Sophie Thompson Podcast Transcript
Sophie Thompson joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Sophie Thompson. Sophie Thompson co-founded VirtualSpeech in 2016 as a way to overcome her fear of public speaking. She realized that VR was uniquely positioned to help people practice skills in a safe environment and build their skills and confidence for real world situations in just 18 months using VR.
Sophie went from being too anxious to order food at a restaurant to being interviewed live on BBC World News. Sophie’s journey with virtual speech has been featured in a number of media outlets, and she has won awards such as inspirational woman in tech for her achievements with the company. Sophie’s firsthand experience has led her specializing in the benefits and processes of learning with VR and using VR as a tool for effective immersive learning.
Well, good afternoon, Sophie. Welcome to the show!
Sophie Thompson: Thank you very much for having me, Brian.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely and thank you for jumping on. I know you’re hailing out of the great country there in the United Kingdom. And, and we appreciate doing podcasts globally. I’ve done a ton of them, 50 countries. So, I appreciate you again, making the time.
Sophie, we’re going to jump right into your first question here. Can you share the story of how your personal challenges with public speaking led you to co found virtual speech and how did your own transformation inspire the mission and approach of the company?
Sophie Thompson: Yeah, so back in 2015, I was studying for my postgraduate at the time.
And I had an assessed presentation coming up in three months’ time. So for a bit of context, I had severe social anxiety at that point in my life. I had avoided public speaking like the plague my entire life, but I was also very studious, and I had an assessed presentation, which I wanted to do well on, but obviously it absolutely filled me with fear, even three months in advance.
And my friend Don came up with the idea that virtual reality could provide a psychologically safe place to practice a skill like public speaking, where I could get used to that feeling of all eyes looking at me. I could make mistakes without feeling judged. And by that, I was able to build both my skills, but crucially my confidence as well.
And I could do that whenever I wanted to. I didn’t have to wait for another presentation. I could just jump inside virtual reality. So that’s how we started. We created virtual speech for fun. And we started to get reviews about how we’d helped other people. Now, we didn’t actually intend Virtual Speech to be a company, it was just on the App Store so that we could access it.
And we started getting these reviews and we thought, ooh, that’s, that’s an interesting angle, maybe we can help other people. And so, it was our own stories and especially my story of social anxiety that inspired our mission and approach of putting people first and using tech for good and giving people the confidence to pursue every opportunity that’s presented to them.
Because I think for so many people even if you’re, you have the right skills to get that promotion or to deliver that keynote, it’s confidence that is the hurdle for a lot of people. So, we focus a lot on that.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. I love your story, Sophie, and you’ve taken something now and enabled other people that had struggled with the same challenge and help them overcome that, which is amazing.
And, you know, everybody, I think, struggles with public speaking at some point in their life. Obviously, some people can get over that, but I love the story really do. And, Sophie, could you share an impactful story or feedback from virtual speech users who have been seeing significant improvements in In their public speaking skills or other areas. Thanks to VR training.
Sophie Thompson: Yes, so I absolutely love it. Sometimes people who have used virtual speech will email us and they’ll tell us a bit more about their story. So, we’ve had people who have landed promotions that they otherwise wouldn’t have done because they were able to put themselves forward in meetings to lead meetings and so on.
We’ve had people speaking at HeadX events who before couldn’t speak in public at all. People landed their dream jobs, because one of the things we also do is a job interview simulator in VR. So, somebody contacted us saying they’d used virtual speech to prepare for an interview at the United Nations and they’d got the job.
And then there’s also the more Like I guess more slightly more medical focused in a way. So obviously for me, there was that social anxiety angle. We have quite a lot of customers who have that. And then I was, we were once contacted by somebody, this was a couple of years ago now, who basically they’d had, they’d spent their career speaking in public, so anxiety wasn’t a problem for them.
But then they had a stroke, and it damaged their vocal cords. And when they went back to work the first time they went back, their voice went after 10 minutes. And I mean, you can imagine how, Traumatic that would be for somebody who has spent their entire career speaking, and they were using virtual speech to build up, help build up the stamina in their voice, but now the confidence as well to get over that, that incident that had scarred them.
