This week's guest is Liz Moody, Partner and Chair of New Media Practice at Granderson Des Rochers LLP and Head of Content Partnerships at Hydrow. Her resume just drips with the coolest things you can possibly imagine at the intersection of gaming, music, and fitness. Liz's extensive career is a fascinating look at how we might interact with the three in the context of the Metaverse. We discuss music licensing, brand activations, a Justin Bieber Concert, Hydrow, Liteboxer, the hills of Switzerland, and more.

Welcome to the meta woman podcast we address the

issues, opportunities and challenges facing women in the

development of the metaverse the biggest revolution since the

internet itself. Every week we bring you conversations with top

female talent and business executives operating in the

gaming and crypto industries. Here's your host Lindsey, the

boss pass. The metal woman podcast starts now.

Hello, and welcome to the metal woman podcast part

of the holodeck media Podcast Network. I'm your host Lindsay

the boss pass from struggle to success recovering it all. To

our returning listeners. Thank you so much for supporting the

show. And for our new listeners. Welcome. I really hope you

enjoy. I have a really awesome guest on this week. We've

connected and spoken before about a lot of things that we

are mutually interested in. So I'm really excited for this

episode. A lot of it will talk a lot about gaming and fitness

which for those of you have listened before, you've heard me

brag several times about my career as a college athlete,

brag, make fun of myself, whatever. I'm not sure I'm

washed up now. So I love hearing about new fitness trends,

different ways to get into fitness. So we'll be talking

about that a little bit. That's just my own excitement coming

through. We have plenty other things to talk about. I would

love to give a warm welcome to Liz moody, who is partner and

the chair of new media practice at Granderson Desrochers I

realized I've never said that out loud. Okay. Desrochers and

she's also Head of Content partnerships at hydro, which, if

any of you are also big podcast fans, there's been a lot of ads

for hydro in my feeds lately. Liz specializes in new media and

tech, and welcome to the show. So excited to have you. To start

if you could just introduce yourself, give a couple

sentences background, a little bit of your story, I would love

for you to share.

Thank you, Lindsay. I'm so excited to be here. I'm

excited to talk about the area, all of these areas because

they're close to my heart. I spend my time advising mostly

startups. And in the new media, digital music space, I've been

working in digital music and video for close to 20 years,

both in private practice like I am now and also in house. At

some companies like Pandora and YouTube in the past, I also had

a synthesis, working in business development at a health and

fitness startup. So the area merging both gaming and music,

and fitness and music is something that's incredibly

interesting to me. Like You I used to be an athlete, and I

can't imagine working out without music. So I think

there's there's a ton of opportunity for artists in the

music industry to explore both in gaming and in in the fitness

world. And I'm excited to talk more about it. Yes,

me too, truly. So I know you already briefly

mentioned this, but you do have an extensive background in

music. To start, I want to know more about how you think about

new experiences through music and gaming. And what gaming

provides that is kind of different than how we've

consumed music before. Or just what you're thinking about with

exploring this kind of gaming Avenue and this crossover with

music fitness. I think it's a very natural crossover. But what

are you thinking about with gaming? How are you approaching

that,

you know, a lot of the music consumption experiences

we've had to date are primarily leaned back, let's say you're on

Spotify or Apple Music You might spend or, or even putting your

your vinyl record in, you might kind of decide what music you

want to listen to for the first 15 minutes. And then you kind of

drift off and start doing other things. And most most people

spend about 75% of their music, kind of in a more of a leanback

experience. And I think where gaming comes in, we're gonna see

a lot of changes with gaming and AR and VR experiences with music

is that it becomes a lot more interactive. The, in some,

sometimes the music becomes a part of the game. So there is

that element of a leanback experience. But sometimes

there's a there, you're really leaning forward, you're

interacting with the experience, you're interacting with the

artist, your age, able to actually feel like you're part

of the show, if it's a live event. and I were just really at

the beginning stages of seeing some of that happening. I think

it's pretty fun time right now.

