Following part 1, part 2 and part 3 – posted almost 2 years ago, I wanted to combine a few references from this week that underscore the premise of the incoming exodus to the virtual workplace.
First, an excerpt from an ‘All Tech Considered‘ post, describing Frontline’s recent special, “Digital Nation.”
“In filming at the IBM offices in Westchester N.Y., we were astonished to find the huge, slick office park almost deserted. We learned it was a byproduct of the fact that so many IBM employees telecommute from home or hotels.
“In fact, now, IBM is shifting a significant portion of their internal meetings into virtual worlds like Second Life, giving their employees another excuse not to come into the office.”
This quote, referring to the same special, places a specific number on it…
“More than 10,000 IBM employees collaborate in virtual worlds. Take a look inside a meeting in Second Life from the home of IBM V.P. of Innovation, Francoise LeGoues.”
Finally, a quote from Linden Lab founder Philip Rosedale, from around 18:10 into the following presentation posted below:
“My personal belief is that meetings for work, in particular, are a very specific example of where technology essentially broadly is going to take advantage of some needs that we have as people, and its going to radically change things. Its going to be exponential change. Its starting now. Nobody gets it…
Basically the idea of going to New York and sitting together in an office building as a way of doing work… there’s no way that idea has more than a few years to live. Because its too simple.. all you need is a laptop. You get this 3D voice. You don’t have to travel. You can integrate people from all over the world into your company meetings.”
