Corporate Virtual Workspace

A work environment bound by creativity and imagination instead of time and space almost sounds too good to be true. According to Steve Pruitt and Tom Barrett, this scenario could very well be in the not-so-distant future. In their piece, “Corporate Virtual Workspace” they describe a fully immersed, technologically advanced, entirely virtual work atmosphere.

The current workplace has drastically changed over the last few years. With the advent of Skype, and other video-chatting software, the office has gone mobile. Corporations now conduct many interviews on college campuses over Skype, and I even read that actress Emma Roberts did her audition for Scream 4 through Skype. Although this isn’t a fully immersed virtual world as Pruitt and Barrett suggest with their CVW’s, it goes to show that we’re likely headed in that direction.

Two things that particularly stood out for me were the idea of the “intelligent agents” working for Austin and also the educational mobility that could be utilized through CVW’s. First, in regards to the intelligent agents, it reminded me of the sequels to Ender’s Game (Speaker for the Dead, etc). It’s likely nostalgia for these books that made it stick out to me, but I can’t pass up an opportunity to reference Ender’s Game. In the book, there’s an intelligent agent Jane who resides in an ansible network that provides instantaneous communication. Having an agent that would act essentially as a personal, virtual, assistant, but far more intelligent than a human would be fantastic.

Second, the cyberspace classrooms and educational mobility reminded me of an article I read in the Daily Iowan: “Potential presidential contender Bachmann backs online education.” While I can’t help but laugh at any sentence that contains both “Michele Bachmann” and “potential presidential candidate”, the article itself did bring up a valid point that falls in line with a benefit of the CVW. The article suggests a more focused shift towards online classrooms as a cost-cutting measure. The reasons behind shifting may differ from the Daily Iowan article and the CVW, but the essence remains the same: the future of education will change.

While a CVW could very well become a reality in my lifetime, reading about it brings out the inner skeptic and cynic in me; much like if someone read 30 years ago that we’d be having Facetime conversation’s on cell phones, and conducting business meetings over Skype. I’m certainly not opposed to the idea, but I feel as though a complete change to a CVW would diminish the necessary personal interactions needed in life. “No current means of electronic communication fully-facilities physical communication” Ultimately, human interaction is vital to human survivability.