Completely agree. And, you know, we've come a long

way since that sort of first ish concert. I'm not sure if this is

actually the first or nobody quote me on it. But the first

one I sort of remember being a huge experience was the

marshmallow concert. And I feel like that wasn't terribly long

ago, but we've just seen kind of an explosion in growth and

interest for those more engaging experiences. When you talk about

lean back versus lean forward. I think there's been a lot of

movement towards that and the entertainment industry as a

whole because of gaming and even sport content, all of that. So

I, those two phrases I, I sort of hear in comparison a lot. And

with this kind of growth, are you having companies approached

you to work their experience into gaming? Or are you kind of

approaching companies and saying, Hey, do you have a

really cool product? Let's work it into gaming, I'm guessing

it's kind of a mix. But what I'm trying to get at is to see if

companies are actually also forward thinking about how

people are consuming their content. And if you're working

towards different partnerships and things of that nature with

with clients that you're either approaching or approaching you.

Yeah, you're right. It's a little bit of, of both.

But I what I'm finding now, maybe more than ever before, is

new types of gaming companies coming and saying, We have to

find a way to integrate music into our games, they're seeing

that their user base really wants music. Some of that is

likely because of the shift and attention in attention, right,

games are now taking up a huge part of especially Gen Z's time,

they're spending more time in video games, which maybe means

less time listening to music without a video experience. But

it also means that's where they're discovering music. So

there's opportunity both for the gaming companies, and for

artists, record labels, and music publishers to kind of get

their music is a game. So what's what's happening right now is I

think, over over time, it was so hard to license music for use in

video games, that, you know, maybe the game developers

weren't trying as much. And now they're seeing there's a lot

more interest from the music industry and doing that. The

music industry is seeing the value of getting some of their,

you know, music into games, I think in particular, artists are

getting excited about it, a lot of artists, you know, play games

and see the value. And they're, they're excited about some of

the newer gaming tech, like a lot of the you mentioned the

marshmallows show. And there's there are more and more as you

kind of alluded to there more and more music centric gaming

experiences, particularly around live events, like Avatar based

live events, or augmented reality events, some of which

I've been working on pretty closely. And I think we'll see

more and more of that, especially the move to web 3.0

experiences. But also, just as the tech is changing, it's

getting so much easier to create some of these experiences.

Whereas before, you know, even just a year and a half ago, it

was expensive to produce that Marshmallow Show or, or it took

a lot more production time coding and create video creation

specialists in the space. And now we'll see over the next six

to nine months that individual creators can likely create

similar experiences by just using an iPhone or you know it,

the tech is so much easier. So I think it's really kind of in the

early days of a lot of this, like I was saying it's going to

be driven a lot by tech. But yeah, I think there are a number

of different ways that that video games and web 3.0

experiences want to include music. Some of some of what I'm

seeing is in sort of radio style experiences. Some of what we're

seeing out there right now are sort of these game emotes where

you can personalize your experience and create your own.

Kind of it's kind of like the days of ring tones where you can

create your own sounds. And incorporate that into an event

that your irritate you're taking place in the game. So maybe I

just jumped off a cliff in the game. And I want to show all of

my friends how cool that was. And instead of just having an

audio sound that the game has our game developers already

programmed in, I want to have a popular song that I love. So

that's a cool other option for games to integrate music. And

then of course, there's their the live events right there the

avatar based and similar live events that are becoming more

and more interactive. And those are, those are becoming

something that a lot of artists just want to be a part of.

Because once they do it once they kind of get hooked. That's

a really fun experience for them to see. That's so cool.

When you said the audio tag I actually I totally

forgotten about the callback noises that we used to have. I

can't I can't even forgetting how it worked. But it was it was

if you're waiting for our friend to pick up a play song.

Yeah, exactly. In

between that and you know, there was always the

time When you were trying to perfectly record a ringtone to a

song, and it would come on the radio and it was it was

everybody in the car immediately shut up, I have to record my

ringtone. Man, I forgot about all of that. And, yeah, that's

so funny to kind of think about those different little audio

tags or audio expressions. And I don't feel as if there's been a

ton of, I don't know, as someone who grew up with, you know, ring

tones and callback tones. I don't feel as if there's been a

ton of opportunity to explore that quite yet in on social

media and in different user generated content. I don't know

are you? Are you seeing artists become more interest or anyone

just artists, but people content creators, whatever companies

interested in creating more kind of audio tag or sound based?

Struggling to phrase this question, but sound identifiers

maybe?

