Robotic Presence For a Telecommuter

McGregorMortis writes "Ivan lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and telecommutes to work in Waterloo, Ontario. But in meetings, speaker-phones suck: can't hear everybody, can't move around, no visual contact. So Ivan made an IvanAnywhere robot to give him a physical presence in the office. If Ivan wants to talk to a coworker, he just steers radio-controlled IvanAnywhere into that person's office for a chat."

Comments

Brilliant

[Svw]

This is awesome, the possibilities that could open up for telecommuters is incredible. I can see a feasible market for this where telecommuters are assigned a robot as their virtual presence at work so that they feel more a part of the company than an outsourced employee.

Re:Brilliant

[tehdaemon]

"How exactly is this different from calling someone up ? (Except for visual contact )

Chatting in the lunch room? Joining a conversation already happening - in the lunch room?

Most people don't call someone else to say the same joke that they call over the cubicle walls, and this helps people get to know each other, and work together. BTW the idea for this robot started as a joke just like this.

Oh, and the visual contact matters a lot - as TFA said, seeing what others scribbled on the whiteboard.

T

Re:Brilliant

[argent]

And what would happen if you had a lot of people not coming to office because of this..

We'd save a lot more energy spent commuting.

Re:Erm...

[tehdaemon]

For a company where all employees (or just a majority) telecommute, this robot is pointless - for the reasons you stated. A virtual world makes more sense - or simply videoconferencing. This is good for one or two telecommuters and a bunch of people at the office. It makes a lot of sense for that.

Your excuse for steering the robot around? Sure the robot doesn't drink water - but your co-workers do, and you need to interact with them to do your job effectively. You don't drive your robot around to tell a joke any more than you walk across the building to tell a joke. but if a joke comes to mind, and he just happens to be walking by.... Conversations that wouldn't have otherwise happened occur, and important stuff gets said.

"What he's doing there is nothing more than adding a robot to move the camera and screen around. It's solving a problem we had already solved, and adding an unnecessary layer to it.

Only, you see, videoconferencing didn't work well enough, and allowing the camera and screen to move, that worked better. A cheap webcam at every PC? And the lunchroom, and the hallway, and the conference room, with screens to match? The robot is cheaper, less invasive of privacy, and works better.

What (else) does the robot add? instead of calling you and instantly getting your #@$% voicemail, I can go find you and chat with Joe along the way, which I would never have done otherwise. Maybe Joe then tells me something important too, or I can help him.

It almost sounds to me like the reason you see no use for this robot, is because you see no use for talking to your co-workers without an issue to discuss. You aren't the manager by chance are you?

T