A plain room

with a table, a few chairs, and a whiteboard has never sounded

so…futuristic! But that's one way to describe the technology behind

meetingRoom, a VR space, where colleagues from around the world can

gather and discuss business as if they were all in the same, plain

ol' multi-purpose room!

meetingRoom CEO

Jonny Cosgrove does a better job of describing it, so take a listen!

Alan: Today's guest is Jonny

Cosgrove, founder and CEO at meetingRoom.io. Jonny is responsible for

creating a new collaboration platform that allows anybody from

multiple devices to be in one room and collaborate together. Jonny

started his career volunteering and doing activism, before moving

into events, marketing, and technology, operating in Dublin and

Boston. He completed his MBA at Trinity College, Dublin, and began

building the future of work, with a focus on sustainability,

collaboration, and emerging technologies. You can learn more about

Jonny and his team at meetingRoom.io.

Jonny, welcome to the show.

Jonny: Thanks for having me.

Alan: Oh, it's my absolute

pleasure, Jonny. We've known each other quite a long time, through

the VR/AR Association and through great calls like this. We've met in

meetingRoom, and I'm really, really excited to share with the world

what you guys are working on, because the work that you guys are

doing is really pioneering how people will meet in the future -- in

now, not even in the future, but right now -- how people are meeting

and collaborating. And I think, as we move to a world where we start

to really think about travel -- not just international travel -- but

travel to and from work, having people drive two hours to work, back

and forth every day. It's really inefficient, and it's a real time

suck for everybody. Not to mention, creating disastrous effects for

the environment, as well. So let's dive into this. Explain who you

are, and your company, and what does meetingRoom do?

Jonny: No problem at all. So I

agree. Pollution sucks. Unnecessary commutes absolutely suck. What

we're trying to do is make sure the collaboration is easier. One

thing we found everyone can agree on is that collaboration is easier

and more effective when teams work together in the same place. So,

meetingRoom is a service that allows people to work with each other,

using familiar meeting room facilities -- like whiteboards -- in a

virtual environment, from anywhere. We've made this accessible from

anywhere. We made it secure, and we've made these places in the

spaces persistent. So, when you write in a whiteboard and you return

next week, it's still there, just like in real life. And what we

found is, that it allows employees to feel a higher level of

immersive engagement with what's happening in the actual meeting. It

keeps you focused in that time -- in that moment -- and lets you have

more effective meetings. Even though employees are spread all over

the world.

Alan: You mentioned something...

heh heh, I thought it was funny because as you said, "Oh, yeah,

you know, you put all your notes on the whiteboard and just like the

real world, they're there when you come back." I was thinking,

no, that's exactly the opposite of the real world!

Jonny: [laughs]

Alan: Somebody's erased all your

notes, and you're like, “no! I didn't take a picture of it!”

Jonny: Thank you for helping me

explain it. So, one of the thingsthat

actually happens a lot is that exact issue. That's one of our own

internal metrics; we're working to get this through this

point, “how are you using their internal rooms existing today,”

if you're working in-house, or how do you work remotely as it is

right now? And one of the biggest problems was the work you do in

that time, that space, on that Skype call,