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 this 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 live events so far. One took place in Dubai and the other in New York City, just a couple of months ago.
I was scheduled to do a solo presentation for the event this week, but I thought it would be more interesting in doing a fireside chat. I saw an episode of the Creativity Conference podcast with Garrett Palm; he was a really interesting guest. Aidan Rhode, the podcast host, suggested Garrett for the fireside chat.
We come from completely different backgrounds and experience, and I think that’s what makes the Creativity Conference such a brilliant concept.
Garrett and I had a great chat, discussing how creativity impacts our respective work. There was no interviewer or interviewee per se — It was really just a proper 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 should always be STEAM education because it’s the arts — it’s creativity – that will be the foundation for how we think, learn and adapt in this rapidly evolving world.
It’s not necessarily pure play art in the way we think often about it, in terms of an artistic output like music or physical or digital art, but an artistic mindset in way that we solve problems, which is also about more 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, especially when there’s no [apparent] thread connecting them, but pull those ideas together and form something completely new.
It’s something that we will eventually be able to train artificial intelligence (AI) on, but I think it’s a uniquely human talent and skill.
Overall, I believe in the positive outcomes of AI, but [there are] certainly some dangers that come with that. AI has been let loose now, and the genie’s out of the bottle, so we need to be thoughtful about how we all proceed.
Despite this, creative thought is going to be an important skill set for us, which will complement our critical and analytical thinking.
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 presented at The Creativity Conference earlier this summer. These were things I don’t always talk about on stage, although I do talk about to my kids sometimes — what I jokingly refer to as my statistically insignificant data set of two — who I’ve canvassed over the years as the testbed for technology and their sentiments about it.
I took a very personal tack on 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 for my job at the time, which was producing music videos and television commercials.
I still had all this energy, and I’ve always loved going on a walkabout in a new location and photographing everything and everyone I see to tell the story of that moment in time. So I decided to start a photography business, not for the money, but because I loved it.
Creativity has always been a through-line for me, especially in my work. Over the years, I have crafted my own signature brand of creative future visioning, which has elements of design thinking. A few years ago, we started to turn it into a business practice — internally at first — and now with clients. There is significant neuroscience research behind it, like the science of mindfulness, which sadly isn’t perceived as a business process.
People are thinking more about it in terms of meditation and personal wellness. There is that component, but there is evidence that mindfulness and creative thought open up new neural pathways and can ultimately have tremendous value in how we solve problems and envision future outcomes in a business context.
This is an exercise in having agency in building our collective future. It’s about not just relying on what you think you know, but dynamically assessing any data in front of you to make quick, informed decisions. Creativity is a linchpin in this process.
Our future envisioning isn’t as much about designing a specific future, although that is a by-product. It’s about changing the way that you think, because we don’t realize how much of a narrow lane we are in, especially in a work environment.
We’re already constricted by the products and services we need to push out the door on a day-to-day basis and then, more broadly by quarterly reporting, investors, market sentiments and stock price for public companies.
But companies should also allow employees to take some time, form cross-functional creative teams and explore other more productive, interesting ways of doing things.
Bring more invention, instead of just incremental improvement of existing processes. Become more proactive, rather than reactive. These are the companies that will be well-positioned as this deluge of technology rains upon 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 with the Quest Pro and the Quest 3. Now that the Quest 3 has much better passthrough capabilities, they’re doubling down on gaming, especially being able to stream XBOX games. I’m sure enterprise companies will find additional use cases as well.
We’ve known the Apple device was coming for a while, so it certainly makes sense for Meta to get the Quest 3 into the hands of consumers now before the Apple Vision Pro starts to ship.
In terms of hardware adoption, relative to smartphones, desktops and laptops, XR hardware is still an infinitesimal market now, right?
These are very small numbers compared to what the overall market opportunity is. The more devices that are out there being used by everyday consumers — not just early adopters and gamers — the better.
This is because they’ll start to define the market, then more funding will come, and then devices will improve. It will follow the normal path for new hardware.
I think we all want this to happen quickly — it feels as though we’ve all been at this for an eternity!
For more information, kindly visit https://www.endeavorxr.com/ and https://www.creativityconference.is/.
