Álvaro Alegria Meunier

In a previous post dedicated to the metaverse, I explained what the metaverse -the 'buzz word' of the year- consists of and what opportunities it will offer companies. Today I want to share other challenges that, in my opinion, must be overcome in the short and medium term for the metaverse to unfold its full potential. Diversification Most of the metaverses, which are currently available, have gaming as a central element of their value proposition. This is entirely understandable because, for years, the video game world had already oriented its strategy towards online multiplayer, so for its users, the leap into the metaverse is a natural step. However, new proposals offering other types of content need to be deployed and consolidated in order to expand the number of users interested in joining the metaverse. Here I am convinced that we will soon start to see horizontal proposals, as Meta is likely to be, and new vertical proposals, in the world of entertainment, sport, the workplace and even the industrial world. Purpose and experiences When a new technology is developed and, above all, when the level of hype that is brewing around the metaverse is generated, a perverse incentive is unleashed: to use it at all costs so as not to be left out of the wave, even if the real value is not understood and the potential is not well known. As we mentioned in the previous article, it is important to understand that the metaverse is not an end, but a means. It is a tool that should serve companies to achieve their strategic objectives, whatever they may be. The question should not be whether or not a company should be in the metaverse. The question should be why, what is the purpose? Adopting the metaverse with a purpose is fundamental, because it will guide companies in designing the experiences that will define their relationship with their customers and users in the metaverse. Payments and transactions Everyone may not agree with what I am about to say, but the metaverse and the crypto world are independent concepts, which can exist entirely separately. Whether the metaverse, without the 'crypto' world, can really unfold its full potential is a different matter. In my opinion, no. Given that the metaverse involves the interaction of thousands of users from different countries, it is essential that all users share a common economy, through one or more digital currencies, which facilitates payments and transactions. “Without the crypto world, the metaverse cannot unfold its full potential” Imagine that you put an asset up for sale in euros and someone who has Peruvian pesos or Thai baht wants to buy it. That would mean that the buyer would have to calculate the price in their currency and one of the two would have to exchange currencies, increasing the friction of the transaction. If, on the other hand, all users handle the same currency, for example "Mana" in the case of Decentraland, the transaction is much simpler. But, to be honest, it will play a fundamental role here if the crypto world is able to overcome and avoid the major scandals that have been occurring in recent weeks and which directly affect the trust of the average user. Privacy and Security Great potential brings with it great responsibility, and the development of the metaverse will mean evolving security systems to a higher level. The metaverse and Web3 will be built on the identity of its users and therefore it will be absolutely essential to build new methods of privacy and personal data protection. Let us be aware that the metaverse will multiply the type and amount of data we will share to identify ourselves. But not only data, it will also be necessary to guarantee the protection of our virtual heritage or else it will be impossible to develop a true large-scale economy of digital assets such as the one I mentioned in the previous point. Legality The evolution of the internet has brought (and continues to bring) a parallel revolution in the legal sphere, both in terms of legislative production and in the way those same rules are applied. The reality is that the law cannot cover all the factual scenarios enabled by technology because, among other things, the pace of technological development is several orders of magnitude greater than the capacity of any parliament to pass legislation. Photo: Minh Pham And the problem we face with the advent of the metaverse is that, in addition to the current problems, we will be taking the complexity of the assumptions to a higher stage. What jurisdiction applies in the metaverse? What is allowed and what is not? How do we give legal certainty to the hundreds of thousands of users who will interact at the same time in the same virtual space from multiple countries? Metaverse adoption I have left this point to the end because, although it is the simplest to understand, it is in fact the most far-reaching of all. The future of the metaverse will depend on its mass adoption by users, as is the case today with social networks However advanced, technological, immersive, decentralised and interactive the universes may be, they can only survive if they manage to attract the general public. Nobody wants to go to the Wizink Center to a concert and find themselves alone on the dance floor because part of the fun of these kinds of activities is precisely to share them in community, to enjoy a common experience and to be part of something bigger than ourselves. The challenge at this point is to overcome two important barriers: An important part of the value proposition of the metaverse involves immersive experiences that, yes or no, require hardware (glasses, controllers, etc.) that are currently only available to a residual part of the population. Will brands get us to buy these devices to enjoy their experiences? It remains to be seen, but if we all now have a smartphone to be able to access all that mobile applications offer us, it is clearly a matter of incentive and reward. Getting each of us to embrace the cultural shift of immersing ourselves for a few hours a day in a virtual world that abstracts us from our everyday reality. During the pandemic, internet traffic multiplied exponentially. But as the measures were relaxed, we all took to the streets to get back in touch with our loved ones. Will the experiences in the metaverse be interesting enough to make us renounce, even if only for a few minutes a day, life in the flesh and blood? As I said at the beginning of the article, these and other challenges are undoubtedly the ones that all companies will have to face in the short and medium term in our strategies for adopting the metaverse.