Yeah, I mean, for me, the has launched a couple of

them a couple of examples, and they're calling them emotes,

where they, you know, they kind of personalize the artist

experience with a short snippet of a sound that the user can

purchase. I'm working on a b2b business now that's that we've

been working pretty hard across the music industry licensing

music for use in all various games. And they're both there's

a radio option as well as this game tone option, where the user

can kind of like personalize their own experience in the

game. So it's pretty cool, I think there's going to be more

and more of that as the tech becomes a lot easier. The way it

works is for the consumer, you kind of you can go on and create

your basically find a popular song that you love. And similar

the way you might create a video using tick tock you know, the

scrubber on tick tock, you can use the tech through the

platform to create a a short, you know, 20/32 snippet that

tells your friends who you are, and

make everyone in the car Shut up real quick. A

little better these days. He said that but game tones. So

that's that's a term familiar with emotes. And that's kind of

a mean emojis at this point are just another form of language,

very visual language. But I game tones is something that I

haven't heard of or thought of. So that's going to be just a

different layer of the whole experience that I definitely

have not thought about yet. That's really cool.

Yeah, I'm excited to see the market more. So you

got a little bit into the different activations

you've done and all that. But is there anything that you've

worked on, that's been your favorite or has stood out to

you? I suppose it could also stand out to you for a bad

reason. But there's been a lot since the first marshmallow

concert. So what are the things that have caught your attention

or that you've enjoyed working on?

So one of the companies I work with is wave XR, which

has a an avatar based live lives experience. Most recently, we

did a live show with Justin Bieber, which was super fun. It

was really I think it's fun for me every single time we do one

of those shows to see the artists and their fans

connecting. Of course, it got more popular as the pandemic hit

and, and people were at home. But I think, you know, that,

that type of an interactive experience that feels like a

video game, at the same time as a live concert is really

interesting. And I don't think that's going to go away. It's

just so much fun, even if you actually aren't a huge fan of

that artist to to be asked questions during the, the show

to have to kind of interact with the, the experience. You know,

you're at your laptop watching a show. And the artists asks, What

do you want to see next, when you want the experience to look

like and you vote, and you become part of it, or you can

actually become part of what's called a dance party. So you're

up on a screen and the artist can see you and they can dance

with you. And that's actually an experience it's really hard to

get even in person right? A lot of fans. I mean, they don't have

the access to their favorite artists by maybe having to spend

a ton of money on a VIP backstage, very few people that

can do that. Whereas going to a wave show and getting on a you

know, the waiver cam and dancing with the artists so that they

can see you is incredible experience that you can always

even get in real life. So that's one of the things I'm excited

about because I feel like there's a lot of interaction and

ability For fans and artists to connect in a way that they can

always do even in real life. That's one of the things Yeah,

that's

really neat.

I guess the other recent thing that I'm working on

that I'm really excited about hasn't launched yet. It's a b2b

service called stinger. That is, I met someone I was just talking

about where I was mentioning that we're licensing music for

use in all video games. So they'll work with video game

developers across all different types of video games to make

music available, whether it's through like a game phone, or

through radio station. So that it's it's kind of a nice, easy

plug and play solution for a lot of developers that maybe don't

have the wherewithal ago, negotiate with all the record

labels and all the music publishers, it's a pretty

complicated process takes sometimes it takes a year to do.

So. That's been a lot of challenge putting together I

feel like it's been quite a rewarding process, getting it

done, and it'll be fun to see it launched. Those are both Sony,

have you noticed? I mean, you did again, you

briefly mentioned this, but just to put a finer, finer point on

it. How have you seen things changed because of the pandemic,

and the interest change? And the the strategy change? I'm

guessing things like wave, and especially the success that they

had with the Justin Bieber concert, means a lot more people

are reaching out to you about it, or wanting to get involved.

Yeah, there's, there's certainly a lot more focus on

all kinds of entertainment experiences that you can, you

can do from home, right? I think what I'm finding, as things have

opened up, there's a bit of a shift, you know, during the

pandemic, everybody, especially at the beginning, when we were

all locked down through a lot of artists that were kind of just

maybe informally live streaming from home, too. And that was fun

for a little while. I don't know that that is the experience that

we're all going to be searching for in the long run. But on the

other hand, the experience like what wave delivers that we just

as I just described, and many others out there, where you're

getting into the metaverse and and you're really interacting

with the artist, but also with the whole experience of the

show. You see maybe what Roblox has done. They just had a big

David Guetta experience over the weekend, and they had 21 pilots

a month or so go on there, too, I guess it was a while ago now.

