287. Cortney Harding. How We’ll BLANK Next.
Cortney Harding
October 12, 2023
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In today’s podcast Cortney Harding provides valuable insights into the metaverse, its potential, and the ethical considerations that come with AI, making it a fascinating conversation for anyone interested in the future of technology and virtual experiences.
Topics include:
Futurist Timeframes: Think in terms of a 5-to-10-year time horizon. Further spans lapse into the realm of science fiction due to unpredictability.
Ethical Considerations: Explore ethical implications of recreating loved ones or past relationships within the Metaverse, highlighting the need for protocols and consent mechanisms.
AI Assistance: AI could potentially alleviate mundane tasks and facilitate more efficient customer service. The key to implementation, according to Courtney, lies in consent and proper management.
AI Verification: the necessity of consent and verification in AI use, highlighting issues arising from unverified and unauthorized information scrapings.
Measuring Metaverse Success: For effective engagement in the Metaverse, take a community-first, sales-second approach. Successful implementation involves ongoing investment and proper resource allocation.
Generational and Cultural Perspectives: There are notably different attitudes towards the Metaverse based on geographical location, with developing countries showing more excitement than developed nations.
An experienced founder and content creator, Cortney Harding is an in-demand expert as one of the few people who can not only translate the impact of the digital revolution from Web2 to Web3 and its impact on businesses, but also how the metaverse can become the new frontier to create better and more accepting communities. As the founder of the award-winning agency Friends With Holograms, she was a pioneer who created VR training pieces around topics like child abuse, workplace exclusion, mental health, Black maternal mortality, and racial bias for companies like Lowe’s, Walmart, PWC, Amazon, Target, and more. Her work was honored as the Best VR/AR of 2019 at Mobile World Congress, a SXSW Innovation Award Finalist at SXSW, and a Top HR Product by HR Executive. She is currently working with Meta to help shape strategy around learning and training in the metaverse and was instrumental in creating "What is the Metaverse" - a groundbreaking course that covers all aspects of the Metaverse while exploring safety issues, ethical questions and much more.
An accomplished speaker, Cortney is considered a future facing architect of change as she has a full understanding of what challenges and opportunities exist within the metaverse. She approaches every aspect of her work leading with "what problem can we solve" and "how sustainable is the journey to this virtual landscape" which has led to a host of unique speaking opportunities. These include DAVOS, SXSW, Advertising Week Europe, the Next Web, and Future of Storytelling, among other events. She has been interviewed by the New York Times, NPR, and Ad Week, among others, and has written for Billboard, Teen Vogue, and the Village Voice. She is the author of three books, including her most recent book on using virtual reality to create social change.
An in-demand academic, Cortney has taught at North Carolina State and Caltech and this year will be teaching at Barnard and NYU, where she will be sharing her one-of-a-kind curriculum. She has also guest lectured at Johns Hopkins, Chapman University, Harvard Business School, and Columbia University.
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