So, a story like that, I, I actually sometimes contact this person still even now, because I was so appreciative that they had taken the time to contact us and tell us, because that’s really motivating for us that not only are people using it, but actually it’s making a difference as well.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. I love that story. Is it just so heart? Well, heartwarming. And I really just love the stories here on the podcast. And the fact that we get to share your story and their story to our global audience just makes me really happy. So, thank you. And Sophie, what are some of the most exciting innovations or features virtual speech has introduced to make VR learning more effective and engaging for users?
Sophie Thompson: One of the ways is that we’ve made it as realistic as possible. So, if I take the example of something like public speaking, you put on your VR headset and you can be immersed in environments with audiences of different sizes. And that’s where you can get that emotional connection can evoke emotions of anxiety or excitement or adrenaline, whatever you feel when you’re up on stage.
But we’ve added features that you can also upload your own slides. So, it feels much more realistic to the real event you’ll be doing. And about 14 or so months ago now, we integrated generative AI and the way that we use that is to power some of our avatars so that you can have them to be responsive and adaptive to exactly what you are doing or saying.
So, for example if you’re delivering a presentation, the avatars can listen out to what you are saying and ask you questions based on exactly what you personally have said, which is a much more realistic way to practice for a team meeting or a presentation where you will be asked questions. And then also for free-flowing role play conversations as well.
So, whether that’s a job interview or a difficult conversation for new managers, for example, you can practice that in VR with Gen AI powered avatars, and they will give you feedback on both your delivery. So, your ums and ahs, eye contact, pace, volume, et cetera. And also, on the content of what you’ve said as well.
So, they can provide recommendations and entirely individualized feedback.
Brian Thomas: That’s amazing. I love it. And the technology, which I’ve always been enamored with, but that’s, I’m a technologist for many years, but just in the last probably 5 years, we’ve seen just an acceleration of some of the innovations.
And obviously you’re taking advantage of that with your platform to help others, which is awesome. So, Sophie, last question of the day, looking ahead, how do you envision the role of VR in education and professional development evolving? Are there any emerging trends or technologies that you’re excited to explore?
Sophie Thompson: Yeah, so I mean the first one and it wouldn’t be 2024 if I didn’t mention more about generative AI, but I think that will become more integrated with virtual reality technologies. So, a lot of talk, I find anyway, in the L& D space is around using AI to create content, but I think that misses the point.
The mark of like the true capabilities that this technology has even today. And then in six months, it will be even greater. So, we use it for feedback, as I mentioned, so that it can be tailored to each person, but we can also tailor it for a specific company. So, for example, if. If you’re doing a sales conversation role play, we can tailor that for the specific framework that that company wants to use.
So, I think there’s so much around personalization that we can do with AI in VR. And then I also think we’ll see a rise in mixed reality solutions. So that’s where you can put on a headset, but your external environment isn’t totally blocked off. It’s a bit more similar to augmented reality, which is where there’s a virtual world overlaid on top of your real world.
So, for example, you could walk into an empty meeting room, put your headset on, and then avatars will be overlaid. into the seats in the real room, you’re in. And I think that makes emerging technologies like VR, MR more accessible because it feels like less of a jump for people to go from completely 2D to then putting on a headset and being in the experience.
It is like bridges that gap between the two. And I think it’s a bit more. Of a stepping-stone into total VR. So, yeah, I think we’ll see a rise in MR also with things like Apple entering the arena for emerging technologies like that.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And I do love that mixed reality. I think that does kind of blend the best of both worlds.
And it is kind of like putting your toe in the water. And kind of get comfortable with, with the technology and the environment. But I really, yeah, I really appreciate it. Sophie, I really do. And I, I’m going to be following you very closely the next 6 to 12 months and may have you back here just to get an update on where you’re at.
Oh, thank you so much. You bet. And Sophie, it was such a pleasure having you on today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Sophie Thompson: Thank you very much, Brian.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Sophie Thompson Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