But it's just really fun. They're not just, you know, one

hour experiences, but often open. The shows open over the

course of a weekend or maybe even a couple of weeks, so that

you can go in there and you feel like you're playing a video

game. But then you also feel you're watching a concert. So

it's it's kind of a blend of both worlds that I didn't see

before the pandemic, I think what the pandemic has done is

really draw more attention to the experiences, but also helped

all of these companies get more attention, more resources and

engagement from fans so that they can grow faster.

This is sort of this is definitely an opinion

based question. But when do you think that we will cease to

because I think that the association with the word gaming

is a lot different than when we talk about virtual concerts,

right? I think that people are thinking purely of experiences.

They're not necessarily thinking like, I am gaming right now,

when I am attending a virtual concert, even if it is in a

platform called or in a platform like Roblox or fortnight. I

think having a completely separate platform like wave sort

of helps divorce those associations between I'm gaming

right now. Versus I'm in a live experience right now virtually.

But do you when you think about the metaverse and the future?

And all the future tech, all of this stuff? Are you thinking

about it as in this as part of the gaming industry? Or is this?

You know, gaming is a bubble inside of this industry? It's

what we might call it now. But it's going to grow into a much

larger industry more more inclusive of different

entertainment or different life experience of platforms and

opportunities.

I really think it's the latter. I think the gaming

industry is leading us all into this space, perhaps because a

lot of the people in the gaming industry have had the early

experience of how to create the the interactivity to create the

design experiences. But what's happening now is it's I see it

hitting more, I guess the mainstream people who weren't

always playing video games, but want those interactive

experiences. I mean, you look at not just what wave is doing but

many others are looking at integrating into their

metaverse. Not just kind of this internet gaming experience, but

recreating a new world so that you see fashion brands in there.

You see, I can go by car, I can buy land, of course. And I can

of course the concert and music. So there's there's music as

well, only one element. There's the video game pieces almost

becoming less relevant because it's just instantly the video

gaming industry kind of helped us into this space. But I don't

really see the metaverse as being limited to a video game

experience. It's much much broader than that. It's when you

look at like what decentraland is doing. It's really recreating

the real world in a different experience. Right. exciting and

scary at the same time.

Totally agree on on all friends there. When we

talk about how you're developing these opportunities and the

creative process. How are you? How is it comparing between the

real world and these? Now? digital platforms are similar?

What are the kind of similarities differences?

That kind of thing? It's interesting, because you

know, as as a lawyer, I get a lot of questions that assume

things are really different in the metaverse and I think we're

seeing that they aren't that, you know, laws still apply even

if it happens online versus in the real world. It's it's very

early days, especially of web 3.0. And, and people buying and

selling NF T's and relying on blockchain experiences. So I

think we're all still learning about where it's gonna go.

Unfortunately, there's probably going to be some tough learning

at the same time. But like I haven't, I think that there's,

there's the potential is incredible. But there's so much

that can be used and so entirely creating an entirely different

experience. In the music space, I think where the potential is,

is the a couple of different areas. There's the opportunity

for fantasy, fans and artists to interact more like we talked

about with Wave things. There's also the opportunity for artists

to connect more with fans, by through distributing their music

directly, maybe even financing their music production directly

from fans in a way that they didn't have that ability to

reach fans in sort of before web three, O and web 2.0. And now

and they didn't necessarily have the ability to

have a dance party with fans. Don't even thinking about that,

because I just know that middle school knew what have loved her

high school, however old I was privileged to have a dance party

with Justin Bieber back in the day.

Oh, gosh, it was so fun to see all of his fans just

genuinely genuinely, like, incredibly excited to and to see

the when he talks like response to them and can say hi to them.

I mean, can you imagine middle school you having Justin Bieber

say hi, directly knowing knowing your name, that's just

how it would be. Yeah, that's that's a whole new

level of, of interaction that just yeah, that's just truly not

possible in a huge arena with 30,000 other people. So that's

really, really cool. Aside from the kind of live experiences and

events side, you have this really, really neat and

interesting work in in fitness. Also, I realize, as a side note,

I totally overuse the word interesting. But it's difficult

not to when you know, I do this podcast, and I get to talk to

people who have just varied and very cool backgrounds. So

listeners out there, take a shot every time I say it, I guess.

But anyway, so you have this, this great background in

fitness, and especially with your partnership through hydro.

