- Title: "You're fired!" Meet Barry - the VR character you can fire again and again
- Date: 24th September 2019
- Summary: EMPLOYEE FIRING BARRY DURING VR TRAINING SESSION (SOUNDBITE) (English) TALESPIN CEO KYLE JACKSON, SAYING: "So you saw there that Justin is just using his voice to interact with the software. So, once he invited Barry in, Barry enters his office and is now sitting across from him. In Justin's view, you know, this is what he is seeing and it is obviously fully encompassing his views so it is as if he was there." MORE OF BARRY BEING FIRED (SOUNDBITE) (English) TALESPIN CEO KYLE JACKSON, SAYING: "Now, obviously this is just a demonstration, so in this demonstration there is clearly wrong decisions and when you make them, things can go pretty bad. And so, we have had a number of situations where Barry here, as he starts to get really upset, it is emotionally received that way and people get really uncomfortable, their hands start sweating, we've had people actually tear up and cry, we've had people take the headset off and say that is too uncomfortable, which is a large part of what we are trying to accomplish, right? It is that these are difficult conversations, be it a diversity/inclusion one, something about your own biases or even learning to be better at delivering customer service. These are things that we are not naturally gifted with that so we really need the realism to get there." VARIOUS OF BARRY GETTING FIRED DURING VR TRAINING EXERCISE
- Embargoed: 8th October 2019 13:33
- Keywords: Talespin virtual reality VR firing in virtual reality VR training Kyle Jackson
- Location: CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES / UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- City: CULVER CITY, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES / UNIDENTIFIED FILMING LOCATIONS
- Country: USA
- Topics: Information Technologies / Computer Sciences,Science
- Reuters ID: LVA004AY0PU1N
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: If you think you're having a bad day, wait until you meet 'Barry'.
Barry is a virtual human whose sole purpose is to be fired over and over again but in Virtual Reality (VR).
The brainchild of Los Angeles-based Talespin, a VR firm which specializes in creating training programs using VR and Augmented Reality, Barry was developed as a workforce training tool to help management and other employees deal with difficult situations, such as, but not limited to, firings.
Talespin's CEO and Co-Founder Kyle Jackson said making sure Barry's interactions and responses were "natural" was key to making the technology effective.
"You put on a headset and in front of you is a virtual human. You use your voice to naturally interact with them and they are very expressive and emotive to the extent that you actually get all of the natural reactions that you would if you were really in that scenario. So, for us that was the barrier to this being effective and so we built Barry, our friend who gets fired more than he would like purely as a test. It was just to see if that worked," said Jackson.
During a recent demonstration of the software at Talespin's Los Angeles headquarters, Barry, who is a 57-year-old sales supervisor with troubling workplace conduct, was fired multiple times in different ways, with each method provoking different responses from the virtual human.
"So you saw that Justin (trainee) is just using his voice to interact with the software. So, once he invited Barry in, Barry enters his office and is now sitting across from him. In Justin's view, this is what he is seeing and it is obviously fully encompassing his views so it is as if he was there," explained Jackson.
"In the demonstration there is clearly wrong decisions and when you make them things can go pretty bad. And so, we have had a number of situations where Barry here, as he starts to get really upset, it is emotionally received that way and people get really uncomfortable, their hands start sweating, we've had people actually tear up and cry, we've had people take the headset off and say that is too uncomfortable which is a large part of what we are trying to accomplish, right?"
"It is that these are difficult conversations, be it a diversity/inclusion one, something about your own biases or even learning to be better at delivering customer service. These are things that we are not naturally gifted with that so we really need the realism to get there," said Jackson.
So, is Barry based on a real person and how does he know how to respond to different scenarios?
"Barry is one of a whole cast of virtual humans that we have now (at Talespin) so he was originally created of a scan of real person and then rigged up using basically game engines so that we can drive all of the expression systems using software. You interact with him with your voice basically kind of using cognitive services. Barry can understand what you've said and then picks a response. Those responses can be, obviously, from a pre-set bank of responses if it is a scenario in which teaching kind of on guide rails helps, for the learner to really get to learn a process or the right thing to do. But it also can be completely open ended," said Jackson.
"So far the response has been overwhelming so basically what we are seeing is that this learning modality forces people to focus and really immersive themselves in the actual learning objectives so it is not surprising because of that you get a much higher degree of retention, you get a much higher degree of actual engagement of the learning content. And because of those things obviously it is transferring to results really fast."
Telling an employee they no longer have a job can be a daunting task for any manager but enlisting the help of Barry may ease the pain for everyone involved.
(Production Omar Younis) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: Footage contains computer game or software screenshots. User is responsible for obtaining additional clearances before publishing this clip.
