Mr. Nuyens, who describes Second Life as a “fancy pick-up joint,” said that although Qwaq Forums is more focused on sharing documents, the social aspect is still important. “It isn’t one or the other. It’s about being able to do both in the same place,” he said.
Some of you might recall that I earlier raised the issue that PLM applications which are also part virtual world/part social application might lead to problems in the workplace. Namely, they could become “fancy pick-up” applications.
I don’t doubt such potential
uses (misuses?) goes largely unconsidered when the more tech-centric
blog The Weekly Squeak reports in their entry “Qwaq Secures $7 Million in Funding From Alloy Ventures and Storm Ventures” (Link)
The platform takes the concept of a virtual world with all the benefits of immediate communications and immersive visual feed back and integrates it with important business technologies that allow users to truly collaborate in real time. They have taken Croquet and made it work for business.
Almost seems as if people have never heard the term “office romance” (though to be fair, I don’t think of The Weekly Squeak as the place to read about non-technical things).
The New York Times however, doesn’t do much better in their selective culling of Red Herring’s coverage, “Qwaq Suits Up With $7 Million Round” (Link):
Much like Second Life, Qwaq Forums uses animated avatars representing users to populate 3-D office spaces, complete with rotating fans and potted plants. Only instead of being a time killer, Qwaq Forums aims to actually increase productivity by allowing clients to skip those long flights and stuffy conference rooms and let their avatars take the meeting for them.
While that’s provocative, the Times editor apparently hasn’t been paying enough attention to news feeds reporting things like how educators and librarians are increasingly experimenting in Second Life. When the Cleveland Public Library opts in, that should be a wake-up call, as far as I’m concerned. It’s not the application, it’s what users do with it. Of course with more layoffs hitting the venerable publisher, maybe I shouldn’t be surprised at the lack of depth in their reporting.
The interesting part is that while the seriously business-/tech-minded folks mostly seem to ignore the human part of the equation, marketers apparently perceive something quite different in what Qwaq and other virtual world applications might have to offer. Via the blog Marketing in a Web 2.0 World comes an entry shouting “Virtual Marketing is a Reality!” (Link).
Now, all you guys out there are going to tell me an attractive co-worker (perhaps represented by an avatar in branded clothing) isn’t going to make you forget you’re in a strictly business application and not some “fancy [virtual] pick-up joint”? Right.
Just wait. Human Resources teams everywhere will be adding entire sections to company guidelines dealing with social interactions inside their virtual world applications. And I’ll be reading Virtually Blind waiting for the first lawsuit… involving Qwaq.
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For more on Qwaq and the convergence of work and not-work, you might find some older posts of interest:
Cisco, WebEx, Qwaq, Ning, etc (reLink)
IBM: The EBO and Some PLM (reLink)
PLM, VPLM and Game Dev (reLink)
Take 2: Cooperative Building Games aka PLM (reLink)
Sun: Wall Street Really A MMO(rp)G (reLink)
Original post: http://blog.rebang.com/?p=1408
Croquet // Csven // insights // Qwaq // virtual worlds
Hello csven,
My wife and I have been having this discussion for a little while now. It seems that some people that are married are a bit relaxed around some of her coworkers. She also knows one person that seems to tolerate a high level of roving eye in her significant other. These issues of work place romance have little to do with technology. Much of the activity as distasteful as it may be, has been going on for a very long time and shows no sign of stopping, or by that matter, getting worse as new avenues arise.
It seems clear to me that although there may be more opportunity as we get used to the newness of these new virtual worlds, and this may cause a temporary spike in philandering, there is really no reason to believe that the overall prevalence will increase.
There seems to be a variable tolerance to these activities of our partners. It seems from the numbers that most people actively participate and are actively intolerant of it in their spouse when you look at the divorce rates. I wonder if the rate is as high or higher in non-married couples. What is interesting to me is how those that do not participate or condone these actives in others view it.
Do we feel that our faithfulness is a chore and we are jealous of others that seem to have the nerve to live a life of lies, or do we follow our own heart and live up to what we believe is right and true in our own definition of commitment and love.
I think the essential quality of self comes down to being able to answer this question in a way that will make you proud to be a part of a civilized society.
Now if you mean single people meeting this way I can only give you a warning. I've had friends meet people over the internet and what they find out very quickly is that no matter who that person appears to be on-line you should never trust your ability to judge someone until you meet them. Don't waist your time, set up a real date instead.
If you find that their on-line self is very attractive then you have to ask yourself if this is what you are looking for? Will you be ok if these activities continue after you become more closely attached? It's like meeting someone in a bar and then asking them to change later, stop drinking and socializing in bars. What did you expect would happen?
So overall I'd say, this is nothing new. It's not a good way for co-workers to hook up, it is way to easy for them to do it in person if they are so inclined and it is not a good way to meet someone new. What it may do is allow for more introductions which can broaden the pool of available people. It may make it easier to find the right person, but it may also make it more difficult as the number of duds that have to be weeded out increases.
Can this lead to more objectification and abuse because it is easier to step over the lines of what is normally considered socially acceptable. Yes I believe it can, but this is no more true for virtual worlds then it is for email or IM. It is also true of other forms of mindless media.
The pnp's of acceptable behavior that you mention, and sensitivity training about equal rights is unfortunately necessary in our society. There are a number of people in todays "me" world that are washed daily in mindless drivel that have not learned these basic human lessons. Where it should be strictly business because that is what is good and proper in a business environment, it may not be, but it is up to us, to a functioning human society, to encourage it.
I'm sure there will be a number of sociological studies about virtual worlds, I do look forward to reading them and learning more about it.
How's that for non-technical (thanks for the link to weekly squeak)
Ron Teitelbaum
President / Principal Software Engineer
US Medical Record Specialists