Design Interactive:

 

Jeff Walter (00:00)

Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the training impact podcast.

 

My guest today is Matt Johnston, the Director of Commercial Solutions at Design Interactive. Matt is a product development and marketing strategist with a background in human factors and UX research. At Design Interactive, he leads development, marketing, and sales for Design Interactive’s XR training product, XR Mentor. Matt, welcome to the program.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(00:26)

Thanks, Jeff. Yeah, I appreciate you having me here.

 

Jeff Walter (00:28)

I’m really excited about this because it’s something near and dear to my heart. And what it is, as we were talking little earlier, I’m really excited about your products because like I saying, I think we’ve done a really great job as an industry on the learning side of things, knowledge acquisition, over the last 20 years. But the skill development has been a challenge.

 

And with XR and with your product and AI coming in, I think there’s a lot of promise out there. So I’m very excited to learn more about it. But before we get into all that, I always like to know, Matt, how’d you get where you’re at at Design Interactive? What’s your background? What led you there? And what is Design Interactive and XR Mentor?

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(01:06)

Sure.

 

Sure, yeah, I sort of took a winding journey, I guess you could say, to get to design interactive. I mean, the bulk of my career started at Ford Motor Company, working in ergonomics, applying human factors to design the interior of the vehicle for the most part. Got to work on some really interesting products. Cockpit of the future was probably the coolest project that I had a chance to work on.

 

And early on got exposed to some of probably the earliest examples of what I would call virtual mixed reality at the time. career was sort of moving forward. At the same time, my wife was getting her PhD up at Michigan State, ended up receiving a job offer to come down to Florida. And we decided that we were going to make the move. For I had to leave behind.

 

Jeff Walter (01:40)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(01:57)

And I ended up finding a family run small business that was doing some really cool work in the areas of human performance and thought, well, why don’t we give this a shot? Ended up working with them for a couple of years. thought, hey, this might be sort of a short-term thing. Let’s see what the lay of the land of Florida is like. Next thing you know, it’s 17, 18 years later. And I’ve been there ever since.

 

Jeff Walter (02:18)

Ha ha!

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(02:20)

I have probably worked on the largest variety of projects I could have imagined, whether it is extended reality technologies, working with some of the largest brands in the country on some of their products. And it has been a significant challenge throughout. So I guess if you’re challenged and it’s interesting, no wonder I’ve been here so long. But at DI, you had asked, who is DI and what do we do?

 

Jeff Walter (02:49)

All right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(02:49)

The easiest way to put it is we’re digital transformation specialists that work on human performance challenges. So whether this is trying to understand the performance of an individual from the perspective of their cognition, even if it’s something like stress levels, et cetera, and trying to find the ways to get the most out of them, whether that’s in industrial occupations or whether that is more military-centric, we help folks there.

 

And then with the training arm or the extended reality, we then build solutions that help train people on either knowledge or skill based applications. And as such, XR Mentor, the product that I work on, is an extension of that, which we’ve targeted mainly at the transportation industry. That allows us to deploy augmented virtual mixed reality to a variety of devices, whether they be mobile or heads up.

 

Jeff Walter (03:37)

And so a lot to unpack there and help those of us that are not working with that stuff every day. I think I know what XR and augmented reality and virtual reality are, but when you’re talking about it in terms of the products and tools and what’s commercially out there available to help with human performance, what does that actually mean? Paint that picture in my head. Now those terms differ from one another.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(03:40)

Mm-hmm.

 

Thank

 

Mm-hmm.

 

If we focus on the terms, augmented, virtual, and mixed, they sort of sit on a continuum, right? mean, on the one side, you’ve sort of got the real world, and then we can take information, whether they be three-dimensional models or step-by-step procedures, for example. And we can layer that on the real world as people look through their phone or their tablet. So I’ve got an application on my phone or tablet. I look through that. I’m able to see.

 

Jeff Walter (04:07)

huh.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(04:25)

potentially interactive three-dimensional models or content that’s laid over top of the machine or the equipment that I’m working on. As I move more towards the virtual world, now I’m immersed, right? So really what defines virtual is I’m not just looking at information or equipment that could potentially be virtualized. I’m immersed in another world. So I’m working on the equipment or I’m practicing on a virtual piece of equipment. But when I look around myself, I’m

 

I am clearly inside that maintenance shop, that production environment, that hospital setting, et cetera. And then somewhere in the middle of that is where we would find mixed reality. And the mixed is that blend of the real and the virtual, where it goes beyond just the overlays of information and that true interaction with real objects that’s informing what the virtual does. So I could be.

 

replacing a brake pad, I could be performing surgery, but my actions are then informing how the virtual information around me works, whether they be the three-dimensional objects or the information. So it’s bit of continuum along those. And we do work in all spaces. Again, whether we deploy interaction on a mobile device or put it in a virtual reality headset, that’s the continuum of the space for us.

 

Jeff Walter (05:36)

And so when clients engage you, what are they trying to achieve? And how is that with that technology or with those products? Like what’s their, yeah.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(05:40)

Mm-hmm.

 

Thank

 

It depends on the client, of course, right? And so

 

sometimes the problems are different depending on the type of organization. But generally speaking, with us, the challenge is related to training and how can they scale the delivery of that training across their organization? Or if they happen to be an equipment manufacturer, for example, how do they scale that to their customers, ultimately the end users?

 

So there may be an inefficiency in the training process. So for example, you need to train someone on how to install or remove or inspect some widget on a piece of equipment, know, a brake on a truck or a car, for example, but you have 300 locations across the country. And every year you have, let’s say 200, 250 new employees.

 

You need to onboard them. You very quickly have to disperse the information of how do you perform this task. And so more and more, we’re seeing customers that are trying to figure out how to do that digitally. Right. So traditionally they might use a video and watch these videos. You are introduced to a mentor that’s there in your, your facility. They work hand in hand until someone is ultimately able to do it themselves. That that’s experience, extremely expensive to do it that way. It can be inefficient.