And I know that you have a couple other partnerships that I

would love to also talk about. But to start Can you just talk

about what hydro is explain how gaming and music? Gaming I think

of as with fitness, more of a gamified approach competing

against yourself that kind of gaming. But you can absolutely

correct me if I'm wrong on that. How gaming and fitness are

fitting in with the hydro platform. We're starting to see

workout programs where all three are incorporated, like I said,

gaming and talk about tracking and competition and all that

stuff. And music is an obvious obvious go along with any

fitness program. So yeah, can you just tell me a little more

about about all that.

Yeah, I mean, the easiest way on a fundamental

sort of basic level to describe what Hydra was doing is that

it's a peloton style experience for rowing. Where and that may

be where the similarities end. It is a gorgeously designed

rowing machine. But the cool thing about hydro is that your

instructors are actually on the water. So really is it truly

virtual experience. Your you may be one day in Switzerland, well,

rowing together with your instructor through these

gorgeous like with mountains all over you. And the next day you

might be in LA. And the next day you might be in Florida, and

they're taking you with them on this experience. There are a lot

of similarities to peloton in the sense that there's you can

join your friends and compete with them at the same time, you

can either you can compete with yourself, like he said, or you

can you know, race against the clock race against the others

who are who are doing the same workout. They have some

challenges that they that Hydras been releasing them on social

media has been really fun to watch, even just the hydro

athletes competing with each other, many of them, our former,

a couple of them that are former Olympic athletes, a couple that

are actually were competing in the Olympics last year, so are

still Olympic athletes, they're really high quality, high level

athletes that have a great way of connecting directly with

their I wouldn't say fans in addition to just the you know

the customers, but all of this can happen while you're sitting

in the comfort of your home. So that's kind of a, that's kind of

cool. It's, it's a way to improve your fitness level

without even feeling like it. And I think that's where as we

start talking more about the interaction of fitness in the

gaming experience, why I think it's going to stick and why I

think it's so exciting. You can get lost in the world of

traveling around, you know, you're up in Florida while

you're on your rowing machine and forget that you're actually

exercising. Sometimes, you can kind of set it the way you want

it to work if you want to feel like you're in a gym class,

because you like that type of experience. That's cool. If you

want to just kind of zone out and row along with some music

and a cool, beautiful experience, you can do that too.

And I think both with hydro and with other kind of fitness meets

gaming experiences, especially in VR, what I'm finding both as

a user and also just from talking to looking at engagement

on those platforms, it's It's incredible how much more engaged

people are than they might be at the gym. Because it feels like

you're playing a game It feels like you're playing you know,

you're you're in the middle of a video game and you don't even

notice that you're working out yet at the same time like hydro

exercises, something like 85% of the muscles in your body. So

it's an awesome workout. That's really neat.

I didn't realize that this kind of travel element

was so big in it to that there's so many real world experiences

kind of incorporated. I feel like that's kind of a unique

Well, I'm not sure I'm not I candidly don't own fitness

device in my home. peloton hydro, any of them. But yeah,

how much is the kind of travel or see other places element? a

selling point or have? Yeah, I just have thought about that.

Tell me more about

that. It's interesting, because I think some of it

happened because they were the hydro team is based in Boston,

where it's cold, and maybe not the most ideal place to work out

all year long. So they track the search rattling and it kind of

caught on. There's a lot of cool things that you can do to

integrate music and other experiences when you're

traveling to.

Yeah, that's so neat. I had to send that about

rolling through the Swiss Alps or every setting that you use,

but now I'm thinking about it.

Hydro in that sense, because they're in you know,

production wise isn't the easiest thing as you can

probably imagine to be taping getting music, athletes voice

commentary, while they're actually growing on real water

in different locations. All of that comes together pretty well.

And they kind of it's fun to be a part of it. Yeah, that's

really cool. One of the other programs I know

that we talked about or one of the things you're working on is

light boxer have a different fitness VR type crossover for

what I what I read, and, again, I don't have any of these

devices But now I'm thinking about them a lot more than I did

light boxers in at home boxing workout that specifically

actually licenses music from Universal Music Group to pair

with high intensity workouts. So you can work out that one

scenes, whereas hydro seems like a very immersive, full

experience like boxer seems really focused on music and high

intensity training, which is really cool, too. I don't think

one is better or worse than the other. But can you tell me more

about about that and, and the different motivations between

both companies and how different companies are using tech to

achieve their goals. And

you know what that looks like? I think like boxers,

I mean, it's boxing. So there's naturally a different type of

draw and workout, they do have trainer led workouts that are

more like a peloton or a hydro style workout. And then they

have these these experiences called punch tracks where you it

the light box or hardware lines up, according to the kind of

customize it to each song. So it's almost like a combination

of a video game and a workout. It teaches you how to punch the

right way, and train, and trade and box. But it's also a lot

like a video game tied to music. They're really moving in the

direction of more gaming, slash fitness experiences together.

