Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.
The best way I've seen it done is with a big screen, it looks like the two rooms are joined in the middle when it's running.
Deleted
1 - Steer it around the office all day long, shouting "Kill all humans! Kill all humans!"
Anyone else some suggestions?
If everyone is going to have one of those robots, why not have virtual robots? In other words, an avatar in a virtual environment. That's precicely what I am involved in at the moment; we're experimenting with virtual conferences in (please don't laugh) Second Life. Our initial take on it is that virtual meetings are not as good as actually being there, but they are a damn sight better than teleconferencing (which sits way down on the list somewhere between getting a root canal treatment, and dropping a kitchen knife on your bare foot pointy side down). They also give much more of a sense of "presence" than videoconferencing. Plus, they allow for teambuilding events as well.
Sadly my suggestion for renting a virtual meeting room in Sauron's tower (in Lord of the Rings Online) was voted down. Oh well...
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
It could be fun to introduce him to visitors. "This is Ivan."
What does the robot do when Ivan goes to the toilet? Does it hang out in the mens room? Actually, I've had meetings in there. They're short and don't involve a lot of paperwork. And no bloody Powerpoint.
Lugging your body around is sooo 2006!
-- Cheers!
I suggest that he works from home and just uses a robot, possibly fitted with a 9mm pistol, to communicate with his office workers. This could spawn a whole new generation of FPSs.
We did already try using an AIBO and putting it on the table in our conference room, it was rather amusing, and also worked well (they have a speaker, camera and Wi-Fi built in, so you can control it and talk through it, was pretty cool). Shame that one of the managers just left it lying on its charger for 2 years and knackered the battery.. he should have just given it to me to take home!
which is totally what she said
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
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
Now I can understand that when it just happens naturally and unplanned. Say you just needed a cup of coffee, Joe was at the coffee machine, a conversation just started while waiting your turn. Fine. I can't ask you to sit at your desk and dehydrate, if you need a coffee, can I?
But here you're telling me no less than that you'd take that robot for a stroll for the _sole_ reason that there might be a Joe along the way in a mood to talk. I.e., planned, deliberate, doing anything else than working in that time.
Yes, team bonding, social experience, team members getting used to each other, bla, bla, bla. I've heard all that before. Repeatedly. I'll even tell you from whom: the most unproductive parasites on every team. There's always someone who has a good reason as to why he's somewhere else than at his workstation, chatting about his vacation. Again. For half the freaking day. The problem is that these people rarely contribute much to the team anyway. By their theory they should be the damn glue and life of the team, but in practice they're the guy who just doesn't have the personality type to sit and program. And it's the rest of us who get to pick the slack and do his work too. Worse yet, most of them don't just waste their own time, they go waste someone else's time too.
Now I'm not accusing you of being that kind of type, because I don't even know you. I can't make an informed judgment. So I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you're just excited about the nerdy part of building a robot, and are willing to rationalize it to extremes. Or whatever else. I'll give you that benefit of the doubt. But if I were to take at face value that you actually do take strolls through the company just because someone might be along the way who's willing to chat, well, then see the above paragraph.
You'd be surprised how little socializing on the employer's time is actually required for that team to work. No, I'm not saying you shouldn't talk to your co-workers at all, far from it. I'm saying that if you have to take a trip for the sole reason that you might meet someone to talk to, that's already too much. You already have meetings with those co-workers, you already talk to them about work-related stuff, etc, and there's nothing stopping you from doing more socializing after work on your own free time. (I've been to pizza or to a pub after work with my co-worker several times this summer alone.) You know those guys already. Taking an extra socializing break will add at most a little delta to that.
If your team was dysfunctional without those long strolls to find someone to talk to, then it will be just as dysfunctional (if not more) with everyone taking strolls around and talking about their vacation.
And, oh, if stuff that's _important_ or needs your _help_ actually depends on the chance of you meeting Joe randomly at the water cooler, I'd say your company has a bigger problem already. In any sane place, if Joe needs your help, he'd have a better way to contact you. If projects or continued business actually depend on that kind of random chances, I'd start worrying and post my resume on Monster in advance. Because at some point some shit is gonna hit the fan just because Joe went to the coffee machine half an hour too late.
I'm not a manager, but I don't take that as a insult either. Especially in this context. If any manager wanted to protest against someone's deliberately going for a time wasting trip instead of working, dunno, I might even like that manager.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.