my2cents

Working Relationships Training Town

2010-03-19T16:31:00.000-07:00

I am constantly amazed by what is being done in Second Life. Working Relationships Training Town has developed a world where one can truly get lost in. They have an "Elven Lift" that can take you to different destinations, a Helicopter Tour, a Baseball Stadium, even an underwater Aquarium where you can literally walk with the fish!

Check it out for yourself, a picture is definitely worth a thousand words...

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Second Life

2010-03-05T01:03:00.000-08:00

Today's weekly Gronstedt Group meeting was a tour of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. It was quite an amazing experience! It is definitely an example of how powerful a 3D immersive environment could be. Every aspect of the virtual world is completely thought out and reflective. The ceilings, shadowing and testimonials provide a chilling experience. The attention to every detail is astonishing! What is even more impressive is the project was a collaboration between the Museum and Washington DC schools. The brainstorming and designing was about 6 weeks and the actual building in Second Life took about 3 months.

The Second Life experience focuses on a single event – Kristallnacht (The Night of Broken Glass). Here, you will take the role of a journalist, recalling the testimony of eyewitnesses as you investigate what happened during the November 1938 pogroms.

The experience walking into the Museum in Second Life was similar to the audio guided tour at Alcatraz. Listening to the testimonials from survivors while walking around the buildings were so vivid, it literally teleports visitors into their shoes. You can hide in a tiny attic similar to Anne Frank, walk through a looted synagogue or sit in a classroom the day after the raid.

You can follow them on twitter or Facebook. Feel free to contact them for more information or a guided tour. If you want an unofficial tour, I can be of service also...

Virtual Edge Summit 2010 - Feb 22-23

2010-03-03T17:30:00.000-08:00

The Virtual Edge Summit opened my eyes to a whole new world out there! I've been in Second Life for a while now, though still not an expert by any means. The learning curve and barrier to entry is real for 3D immersive environments. But there is another side out there with 2D -- virtual and engaging, all the benefits of 3D minus the clumsy movement.

Virtual Events and Meetings are a growing industry still in its infancy. With the current economic climate, large and small companies alike are looking to save costs For people who are skeptical or hesitant to make the leap directly into 3D, 2D allows people to test out the water without making the investment. Just as 2D is a platform into 3D, many are using hybrid meetings versus exclusively all virtual or all in-person events.

Virtual and hybrid meetings allow participants to attend without investing the time and costs traveling requires. Savings on travel and hotel are obvious ROI, but lost personal time with family, friends and productivity recuperating from business travel is just as important, if not more. Virtual and hybrid meetings will never replace in-person meetings completely, there will always be a need for them. However, alternatives and out-of-the box solutions should always be welcomed and explored. There are many 2D and 3D solutions already, challenge yourself and the status quo.

Check out the on demand sessions http://www.stream57.com/vesummit2010/

Six Weeks Later...

2009-12-18T12:21:00.000-08:00

Six weeks after getting laid off, I went to my first Career Transition workshop. One of the first things we did was a 30-Second commercial about ourselves. I found myself struggling to find the words to describe my job for the past 2 years... It's hard to believe after giving countless tours, I completely forgot the script!

What is it I did again? No worries, after brainstorming a bit, it all came back like riding a bike. The workshop was really helpful, is was a relief to learn there is a plethora of resources, tools and sites to help people find a new job and career. Of course, one of the first things to do is the all important resume. Boy, do I love resumes, how do you put on 2-pages your entire professional career? What is my career objective? How has my past experiences equipped me for my next opportunity? In other words, what do I want to do? And why would someone want to hire me?

My entire working life, I have been conflicted between my social responsibility (doing something for the greater good) and surviving financially (the almighty dollar). Of course, it would be wonderful if I could apply my degrees of Sociology and Asian American Studies. The more I ponder what I want as a career, the more I think I would like to continue what I did for the past 2 years.

I find it fulfilling working with people and helping others. My last job was helping people connect with other people. Over half the company worked from home at least a couple days a week. My job was to gather feedback and find tools to enable them to work more effectively. Enable employees to work as efficiently with their peers in the office next door as their peers half-way across the world timezones away. We connect people through Social Networking tools and Collaborative Technology.

In my view, using Social Networking tools and Collaborative Technology is a win-win for both employers and employees. Employers save money from not traveling and therefore gain competitive advantage. Meeting planning and deliverable cycles would decrease due to travel schedules. Travel time and recovery time would be spent doing actual work. Employees would be connected more through tools like Instant Messenger (IM) that enable them to have immediate synchronous and unplanned meetings. Collaborative tools also allow non-synchronous meetings avoiding those awful 6am and midnight meetings to accommodate participants in different timezones. The planet also wins with less airplane travel and driving to meetings that could be done virtually through video conferencing.

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

2009-10-30T15:47:00.000-07:00

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?

2009-10-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-10-27T11:25:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-10-27T10:54:00.000-07:00

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)

2009-10-27T10:52:00.001-07:00

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)

2009-10-27T10:50:00.000-07:00

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...

2009-10-27T10:46:00.000-07:00

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...

Staying Connected with Collaborative Tools

2009-09-08T23:05:00.000-07:00

Recently someone asked me what applications and tools they should be using to collaborate. The majority of her team live in the Bay Area, but more and more the team is becoming dispersed. A couple team members are in Europe, one in the East Coast and one just moved to the Northwest. Some are not near an office so they work from home. The extended team and partners are even more dispersed as they support other groups and cannot be co-located with them.