 

Jeff Walter (06:48)

huh.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(07:04)

And although the video or say a PDF document is sharing information, it’s really not allowing that individual to practice. So that’s really what we’re getting at is if I can deliver a digital version that allows them to practice or use it in real time, then we can deliver a greater efficiency and do it at scale. So that’s what we’re trying to do. Create training modules, deliver it at scale to help people on board or solve problems efficiently.

 

Jeff Walter (07:30)

And what would an example of that be if we’re looking at the augmented reality versus the virtual reality or the mixed? can kind of under, or I should say the picture that comes into my mind pretty clearly is I can understand the practice in a virtual world, right? Like, how does that translate? So I understand that, right?

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(07:38)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (07:53)

Like let’s do the brake job. Let’s like, poof, there’s a truck in front of me. It’s up on a, on a Jack. I’ve got the wheel in front of me, you know, or the brakes in front of me. I’m picking up virtual tools and applying them, turning it and poof. I go through the proper steps and get guidance. How does that, how does the, so, I practice that over and over and over again. How does that, you know, and most of us that have played video games kind of get that pretty easily. How does that work in the augmented?

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(07:53)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yep.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

That’s right.

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (08:21)

reality, like where you’re overlaying things into like, how do you, does that help on the practice or does it? I don’t know. That’s

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(08:29)

But it certainly can help on the practice, but you’ve sort of described a scenario where it would be real time on the job training, right? So this could be done again through a mobile device, which requires you to use your hands. So it’s often done more as reference, but you could also use it with a heads up display. Now those displays will either be something that we would call pass through where the device that you’re looking at allows you to see through either optically or with a video, right? So if folks are familiar with virtual reality headsets like

 

the MetaQuest, has a pass-through option that allows you to see the real world. Now, it’s video, but it allows you to see the real world. And there’s other devices that I would say are monocular, a single display that goes over top of the eye that would show information. Now, the example that you’re talking about would be someone’s in front of that brake. They have to replace a part, right? So let’s say you’re training them how to replace that rotor or the brake pads. So one version, a high fidelity version of that,

 

Jeff Walter (09:05)

Right, right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(09:27)

would be to step by step show them animated three-dimensional parts that are moving in the order in which that they need to perform the task. So the first step might be remove a pin, remove a bar, the break pad comes out. So they might precede that instruction by having those parts animate. That’s a high fidelity way of performing it. Follow the leader. See it, then do it. So the C part is watch the animation, and then you follow up and do it. And you could have a combination of the equipment or your tools, for example.

 

Jeff Walter (09:44)

Okay.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(09:56)

with a voiceover explaining exactly what you have to do. A lower fidelity version of that would be to have two-dimensional content, instructions that are still heads up and hands free, but they might fall short of that three-dimensional animation. So it’s instructing you what to do, but it may not necessarily be showing you. So the augmented would be more in the lines of, see that animation happen.

 

and I follow the leader and then I can potentially reduce the fidelity to something that’s just heads up. So it can take multiple forms, but those are the two of the most common.

 

Jeff Walter (10:18)

Mm-mm.

 

Okay. So would you, you know, just sticking with that example, would from a, cause I know a lot of people trying to figure this out right now. Like I said, at the beginning of show, I think we’ve done a real, as a learning and development professional for a couple of decades now, we’ve got a really nice job on the inexpensively creating content and delivering it at scale for knowledge acquisition. Um,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(10:38)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (10:56)

Some might argue with the inexpensive part of that, but it’s getting less expensive with say generative AI. but what we’ve always struggled with, cause it’s always been really expensive is that practice and that coaching, because that required like a physical setup and humans and physical setups and humans are expensive, especially when you’re doing it at scale, right? Not so bad when it’s a one-off, but when you try and do it at scale, becomes very, very expensive.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(11:09)

That’s right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

That’s right.

 

Jeff Walter (11:25)

So in the tools, would you see a progression? When you see this applied in training, what kind of progression do you see it go from that virtual to that AR? What kind of progression do you see from a best practice perspective? Or is there one?

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(11:39)

Yeah, think

 

that, yeah, the traditional technology was very good at allowing us to distribute very quickly to large audiences at scale that the knowledge acquisition piece, what it doesn’t do well, right, is the skill acquisition, sitting in front of a video, reading a PDF, et cetera, is not terrific at teaching someone or helping them adopt a specific skill. in the industrial use cases we’ve seen,

 

I can teach you the theory of how the electricity is flowing through the system, but when I’m asking you to perform a diagnostic and how to use the tools themselves, they’re not fantastic at that. So now with XR, yeah, I can allow you to practice and I can allow you to practice skills inside of that safe environment. But what I see transitioning is getting us closer to the equipment. So where AR takes us is…

 

Jeff Walter (12:15)

Right, right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(12:30)

you know, instead of sitting in a chair or standing with a headset on and practicing on something that’s completely virtual, I’m now practicing at the point of need. I’m there at the equipment. I’m using the information to execute the job. And I think that allows us to get hands on quicker with a less experienced individual. So you’re, you’re ultimately, you know, if you’re talking about the transition, we’ve gone from sitting at a laptop or a computer watching something passively.

 

to interacting with something actively where I’m practicing to now I’m actually there in the environment using information and I’m actively applying it. So, you know, we do some work in the trucking sector. Every time a driver leaves their facility, they’re supposed to perform a pre-trip inspection of their vehicle. So imagine watching a video on YouTube or somewhere of somebody performing it and then immediately going out. Imagine being in a headset.

 

Jeff Walter (12:58)

Hmm.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(13:26)

and having to perform one before you go out. What the XR is allowing us to do, of course, instead of reading about it or just simply watching the video, they’re actually performing it in VR. And then in AR, they’re actively doing it. the closer we get, it allows us to get closer to the equipment, in short. It turns training into practice, not just information.

 

Jeff Walter (13:37)

Hmm.

 

Now, you know, it’s interesting as you were talking about that, I thought that I hadn’t really thought of before. Well, from the skill development side of things is really the best we’ve been able to do at scale in the past has been play a video and watch somebody do the skill. You know, but we, you know, but we haven’t been able to have the person actually do the tactile skills themselves.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(14:01)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm. Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (14:14)

⁓ I never thought of it from that perspective before. So was really interesting when you saying, put the video on. like, yeah, that was the best we could do. Sans having an actual human sit there with a block of whatever the physical skill was, whether it’s shooting free throws or driving down the freeway or fixing brakes or doing surgery or playing the piano.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(14:14)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

That’s right.

