Microsoft Mesh addresses those questions head-on, enabling shared experiences from anywhere through mixed reality applications. This truly has the potential to revolutionize the hybrid workplace—and the first step in that revolution? Avatars.

An avatar is a digital representation of yourself. You may have used avatars before for things like gaming profiles or social media, but in a business setting? That’s brand new for all of us.

As members of the Microsoft Digital Employee Experience organization, we’re responsible for the technology experiences of customer zero: people working at Microsoft. We knew people would have many questions about avatars. How do they affect connections between coworkers? How do they impact meeting effectiveness and outcomes? Can an avatar ever truly be seen as “professional”?

Everything we do at Microsoft is backed by data, feedback, and research. To tackle these questions, that’s where we had to start.

[Read our blog post about how Avatars for Microsoft Teams is rolling out to general availability in phases starting this week. Learn how you can get more out of your meetings with our Microsoft Teams Meeting guide. Explore how we’re making Microsoft Teams Premium better for customers. Discover how we’re transforming Microsoft with Microsoft Teams.]

Doing the research

It’s important that the work we do supports the creation of a “responsible metaverse,” an inclusive space that’s designed with people’s wellbeing in mind. With that in mind, we engaged with stakeholders and partners to support research and development on diversity, inclusion, and accessibility. We worked with Microsoft researchers, Microsoft Mesh developers and product engineers, and partners both inside and outside of Microsoft. Together, we spent months gathering survey data and user feedback.

These surveys covered a lot of ground, including:

• Inclusive options for creating an avatar
• Overall experience with avatar movement
• Avatars’ responses to audio cues
• Variety in customization and representation

After poring through literally thousands of pieces of feedback, one fact became crystal clear: personalization is king. People want to be able to represent themselves in accordance with their preferences, in detail.

We also found a lot of diversity in how people respond to avatars. Some people find that avatars offer a new level of inclusivity and comfort; others found them distracting or odd. Both reactions are valid, and we wanted to make sure people had guidance for navigating these new experiences.

Taking business etiquette to virtual spaces

As we sifted through all this research, we realized that—after the initial question of, “How do I customize my avatar?”—the second question on people’s minds was, “How should I use avatars?” This summarizes infinite questions about appropriateness. Are avatars useful in all meetings? When is it okay make an avatar dance, and when is it not? This is a whole new world of business etiquette, something no one had experienced before.

In the past, business etiquette and company culture has been learned in person, often picked up by watching others interact and interpreting subtle queues like body language. Clearly, we couldn’t do that here. We needed avatar etiquette. So, armed with our research and key findings, we created guidance for Microsoft employees that we can use as we entered this new world together.

Avatar etiquette

There are no hard and fast rules about when to use an avatar. Like so many things at work, whether an avatar is appropriate or not depends on context.

Understand how avatars currently work

Today’s avatar movement is based solely on audio and any avatar reaction you may choose. Your avatar’s mouth movement is driven by the sound of your voice, and it can’t mimic your body’s movements.

However, it does move a bit on its own. This could come across as insensitive or inappropriate, depending on the context.

As avatar technology evolves, our best practices and etiquette will evolve too. For now, here are the questions we ask ourselves when deciding whether to use an avatar or not.

What kind of meeting is it? What’s its intent?

Strategic, tactical, social—the meeting type influences if an avatar is appropriate. Think about the intent and hoped-for outcomes.

In general, if you would otherwise have your camera off, it’s great to use an avatar instead. Here are some examples:

• A weekly sync with your immediate team
• A hybrid social event for your organization
• An ideation session
• A lunch-and-learn session where you may be eating

There are some meetings where we recommend not using an avatar:

• A one-on-one meeting—unless, of course, you’ve discussed it and would both like to use them.
• Performance reviews (but you probably knew that, right?).
• If you’re involved in a sensitive conversation where body language and facial expression help with engagement. Using your video is best for that.

Will you be presenting?

Whether or not an avatar is appropriate while presenting depends on your audience and presentation content. Who are you presenting to? What is your content and desired outcome?

For some presentations, you probably won’t want to use an avatar (like a proposal to leadership). But for others (like a learning session), it may actually add to your presentation! Consider your audience, content, and desired outcome. This will help you decide. Avatars can be a great ice breaker!

When in doubt, ask!

Avatars are new for all of us, so it’s important to bring a growth mindset when using them.

