Rob Alvarez - Promoting collaboration using 3D, AR and VR

Rob Alvarez: No, Tim, thank you so much for having me. It's definitely an honor. We appreciate it. Nothing to add. I think you hit it on the mark right there. So I think we kind of roll with it.

Tim Butara: Okay, awesome. Then let's just go ahead and get started. And my first question for you today, Rob, is how can these technologies that I just mentioned, so 3D, AR and VR, help streamline communication and promote collaboration at a business.

Rob Alvarez: I don't know how much time we have, but hopeful, hopefully it's enough.

But look, I I've been now in the industry for short term compared to others, right? But you look at the spaces across products, e commerce, mechanical engineering, and everything that's, and everyone's really going into more of the 3d AR VR space, not just because it's. pretty and sexy and is easy to kind of visualize, but more because of the, the use cases.

And that's kind of like the, the, the biggest part is that there's so many use cases across all these different industries. And that is really helping everyone kind of have a better understanding of what visually they're trying to represent, right? Like we had some guy that was actually from NASA. Using our platform.

And for me, it was really cool. Cause when I first joined, it was just like, I was telling the guy, I was telling like his colleagues of what he was doing, right? It's like, oh, we have this big mechanicalism, blah, blah, blah, blah. And everyone's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. So he found the tool that actually helped him visualize what he's actually like doing, and they're like, why didn't you just say that in the first place?

So obviously, you know, visual representations is always going to be easier to understand, digest, and, and then it just goes across every kind of medium, right? So if you're designing a product, you can cut down on iterations. If you're doing, if you're going to trade shows and you have a huge piece of equipment, you can use AR or VR, right?

Instead of kind of bringing that in, it's also good for the carbon footprints if you're on, take all that stuff. So there's a lot of benefits of going to it. Obviously with a lot of benefits, there is going to be a lot of stuff that you need to prepare for. And that's, I think something that we can kind of go into step by step as well.

Okay. I mean, why don't we just continue with that actually? Yeah, definitely. So when, and I think it's a common thing when you see a trend, everyone's like, we need to be there. We want to get onto it before it's too late. And the idea is like, look, we had COVID happened. Work from home is pretty much like kind of like a staple.

Now people are working from all different locations. Maybe there's kind of like a 50, 50 from home office and so on, but that really. Change of how we communicate and collaborate internally. Right. And we're talking about internally, cause I think that's kind of the key thing is people always think about the end results, but I think it's the beginning process of something that's really going to have the impact there.

So when you're talking about having people in so many different places, that means that people are using maybe so many different tools and so many different things, and they're looking at it from a different perspective, right? So the key thing is like when you are going into 3d or anything that there has A company buy in, meaning that there has to be an understanding that we are going in this direction and to have a very streamlined way, we need to make sure that we're able to communicate.

And the collaboration is key and it could be across various tools. That's fine. But there also needs to be one centralized point, right? There needs to be one Bible, one source of truth that kind of gives like an idea of what everything's coming. Cause then you kind of have an understanding of like, How many variations to this product have, or did this item have, like you can kind of figure out like where it started from to kind of help you better assess what's going on there.

But the buy in has to be from the company level because it touches so many different departments, regardless if you're a designer, a product person, a marketing person, a salesperson, it doesn't matter. Everyone's going to be involved and everyone's going to be curious and they want to have it. You know, if you're creating something in 3d and then your sales team is.

Just doing a screenshot of the 3d stuff and then using that for the pitches. Everything that the design team has done is kind of like falling through the window because they created 3d asset. It just means that the sales team hasn't been enabled to use that type of technology yet. So that's when it's not just about collaboration, about creating, it's also about sharing.

Right. And that's, that's the biggest thing.

Tim Butara: Because, you know, desiring silos are one of the biggest detriments to effective collaboration. And it sounds like without that centralized approach to using these tools, even if you're using various tools, right, without centralization, you can't really get the best use of them because then everything will just be siloed as So the tools as well as the departments probably

Rob Alvarez: Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Because there's, I mean. More and more with AI and everything else developing, there's more and more tools out there, right? There's easier ways to get things done. And maybe the company doesn't have a policy of like, Hey, you need to kind of go through this process to get to stool or platform, whatever.

So every individual is just finding the easiest way to do their job. But that means that there is. Buckets of platforms and tools and applications that people are using in different capacities. But there is not one way to share it efficiently. So collaboration and having one source of truth is kind of the critical part.

