virtual space. It's amazing. You know, I mean, virtual reality is really cool. It's realistic. But you know, when you get in there, you're like, Okay, this isn't the real world. But when you start doing things inside of virtual reality, our brains are amazing. And they start to connect those dots. And it starts to feel more realistic. So then when we leave it, we know, when we get into a real space, it's like, Oh, I remember that I grabbed this, I do this, I turn here, you know. So those are the types of things that really kind of differentiate what we're doing in both spaces.
Amy Petricek
I look forward to Sunday getting trained on a job and having that be a VR, like, Can I just switch jobs to one where I could get trained in VR? That would just I mean, like, there's so much opportunity there. And just to safely onboard people into roles that, like you said, could potentially be dangerous, or have hazards involved? And what a cool technology and a cool use for and I'm sure there's more than that. But I love that. Very cool. Thank you for sharing.
Destery Hildenbrand
Yeah, no. And we'll have to do another one later. And we'll talk about conversational AI and soft skill training and VR, that'll be a good one.
Amy Petricek
We're going deep here, ladies and gentlemen, we're going deep. Well, what would you recommend to others who are wanting to dabble their feet in either AR or VR?
Destery Hildenbrand
You know, I think the biggest thing is to fully understand both of those modalities. So you know, buy a VR headset, and get a whole bunch of I'm giving you permission, get some games, get some experiences in virtual reality, this is this is learning stuff, we could probably write this off at the end of the year too, right. So you know, get a headset, experience every possible thing you can. So go ahead and you want to practice as much as you can know what it is know what it isn't, know what it's capable of, know what it's not capable of. And the same thing with augmented reality, you want to try it out, you don't want to do it in a vacuum, either you want to share it with as many people in your organization as you can leadership, sneeze people, you know, your learners directly share these types of technology with them and see what their feedback is, chances are, you're going to get, you know, hey, I like this, you know, it works for me, it doesn't work for me, I have other thoughts and ideas of where we could use this things that maybe you didn't think of. And you know, a lot of times, you'll be like, this is amazing. And we need to get this now. And that's when you can start getting people to sign checks, right. So those are the like, get as many people in as possible. And then start looking at the teams that you have currently start looking at your own skills and think about how you can start to upskill what you're doing so that you know a little bit more about it. There's there's classes out there for augmented reality, I teach one with Betty janowitz elearning launch, we teach a couple basic AR and advanced AR with through elearning launch. You can go to workshops at conferences go to you know, there's there's other organizations and companies that actually provides software to build that they have training, you know, just get out there, try it all see what's you know, throw it against the wall and see what sticks. And then you know, build off of that. That's the that's the best advice I can give everybody get out there, get your hands dirty, and start, you know, start playing with it.
Amy Petricek
I think it kind of along with that, like a lot of people they just don't know its capabilities. And so if you are getting out there and building things, then you're building a case for your company or your team to start implementing it within the learning offerings that your team is offering. So if you can kind of be that in house expert, even if you don't feel like an expert, you potentially have a lot to offer your team.
Destery Hildenbrand
Absolutely. And even you don't even have to be an expert. You just have to be that that catalyst, right? You just have to be that hey, I've got idea, let's explore this idea, and then share that idea with everybody. And then as soon as everybody starts seeing these different ideas that you're doing, and, and the things that are happening, it, it almost always grows into something else, you know, it may not end up exactly what you were hoping it was gonna be, but it always grows into something. So there's a lot of opportunities now, more so than there were six years ago. So there's so many more opportunities. And the technology, although still in its infancy, has evolved so much that we can really just get in, get started and, and start building these types of experiences for people,
Amy Petricek
well, be sure to check him out on LinkedIn, because he, he's going to have some great resources out there, I'm sure of it. Even if it's just a webinar or something like you're going to want to follow along and see what he's up to. Because if you are one of those people that want to dabble your feet in it, Destiny is a great person to to be following. Let's transition here to the rapid round questions. distri. Let's start out with learning is,
Destery Hildenbrand
let's see. So learning is an amazing journey that we all should continue on all the time. I think that that's, that's what I've been doing. Since I you know, since I got started, you know, doing this this other stuff. And I know that every day, there's something new to learn. And it's I don't know, like I don't have enough too much work to do. I can't learn enough.