 

you

 

Yeah, that’s right. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (14:42)

You know, same thing. ⁓ So when your clients are applying this, what are some of the big challenges that they face and what are some of the benefits or results that they’ve seen from using this technology? What’s the hardest thing that get going with this?

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(14:44)

Thank

 

Well, yeah,

 

so one of the challenges that we help them address specifically might be simply a gap in knowledge, right? Or a gap in skill set. So they’ve identified, or we work with them to help them identify using data internally, where the best application is, right? So whether it’s a car company, a truck company, some kind of a production line, there’s downtime associated with that. And then when you take a look at the data, you can see, what is the culprit?

 

Jeff Walter (15:05)

Okay.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(15:24)

So let’s say the culprit has to do with, I think I mentioned breaks, so break services, right? And every year an organization is bringing on new employees. So now you’ve got new employees that you want to have the ability or the skills in order to execute something that they’re doing every day that is causing the most downtime. So they’re sort of getting our space, right? That’s sort of the space that we’re looking at. And the question is, well, how do I address it? Well, if I was to use traditional tools,

 

Jeff Walter (15:43)

Right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(15:51)

they would probably get a generic video that would show them passively how to repair something. And in many of these locations, one of the challenges is getting that information into the hands of people when they’re at the shop. The other problem that they’ve got is the video is not responding to them. So I can’t ask the video a question. We can get into AI later. I can certainly ask AI questions about the video I just saw. But right now, that’s it. It’s static. I’ve watched the video. I’ve checked the box.

 

Jeff Walter (15:51)

Hmm.

 

Right, right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(16:19)

Now I’m going out into the field. So the first thing that we try to do is we say, how do we get this into the hands of as many people as possible quickly? So we often will start with an instructor led solution that leverages the XR technology. So then what the individual is seeing is, although they’re still watching, say, a passive live stream, no different than what we’re doing here today, they’re watching someone perform an expert, perform a task, leveraging XR.

 

Jeff Walter (16:39)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(16:46)

and able to ask them questions and interact directly. So imagine having 30, 40, 50 people, or even small groups, six to eight, watching an instructor perform something. The benefit that the customer gets from that, of course, is you’re very quickly sharing that knowledge with a large group of people. So to some degree, it’s scaling. The other thing that’s happening is because you’re using XR, you’re able to show them examples of things they would not normally see.

 

Jeff Walter (16:50)

Right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(17:13)

Right? So you’re limited to the equipment that’s in front of you. But with XR, if I’m telling you that you need to inspect for five different conditions, I can show you all five conditions, even though I’m just using, say, the vehicle or the car or whatever it is that’s directly in front of me. So you have a multitude of options of being able to share with them. Then we get into things like, OK, so now that someone has shown me how to do it and shown me the broad swath of examples, I want to be able to practice.

 

Jeff Walter (17:14)

Okay.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(17:42)

Well, now I need people to practice at scale. So using devices they already have, we look at, how do we get this knowledge or this skill taught to 200, 1,000 people at scale very quickly? So we’ll work on a training module together. We’ll then deploy it to devices that they typically would already have. And now those target individuals are able to.

 

to actually perform on that. we’re addressing problems of scale, the lack of ability to interact with the traditional content that’s there, giving them a greater variance in the types of things that they’re going to see earlier on in their career and do that very quickly, and then giving them the option to practice, which they typically don’t have. those are probably the key ones.

 

Jeff Walter (18:24)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(18:26)

We’re now looking at things, especially with the advent of AI, is how can we accelerate the evaluation of individuals and get them feedback? Something that’s typically done manually, potentially in person, sometimes through video, but how can we evaluate people either through automation or by leveraging XR for some of this, their interaction with that world or that equipment can then be evaluated and scored. So we’re also trying to help do that as it relates to say,

 

skills qualification or credentialing or things like that. So really it’s accelerating the knowledge so that earlier in somebody’s career, they’re able to do more complex things.

 

Jeff Walter (19:04)

And so when, when, when, when clients have done that, how, how is, how is that translated into actually, you know, compressing the cycle of scaling, scaling somebody up or like this, do you have a sense of just, you know, is, we talking 10 % improvement? Like, do you know what saying? Like, I mean,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(19:09)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Yeah, yeah. There’s a few metrics that folks are looking at depending upon what the goal is. So for example, a company wants, when they’re onboarding a new employee, there would be a metric associated with sort of speed to value. How quickly can I get this person trained on something that they can start adding value to the company? So that break example as an example. Every day in every shop, people are doing that.

 

But you have to be certified or qualified in that particular skill set to do it unsupervised. So how quickly can I get them into that training pipeline? So one of our customers has been able to reduce that to 45 days when he used to take six months. So do the percentage math on that. It’s fairly significant. So that’s fairly quick in terms of how quickly they can get them trained initially like that instructor-led session that I mentioned. So we can move them faster that way.

 

Once someone is now trained on a task, any new task, now they’re applying it, they’re doing it earlier in their career, right? But if they’re following, let’s say the AR guidance, the mistakes are less, errors are less, right? So that’s always been a hallmark of XR. If you Google it, you’ll see that people always claim a reduction of errors. It’s certainly true, but the reduction of errors as it relates to return on investment means that

 

You might not be replacing parts that don’t need to be replaced. You’re replacing parts correctly when they are supposed to be replaced. And we’ve seen a 20 % reduction in parts and labor costs associated with that. And somebody may say, well, what do mean by labor? Well, it’s quite simple. If you’re using younger, less expensive folks to do more work, that’s where the labor reduction is coming. And if those same people are making better decisions, that’s where the parts reduction comes.

 

So earlier in your career, I’m getting a less expensive person to make better decisions on tasks that they otherwise would not have done. So deeper, cheaper bench, right?