And it doesn't mean that everyone needs to be Savant in regards to understanding a certain platform, whatever platform anyone decides, right? I think obviously Vectary would be the ideal, but whatever platform anyone decides is, it's going to be super important that everyone has a quick onboarding and has a quick understanding of like, okay, this is how I get it.

And this is how I can communicate with my design department. Even if I'm like four steps. Disconnected from them or forceps after and that's that's the crucial part because there is cases that I've seen where I've spoken to Even in this role where bigger companies are actually working on the same thing, but they haven't talked to each other Right, so it's like they're kind of doing the same efforts.

The output's different obviously because it's different teams But you're you're kind of losing a lot of the efficiency there And that's, that's kind of hurting it.

Tim Butara: Yeah. A lot of great points there. And that makes a lot of sense. The next thing that I want to talk about today is spatial computing.

So, so what is spatial computing and what are the benefits of spatial computing?

Rob Alvarez: Well, it's the big buzz right now. Everyone from Europe flying over to, to the U S to pick up their Apple vision pro goggles and bringing them back. Yeah. It's, it's just pretty crazy. Pretty much it's like any human, like computer interaction, they're perceived by user instead of kind of using a digital screen, right?

You have a serial laptop and so on. The spatial computing, there's, again, countless applications for it. It's really, it's been around, right? It has been, it's been around, but I think the applications have been a little bit more robust or harder to implement for smaller companies or maybe just Consumers or end to end users themselves, but it has been around, but now that it's more accessible to more people, the ability to kind of give that experience or to kind of create, let's say a digital twin, which is another key thing that everyone's been talking about.

It's definitely going to be a beneficial thing, but it's really kind of giving you the application of seeing things. Within your own realm and not just kind of experiencing it through a computer screen or camera or so on. And it kind of gives you a little bit more understanding of the interaction.

Like you can see that there's a lot of different ways, but if you look at it from a real estate perspective or an architectural perspective, you can have your whole CAD drawing in front of you and you're pretty much stepping into it. Right. Before this, there was also companies that would rent out warehouses and create this huge floor plan for people to walk in and be like, this is where your home is going to look like, or this is what your office is going to look like.

And you can kind of walk through and understand. But now with the special computing, it's all. Easily accessible, right? So you can have that experience a lot easier sitting down from wherever you are, but it is, it is also something that everyone needs to really think about how to get into, cause you can get into it, but of course the biggest thing is the upkeep and making sure that everything's kind of managed.

Do you have the. resources available and so on. So just like any other new technology, you have to make sure that in place internally, you have the resources and the application actually makes sense, right? So just to be super

Tim Butara: clear, what is the relationship between 3D and spatial computing? So what are the differences and how are they similar?

Rob Alvarez: You have to start out with like something, right? So 3D is kind of like the starting point where you kind of have that let's say model or whatever kind of created and then you can have the AR functionality which is like the easier one where you're viewing it from your camera phone or camera lens and then spatial computing is just taking it to another level where it's kind of using all the technology around you or whatever the equipment to give you that experience with removing some of the limitations.

They would just have with 3d and AR, but it's all these building steps, right? You need to kind of have the 3d assets and AR and everything like that to kind of get into the spatial computing.

Tim Butara: So, so special computing is like, like some kind of next level, more, more immersive, immersive is key.

Rob Alvarez: Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, because right now, if you look at it from a 3d standpoint, you can use your mouse, right? You can kind of interact with a 3d object easily within the computer. And that's already cool. If, especially if you're a B2C company, right, you want your consumers to see and feel and understand what it is. So if you have a 3d element, you can obviously give that experience, which is already, let's say there's a lot of benefits there.

Because let's say conversion to sales and so on, because they have ability to interact AR functionality to is another big thing. Because if you have your camera with you, and you want to see how a table looks in your, in your space, you're able to easily do that to have an understanding and then special computing is just taking it to the next level where you can actually.

Interact a little bit more with it. You can move it. You can see it. You can essentially touch it, right? It's your digital twin. You can touch whatever the people have provided from

Tim Butara: the special computing. Okay, that makes sense I'm glad I asked for clarification just because I thought it would be really interesting to hear it and to kind of break it Down in a simple way.

Rob Alvarez: Yeah, I don't think there's an ever simple way, but I think That might be the easiest way to understand it. Yeah Because everything, yeah, I mean, everything that's coming out with all the new technology, it can be complicated, but it doesn't need to be.