• Have a conversation with your coworkers about how your team feels about avatars. Are there specific guidelines you want to set for your team?
• Are there times avatars might feel like a distraction?
• If you’re a presenter in someone else’s meeting, ask them if they have a preference for how you show up.
• What makes you feel the most comfortable? Your preferences matter, too!
• Remember: it can take a while for people to grow comfortable with new technology, especially when it feels personal. If we all treat each other with mutual respect—including our “avatar selves”—we’ll go a long way toward making every meeting inclusive and effective.

When is it okay to bust a move?

Fist bumps, the wave, peace out—there are a lot of super fun avatar reactions to play with. They add a lot of energy and enthusiasm to a meeting, but sometimes, it’s best to stay still.

Think about it this way: if you were in a physical room with the other meeting attendees, would you do that same physical reaction? If the answer is no, then wait until the moment’s right.

And please do remember, an avatar’s movement does not currently mirror the movement of the person behind the avatar. So, if you need to step away during a meeting, remember to tell people. They can’t tell from your avatar!

Representation matters

One key thing to keep in mind: an avatar represents the way that person wants to be represented. This may sometimes mean your avatar doesn’t look the way others expect. That’s okay! The goal is for you to feel accurately represented and fully included. You’re the only one who decides what that means to you.

That said, sometimes we do want an outside opinion. If you feel like you’re having a tough time getting your avatar right, ask a trusted teammate for feedback. It can be fun to hop on a call and do it together.

Please do be aware of and avoid cultural appropriation and remember our commitment to being diverse and inclusive. If you’re not finding the right options for customizing your avatar, let us know by providing feedback through the Teams desktop app. The avatar team is eagerly working to make improvements that allow everyone to be expressive, engaged, represented, and heard.

It’s going to take all of us to create a responsible metaverse. Like all forms of etiquette, our guidance will evolve over time to make sure it meets the needs of a diverse global workforce. We’ll continue to iterate and present new features, customization options, and overall experiences with avatars that support a new and connected way to show up in our world of flexible work.

Read our blog post about how Avatars for Microsoft Teams is rolling out to general availability in phases starting this week, and the latest Mesh product and customer news. Learn how to set up avatars for your organization, and how to join a meeting with a avatar. For more information, visit our Microsoft Mesh website.

• Read our blog post about how Avatars for Microsoft Teams is rolling out to general availability in phases starting this week.
• Learn how you can get more out of your meetings with our Microsoft Teams Meeting guide.
• Explore how we’re making Microsoft Teams Premium better for customers.
• Discover how we’re transforming Microsoft with Microsoft Teams.

The post Avatar etiquette: How Microsoft employees are using avatars for Microsoft Teams in their meetings appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Microsoft has fully embraced being a flexible workplace, which means that hybrid meetings—where some people join remotely and others join from a Microsoft worksite—are increasingly common.

What does that mean?

From May to November 2022, the number of monthly hybrid meetings we’ve held at Microsoft increased nearly 92 percent. To put that in perspective, during those six months, we held nearly 2 million hybrid meetings here at Microsoft.

With that in mind, how are we making sure our hybrid meetings are inclusive and effective for everyone involved, no matter how they’re joining? In theory, it’s simple:

• Bring remote-meeting etiquette to the meeting room
• Agree on and adopt new best practices that support hybrid

You’ll notice these focus on behavior. We’re not asking people to use new technology; we’re asking them to change how they use existing technology. And as most of us know from personal experience, changing behavior is hard.

In Microsoft Digital (MSD), we power, protect, and transform the employee experience and provide the blueprint for customers and partners to follow. We wondered, how could we help people at Microsoft shift habits and change how they think about meetings to build a healthy meeting culture?

Changing behavior is hard. Gamification can help.

Eighty percent of US workers believe game-based learning is more engaging than other types of training. When Avanade (a joint venture between Accenture and Microsoft) gamified sales training, the region with the highest program participation had 33 percent higher sales. There’s science behind the benefits of play-based learning, too. Psychiatrist Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play, has said, “Nothing lights up the brain like play. Three-dimensional play fires up the cerebellum, puts a lot of impulses into the frontal lobe—the executive portion—helps contextual memory be developed.”

So we teamed up with the Minecraft Education team to explore whether we might develop a Minecraft learning experience about hybrid meetings. Minecraft: Education Edition is a game-based learning platform used by millions of teachers and students. Learners can explore a wide range of subjects in immersive, blocky worlds including computer science, reading and history, and sustainability.

