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hey don't have an address, not even a zip code. Employees and guests arrive at the offices of these companies through a link, without having to physically move. The office exists and, like a physical office, it has different workspaces, corridors, meeting rooms, employees walking around… But all this happens in the metaverse.
It's like getting to the office in the morning. Things can be added and taken away. Harpoon.jobs, a company that specialises in recruitment, decided to create a meta office, in addition to having a physical office, in a coworking space in Lisbon. Their meta office has meeting rooms, auditoriums for conferences and webinars, spaces to rest and take a break in the middle of the day, to work as a team and even green areas outside.
The goal? Bringing people together, despite being physically distant. In the meta office it is possible, similar to what happens in a physical office, to get up from the table, go talk to someone else, meet someone in the hallway... Even take a break in the garden or go play table football with colleagues.
Founded in 2009, eXp Realty is another example of a company with a meta office. The real estate company claims to be “the antithesis” of the traditional ones, having a business model deeply rooted in a kind of metaverse. And, thanks to this virtual office, the company is able to increase the commissions paid to employees.
In the eXp meta office, there are spaces for socialising, boards with useful information for employees, a space with a piano and each country has its own “floor”. There are also meeting rooms where it is possible to project slides, very useful for training sessions and events, for example. And as long as you close the door you cannot hear in the corridors anything that goes on inside the rooms.
71% of managers believe that the metaverse will have a positive impact
The creation of the term “metaverse” – combining the words “meta” and “universe” – is attributed to Neal Stephenson, author of the book “Snow Crash”. The science fiction work, which dates back to 1992, depicts a city of Los Angeles completely independent from the United States of America (USA), after the collapse of the world economy. Almost 30 years later, the expression has entered the vocabulary of millions of people around the world.
Although its definition is quite comprehensive and subjective, in such a way that the list of technologies already cataloged in the metaverse grows day by day, there are even those who compare the arrival of the metaverse to the Internet revolution in the late 1990s.
Although its definition is quite comprehensive and subjective, in such a way that the list of technologies already cataloged in the metaverse grows day by day, there are even those who compare the arrival of the metaverse to the Internet revolution in the late 1990s.
The wave of media coverage that swept the topic was largely due to the rebranding that Facebook – now Meta – carried out at the end of October last year. A change that reflected the company's new strategy.
“I think of the metaverse as the next generation of the Internet. Instead of seeing the Internet, we are inside it,” Mark Zuckerberg told “This Morning” on CBS, an American television station. And he left a confession: “I always wanted to build this system”.
In the company's vision, these will be the offices of the future. A space where we can meet, talk, study and work – all together, however, at a distance. A fusion between reality and fiction, productivity and entertainment. What technology calls the metaverse.
“We’ll spend less time in the office. There will be more people working remotely,” he defended. “Offices occupy an important space, but there is also an important space for those who want to stay with their family or where they grew up, or have access to opportunities that historically would only exist in New York or Los Angeles”.
“We’ll spend less time in the office. There will be more people working remotely,” he defended. “Offices occupy an important space, but there is also an important space for those who want to stay with their family or where they grew up, or have access to opportunities that historically would only exist in New York or Los Angeles”.
Mark Zuckerberg's prediction is in line with the findings of Accenture, which measured the pulse of 4,600 technology leaders and managers in 23 industries in 35 different countries. More than 70% (71%) of respondents believe the metaverse will have a positive impact on their organisation. However, less than half (42%) estimate that it will be “innovative and transformative”.