Tim Butara: No, but yeah, I, I think that we, we broke it down in a, in a very approachable and accessible way.

Right. It's, it's just, it's similar to 3d, but more immersive and it's like the next level. And that's, you know, you can't get it any simpler than that, but it conveys exactly what it needs to convey. I think. Yeah, exactly. Okay, one thing that we also really need to talk about, because now we mostly talked about the benefits of these technologies, and I'm wondering, like, what are the main concerns and challenges, especially security related concerns and challenges, as well as best practices in the security area of using these technologies, so 3D, AR, VR?

Rob Alvarez: Yeah, so the, I would say the concerns, or Maybe like flags that you should be watching out for, right? Is that when you have a lot of people collaborating or even when you're running a company, right? Like you have a lot of security protocols put in place, right? Security protocols could start falling way out of sight and out of mind when you start adopting all these different tools and platforms because you're just trying to do your job the best you can.

But the, the crucial part is that there needs to be an overall alignment Of understanding what is the security, meaning does the tool that I'm using have the security compliances that are, let's say, regulated within my country or region, right? So European union, or let's say United States or whatever in Latin America, too, there is the security certificates and everything that they're actually, it's not just a nice, like little stamp to have on a website, but it's, it's not something new, right?

But this is kind of like an essential thing where these protocols are put in place because you need to. Protect as a provider, you need to protect the assets, right? So when you're providing a platform, you need to make sure that for a company, there is certain protocols, restricted link sharing. So it's one link sharing for restricted office.

So only people that have access are enabled to view that link, right? So that is already. One step because you wouldn't be able to send that document via slack or something like that, right? Like you need to have something that's going to give you a little bit more protocol. If a person leaves the company, there needs to be steps to kind of who's going to take that over because instead of assets living on someone's hard drive within a computer, the assets are living in a centralized collaboration.

Right. So you're not losing anything right now. Another big thing that we've actually been encountering this recently, actually, I've had a few different calls is that people are worried about taking, let's say we can go from a product perspective. They're, they have their products on the website. It's beautiful, but then they're also take like maybe the competitors or similar companies are using that like similar image out of it and they've kind of just downloaded it.

So if you have the ability to kind of create or use a platform that has A unique file type where it won't be able to be replicated and something else and nobody can really copy it unless they are used in the platform itself. That's also another benefit to kind of give you the right way to remove any kind of security concerns.

But yeah, security is never like. The sexiest topic, but is one of the most impactful ones because you, anything that you're creating within a tool, and then you start sharing, there needs to be a level of protection, security, and essentially regulations across the company to make sure that that link that you have shared, isn't going to go to anyone that shouldn't be looking at it.

Cause everyone now is working on, I say, private documents or private files and so on. And it's critical that you have those types of implementations put into the company. That's the biggest thing. Confidential information leaks and so on, like it's, it's a lot more difficult to happen when you have everything in a centralized place with a restricted access.

That's, it's, it's kind of like the security one on one, but it's crucial that everyone gets onboarded the same way, right? So that's, that's the biggest thing, because there needs to be an awareness because the platform itself can have all these things put in place, but there needs to be an awareness of these are the processes, these are the steps across the different departments.

And this is how we're going to do it. Cause there are scary scenarios where people have just left the company and now they can't access files because they had them all on their hard drive, but centralized collaboration tools and everything that, or centralized asset management helps you make sure that you don't have to worry about those things.

Tim Butara: It also go the other way around. So somebody leaving the company, but still having access to some files that, that, that, you know, that PO poses its own type of security issues, I'd say. Exactly.

Rob Alvarez: Exactly. But, but then you have your, your overlord or your admin that once that person leaves or your IT department that's gonna be removing those and it's gonna be a lot easier to do it if you have it in one mm-Hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. You just brought up some nightmare scenarios and I just remembered about that, so, yeah.

Tim Butara: Yeah. I mean, I mean, the first thing that you brought up was already a nightmare scenario. So, so I just counted with another one, basically. Yeah.

Rob Alvarez: When you're talking about security, that's, that's the key, key things, right?

It's always kind of this happened and we need to do everything in our power to avoid it, but also things happen by mistake, right? Like someone could delete a file on accident, but if you have one centralized place, you can recover that file pretty easily. So there's a lot of benefits to it.

Tim Butara: So yeah, yeah.

A great showcase of the importance of doing this upfront. And, and I mean, probably for, for a lot of businesses, if they don't do it up front, that then as soon as some, some great mishap like that happens, that then they'll just start focusing on it more and more by, but by that point, it will already have been kind of too late for, for them specifically.

