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What real-world use case does putting all the [insert job function] in a single virtual room solve? This is a case of tech looking for a solution. I pick up t

What real-world use case does putting all the [insert job function] in a single virtual room solve? This is a case of tech looking for a solution. I pick up the phone or email people in the same building. I'm not sure jumping into a virtual room with people in different physical locations is a need. I love my VR headset for gaming, I have a really hard time seeing it implemented in our workplace: software company with development offices in US/UK/India. Being able to see each other's face is not how a lot of work is done imho. Collaborating using tools like MS Whiteboard on a surface hub to express and ideate on a design is where work gets done in my experience.

ninth_ant 8y ago
Business travel by airplane is extremely common. The fluidity of face-to-face communication aids cooperative work in a way that hasn’t yet been duplicated at scale, despite many efforts to date. That’s part of what VR aims to disrupt and achieve.
- radiorental 8y ago
  Yes, but who are these people and what are they doing when they travel? VR is just a video conference call on steroids. Business travel is 'common' but relative to the rest of productive output at an average business it's peanuts. Also what portion of those business travelers absolutely need to be there. Would you buy from (a) a salesperson who took the time to travel to your workplace or (b) some telepresence pitch?
  - vilhelmmoberg 8y ago
    It's not peanuts to the environment. How about option c) donate the plane ticket to buy carbon offsets so as not to act "cheap". Even better, give the client that choice and see if they readily choose to pollute the environment (twice).
  - jon-wood 8y ago
    Maybe I'm an outlier but I've had more productive video conferences with salespeople than I have with ones who've flown out to talk. Sure, you don't get the free steak lunch on a video call, but you also don't have to spend that lunch break being pitched on how amazingly cool their company is.
- woolvalley 8y ago
  Most video conferencing is fairly crap to it's actual potential, 2 decades in. I'm not so confident VR will be there either.
nostrademons 8y ago
My wife is currently on a plane to NYC for a business dinner & conference, leaving me a solo parent for the next 3 days. I certainly wish she could pop on a headset during working hours, schmooze with the other investors involved, and be home for dinner and bedtime. My son can't talk yet, but he probably does too.
- radiorental 8y ago
  Your wife could do all of that on a video conference call, and actually see the person's real face + nunaces. Not sure how VR solves the problem you describe. Your wife needs to be there in person if a skype call wouldn't suffice.
  - lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
    I'd argue a video call is worse for facial nuances. The nature of having both camera and screen is the person you're teleconferencing is never actually looking at you. Modern VR headsets already have eye tracking, it's not too out of the picture to imagine some rudimentary face tracking to capture the rest of the foundations of expression. In my experience the sense of "thereness" is much greater in a VR room than a teleconferencing session; but it's difficult to compare since VR presupposes better audio conditions.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    No, she can't. Her job description is basically investing several million dollars at a time into projects that a large number of participants in her industry (impact investing) believe are worthwhile, but no one fund would bankroll on its own. A key part of that job description is working to build partnerships & syndicates of investors whose goals are aligned. A key skill for that is building trust and rapport - the foundations, family offices, entrepreneurs, and hedge funds involved all need to feel like the deal is in their interest and they will be treated fairly, both if it goes well and if it goes poorly. There's a bunch of social science that's shown that repeated in-person interaction builds trust in a way that e-mail, phone calls, written communication, and videoconferencing does not. It's not just the facial expression and emotions - there's something about interacting in real-time within a shared environment that makes us trust each other. And that's what I'm referring to by "good as there" telepresence - existing systems are not good enough, because there's still a big gulf between VCing with your coworker across the country and chatting with your officemate about a cool new opportunity. I don't know whether VR will ever be good enough to bridge this gulf, but I'm saying that if it can, that would be revolutionary. If it were just a matter of deal terms & conditions, we could stick all that in a blockchain and let computers hash it out. That's my field, and I keep telling her that eventually the world'll move that way. But humans don't work that way; as long as we have squishy emotions and depend on a lot of subconscious cues we can't even describe, then looking at a screen is not going to change peoples' decision making. If you could somehow capture all those subconscious cues so it really is indistinguishable from physical presence, that may change, but that's a big if.

ninth_ant 8y ago

Business travel by airplane is extremely common. The fluidity of face-to-face communication aids cooperative work in a way that hasn’t yet been duplicated at scale, despite many efforts to date. That’s part of what VR aims to disrupt and achieve.

radiorental 8y ago
Yes, but who are these people and what are they doing when they travel? VR is just a video conference call on steroids. Business travel is 'common' but relative to the rest of productive output at an average business it's peanuts. Also what portion of those business travelers absolutely need to be there. Would you buy from (a) a salesperson who took the time to travel to your workplace or (b) some telepresence pitch?
- vilhelmmoberg 8y ago
  It's not peanuts to the environment. How about option c) donate the plane ticket to buy carbon offsets so as not to act "cheap". Even better, give the client that choice and see if they readily choose to pollute the environment (twice).
- jon-wood 8y ago
  Maybe I'm an outlier but I've had more productive video conferences with salespeople than I have with ones who've flown out to talk. Sure, you don't get the free steak lunch on a video call, but you also don't have to spend that lunch break being pitched on how amazingly cool their company is.
woolvalley 8y ago
Most video conferencing is fairly crap to it's actual potential, 2 decades in. I'm not so confident VR will be there either.

nostrademons 8y ago

My wife is currently on a plane to NYC for a business dinner & conference, leaving me a solo parent for the next 3 days. I certainly wish she could pop on a headset during working hours, schmooze with the other investors involved, and be home for dinner and bedtime. My son can't talk yet, but he probably does too.

radiorental 8y ago
Your wife could do all of that on a video conference call, and actually see the person's real face + nunaces. Not sure how VR solves the problem you describe. Your wife needs to be there in person if a skype call wouldn't suffice.
- lordCarbonFiber 8y ago
  I'd argue a video call is worse for facial nuances. The nature of having both camera and screen is the person you're teleconferencing is never actually looking at you. Modern VR headsets already have eye tracking, it's not too out of the picture to imagine some rudimentary face tracking to capture the rest of the foundations of expression. In my experience the sense of "thereness" is much greater in a VR room than a teleconferencing session; but it's difficult to compare since VR presupposes better audio conditions.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  No, she can't. Her job description is basically investing several million dollars at a time into projects that a large number of participants in her industry (impact investing) believe are worthwhile, but no one fund would bankroll on its own. A key part of that job description is working to build partnerships & syndicates of investors whose goals are aligned. A key skill for that is building trust and rapport - the foundations, family offices, entrepreneurs, and hedge funds involved all need to feel like the deal is in their interest and they will be treated fairly, both if it goes well and if it goes poorly. There's a bunch of social science that's shown that repeated in-person interaction builds trust in a way that e-mail, phone calls, written communication, and videoconferencing does not. It's not just the facial expression and emotions - there's something about interacting in real-time within a shared environment that makes us trust each other. And that's what I'm referring to by "good as there" telepresence - existing systems are not good enough, because there's still a big gulf between VCing with your coworker across the country and chatting with your officemate about a cool new opportunity. I don't know whether VR will ever be good enough to bridge this gulf, but I'm saying that if it can, that would be revolutionary. If it were just a matter of deal terms & conditions, we could stick all that in a blockchain and let computers hash it out. That's my field, and I keep telling her that eventually the world'll move that way. But humans don't work that way; as long as we have squishy emotions and depend on a lot of subconscious cues we can't even describe, then looking at a screen is not going to change peoples' decision making. If you could somehow capture all those subconscious cues so it really is indistinguishable from physical presence, that may change, but that's a big if.