 

Jeff Walter (21:20)

Yeah. Well, so, so if I go back to what you said originally, they’re doing the math and what’d you call it? Speed to value. Was that the right term? Speed to value. I like that. I like that term. you know, in terms of onboarding, a 75 % of my math is correct, you know, from six months to 45 days, that’s a 75 % reduction in that speed to value. you’re

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(21:26)

Yep. Speed to value. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (21:45)

In that, in that example, you’re getting an extra four and a half months of productivity out of the person. But, but then also it’s like compound interest because then, then that next skill, like if we say, take, take the automotive for a second, you know, he’s 45 days in and he can do breaks on his own or she, and then, know, and then the next thing working on a transmission or, you know, switching out an alternator or.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(21:52)

Yes.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (22:15)

You know, whatever that next skill set was, I would assume had while now they’re at value because they can do a certain subset of tasks. You know, you, you want them to get all eight categories of systems in the ASC, sir. You know, like, you want to, you know, you’re, you’re, you’re compressing that whole thing down. And so they’re, that’s huge. The compressing that by 75 % is huge.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(22:16)

to.

 

That’s right.

 

That’s right.

 

Yeah, it’s potentially huge. Yeah.

 

If you just simply took a look at the ASC competency and proficiency model and you took a look at all of the different competencies that folks are expected to have as they progress through three different stages of their career, I mean, from a novice through a master, for example, depending on auto versus trucking, you know, it’s substantial and it can take a career to obtain all of those without something like XR. But now…

 

Jeff Walter (22:45)

Wow.

 

Right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(23:07)

If I was to replicate or simulate those tasks in this type of a system, they’re being exposed to these things extremely quickly. They might never do that. I mean, I’m sure you take your car somewhere to get an oil change or have, you know, your wheels rotated, et cetera, sometimes to special places, right? Like a lube model filter. Those people are doing that all day. So compared to the ASE certification or the ASE model, they’re likely never going to learn.

 

Jeff Walter (23:24)

yeah, yeah.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(23:34)

90 % of what’s on there, right? But there are some organizations like dealerships, et cetera, where at some point they’re going to have to take these skills on. So how are you going to train them, right? How are you going to accelerate it? And here’s the other benefit. I mean, we’ve been talking sort of from the customer’s perspective. From the technician’s perspective, the employee, doesn’t matter whether you’re in healthcare or not, the earlier that you are able to add value in your career, the better it is for you, right? So it has a big plus on development.

 

And in some cases, it means that you might actually accelerate your salary or your hourly rate. Yeah. So when I heard one of our customers is able, the average salary for somebody who goes through the training program or the average hourly rate has gone up. At first, you take a step back. It’s like, I’m working for the company. I wonder what they think of this. And it was a big plus. They’re extremely happy because it’s a retention tool all of a sudden.

 

Jeff Walter (24:09)

Oh, 100%. Yeah.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(24:30)

So they’ve developed people earlier in their career, they financially compensated them as a result of this, and they’re going to be able to retain people. So that was a benefit we hadn’t initially thought through, but saw come out in the data.

 

Jeff Walter (24:30)

All right.

 

Wow. Well, so that’s really three. I mean, I’m just wrapping my arms around it. Three real key benefits there, right? Like you get, you know, not only can you do that skill development at scale, but you’re also compressing the time that it takes to develop the skill to a certain level of proficiency. You know, let’s, let’s call that as a journeyman or practitioner level. Right now you’re a practitioner of that skill and you can compress that, you know,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(24:51)

Yeah.

 

That’s right.

 

That’s right. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (25:08)

cut it in half 75%, depending on, I’m sure it depends on the skill. But then also the thing you mentioned that was also key is, and do it at higher quality, which is, you know, which is another double plus good. And, and, and then because the, the person is adding more value quicker, you could afford to pay them more because they’re more valuable, right? It’s not, it’s not just that we want to, you know, give them an extra dollar because we’re

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(25:18)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 

Yep.

 

Yes, that’s right.

 

Jeff Walter (25:37)

Nice guys want to give an extra dollar because they’re generating an extra $2 in value. And so we can, we can afford to give them the extra dollar that much earlier in their career, which helps with retention, which, know, was, I forget which podcast I did recently, but we were talking about retention and, oh no, I’m sorry. I was talking to Ken Benson, just retired from the ASC and we were talking about retention at the service center shop floor.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(25:42)

Yeah, that’s right.

 

Yeah.

 

That’s right.

 

Hmm?

 

Jeff Walter (26:06)

And it’s like one of those underappreciated metrics, you know, that like, you know, like lower, mean, but all the research and all the data across industry is in it’s like low retention leads to higher performing organizations. Just there’s no if, ands or buts about that. But it’s, but it’s usually not something top of mind of most executives, but it’s like this, it’s like this hidden cost.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(26:11)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (26:34)

high retention. mean, a lower tension is like a hidden organizational cost because you don’t see it, right?

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(26:35)

Yeah.

 

That’s right.

 

Yeah. And it’s hard to share. mean, most organizations are siloed to some degree. So, you it could be an HR function that reports what your employee turnover is. And then you ask the question, of course, well, why are people leaving? Well, now you’ve got to go get those answers. And the answers could be associated with culture or lack of training, right? Which could be related to it. But there’s a training department.

 

Jeff Walter (27:03)

Right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(27:06)

or potentially there isn’t a training department. So making the connections between things like retention and a training initiative, you know, might sound easy as we’re talking about it, but organizationally it might be difficult. It’s certainly related and yeah, but you nailed it. I mean, you provide more developmental opportunities for someone.

 

They improve their worth. So now you have an organization that realizes that, I can probably pay this person a little bit more because they’re adding more value, right? And they’ve got a structure for that and a scale. But then the flip side of that is, what would it cost me to hire a new person? Those two conversations aren’t necessarily happening in the same room, right? But with this customer, they sort of were. It came out that way.

 

Jeff Walter (27:44)

Right, well.

 

Well, and

 

the wild thing that when Ken and I were talking, this is like the replacing the employee. Like if you take your retention from, you know, 20 % down to 10%, right? You say, you shave 10 points off your retention. You could do the math and sit there and go, well, I have a hundred employees. And so that’s 10 less I have to hire in a year. And on average, it costs me X number of dollars to hire and, and train up, you know, uh, folks. And therefore that 10 points is worth X dollars. Right. But.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(27:53)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Sure.

