Robotic Presence For a Telecommuter 186
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."
Brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
"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 (Score:5, Insightful)
We'd save a lot more energy spent commuting.
Erm... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention why would you have an excuse to be steering your robot around the lunch room or water cooler anyway? It's not like the robot can actually drink that water to quench your thirst across the country. So basically you'd take your normal RL breaks to eat or get a coffee in your home, then _also_ spend some time steering the robot around the coffee machine or lunch room in the office too. Does that sound like a productive use of time to you?
And if I'm trying to work on something, I'll soo appreciate someone driving a robot into my room to tell me a joke. Instead of, I dunno, just forwarding as an email I can read at my leisure. No really. Seeing a metal contraption trying to chat me up is so going to say "social interaction" and "the guy was probably just on his way to the coffee machine and dropped by." Dunno, it would tell me that the guy just spent some time driving the robot around just to chat to someone instead of working. It's not like the robot needed a coffee.
And in the lunch room? Man, I'll totally appreciate having to dodge robots in there too, as opposed to just the people there to have lunch. Oh, wait...
Visual contact? Whatever happened to a web cam? Then I can see you and you can see me. Whereas if we steer our robots around the office, I see your robot and you see mine. Yeah, so they haul a screen too, but now nstead of just seeing you as seen by your camera, I get to have the extra layer of having my camera capture your robot's screen. Yeah, that'll be sooo much more social. Not.
Here's an idea: the technology for visual contact has existed for a long time already. It's called video conferencing. 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 unecessary layer to it.
Why? I already have my PC's screen, I can jolly well open a window to see his mug. Exactly why do I need a robot hauling his screen around? If it's important for him to see me, then why can't management just buy a cheap web cam for every PC?
Which would also let him see notes on whiteboards. Just hook one up in the conference room and point it at the whiteboard. There you go.
Exactly what does the robot add there? Just the fact that instead of calling me instantly and focusing on the conversation, he gets to also steer it around and fiddle with the controls while talking?
Re:Video conferencing no use? (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, if this robot would do the chit-chat and socializing stuff for you autonomously and then report to you the relevant information, that would be a feature.
Re:That's really an avatar! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Erm... (Score:5, Insightful)
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
If your job requires more direct contact... (Score:3, Insightful)
Telecommuting jobs work the best when you don't need to be physically colocated to be productive. If face to face (or face to robot) is really that necessary, and telephone or videocam conversations don't cut it (I'm presuming a webcam for cube-to-remote-cube talking to add those all important hand gestures), you should be actually going to work rather than staying at home.
Oh, and for those who might point out that Halifax is too far from Ontario, might I suggest either (a) finding a new home closer to your job or (b) finding a new job closer to your home. If those are impossible, perhaps (c) finding a new line of work should be a consideration. Remember, there's no god-given right to work in your preferred field, where you want to live, at a compensation rate you find appealing. Life is, as your parents told you many times, not fair.
(FWIW, I chose "where to live" and "money that is accpetable" over "ideal career" and I'm darned happy with it. Low crime, 1 mile commute, good schools, low cost of living and beautiful scenery seemed a good trade for designing buildings instead of space experiments.)
Let's put it this way (Score:4, Insightful)
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.