My advice for the simplest and best introduction to Collaborative Tools is Instant Messenger (IM). It is free, easy to get started with and most people already have it. There are numerous Instant Messengers, so the first step is for the team to agree on which one to use. She is lucky because all badged employees already have an IM account. Since partners and customers may not use the same Instant Messenger network (Yahoo Messenger, AIM, Google Talk), use an application that can connect with different networks (Adium, Pidgin, iChat, Meebo).

Instant Messenger (IM) is actually the first Baseline Tool we recommend. Baseline Tools are Collaborative Tools that enable co-located and distributed teams to work together. The other Baseline Tools we think everyone should be using are: Shared Calendar, Profile (Social Network), Desktop Video and Data Collaboration. For more information, visit our Getting Started with Baseline Tools wiki

Bluetooth multipoint testing (part 2)

2009-09-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

After torturing myself and unsuspected friends and co-workers for the past 2 weeks, I still haven't found a reliable multipoint headset. There have been highs where we have been shocked at how well it works, YEAH! And then there are the lows where nothing works at all - frustration!

One piece of advice I learned the hard way, only pair one headset to your computer and phone at a time. I think my they are both mad at me for having 4 or 5 headsets paired at the same time ...

Here is a summary so far:
1) Jawbone Prime most success so far. My co-worker and I tested using Skype, iChat and iPhone. We were able to go back and forth between the computer and phone amazingly well. We didn't even have to hang up one before calling the other. A couple of times, we were even able to hear without any interruption. We had a Skype video call going, called iPhone and answered call through Prime and was able to hear instantly without hanging up the Skype call. Granted the audio quality isn't the best, but once the Skype call is hung up, the audio quality improves to normal phone quality. Without hanging up the iPhone, called iChat video, heard the ringing through the Prime, hit the Accept button and magically, it worked! Now there's true multipoint for computer and mobile phone =) Unfortunately, we haven't been able to get it to work consistently -- stay tuned!

2) Plantronics Discovery 975 kind of works. To be fair, they do say "Multipoint" technology pairs earpiece to two phones -- but worth a try because the case is AWESOME! Not only does it have a case for the headset, but it is also a battery boost (1 1/2 charge). Needless to say, I really want this one to work... and it does, kind of. Only hiccup, you have to hang up one before you can answer the other. I'm willing to give it another shot!

3) Jabra Halo kind of works. They say "Multiuse" connect to 2 devices at the same time. Although I called technical support and they say it only works for 2 phones, not a computer. But, I'm willing to give it a shot, because I like the headset in stereo. Of course, the Halo can't be used in a car. So, if successful, it will be good for people who use the phone in a stationary location often (can't say in the office, since people work at locations that aren't "offices"). This has been less successful, I actually turned on my iTunes instead of video conference! I gave it to my co-worker to test out. I think my computer's mad at me for pairing too many bluetooths...

Day in Review... Sept 2

2009-09-03T20:46:00.000-07:00

Highlights from Wed, Sept 2, 09
9:00 am tour of MPK16 with Linden Labs -- one word, AWESOME! Chris and Amanda were great. And of course, they loved what we were doing =) Inevitably something goes wrong while doing a demo, Second Life was down so we couldn't demo MPK16 replicated in SL. Chris hopped on the computer and gave it a go to fix the issue. In the end, the SL developers were all over it and we were able to do our demo after all. We had about 12 people in MPK, physically and "virtually" (Second Life and HD Video). Amanda and Chris gave us great feedback and helpful links, blogs, YouTube videos to check out. We are now following Amanda on twitter @workinginworld... We're collaborating on a Case Study with Second Life, how cool is that?
11:30am Cloud Computing Social in MPK16 Break Area -- We had about 70 people in the next gen area! 40-50 people were expected, but with people traveling to the Bay Area for the All Hands, there was a full house, boy was the place buzzing! Even a Senior VP was spotted in a Breakaway in Studio Two eating pizza and having a quick discussion with a couple Directors. It was amazing how well the sound masking worked, even when the party was roaring in the Break Area, Labs folks were able to continue working with the usual noise level. The smell of the pizza now is another story. Pictures of the event are available on the Open Work wiki

Bluetooth headsets w/multipoint

2009-08-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

What did I do this weekend? I went to the electronics store and did my best impression of a techie... I asked the friendly sales rep advice for bluetooth headsets with multipoint functionality and he promptly talked me into buying three (3) headsets - Yikes! After spending some time playing with them yesterday, I'm beginning to think "multipoint" means pairing a bluetooth headset to multiple devices, but not at the same time. I have to turn one off before connecting to another, at least when it comes connecting a computer and a phone. They do claim to multipoint with multiple "phones" and "devices". I guess that doesn't imply I can multipoint with a computer and a phone. Should read in-between the lines at what is not said, rather than what is said. I'll get a sanity check from my co-workers this week so stay tuned.

Can't believe I just created a blog!

2009-08-21T11:45:00.000-07:00

After years of people bugging me, I finally succumbed to pressure and created my own blog. So, ready or not, my ramblings will now be saved for posterity. Maybe then I won't have to remember if I told somebody something already. I can just point everyone to this freshly minted blog... happy reading!