And perhaps blending the worlds of gaming and fitness more than

I've seen others. For example, they just announced at CES, a VR

product with Oculus, so that you'll be able to put on your

Oculus headset and have a full lightbox or workout. That's

pretty cool.

That's really cool.

Yeah, launched yet, but it's launching really soon. And

then you know, then I see both like boxer and other companies

out there experimenting more and more with smart hardware. So

imagine you've got, let's say, boxing gloves that are smart.

And they can tell how hard and how fast you're punching. And

you, you have an workout that's tied to that and getting

feedback all the time about your workout based on how fast you're

punching, and how hard you are punching. And whether you hit

the targets correctly. That's something that some of the

earlier stage even just, you know, 18 months ago or two years

ago, the earlier stage, connected fitness devices

couldn't do. But now we're seeing with a smart hardware,

more and more potential for feedback and for training. And

for virtual trainers really, I just doing a workout on my VR

headset recently. There's a there's a couple of them like

there's vid XR and some others out there. You can POCs you can

dance you can run. And I felt, I felt like I was playing a video

game to the point where I did 1820 minute workout. And then I

thought this is fun. I'm gonna do another one. And, you know,

after 45 minutes, I realized how long I had been working out it

was probably longer than I might have done otherwise, because it

just felt like a video game. It's funny, I woke up the next

day and I couldn't I didn't even remember that it didn't work out

the quantum my store. It's it's one of those things where I

think there's a ton of potential because of the engagement that

these gaming like experiences give you in your exercise when

you're working out.

That actually there's a new piece of

equipment. I mean, I know you've probably seen the mirror and the

tonal and there's another one that I just recently talked

about called the tempo. I don't know if you're familiar with it.

Yeah. Yeah. So that the idea, the thing that struck me is when

you said real time feedback and specific equipment, merchandise,

equipment, kind of same thing, specific equipment that can read

what you're doing that reminded me the tempo just because they

have the smart weights and can track. Yeah, really.

One of the ones I was thinking of what I was talking

about that and I think smart weights in and of themselves,

maybe didn't exist that long ago, but now they're getting

integrated into these at home workouts in a way where it's

just it's pretty cool. I mean, you can't get that kind of

feedback from your individual instructor necessarily, right.

Or at least it's very expensive to although Yeah,

that doesn't that's not to say that these pieces of equipment

aren't cheap, but it's just a different different kind of

cost. Oh, shoot. I had a follow up question to that and I just

lost it. Dang it. I was really excited. It's something I was

really excited to ask to you. I'll see if it comes back. I

know we've talked a lot about this, but oh This is actually

what it was perfect. I was wondering how much you've seen

or how much you can attribute the growth to people having to

be home during the pandemic? I think there's there's a lot of

drawbacks to this. I I think just because I think of I have

quite a few friends who were in the gym industry and are now

being able to be replaced by smart weights, maybe a little

bit more than they were before. But I think there's also a lot

more people who being stuck at home and having so much time at

home we've obviously seen a lot of interest in equipment and

tunnels mirrors Hydros peloton, so just seen all of those sell

like crazy. How much growth do you think is because of the

pandemic? How much do you think it's because we're in the year

2022. There's a whole different social media platform exploding

and Tik Tok. There's a whole new generation coming of age and

having income, that are digital savvy, and are more interested

in this type of fitness and workout routine. And how much of

it do you think will kind of go away? Maybe as we get into the

real world? So it's kind of three separate questions. But

yeah, you know, it's, it's hard without? I don't think

anybody fully knows the answer to the question, but I think one

thing is clear is that the pandemic really spurred on this

activity that might have happened anyway, but probably

not as quickly. Right. I mean, I, I would say, despite the fact

that peloton stock is suffering, and they're not selling as much,

I still think that the fitness experience isn't going away. And

you know, maybe one might argue that the reason peloton is not

as successful is because there are all these other competitors

out there that are offering alternatives. But what I found

is even outside of connected fitness, like

I was going to say alternatives that don't have Mr.

Big dying in the first episode. Anyways, apologize, please go

on.

It's interesting, because I see even you know,

yoga studios, for example, and yoga and fitness studios that

had approached me at the beginning of the pandemic to go

online as a band aid, kind of short thinking this was going to

be short term. And now that they've reopened their brick and

mortar workout studios, they're realizing actually people want

both. And I think what we're going to find is that the at

home fitness experience may not replace those brick and mortar

experiences for everybody. But for some people, they're just,

it just makes more sense, either because of where they live, or

because of where they're at in life. For example, like I'm a

mom with two kids, it's not that easy for me to go do yoga for an

hour and a half at the yoga studio, because it's just hard

to fit the time in. But I can do it at home, when I can do it at

home on demand when I have a few minutes. That's ideal. And I'm

always I'm never gonna go back to that. That other older

experience, especially as the online experiences become better

and more interactive. And you can get the feedback from the

instructors that maybe isn't always quite as good as in

person. But it's it's often good enough for a lot of people.

Yeah, I think that's

as someone who much more enjoys working at home

significant or working out at home, I enjoy it a lot more than

going into a gym. And even that's as someone who has no

children. I'm the I think that we have all gotten used to not

having to drive so many places, or walk or bus or whatever we

do. I think that that that time span kind of commuting to

different things and activities is just when you get that back,

it's really hard to give it up once again, it's especially when

you do have a family that I think it's probably even harder

to

give it up. You know, it's interesting, because even

before the pandemic, like when I worked at a health and fitness

startup, and we found that a lot of the a lot of people that were

doing yoga online, either weren't from big cities, so they

didn't have access to, you know, yoga studios. Or interestingly,

you know, they weren't the kind of people that maybe didn't want

to go experience the vibe of being in the stereotypical

studio. So for example, there were a lot of male athletes that

were being encouraged to do yoga by their, their trainers and

thought, though, you know this for women, I don't want to go to

the yoga studio. So I'm going to do it at home. I feel more

comfortable doing it at home. And I think that that continues

for regardless of the type of exercise or sport. There's

always going to be people that just prefer the experience at

home, especially as it's getting better and better and more fun.

I totally agree.

I just have one last question here before we do

the final segment, and this has been a really fun interview. I

loved hearing about from your perspective where the metaverse

is going because you've said your hand and no events in music

and entertainment and fitness. It's been really fun hearing

more about that. This is a woman focus show those. So we always

we also try to talk about principles of diversity, equity

inclusion. So just before we wrap up, I have to ask your

opinion on these things in the metaverse. How do we make sure

it's an equitable environment? And how have you, in your

experience and in your line of work, had, I don't know exactly

the word but had interactions with dei principles and where

it's going, and you've been in, in very popular industries for a

long time. So I'm hoping that you'll say it's getting better.

But I don't want to speak for you there.

It's something I think a lot about especially, I feel

like that's the kind of thing that you think more and more

about as you as you get older, and kind of look back at how

things have changed. I remember when I was just getting started

in my career, I thought, Oh, I'm not gonna have to worry about

all these problems that the women before me worried about.

And I will say it's getting better. But it's not where I

thought it was going to be when I was younger. I think there are

certainly some industries like tech and gaming in particular,

that tend to still be very much male dominated. And still used

to working. Most of the time, I fought with men, and do used to

it like I don't even notice, right. But what I'm finding more

and more is that starting that's it is changing. And I think the

way to make it changes to, for us all to get more involved,

right? If we look at the gaming industry, I think traditionally

it was so male oriented, because maybe the guys were the ones

that were excited about it. Or maybe women were interested in

games but not developing themselves. So they didn't,

there weren't the games that the women wanted to play. In I it's

interesting, because I'm going to analogize to my teenage kids,

because I've got a boy and a girl and like my daughter will

be playing with Animal Crossing and create, like amazing

experiences come to her home and like connect with her friends

and like design things on when she was younger, she'd be

designing amazing houses on on Minecraft. And I see like my son

stereotype, stereotyping a little bit, but interacting with

different video games and different experience different

ways. So some of this is like, let's get women more involved in

creating the experiences that work not just for, you know, not

just for guys and boys, but for all of us. Because I think that,

especially as we move to the metaverse to recreate maybe a

whole world, we absolutely have to have all genders, the heart

of it, and all different types of people or it's not going to

be it's not going to be it's not gonna work, in my opinion. But I

do think it's right in the change. I think that there's a

most of the companies in this space are working very hard to

make sure that they're in increasing diversity, hiring

more women, and also just, you know, increasing diversity

across ways in all different areas. So it's a slow process,

but I think it's a slow process, not necessarily because it was

intentional, but just because like minded people tend to work

together and, and hire people that are like them. And it

doesn't have to be something that's thought about

proactively. Because when you have a company made up of a lot

of gamer guys, they're going to hire their friends, unless

they're thinking, How do I get out of this experience? So it

does take a little bit of extra work to say, oh, I want to hire

more women because I want their opinion. And I want them to add

to the culture of the company. And maybe even beyond that I

want them to add to the creation of the worlds that I'm working

on. So

yeah, it definitely takes a lot of

intention to step outside of your own bubble. I think that

maybe a lot of us are re examining what that means.

Certainly, people at the top bar Yeah. So right before we get

into our last segment, I want to do a quick little summary of

some of the stuff we talked about. First thing we lead off

is off with was lean back versus lean forward experiences.

Companies looking to get into heightened fan crossovers, being

able to dancing or interact or have the fans help you shape the

show. It's really more of a lean forward experience than

traditional consumption just kind of passive. We talked about

how gaming has led us into the metaverse, but it won't

necessarily be the only thing in the metaverse and eventually, we

will be doing several things in there that have nothing to do

with maybe what we traditionally think of as gaming. But gaming

has been a way to get really comfortable and familiar with

the tech and the tools and help us push further. get more into

better first ideas. And the hydro is new things super cool

combines all kinds of things including travel, which I think

is a really unique element. And like boxer is one of the the

fitness things being offered right now that is that that kind

of perfect crossover between working out on music, I would

say. So different companies completely different approaches,

do really cool ways to get into fitness, depending on what

you're looking for. When it comes to fitness meets gaming

and VR and AR experiences, people can be more engaged than

when they're at the gym, you can get all kinds of different

experiences, the pandemic probably helps speed up some of

that activity and some of the interest in that. And it also

helps with people who prefer at home activities like myself. And

the last thing we talked about was that need to get more people

involved in creating experiences for everyone, in order to

incorporate everyone into the metaverse that it takes, takes

kind of courage or acknowledgement or some thought

to step outside of your own kind of biases, or hiring practices

and get out there and pick someone who's a little different

than you. But that it seems like companies are working hard to

try to improve those kinds of things. So for our last segment

to wrap up the show, I like to ask every guest who comes on the

very same question, just to kind of chance to look back at your

career, look back at the things you've done. And we call it the

moment of reflection, just for that purpose. So what is one

thing you would like to tell your younger self about getting

into the gaming slash tech industry and being successful?

Good question. I think that one of the things that I

that is important for everyone as they're getting into their

career, and that I would have really encouraged my younger

self, is make sure that you're excited and engaged and really

feel in your heart, love for what you do, because then it

doesn't feel like a job anymore. And that's kind of I'm lucky

that I ended up going in that direction with my career. I feel

like it's incredible time right now, for innovation. I got into

music like right after Napster. And I keep saying that it feels

like that time where there's so much disruption. But there's

also just so much excitement and focus on on what's happening in

the metaverse and in the areas that are tied to the metaverse.

So I guess the answer is, love what you do in it in a very sort

of it. We hear that a lot, but in a way that you're

intellectually and emotionally excited about what you do. Well,

I

certainly do love hosting this podcast. I'm happy

to take that advice. Because it's been, it's been a lot of

fun. This has been such a fun conversation. You're just

working on so many really really truly neat things. So with that

in mind, where can people find you or follow your work if you

want to be found or followed?

Well, I'm not the most engaged on on Twitter in social,

but I'm on LinkedIn, and I am EJ MTG on Twitter. I can also be

found at Granderson DuroStar. As you mentioned, for those that

want to reach out to me they're

perfect also Desrochers spelled desse

rochers. In case you guys were wondering, I there was a name I

had only read until introducing you and then I thought oh crap,

I hope I guess correctly. For our listeners, be sure to check

out other holodeck media podcasts, including metal

business for all the metaverse finance stories you could ever

want, and business of esports for interviews with industry

leaders. You can catch me Wednesday nights on the business

of esports live after show and you can catch this podcast and

your feed every Tuesday. We will see you next week.

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