So, you know, if anybody listening right now is wondering what they should do, like this is one of. The key things to do, but, but Rob, to, to kind of wrap the conversation up besides this tip what would be your other top tips for somebody wanting to implement these technologies at their work and, and get the most value out of them?

Rob Alvarez: I would say there are more questions that need to be asked, right? Cause I, you know, I, on a daily basis, I speak to companies from all different sizes. And like I said, like there's a buzz and there's a thing that's trending and you want to jump on it and you try to jump on it and you don't have things put in place.

So the key, like I say, questions that you should be asking internally is like, do we really need to collaborate like globally or virtual teams? Like, what does the collaboration look like? All right. That's, that's a critical part. Which other departments do we need to work closely with? Right. We understand that sometimes working with departments could be light touch points here and there.

But if you do say yes to like working with those departments, you have to make sure that everyone has to buy in understanding there, what is the feedback loop look like, right? So if you're coming from a product and you're putting it to consumers, like what is the feedback loop look like? That means that you also need to look at your customer service department.

So can I involve my customer service department in these type of things? And then it's another things like what's the best way to showcase some of these products or presentations that we've created, right? So if I have something, I've created a beautiful scene in 3D and using AR and VR, like, am I able to, with the current stuff that I have now, am I able to share it across To other stakeholders that don't have access.

So this is how you kind of have to understand. And then what are the tools that we're using? What is it like trying to understand the environment that you already live in? Cause there are tools out there similar to Vectary that we're not trying to reinvent the wheel. The, the, the key is really to kind of have that niche where you're building up efficiency, right?

So how much do you spend on all these tools? Is there any efficiencies that you can do across having all these tools and maybe move some out or add another one and so on, and then when you are going into space, let's say 3d AR, VR, spatial computing, everything that, when you start looking for platforms and tools you might get a little lost Right.

So you need to have a clear definition of what you need, let's say more of the short term future, but also in the long term to have a better understanding of what tool best fits, right. Cause I think the last thing anyone wants to do is adopt a tool on board everyone and be like, okay, this was good for six months, but now we've kind of outgrown it.

So you need to have something that's going to be with you for a long time. And then the key thing that goes back to the previous topic is what are the security protocols that all these applications have? Is this something I download on my computer? Is this browser based? What is it? And does it have the security compliances that I need and that my company.

So there's a lot of questions to be asked, and actually one more critical one is do I have the resources, meaning do I have the internal resources to get on board with this 3D, VR, AR, and spatial computing? Because a lot of people want to get into it, but the resources aren't there yet. Sometimes people would think that a 2D designer, We'll be able to fill in the role for a 3d designer.

It can be night and day or unless that person is a hybrid, it can do everything once it's critical that you have an understanding of going into that. Cause you can get the best tool there or the best platform, but if you have people that are going to be able to execute, that's going to. Slow you down, right?

So yeah, I would say these are more like questions that you should be asking internally because that is going to be the critical thing to make sure that from a 3D workflow, you have all these identified and everyone's been communicating from the start, right? So you talk about product lifecycle, you talk about customer service support, you talk about mechanical engineering, everything, everyone has to understand that this is like the path that we want to take.

And it's critical to have those. Let's say interview questions internally first and then kind of go out and map it out for you.

Tim Butara: Yeah, these were definitely some great pointers, Rob, and a great way to finish the great conversation off on just before we do, if listeners like to reach out to you, learn more about you, what's the best way to connect with you?

Rob Alvarez: Yeah. So I am all over the website. So if you go to vectary.com and any of the contact us, we'll go directly to me. That'll be the easiest way. If not, it's Alvarez at vectary.com can email me directly LinkedIn. You can see my pretty picture as well. There anytime, but to vectary.com was going to be the best place.

Cause you can also see my calendar and you can book a meeting directly with me. Pretty easily. Yeah. And I'm happy to talk to anyone. I think it's super important to get different conversations. And even if you're not ready, I'm happy to, to answer some questions as well.

Tim Butara: Perfect. Thank you so much, Rob.

Thanks again for joining us. As I said, this was, this was really great.

Rob Alvarez: Yeah. Tim, thank you so much for having me and hope we can do this again.

Tim Butara: Yeah. Let's be in touch. Perfect. Thank you. And to our listeners, that's all for this episode. Have a great day, everyone, and stay safe.

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