What: Computerworld article on telecommuting.
Posts to which it is related: Confessions of a Telecommuter, So You Think You’d Like to Telecommute?
Bottom line: This article articulately explains how and why telecommuting is not always a problem nor is it always a good option. The author suggests a series of six questions a manager should ask before allowing telework, and this basically constitutes a manager working out the finer details of telecommuting with his or her entire work group. Not a surprise that we think this is a great idea, since it’s very closely related to the details that are worked out in a team compact (which we strongly advocate). In fact, perhaps putting the answers to the six questions into a team compact might be a good idea. One of the most important points of the article is to have an “exit strategy”, encouraging managers and members of the work group to plan ahead.

What: Press release about Nortel’s plans to make a 3D virtual web tool for collaboration.
Posts to which it is related: Wonderland: A Tool for Online Collaboration, Freeing Yourself from Email.
Bottom line: Since Nortel is a major communications company, their move to invest in development of a 3D virtual collaboration tool seems like a significant move. It sounds as though this will be a communications product they offer customers, which makes it a bit different from similar products that focus on social interaction (e.g., Second Life) or virtual worlds that are game-based (e.g., World of Warcraft). While this may sound uninteresting when other virtual worlds exist, the fact that a virtual world may become a commodity is enough to catch my attention. I imagine the average person was fairly underwhelmed when companies first announced they would invest in wireless technology, and yet that has become a force for changing social interaction and communication.

What: Economist article about the struggling virtual world Lively (from Google)
Posts to which it is related: The Future of Virtual Teams: Collaboration in 3D Web
Bottom line: This is a very short article, but they mention that Lively has been struggling to take off, as far as participants and reviews are concerned. I like this article because it starts to assess why Lively might be struggling, and in my mind that helps to make people think about how people experience virtual worlds. The expert they quote believes that Lively is struggling because there is nothing to do there; I’m wondering if it might go deeper than that. For example, the avatars shown in the Economist photo seem more like caricatures of humans than reflections of real people. Our early research indicates that identification with one’s avatar is a key piece of the virtual world experience, and one that would encourage engagement with others in the virtual world. It might also be that they are correct in the sense that Second Life already did the no-rules, no-goal virtual world. Maybe other potential customers are waiting for some other use of virtual space to pique their interest. What’s the next great idea in virtual world collaboration?