If one thing is clear at this stage in 2022, it is that the buzzword of the year in the technology and business world will be: metaverse. What is less clear is what the metaverse actually consists of and what opportunity it will represent in the medium and long term for companies. The metaverse will undoubtedly be an opportunity. But to understand it, it is necessary to be clear about some basic concepts. What it is and what it is not. The first thing we need to understand is that the metaverse does not yet exist, but it is currently under construction. When it actually exists, it will constantly evolve and mutate. After all, the metaverse will be, in reality, the sum of multiple individual universes connected to each other. What is the metaverse? This concept is best understood by making an analogy with the internet, as the internet is not a web page, but the sum of millions of web pages. What makes the metaverse different from the internet is that the universes will be interconnected in such a way that any one of us, as a user, will be able to move from one to another without friction. The next thing to keep in mind is that each universe will have its own characteristics that will differentiate it from the rest and make it unique. These characteristics will define multiple aspects such as the ownership of the metaverse (centralised or decentralised), its focus (generalist or verticalised), the target audience to which they aspire, the type of experiences they will offer or their internal economics. Like social media, the metaverse must be a means to achieve the company's strategic objectives Should companies enter the metaverse? It will be essential for companies to understand all these differences in order to be able to make the best decisions when defining their metaverse adoption strategy. The metaverse is not an end but must be a means to achieve the company's strategic objectives. Once again using an analogy, we can consider each universe of the metaverse as a social network. The presence on social networks is not an end for companies, but a means to achieve multiple objectives: branding, customer service, funnel generation, etc. Therefore, communication departments devote enormous efforts to designing their social network strategy and have employees specialised in its management. Each social network has a different audience, a different approach and even specific codes that are shared and recognised by the entire community. Getting the most out of them is complicated and therefore, the first decision that companies must make is which social network or networks they want to be present on and discard the rest. Photo: Mo / Unsplash The same approach should be followed with the metaverse. Each company must analyse the multiple universes within its reach and make the decision as to which one or ones are the ones in which it will have the best chance of achieving its objectives as a company. The potential of the metaverse for business Going back to the characteristics I mentioned earlier, I would like to quickly explain some of them to make it clear how important it is to understand the differences: Centralisation: Universes can be divided into two broad groups based on how they are governed. Universes can be owned by a company that has total control (centralised control) over the technology, data and economy of the universe. Or, in contrast, they can be owned by all the members of the universe, who govern them through democratic mechanisms (decentralised power). Decentralisation sounds idyllic from a theoretical point of view, but companies will have to assess whether they want to take the risk of being at the mercy of community decisions or prefer the stability that a centralised universe will provide. Focus: Most of the universes that exist today have been a natural evolution of the world of online video games and are therefore very focused on entertainment in that area. However, many of the big tech companies are working on other proposals. It is to be expected, for example, that Meta (formerly Facebook) will choose a generalist universe where the experience is not only focused on entertainment. Companies such as Microsoft or NVIDIA are building proposals focused on the field of relationships at work, the former, and in the field of industrial development, the latter. Economy: The metaverse is already a new economy in which hundreds of millions are being moved. I have not expressly mentioned whether in dollars or euros because, in reality, the economy of the metaverse is, today, almost exclusively linked to cryptocurrencies. And this is also important to bear in mind for several reasons. First, because the adoption of the metaverse will probably be the definitive push for many large and medium-sized companies to include cryptocurrencies in their balance sheets. Secondly, because several universes operate with their own cryptocurrency, which gives them enormous power over the internal economy of the universe. In the medium term, it is most likely that, as is already the case with social networks, companies will have a multi-channel presence in the metaverse, adapting the message to the characteristics of each one of them. The potential it offers is enormous and in another article we will be explaining the different strategies that can be used to take advantage of it.

