Bay Bridge Closure woes, not for me, I work from home!

Bay Bridge likely closed through weekend

The Bay Bridge has been closed since Tuesday and there still isn't a definite time for reopening. It has been causing traffic jams all over the Bay Area. Even additional BART trains and ferries have not been able to alleviate the congestion. Instead of adding to the problem, I am working from home...

This brings back memories of the huge flood we had winter of '97. I remember the roads and bridges were flooded. At the time, I took Dumbarton Bridge to work. News reports indicated the right lanes were flooded over and closed. I carpooled at the time and we decided to take detours around the bridge instead of taking our chances in the traffic. I think everyone had the same idea. After trying to get to work unsuccessfully for hours, we decided to stop off for lunch at Noon. We were on the road in traffic for over 4 hours and not even close to our destination. We finally gave up and just went home. The entire day was wasted and unproductive. The only thing we got out of the day was lots of frustration!

If I had the tools back then that I have now, I could have stayed home and worked the entire day. The company and I would have been much happier :-)

Could telecommuting be a career mistake?

My colleague sent me this article "Could telecommuting be a mistake?" Working from home for the past 3 years, I was a little sensitive about the title, what will the article say about me? The author Anita Bruzzese made some interesting points I agree with and some I am not too sure about.

At Sun, about 60% of employees do not have assigned offices. It is definitely not for everyone due to personal preference or circumstances. But, for many, it is an ideal situation. The company can hire the most capable employees for their projects and do not have to relocate them close to the team. In today's global economy, most people are part of multiple teams and have team members in multiple locations. The work/life balance is also important and essential for many employees with families.

I know for me, when I worked in the office 5 days a week, I spent most of my time emailing and exchanging voicemails with people in different locations. Working on global applications, 90% of my customers, vendors and partners were not in the same state, much less the same country. With Collaborative Tools like Instant Messenger (IM), desktop video conferencing and data conferencing, we are always connected. I see and talk to my colleagues more now than ever.

My colleague and I used to work on the same campus in different buildings. We only saw each other once a week for staff meetings. Since we both started working from home, I see and talk to him every single day. We have a chat room open all the time and drop urls into the chat and ask questions to everyone, nobody in particular. We do not have to go down our phone directory calling people until we get an answer. We know when people are in a meeting or concentrating on heads down work.

Just the other day, we had a team meeting and before we logged off, I said "See you all tomorrow". My Director in Boston, MA did a double-take responding, "We are? Yes, I forgot, we will see each other tomorrow on video." It is so typical and normal for us to "see" each other on video, we take it for granted and do not even realize we are actually "seeing" each other! Seeing is no longer limited to the traditional in person or in real life anymore. Technology has changed our definition to include virtually on video or virtual reality like Second Life and Wonderland.

Real Life and Second Life Converging... (Oct 23)

Yesterday I had my first experience of virtual world crossing over to real world ... of course we were at Linden Labs. As we entered the lobby and proceeded to check in, someone stood up and introduced herself to us (as if we would know who she was). After looking into all our blank faces, she added ... and my avatar's name is ... Ah, finally, rang a bell. It was the oddest experience. We have all seen and worked with her in Second Life, she helped us with our replication of MPK16 in SL, but nobody had met her in real life or met her on video before.

It is common to hear stories where people have talked on the phone and emailed for years before meeting each other in person. Guess the next generation of the story is avatars meeting in virtual worlds for years ... Just seems strange because virtual worlds allow people to put a face to the name, just a different name and a different face!

If you are interested in Virtual Worlds and have not seen the awesome video put together by Greylin Fairweather (aka Robin Williams), check it out! It's on YouTube... Introduction to Virtual Worlds

MPK16 Replicated in Second Life (from Oct 12)

If you haven't had a chance to check out MPK16 next gen work environment in "real" life, there will be Guided Tours in Second Life tomorrow at 10am SLT/PT on Sun's Employee Island.  If you need a Sun avatar, see http://dianaf.posterous.com/mpk16-in-the-virtual-world for detailed instructions.

MPK16 tours will be given Tuesdays at 10am for the next couple of weeks.

See you there!

MPK16 SLX Videos (from Sept 28)

Check out the Sun Next-Gen Work Environment Channel on Sun Learning eXchange. Watch videos of MPK16 in Action, Virtual Tours and Testimonials as well as a tour of Sun's First Next-Generation Implementation, Taipei.

See a list of Videos on our wiki. Please feel free to email any questions or comments to collaboration@sun.com

MPK16 next gen work environment (from Sept 17)

We had another visitor to MPK16 next gen work environment blown away by what we have done. Not knowing much about Sun's Open Work, he thought it would be some cool furniture and nothing really new or different. Sitting down with him after the tour, he was totally speechless by what he saw and experienced. If you haven't stopped by to check it out yet, it is a must!

After touring the space to hundreds of people inside and outside of Sun, the consensus is; nobody has seen anything close to what we have done here anywhere else. Even our vendors are impressed with how we utilized their products. Our video collaboration partner actually said he couldn't think of any other place we could add video... Some visitors have seen similar furniture layouts before, but never with cutting-edge technology integrated into a collaborative work environment.

MPK16 next gen is not only a place to come to work, but a destination. Our work environment is a window to the world, literally -- via ambient video conferencing to other Sun offices and work from home employees. It is a truly collaborative environment where you can turn around and see/talk to someone physically 3-feet away from you or see/talk to someone 3-feet away from you on a TV and physically 3,000-miles away.

For more information on MPK16 next gen, visit our wiki or email us at collaboration@sun.com

Consolidating Blogs...

Sorry for the absence for anyone following my blog. I started another one on blogs.sun.com and did not publish to both automatically. So, I will manually post them here also. Thanks for your interest and hope you like my2cents...