 

Yep.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (28:17)

what we’re, but to me and I, and, and again, on the research, that’s just the ante into the game. It’s like, cause you took that experienced person that was such operating at such higher proficiency level, replace them with somebody that’s just proficient enough. And maybe that costs you, you know, 15, 20 grand pop.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(28:25)

Yeah.

 

That’s right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (28:42)

But

 

it’s apples and oranges because that other person was generally performing at a much higher level. And so you’re losing the economics of that difference in productivity or proficiency.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(28:47)

Yeah.

 

Or they

 

were on the surface, they seem like they were a great hire because what they were doing somewhere else was similar, but it may not have been exact. So I bring a tech out of one shop and put them into a new organization. He might have been working on something different in the previous shop. Or if you want to talk distribution or parts counter, I met a gentleman that’s now in trucking.

 

He was hired out of the automotive sector and it’s a job in distribution and in parts. And I asked him what the, you know, what the onboarding was like, how long it was taking. And he just said, it’s night and day. I mean, you’re talking about vehicles that both have tires and wheel ends and brakes and engines and electrical diagnostics in both places. And they have parts that are even named the same thing. He goes from one to the other and it’s night and day.

 

And it’s taken them a long time to get up to speed. So on paper, they sound great, but there’s a lot of hidden costs there when you bring in the new employee.

 

Jeff Walter (29:49)

Yeah. And

 

one of the hidden costs we were talking about also was just institutional knowledge. Like, like you, just identified one thing, which it seemed similar, but it was very different. But then even once it gets similar, it’s well, in this country, in this company with this culture, with these people and you know, it’s, it’s, think one of things we’ve learned with a lot of the, during the pandemic and working remotely in that, you know,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(29:54)

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (30:16)

the value of all those informal communications. Like we got the formal communication down great with Zoom, right? We can hold a virtual meeting, but half of business gets done informally. ⁓ It’s that quick conversation over the person’s desk or as you’re leaving a meeting and then you’re like, hey Bill, I just need to talk to you for five minutes. And it’s kind of like, in addition to all the stuff that we’ve talked about,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(30:19)

That’s right. Yeah. Yep. Yep.

 

That’s right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (30:43)

You’ve also lose that institutional knowledge that, you got that, you need to go talk to Mary. She’ll take, and poof, that gets resolved in 30 seconds. And then the new person is like, I got, they ended up spending an hour on that problem. And, and, know, because they don’t know that Mary can give them the answer in 30 seconds, right? It’s all that institutional knowledge as well. It’s amazing.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(30:49)

That’s right.

 

That’s right.

 

No, for sure. Yeah. I mean, it’s funny you brought

 

that up. mean, institutional or we would call it tribal knowledge to a degree. mean, when we first started building XR Mentor, the problem that we wanted to tackle was the one of sharing tribal knowledge. We had been hit over the head in multiple industries of

 

Jeff Walter (31:10)

Yeah, travel knowledge,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(31:23)

silver tsunami, gray tsunami, retirements are going to explode. What are we going to do as all these people leave these organizations with all of those years of knowledge that they’ve gained over time? So we thought, what if we built a tool that allowed them to share that knowledge? Better yet, if it was XR and they could capture their knowledge, whether it be video or in 3D, while they were performing the task, they could then share it.

 

Jeff Walter (31:26)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(31:50)

with everybody else at the point of need, right? Boom, right there. That’s, that’s where this all started. And as, as we started moving closer to where XR Mentor came today, we had to sort of build out a much bigger platform for it. But yeah, that that’s where this all started and the XR authoring tools were great at that. Now it may be being to some degree replaced a little bit with AI because AI might be able to take information from the expert.

 

Jeff Walter (31:53)

Right, right.

 

interesting.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(32:13)

whether it be dictated to them or videos that they perform and turn it into something tangible for everyone else. But the issue’s still there. That’s still a problem.

 

Jeff Walter (32:22)

Well, it’s still, I mean, that’s really interesting because I haven’t thought about that from that perspective of capturing the implicit knowledge and making it explicit through XR type tools. That’s a really interesting application that I haven’t thought of before, to your point. then the, but it’s almost that, that might actually be even more valuable than it was because now you can have the AI distill

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(32:25)

you

 

Mm-hmm.

 

That’s right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (32:50)

those 20 experts, you know, I did it one way, you did it another way, Mary did it in another way. We all retire after a fruitful career or move on to another organization. But now the AI can find the commonality in why the three of us were top performers, right? Why we were very proficient at what we were doing. then to fill that.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(32:52)

That’s right.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yep.

 

Yeah.

 

Yep, could help us

 

identify which three of you should have been chosen in the first place. And all of that said though, if companies are listening to this and saying, well, geez, they probably don’t want three people all doing it their own way, there’s going to be some standardization that they’re wondering, but it’s reality.

 

Jeff Walter (33:18)

Yeah. Interesting.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(33:30)

that people do find their own way. I think it was one of the ASC guys that said, you know, if you told three people to go and repair or replace a part on the exact same vehicle, you would find that all three of them would do it in a different way. And they would likely all find a very efficient way for them to do it themselves. So there’s something to be learned by each of them, even if you do have a goal of standardizing how it’s done. So.

 

Jeff Walter (33:53)

Yeah. Well,

 

and that’s the thing with skills because it, opposed to, explicit processes, like, like a manufacturing process, like a manufacturing process, it’s got, goes down, it goes down the line a certain way. And there’s a, there’s only one way you build the engine this way. Step one, you do this step two, step three. The interesting thing in anybody that’s watched any sports knows this just implicitly. Like no two people.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(33:56)

Yeah.

 

That’s right.

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (34:20)

throw free throws exactly the same. Even if they’re hitting 90 plus percent on the, you know, no two sluggers swing the same. No two kickers in soccer drill the ball through the back of the net the same. Because they all have different bodies, different minds, different capabilities. Because we’re all unique humans. And so we have to apply the skill uniquely that is best for us.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(34:21)

That’s right.

 

Yeah.

 

That’s right.

 

He’s right? ⁓ That’s right. You’re right. So many variables.