Artificial intelligence is here to stay, that's for sure. Just look at the pink (and not that pink) pages of any newspaper or take a quick look at Linkedin's feed to see that the "AI" is the last cry in the business world. And the truth is that there are plenty of reasons for this. The capabilities offered by this new technology allow not only to overcome barriers that were previously insurmountable for traditional systems, but also to unlock fields that were previously reserved for science fiction films. Making decisions in a new way However, this rage for artificial intelligence has revealed a fact that is, to say the least, surprising: When it comes to making decisions, companies seem to rely more on machines than on humans. No one denies that technology has exponentially higher computing capabilities than the most intelligent human on earth, but it is also true that not all business decisions require those levels of intelligence and, in those cases, the trend seems to be maintained: the "machine" decides better. To position oneself on the certainty of this question in a categorical way, with a simple, true or false, is simply impossible. There are so many conditioning factors and nuances that make up the context of each decision that, probably, the most appropriate answer is that it "depends". However, the purpose of this article is not to give an answer to that question, but to raise the debate on the reasons that apparently lead us to trust a machine rather than a human. Because, when the decision is made to trust a machine, that machine has been designed and programmed by a human; and the ultimate decision to trust is also made by a human. Machines may be more "reliable" than people due to certain factors From a strictly personal point of view, giving more reliability to machines than to people is due to different factors, not all of them positive. The first, as we have already mentioned, are the greatest computing capacities. Technology can store more information, more varied and cross and contrast it at levels that human beings are incapable of. The second, although it may be obvious, is the lack of humanity. Human beings have feelings, prejudices, biases, experiences that, even if we don't want to, influence our reasoning capacity and, therefore, condition our decisions. (I don't judge whether this is negative or positive. I just want to make it clear that, sometimes, this is one of the aspects to be avoided by designating a machine as a decision maker). The third, and possibly the most controversial, is a certain dose of cowardice. If the decisions are made by a machine, which we have also agreed is less fallible than a human, we humans are released from responsibility for the decisions. Thus, if the result obtained is not as expected, the fault will never be ours, but that of the machine. At most, it may be the fault of the person who designed and programmed the machine, but in no case of the human being who should have taken that decision in the absence of it. In my opinion, this is a dangerous aspect, because the absence of responsibility can lead to irresponsibility. Conclusion Be that as it may, the reality, motivated by the speed of technological advances, is that many large companies have gone almost directly from making 100% human decisions, based solely on experience and intuition, to ceding that decision-making capacity to artificial intelligence. And in this process an intermediate step has been overlooked: human decisions based on data. It is very likely that machines will make more precise, more aseptic and more coherent decisions than humans, but, unfortunately, it seems that we ourselves have taken the opportunity to show how good we could have been compared to machines, if we had been able to trust ourselves. In any case, there is something that should never be lost sight of. That no matter how superior the intelligence of a machine is compared to that of a human, it will always be artificial.