Amy Petricek
I just recently rewatched, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I had this like inner Frodo, like coming out, as you were saying. So when you're mustering up the courage to learn something new, What song do you put on? Oh,
Destery Hildenbrand
you know, I have a playlist that plays just a whole bunch of 90 songs like I can't even think of one in particular. But it's mostly like 90s grunge metal that I just have kind of played in the background. I listened to the greatest hits of better than Ezra just the other day while I was learning a new technique in virtual reality.
Amy Petricek
I feel like I know you so much better now.
Destery Hildenbrand
Yeah, that's probably where I lived the most, you know, where I had the most like, most connection to music and stuff like that. So 90s grunge There we go.
Amy Petricek
you're asked to do a brand new task with a skill set you do not yet have
Destery Hildenbrand
where do you turn? You know, at this point, I think I would turn to my network. So I would go out to LinkedIn, I would try to find somebody who's doing that, professionally, or as a hobby, who has been talking about it. And, you know, I would reach out to them and say, hey, how did you get started? Do you have a few minutes, let's grab some virtual coffee and talk about it. You know, and, and I think that's the, that's one of the best things I think you can do is just really reach out to your network. Everybody has been so awesome. Like since just connecting with everybody in the last three, four years, meeting people at conferences and, you know, locally, nationally, internationally, everybody's so in our industry, the l&d industry is there so happy to help and friendly and, you know, everybody wants to help everybody learn. It's been such a fun, refreshing experience.
Amy Petricek
I'm gonna second that we have an amazing community in the learning and development field. It's, I mean, I, I've talked to other people in other fields, and it just seems like we're, there's something special about us.
Destery Hildenbrand
It does seem to be it does. It's more so like, there. I talked to other people, you're right, like in other fields, and they're like, they do what and I was like, well, they they call me back. And they're like when you meet them. And I was like, I've never met him. I just I just reached out. They call you back and talk to you about stuff. And I'm like, Yeah, they're they're really smart. They have great ideas.
Amy Petricek
And they helped me do wasn't even just that they called me back but and then they helped me.
Destery Hildenbrand
Well, we're so willing to share. I think that's the biggest thing. And I think in some industries people are, are very tight lipped about stuff. You know, they don't want to they don't want to give away too much. Because that's maybe leverage or something in the future. I don't know why.
Amy Petricek
All right, last rapid round without learning.
Destery Hildenbrand
without learning, I feel like we would all be in this weird void of nothingness. Like it gets pretty bleak. Like, I don't know, like even just little things, like just the other day I was in my jeep, and I was looking up and I was like, this button right here. What does this button do? So I looked it up, figured out what it did. And I push that button a lot. You know, I mean, it's, it's just one of those, like, if you didn't have learning, or we didn't have the will to learn or the instinct to learn. Well, first off, we wouldn't be where we are. But it would be such a such a boring and I don't know, desolate place.
Amy Petricek
I agree. Well, district, what's the best way for my listeners to be in contact with you after the show? And also, do you have anything that you're up to that you'd like to share with them?
Destery Hildenbrand
You know what the best way to get a hold of me is through LinkedIn. So that's the only real social media that I do because it's the easiest just to manage. I will be a tech learn for training magazine. And then I will be ice for ATD you can find me and my partner in mischief and mayhem Betty janowitz. We are at elearning launch. We do some AR work there. And just keep your ears to the ground. I'm kind of a little bit of everywhere, wherever anybody asks, that's kind of where I head out. I go wherever the winds will take me and people want to hear about augmented and Virtual Reality.
Amy Petricek
It's true. I said it from the beginning. He's everywhere. Well, thanks so much destiny for sharing all things augmented reality and virtual reality with us today. Be sure to check out motive. I also want to give a shout out to you my listeners for learning with us today. Until next time, stay open, receptive and kind.