In the past, the Minecraft team has collaborated with partners including Microsoft’s Inclusive Hiring team, Sustainability, and Real Estate & Facilities on Minecraft worlds that illuminate key topics or support company initiatives. We pitched the concept of a hybrid learning map to the Minecraft Education team, and they were immediately supportive.

Having a deep background in gaming, I am very aware of the magic that can happen during gameplay. When Laura came to us with the idea for a game, we wanted to understand if it would resonate with our large and diverse internal audience. After a couple of conversations about the value of gameplay in learning, and the broad appeal of Minecraft, I was all in.

—Sara Bush, principal PM manager, Seamless Teamwork team

“Figuring out how to portray a business setting in Minecraft (with mobs!) sounded like a fun challenge,” says Bryan Bonham, senior business program manager for Minecraft Education.

It was a natural next step to partner with the team at Microsoft that is trying to help employees get more out of the many hybrid meetings that they now attend every day.

“Having a deep background in gaming, I am very aware of the magic that can happen during gameplay,” says Sara Bush, principal PM manager on MDEE’s Seamless Teamwork team. “When Laura came to us with the idea for a game, we wanted to understand if it would resonate with our large and diverse internal audience. After a couple of conversations about the value of gameplay in learning and the broad appeal of Minecraft, I was all in.”

Remote and hybrid work has led to some funny moments for all of us. I think adding some humor helps when learning something new. Best not to take yourself too seriously, we all make mistakes as we learn!

—Bryan Bonham, Senior Business Program Manager, Minecraft Education

This was a first-time collaboration between MSD and Minecraft and the first time Minecraft was used within Microsoft to support employee learning.

From idea to execution

The concept we landed on was “Hybrid Hero: The game where the fate of a meeting lies with you!” The player experiences different scenarios and must make the right choices to ensure their meeting is effective and inclusive. We based the game’s script and decision points on the Microsoft Teams Meeting Guide, which is full of research-based guidance.

Early on, we decided that humor was key.

“Remote and hybrid work has led to some funny moments for all of us,” Bonham says. “I think adding some humor helps when learning something new. Best not to take yourself too seriously. We all make mistakes as we learn!”

We also wanted to make sure Hybrid Hero was accessible and fun for everyone at Microsoft even if they’ve never played Minecraft before. In every round of testing, we looked at the game from a newbie mindset.

“I’ve never played Minecraft before but figured that if preschoolers are playing it, I can surely play it, too,” says senior program manager Chanda Jensen, who supports meeting technology for Seamless Teamwork. “Most of the game was intuitive and really easy to get the hang of, and it was a fun way to teach hybrid-meeting best practices. As an added bonus, my kids now think my job is ‘cool.’”

In early testing, 93 percent of players responded positively to the game as did 88 percent of first-time players. Making sure the game was beginner-friendly paid off.

Let the games begin

Since it launched in September 2022, Hybrid Hero has been played by Microsoft employees in 40 countries, and we’ve heard from global teams who’ve used it as both a learning opportunity and team morale event. The game’s internal marketing campaign has garnered over 350,000 impressions on Yammer, helping to spread the word about hybrid-meeting best practices.

Hybrid Hero was truly a “One Microsoft” effort, requiring all team members to think outside the box and approach the project with a growth mindset. Employees are eager for innovative learning opportunities, and we’ll continue to do our best to innovate and create exceptional experiences for them.

For more information about teaching and learning with Minecraft: Education Edition, visit education.minecraft.net. Anyone can download a few demos of the game and try lessons like the Minecraft Hour of Code. Microsoft employees can sign in with their corporate email account to access the full game features and content.

• After years of remote-only meetings, employees need to shift habits and change how they think about meetings to create a healthy meeting culture.
• For hybrid meetings to be inclusive and effective, people need to be aware of and follow hybrid-meeting best practices.
• Gamification and play-based learning are often more engaging and effective for employees.
• Employees are eager for innovative learning experiences.

• Check out advancing your meetings with the Microsoft Teams Meeting Guide.
• Learn more about education opportunities with Minecraft.
• Discover why employees are buzzing with meeting room excitement in The Hive.

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The post Teaching Microsoft employees healthy hybrid meeting habits with Minecraft appeared first on Inside Track Blog.