They say that Michelangelo was asked about his impressive technique in sculpting the Pietà in just one piece, his answer was: "The sculpture was already inside of the stone. I merely eliminated the extra marble". It is impossible to deny that, from a simplistic point of view, sculpting is about getting rid of the extra material. However, something must influence the artist, because, after all, if most of us were handed a block of marble, a hammer and a chisel, we would most likely not be able to sculpt anything recognisable. The creativity of an artist, far more than his tools, is the true value that he brings to what he does and what makes the difference between a stone and a masterpiece. The art of uncovering "use cases." The same can be applied, in my opinion, to the process of use case discovery in the framework of Big Data as, just as with Michelangelo, and his block of marble, the "blocks" of data are waiting for someone with a chisel to extract the information that has always been there. And once again, in the same way, the creativity of Big Data professionals is a fundamental factor in the discovery of new use cases, as it makes a real difference between information that is merely stored and information that brings value to a company. A technological and economic revolution is underway We have the great fortune to be able to participate in the dawn of a technological and economic revolution; an era in which almost everything remains to be discovered and in which there is no limit of possibilities but rather a giant blank canvas if discovery. Due to all of this, it is very important for companies to have the best blocks of marble, the best hammers and the most precise chisels. However, it's important to remember that they will be of very little use if they don't have a true artist who knows how to extract value from them. Also, you have to let artists do their thing. You have to trust in the final result, without trying to understand the process. Not only should we not set them limits, but we should also encourage some craziness, because disruption produces changes, is abrupt, radical and even sometimes painful. It's never the fruit of an organised, clean and pre-established process. I wish I could say I came up with this concept, but I didn't. Warren Buffet already said that businesses should: Hire the best and let them do what they know. Or hire the cheapest and tell them what they have to do. Warren Buffet Big data and companies: the challenges But many traditional businesses are resistant to this new culture. It's difficult for them to accept that, nowadays, many advances are achieved because of trial and error; that processes are living and can vary along the way; that many things are done "just to see" and that talent doesn't wear a suit (or maybe it does, but it just depends on the day). I sincerely believe that the biggest and most important change that a business must accept when it comes to facing Big Data is cultural: accepting that no one knows what's coming and that uncertainty is not a threat but rather a spectacular opportunity. And the way to take advantage of that opportunity is to count on the Michelangelo of the present, the people who combine technical and business knowledge with creative abilities, which allows them to see and extract value where others see only stone. According to Mr. Niedźwiedź, many of the problems that companies encounter from a business point of view can be solved today using analytical techniques, but companies are not aware of this and, more so, analysts do not know the problems that need to be answered, so they cannot help. Conclusion I therefore encourage them to find their artists and, if they don't find them, train them. Sit down with your analysis and your business experts, invite them to create together and let them "make a mess", break things and fail, until one day they will surprise the world with a masterpiece. That is what will allow them to overtake their competitors. What companies are doing today does not necessarily bring value. Often, you already know how to do it, and your competitors do, too. The thing that will bring you value is waiting inside of your blocks of marble, because, as Aristotle said: The goal of art is to give form to the secret essence of things, to to merely copy their appearance. Aristóteles

On the 11th April 1945, just two days before his death, during the celebrations of Jefferson Day, Franklin D. Roosevelt uttered a phrase that would remain forever in history: "with great power comes great responsibility". As strange as it may sound, many people (including the youth of today) don’t relate this quote to the American president, but with another character from the same country, Uncle Ben. He is Spiderman´s uncle, who uses the phrase in one of the films from the saga. This anecdote, although simple, helps us to emphasize that people do not always know how things are in reality, nor how they come to us. Hence, another famous phrase that says: "I am responsible for what I say, not for what you understand. ¨ However, in the business environment, maintaining an attitude in this regard could be a serious mistake, because it is essential for companies to ensure that the messages they transmit arrive clearly, and without delay, to the recipients. And when we talk about messages, it is not just direct messages, but also the image they are projecting with their actions. One of the areas which has just begun to have a special relevance is the way in which companies make use of big data. Society is beginning to understand the power that data provides and, consequently, is beginning to demand responsibilities to the same extent. As a recent example of this, we can remember the scandal that Facebook has had to face as a result of the mis-use of user data by Cambridge Analytica. In case you do not know the case, during the spring of 2018, it was discovered that users of the social network received personalized information on its walls with the aim of influencing their political position. This information