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\u201cYou cannot learn empathy on powerpoint!\u201d Wise words from today\u2019s guest, Somewhere Else CEO Christophe Mallet, who comes by the show to discuss how soft skills training \u2014 basically, training for human behavior \u2014 is now a wide-open industry, thanks to XR technology.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nAlan: My name is Alan Smithson,\nyour host for the XR for Business Podcast. Today\u2019s guest is\nChristophe Mallet, co-founder of Somewhere Else. Somewhere Else\nSolutions is a London based innovation agency specialized in\nimmersive technologies. He\u2019s now exploring how to leverage immersive\ntechnology and artificial intelligence to deliver soft skills\ntraining that actually delivers behavioral change. The end goal is to\nmake the workplace a better place for everyone. Throughout his\ncareers, he has strived to bring together brilliant minds, makers and\nbusinesses to deliver impactful projects and solutions. He\u2019s worked\nwith a variety of global clients, including Adidas, Samsung, Ernst\nand Young, Save the Children, Sony, IKEA, KPMG, Nokia, and the list\ngoes on. To learn more about Somewhere Else Solutions, you can visit\nthem at somewhereelse.co. \n\n\n\n\nWelcome to the show, Christophe, it\u2019s a\npleasure to have you here.\n\n\n\nChristophe: Thanks, Alan. Thanks\nfor having me. It\u2019s good to be here.\n\n\n\nAlan: You\u2019ve been working in immersive technologies. Maybe kind of give listeners an understanding of what you\u2019ve done at Somewhere Else, some of the projects you\u2019ve done, and then we\u2019ll dig into something really exciting after that.\n\n\n\nChristophe: So I came from the\nworld of mostly strategic consulting, digital and social, and the\nworld of storytelling, kind of on my own time. And back in 2015, I\nmet with a guy called Julien in a pub, and he showed me an\nexperience: The Night Caf\xe9, in which you enter a painting by Vincent\nVan Gogh. I don\u2019t know if you\u2019ve tried that one.\n\n\n\nAlan: I have. So to paint a\npicture for people. They took Vincent Van Gogh\u2019s painting and then\nmade it fully spatial so you could walk around in the painting in VR.\nIt was the night caf\xe9 and you could walk around and go and sit at\nthe piano. And it was beautiful. Really, really beautiful.\n\n\n\nChristophe: It was beautiful. It\nwas very early. And my jaw dropped, because I saw a new way to tell\nstories. I was a bit bored of my previous job, so I decided to quit,\nand I started a studio with that guy \u2014 Julien \u2014 and another guy,\nRandy. And kind of alongside the market \u2014 the way the market has\nevolved since 2015 \u2014 is, the wow factor was big in the beginning,\nwhere a lot of things were done around entertainment and marketing.\nWe worked on that with TV channels, we did an escape room in Paris,\nwe did stuff for the climbing experience for Adidas. Champions\nseeking experiences for the UFR. And that\u2019s honed our skills in what\nit means to tell a story in virtual reality, versus other mediums \u2014\nsuch as cinema. And about two years ago, Accenture, BCG, McKinsey\nstarted publishing their reports about how immersive technologies\nshould impact service design, visualization, training, and so on. And\nso suddenly, immersive tech started appearing in conversations at the\nboardroom level, which is what you need for any technology to be\nadopted. And so we started receiving inquiries in this area, and\nspecifically in training. And so for the past, I would say 18 months\nto two years, we\u2019ve been specializing on that and more specifically\non the behavioral side of things and taking VR support what it really\nis, which is\u2013 you know, VR has been very focused on environments,\nand virtual realities are recreating the environment virtually. But\nyour reality is also about the people who are part of th