 

Yeah. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (34:48)

So really interesting thing on creating, taking that implicit knowledge, making explicit. And this is where I think AI has so much potential is you can take that massive database and then find not only the commonality, but also the variants that are applicable to the different ⁓ types of people. Like I’m tall, therefore I do it this way. He’s short. She does, he does it that way. She’s got, you know,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(34:49)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

to.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah. Well, that’s right.

 

Sure.

 

Jeff Walter (35:17)

Big body strength. does like, you know, and you can get that’s, that’s interesting. I like that. That’s really cool.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(35:22)

Well, mean,

 

no two, I mean, think of the equipment that you’re looking at, right? I mean, you’ve mentioned the variables, you know, associated with us, but no two pieces of equipment are going to come into a shop for someone, no two production lines, even if you’re running two lines side by side that are exactly the same, they do have their own personality to a degree, but it’s all going to be different, you know, and where we’re headed. And these are things that we’re testing right now. If I’ve got a video feed, whether it’s even live or if it’s processed after the fact, heads up, hands free.

 

camera looking at the equipment that’s in front of me, what am I looking at? One easy thing that it can do is just flat out tell you, you’re looking at a brake pad, those are the clips, those are the bar, that’s the chamber, et cetera. Okay, I need something more than that. what am I, diagnose what’s going on, explain to me what’s important for me to look at, right? So if I was holding that, let’s just say that brake pad in front of me in my hand, it would automatically identify that there are cracks. It could measure the length of those cracks.

 

Jeff Walter (36:07)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(36:16)

It would see that there’s material missing. It would see that there’s glazing on it. There were a variety of different conditions all simultaneously diagnosed and tell me exactly what I’m looking at. When I move to the next vehicle, it comes in, I’m seeing something. The conditions of everything are going to be different, right? So it can help me in that automated diagnostic as well as tell me, you know, the order I should be doing things. So it’s like, you know, take out this part. Well, wait a second. It’s using the computer vision. It’s telling me that part looks like it’s going to be jammed.

 

you might want to consider using, grabbing this tool to help you along because it’s part of troubleshooting. It’s something you didn’t quite expect. It’s presented. So not everything is going to be step one, step two, step three. It’s step one, step two, wait a minute, two A, two B, come back to three. And in the meantime, I’m auto diagnosing something that you see. We are…

 

Gosh, I want to say we are less than five years from having real-time support like that right now. That may surprise some folks. Some folks working on it will say we’re there earlier. ⁓ But some of the things that I’ve seen, I would say I would be fairly confident that I’d be showing that to customers within that time frame. And they’ll easily be using it within five to 10. We’re that close.

 

Jeff Walter (37:14)

Yeah.

 

Yeah. yeah. I,

 

you know, it’s interesting because I, I, I, when I study technological changes and you go back, you know, centuries, it seems like, you know, the first thing we do is pave the cow paths, right? It’s like, let’s take this technology, do this thing we’re doing and do a better, faster, cheaper. And then it almost takes like a generation of folks growing up with the technology.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(37:33)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (37:50)

all of sudden come up with a different way of doing things, even growing up with the technology. And I was talking to some folks recently about that. And I was like, you just, you just got to go look back at the latest technological revolution, the internet. like, I was there in the nineties, late nineties dotnet bubble. Nobody predicted social media. Nobody. And, it took, it wasn’t until the, you know, the, the teens, the early teens, the 20 teens.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(37:54)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (38:19)

you know, a good solid 18 years after, you know, the internet, basically one generation, they grow up with the tech and all of a sudden, you know, and I remember some people scoffing when, when Twitter came out going, what are you going to say in 150 characters to the world? Like, why would, and, and, and they kind of scoffed at silly little piece of technology. but, but yet I think at the end of the day, we can look back and go, well,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(38:24)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

you

 

Jeff Walter (38:48)

That really changed culture. And I think we’re going to have the same thing here to your point. It’s like we’re in, we’re in the, Hey, let’s do all everything we’re doing right now. A little better, faster, cheaper. And then five years from now, you know, which will be a good eight, nine years into this, we’re going to start to see the, now that we take this as a given and some other technologies come in like it did with the mobile phone. Um,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(38:52)

Mm-hmm.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (39:15)

You know smartphone I should say which is what made like something else is going to come in and then and then people will reimagine it’ll be so it’ll be cool. Very cool

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(39:18)

Yeah.

 

That’s right. Yeah. Certainly I believe

 

that AI is playing a huge role in that, but I mean, AI is a, I don’t know. It’s the system. I don’t see it as a feature. I see it as a big time enabler, but it can’t enable anything unless there’s information. So if I was to use your sort of your example of Twitter and, you know, the way that the internet worked, et cetera, it’s these institutions, these companies have built.

 

Jeff Walter (39:38)

No. Yeah.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(39:49)

training, CBT, videos, et cetera. They’ve taken that information and they’ve pushed it out to their organization under some standardized way. What’s lacked to some degree is an understanding of how people are actually doing things and completing things. They may or may not be following everything that standard. So what’s not coming back centrally is exactly how people are doing that. And there’s…

 

Jeff Walter (40:03)

Right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(40:11)

a lot of information out there that could be used in order to improve the processes. I mean, you mentioned the path, how do we, you know, the paving of the cow path. I remember the school I went to for my undergrad, you know, they built a brand new building and they paved a path from the front of its door to the front of the door next to the next building, right? But there was a beaten path in the field that was diagonal next to it. Instead of seeing how people actually walked,

 

They just connected the doors. People found their own way. And so you now go back to that school and lo and behold, there’s a brand new paved path there, right where people had worked it into the grass, right? And so when you look at, you you’ve got a hundred locations or even if you have two locations, you now with whether it’s video or remote capture, you have the tools and inexpensive mind you, in many of these cases to capture what people are actually doing.

 

Jeff Walter (40:39)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(41:07)

and not just use it as a comparison to what you want them to do, but to determine whether they figured out a better way. So I’m repairing something, I’ve come up with something, but now how do I share that? How do I capture it? And there’s multiple versions of that. And yesterday we might’ve had to take that and manually sift through it and analyze it, have meetings. Well, today AI could potentially tell us, evaluate how they’ve done, what’s different about what they did it.

