280 — Beginner's guide to the Metaverse, NFTs and Avatars

This week on The Mind Tools L&D Podcast, Ger Driesen joins Ross G and Owen to explore what's possible. We discuss:

• what the metaverse(s) is(are)
• how blockchain and NFTs can shape the metaverse economy
• whether your digital avatar needs to look like your physical body.

See Facebook's announcement about their rebrand as 'Meta' at: about.fb.com/news/2021/10/facebook-company-is-now-meta/

Owen referenced Moxie Marlinspike's blog post on web3: moxie.org/2022/01/07/web3-first-impressions.html

The 'let the tiger eat me' anecdote was taken from: futurism.com/neoscope/vr-injuries

For a longer discussion on blockchain, with Ger, see our earlier episode 'Blockchain for L&D (Yes, really!)': podcast.goodpractice.com/96-blockchain-for-ld-yes-really

For 'How to Troll an NFT Owner', see: slate.com/technology/2021/11/nft-image-ownership-right-clicking-saving-copying-trolling.html

Mike Howard, of Oculus, has described the difficulty of creating a digital avatar at: tech.fb.com/avatars-the-art-and-science-of-social-presence/

In 'What I Learned This Week', Owen discussed criticism of Johann Hari's latest book. See: twitter.com/StuartJRitchie/status/1480219761824915461

You can find out more about Hari at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Hari

Ger shared his thoughts on 'labyrinthitis'.

And Ross discussed survey results on what a 'dream job' looks like: rajaworkplace.co.uk/dream-job

You can find more from Ger on LinkedIn and at: anewspring.com/author/ger

For more from us, including access to our back catalogue of podcasts, visit mindtoolsbusiness.com. There, you'll also find details of our award-winning performance support toolkit, our off-the-shelf e-learning, and our custom work.

Connect with our speakers

If you'd like to share your thoughts on this episode, connect with our speakers on Twitter:

• Ross Garner - @RossGarnerMT
• Owen Ferguson - @OwenFerguson
• Ger Driesen - @GerDriesen