Virtual offices

The Internet is increasingly penetrating our lives, connecting people from all over the world. New, more realistic, more and more perfect ways of interaction appear, the concept of “distance” is erased. It is becoming easier to find people of similar views and interests. The workflow in many spheres of human activity is increasingly an information exchange, and the more urgent is the issue of its transfer to the virtual environment. And with the modern level of technology it becomes not only relevant, but also quite possible.

I want to share with the community an idea called “Virtual Offices”. Its essence boils down to bringing together developers from different parts of the world under one virtual 3D-roof. A 3D space is created for collaboration and communication. An approximate session in this space may look like this: a person enters a common space (similar to a computer game), sits at his workplace, and then his usual working environment is displayed on the screen, he can approach any employee and see what he does, to communicate, to help. When you are tired, you can walk around the office, take a ride around the district (and you can do any, for example, a picturesque road along the sea!), Play a game of virtual billiards with friends or beat your boss. You can “come” to work at night, so that no one bothers, you can “order” the weather, time of day, employees who will work nearby. To simulate the effect of the presence of the interlocutor's voice will be transmitted to the channel speakers / headphones, which side is the interlocutor.

What can give such offices?

First, the opportunity to embody the wildest imagination in terms of design, to make an office for themselves. You can even change offices at least every day. Moreover, you can change the landscape around the office, and place it, for example, on the shore of a mountain lake, or overlooking the sea, or in the heart of a modern metropolis! In short, choose for yourself the conditions that take into account individual preferences as much as possible and promote productive work.

Secondly, it is an opportunity to unite people from different parts of the planet, to create the feeling of the presence of everyone in one place. Moreover, it is possible to combine the option of remote and stationary work, when stationary employees are at the same time in a regular office and virtual, while employees from other cities can connect to the virtual office of the enterprise. You can also draw diagrams and share experiences on the virtual board. It is known how difficult it is to find suitable people in the immediate environment. The Internet helps solve this problem through the creation of virtual subspaces. It would be possible to find and unite specialists in a certain field of knowledge, similar in their views and aspirations. This is not necessarily programmers, but, for example, designers, engineers, architects, artists. It would also be possible to invite highly skilled specialists from other cities to outsource. In combination with crowdfunding, virtual offices can give a strong impetus to the development of startups.
')
Thirdly, it is an opportunity to model, test the future. Opens room for various social studies: how does the design of the room, the mode of operation on productivity. You can rearrange departments in different ways, experiment with pair programming, and try many other things.

Fourth, the exchange of experience, presentations and conferences. After the report, you can discuss it with other participants, overhear someone else's conversation and join it. In general, a fuller sense of presence is created. Visitors can be invited to the office and hold presentations and demonstrations of developments for them. This is convenient for establishing interaction with customers.

As it turned out, the idea is not new. There are 3D showrooms, 3D shops, 3D conferences, but I have not heard about 3D offices for developers yet. It is interesting to know the opinion of the community on this issue. What are interesting developments in this direction?

Several links on the topic:
www.3d-virtual.ru
www.livebusiness.ru/news/1447
www.livebusiness.ru/news/9305
www.iemag.ru/opinions/detail.php?ID=25217