 

and then maybe suggest ways forward. Yeah, there’s so much power in being able to do that.

 

Jeff Walter (41:38)

Yeah,

 

it’s going to be, I think the next five years, like you were saying, it’s just going to be really remarkable across the board, but in this particular industry. then it’s, I’m waiting to see how it affects higher education because there’s, know, like if you just take the productivity improvement that you talked about, like a 75 % compression and skill development.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(41:48)

Yep.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (42:04)

And we know we see similar things with knowledge acquisition. All of a sudden you’re like, is a university a place of acquiring knowledge or is it just a finishing school?

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(42:09)

Yeah.

 

That’s right. That’s right.

 

Jeff Walter (42:16)

Yeah, you know,

 

like, because it really functions right now. You know, two functions, all this knowledge acquisition and some skill development if you’re in a performing arts or something or engineering or other or some other fields. But also it’s that kind of finishing school to turn you into a functioning adult. And it’s going be interesting to see what happens. But, but should I’m sorry, just random thoughts.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(42:23)

Mm-hmm.

 

That’s right.

 

That’s right.

 

No, no, no. I think that’s great. mean, obviously, with my wife in academia, it’s certainly a challenge there. I have a son that’s in his sophomore year, and the use of AI in colleges is pervasive, but it’s also a challenge. I think that it’s possible that at least academia has not yet figured out the role of it, the best use of it.

 

Jeff Walter (42:39)

into my head.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(43:02)

but I would say, you know, a year, maybe two years ago, I was at a, at an industrial conference and we were talking to a potential partner company about integrating our AI solution with their knowledge base. And the response I got was the policy of the organization is to not allow any third party artificial intelligence tools touch any of our information. Two years later, they want to sign a partnership. You know, like it’s, totally changed the internal.

 

Jeff Walter (43:26)

Right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(43:29)

know, policy because of the potential value of it. Education might just simply be a sort of a laggard by comparison, but I think they’re in a similar spot. You know, first, I don’t want students using it because that’s maybe cheating. That’s not quite right. But while these tools are powerful and we can get through so much more things quicker. So what does that mean for the future of education? Right. And we’re on the fringes of it out in industry with XR and AI, you know, sort of exploring almost on their behalf to some degree.

 

Jeff Walter (43:57)

Yeah, well,

 

it forces you to rethink. Well, it gets, it also gets to credentialing. And what does a credential mean? Whether it’s a high school diploma, a college diploma, an industry certification. What does that mean? And when you have this kind of step function in the ability to acquire knowledge and develop skills, it’s like, how do you, how do we as a society spend the

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(44:00)

Yeah.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (44:22)

the gains, right? do we, like if we take the university, say, well, if you can learn all that stuff in one year, do you still do four years and it just, you learn four times more stuff. And so a degree today is worth four years of degrees. Yeah. Four degrees. ⁓ Or, or do you, do you do it in three, you know, do you, do you do it in three years, but only learn twice as much? you know, and, yeah.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(44:23)

That’s right.

 

Yeah.

 

Yeah.

 

Thank

 

Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And we’re seeing that in in

 

the industries that we target as well, right? It’s the same thing. I mean, we’ve brought up the ASC a few times, right? They’ve got their competency and proficiency model, and they’ve got it sort of layered over from the beginning of your career to when you might be a master tech. In order to learn some of those skills, it’s always been evaluated hands on, but you acquire that knowledge sometimes on the job.

 

through live instructor-led training, hands-on with, you know, part-task trainers or simulators or things like that, sometimes video, we can accelerate many of those things. So all of a sudden, are we gonna start seeing new tools that accelerate that so that master techs might be 27 years old as opposed to, you know, later in their career? The technology would suggest that you’re looking at that, right? But who would have thought?

 

Jeff Walter (45:36)

Right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(45:37)

Right now we still need people to physically show up and evaluate and confirm that you have a skill so you can get credentialed or qualified for something. But let’s say with AI, you submit a video and within minutes it automatically tells you what you did right, what you did wrong, and that you passed or didn’t pass. I mean, that’s on the horizon whether it gets used or not, but condensing that credentialing timeframe I think is certainly there.

 

Jeff Walter (46:01)

Yeah.

 

Yeah, I think it’s really interesting. The other thing too, I wonder, one of the other challenges that a lot of skilled trades have had, folks that weren’t traditionally college bound is attracting and retaining talent into the industries. Talking about the service techs, the pipe fitters, the plumbers, the electricians.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(46:22)

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (46:24)

and, and, and a whole myriad of, of skilled trades that aren’t considered traditional skill trades. Right. Have you seen any effect on these tools like, like, like, like the tools that you’re, you’re, you’re tools, the XR, the AI. There seems to be a shift going on that, that we’re rediscovering the value of those careers and those jobs.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(46:31)

Mm-hmm. Yep.

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (46:51)

And it would seem to me that with a very techno centric generation, you more technically adept than any prior generation. Are you seeing anything like an increase in the folks interested in, in, in, know, let’s just say skills that require hands. Do you know what saying? Like, or that, you know,

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(47:12)

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yep.

 

Jeff Walter (47:15)

traditional skilled trades or other skilled careers.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(47:20)

Yeah, I mean, to some degree, but almost in reverse. So when we work with companies, we’re often working with organizations where they bring their subject matter expert along, right? And they’re a critical part of everything that we make. The person who knows exactly how to do it has years of experience. We’re seeing it almost in the reverse. We’re now giving them the tools.

 

Jeff Walter (47:31)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(47:41)

in a very easy to use fashion to be able to replicate and say a virtual world, what they know. Right. And so now I’m looking at someone who let’s say has been repairing vehicles, diagnosing, you know, issues with trucks for 15 years, learn how to author, you know, virtual reality scenarios or things like that. And when you see that come towards you, yeah, there’s this idea that, we made this tool really easy. They’re using it.