was customized with the purpose of being as effective as possible and was based on the knowledge that the social network had about each of its users; forcing its founder to have to appear before the United States Senate and before the European Parliament. As a consequence of this and other scandals, society is claiming limits to the enormous power that data confers to large companies. In this sense, we can refer to the restrictions that have been established in European data protection regulations in relation to decisions based only on automated means or, similarly, that individuals are subject to decisions taken by an algorithm. The most used example to illustrate this type of decision is the process of assessing the financial capacity of an individual when applying for a loan. If the bank denies this request based solely on an automated decision, citizens have the right to express their opinion or challenge the decision and even request the participation of a person in the process. This is a very important limitation because, otherwise, individual injustices based on collective data could occur, let's not forget, that the decision made by the algorithm is not based solely on our information, but on that of other people with profiles similar to ours. I remember some time ago I had a very interesting conversation on this subject, in which my interlocutor commented that, thanks to algorithms, the decisions that were made today were fairer, because it eliminated the danger of being influenced by the prejudices that we as humans sometimes have. Basically, he argued that the algorithms, unlike people, could not be accused of discriminating. And at times this is true and sometimes it is not. Algorithms discriminate. Of course, they do. In fact, it is one of its main practical applications in the field of Big Data. The difference with humans lies in the fact that the algorithms discriminate in an objective way (based on data), while humans do it in a subjective way (based on experiences, tastes or beliefs). Thus, it is expressed that nothing can be blamed on algorithms about their decisions, because they are "pure." However, it is a complicated topic. In my opinion, the only real way to avoid discrimination based on certain critical aspects (gender, race, etc.) is to completely eliminate this information from the training and decision data sets of the algorithms. Although, in reality, even that is not enough, since many of these aspects can be inferred through the combination of other data. Another area in which special focus must be placed is to avoid influencing the digital divide, which, in its most extreme cases, leads to digital poverty. The digital divide defines the inequalities that occur as a result of differences in access to technology, whether for economic reasons (scarcity of resources to acquire devices or connect to the network), knowledge (people of advanced age or with little intellectual training that prevents them from being users of a specific technology) or even for reasons of personal attitude (people who voluntarily choose not to live connected). Figure 2. Companies must work to ensure the responsile use of data Economic actors and Public Administrations have a moral duty to combat the digital divide. The creation of analogue ghettos should be avoided at all costs, those in which the users who conform them have fewer benefits or opportunities due to the fact that they are less attractive to companies or that it is more difficult for administrations to provide them with public services. And, in the same way, mechanisms must be provided that allow a dignified life to be lived for all those who, as conscientious objectors, choose not to be digital individuals. The tricky part of this issue is how to achieve these objectives without affecting the overall progress of the rest of society. An example that shows that these are not future issues but totally current, is the debate that exists today in Sweden about the elimination of physical money, in favour of digital means of payment. There are voices that have begun to expose the significant damage that this measure would mean for certain groups. For all that has been mentioned so far and for many other examples that do not fit into a single article, we all, as a society, do the right thing by demanding those who have the power of Big Data to honour their responsibility to us. Telefónica, as a digital leader in Spain and Latin America, has taken good note of this. The main test is the impulse that, from the president of the company, is being made for the creation of a new digital compact. In the manifesto published in favour of said pact, the company ensures that "a digitalization focused on people must ensure that citizens are its main beneficiaries and feel in control." The mere fact of having published a manifesto on these issues highlights the commitment of the Telefónica group. However, this commitment is not limited only to making proposals and inviting change, but preaches by example, through concrete measures such as, for example, the fact of having a specific area of "Big Data 4 Social Good" led by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón; whose objective is to use Telefónica's internal data, together with other external data, to return the value of the data to the world, thus contributing to the Sustainable Development goals set by the UN by 2030. In the same way, the Digital Transformation Area of Fundación Telefónica, directed by Lucila Ballarino, seeks to combine technology with social action and has its own Big Data Unit, with the aim of making innovative projects with high social impact and with a data-driven management to maximize the efficiency of their processes and increase their results. Telefónica is an important player and its impulse is, without a doubt, a call to action for the rest of the economic, political and social actors. Let's all make the most of this power together but do so responsibly. You can also follow us on Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn