Infinite Reality

With Jeremy Bailenson

Part of the Series: Stanford Executive Briefings

Program Highlights

• Virtual reality is here, it's affordable, and it's changing business practices.
• Using virtual reality to influence, persuade and teach.
• How to turn today's video gamers into tomorrow's customers.

Children in the U.S. spend twice as much time playing video games as they do reading. Virtual reality is their medium of choice. What does that mean for your business? To reach future employees and customers, organizations can leverage virtual reality in two ways--internally, as a powerful teaching and learning tool, and externally, in marketing and communication practices. Early adopters such as Merrill Lynch, Toyota, LinkedIn and Konica Minolta are already seeing dramatic results in learning simulations, training, and marketing effectiveness. Professor Bailenson draws on his years of psychology experiments in Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab to demonstrate, in dramatic video footage, the power of virtual reality. In a virtual environment, subjects can be persuaded more easily, adopt new behaviors, and gain awareness and empathy for others. Already in practice is Bank of America's online "Face Retirement" campaign, which uses your picture to show you aging, encouraging young customers to put more money into savings.

Jeremy Bailenson is the founding director of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab and the coauthor of Infinite Reality. He earned his BA from the University of Michigan and his PhD in cognitive psychology from Northwestern University.