 

how far can I extend into their world? Can I create solutions to teach people how to change the faucet on their sink or to inspect under the hood of their car? Because if I learn a little bit of that, now I’ve got this tool that I can create this content. I would say to a degree, yes. I generally speaking, I think we’re heading in that way anyways. But what I’ve seen is that sort of this intersection is that the folks that

 

have those skills already are coming closer towards us and using more of our tools. It’s like, why do I need you guys if I can actually, if all the knowledge is in my head and you’ve given me a tool to make it, why can’t I do that? They’re becoming the future of that melded world a little bit. And then there’s the, obviously the side hustles and the hobbies that other people have. And more and more, I’m definitely seeing that be more technical or skilled.

 

Jeff Walter (48:54)

I’m Tristan.

 

Yeah, yeah.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(49:05)

Not that I’ve got those skills, but I’ve seen other people do that. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (49:06)

Yeah. Well,

 

that’s interesting. That’s an interesting application of capturing that implicit knowledge. Because earlier we were talking about it more like, well, you do that and it goes into the big data pool that gets used. But you’re talking something more fundamental, which really resonates with me because if

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(49:19)

Mm-hmm.

 

Thank

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Jeff Walter (49:31)

they’re creating their own scenarios. You’re getting into the look like I’m a big believer in the learn to teach pedagogy, right? It’s like, you know, learn it, do it. And then if you really want to know it, teach it to somebody. And, and, and, and, and so these tools by being able to, to author these scenarios, then give people the ability to turn around and teach it.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(49:37)

Yep.

 

That’s right.

 

Jeff Walter (49:55)

And I can,

 

I can just imagine somebody authoring a scenario and then switching hats and putting the hat of a student on and going, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it didn’t, it didn’t address this thing and let me go. And then they put their author, their teacher hat on and then go back and forth, back and forth until they go, yes, now this, now I’m proud that this expert is teaching. Yeah. That’s really interesting. Huh.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(50:00)

Mm-hmm.

 

Yeah, that’s right.

 

Yeah. Yeah.

 

Well, yeah,

 

and I mean, our tagline for the product is replicate your experts. The whole intention was to create a platform that allowed you to do that. we call it, but one way that we refer to it as sort of see one, do one, teach one, right? The first one, the instructor that I mentioned was, the experts there, we taught them how to use the platform. They show me how to do it. I’ve now seen how to do it. Now I’m going to go and practice. And when I’m feeling comfortable enough,

 

Jeff Walter (50:32)

Right, right.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(50:42)

I’m now going to try to teach it to someone else or I’m going to live stream my performance and somebody is going to evaluate my ability to do it, which is sort of the teach one. Now I’ve replicated that initial instructor. And if that class had say six to eight people in it, I’ve now got six X to eight X, you know, people that are capable at that expert level. Absolutely. That’s the, that’s sort of the way to do it. Then the question becomes, okay, so now how do I do that?

 

with this intersection of AI and XR. So if that person who’s now learned how to do that is then able to record themselves, and then it automatically generates a 3D world, 3D objects, the step-by-step procedure of how to do it, which is the lowest hanging fruit, well, now you’re not just replicating your experts, but you’re rapidly producing content that can be consumed by others.

 

And that’s where the power is going to be. mean, the AI in the short term is already being able to identify what people are doing and turning them into sort of lists and things like that. So we’re going to build training faster, which is going to result in onboarding people faster and replicating expertise levels faster. And then we’re going to be able to validate their competency quicker. Those three things working together, you put that in you know, in a cycle. What would normally take years of shadowing tribal knowledge.

 

Jeff Walter (51:57)

Mm-hmm.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(51:58)

gets accelerated into just months.

 

Jeff Walter (52:01)

No, that’s really cool. That’s very, very, it’s, I think it’s a, well, it’s an exciting, anytime there’s a technological revolution like this, it’s an exciting time. But, and especially in the learning development space, because that, I’m just a believer that the education knowledge changes everything, you know, for folks. And it’s exciting. It’s an exciting time. ⁓

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(52:11)

Thank

 

Mm-hmm.

 

Yes.

 

Jeff Walter (52:28)

And

 

as we come up on our time here, before we go, is there anything else you want to cover? Or if not, if folks want to get a hold of you or design interactive, what would they do?

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(52:39)

Well, they can visit Design Interactive’s website. So designinteractive.net is where we are. If they were to search for the product XR Mentor, that’s available at xrmentor.net, or they can search on XR Mentor and learn specifically about the product. I am going to be presenting, apparently, at the Automotive Training Manager’s meeting, the one where we actually met last year. So we’ll be giving a presentation specifically on our AR platform.

 

Jeff Walter (52:59)

yeah, awesome.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(53:04)

that is being used to generate more of a personalized training experience than what a traditional LMS would. So we’ll be presenting that platform, how AI is intertwined in that, I believe in April. So there’s that as well. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (53:17)

Very cool. Yeah, that’s April.

 

Actually right down the block from me. Five miles down Michigan Avenue. Maybe six or seven. So it’s going to be a nice, yeah, I’ll be able to sleep in my own bed at that conference. So yeah, well, I’ll be going there. It’ll be great to see you there. So if you’re going to the ATMC this April, you can see Matt. Head to the website, Design Interactive.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(53:21)

there you go. Nice. There you go. Yeah.

 

There you go. Sounds good. ⁓

 

Jeff Walter (53:44)

com dot net design interactive dot net speaks that’s dot net and and and you’re easy to find on LinkedIn if if they want to get a hold of you and

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(53:45)

.net. .net. Yep. Yep.

 

That’s Yep. Available on LinkedIn

 

or Matthew at designinteractive.net through email. I’m sure there’s a lot of Matthew Johnsons on LinkedIn. yeah. Yeah.

 

Jeff Walter (54:06)

True,

 

Sometimes, there’s a lot of people on LinkedIn. Funny. ⁓ Social media, you know. Well, Matt, thank you so much for sharing. This is really exciting stuff. I’m so glad you were able to join us and gave us your time. I really appreciate it. So thank you. Thank you very much.

 

Matthew Johnston of Design Interactive(54:07)

There you go.

 

Sure.

 

I appreciate you letting me join here, Jeff. Thanks.

 

Jeff Walter (54:27)

And and to everybody out there. Thanks for listening and have a great day