How Virtual are YOU?

Forrester Report Predicts that we're going 3-d in the workplace within 5 years. It encourages IT and knowledge workers to dive in to trying to replicate work, and training, counseling in the virtual world.



I dabbled in second life last year with some big ideas, but didn't find it to be the place to setup an online shopping experience... It seemed that most of the transactions that were happening were about real money, but for virtual things. I want to sell actual things with an immediate click to a shopping cart.

Setting up for a virtual meeting, getting a conference room with a projector and embedding my powerpoint was not a slam dunk at the time. Ease of use and simplicity will be important if we expect the less technically savvy folks to attend willingly.

I think we WILL be attending virtual meetings at some point, using avatars.... IBM is the first to create guidelines governing virtual worlds... The real world dress code should apply. I could see being distracted by some of the "attachments" that can be placed on an avatar in Second Life.

The report brought my attention to www.there.com . I haven't lurked around there yet. It gets a decent review from PC magazine in '06 .

I think this could be an effective training environment for certain presentations, interactions and meetings. The key word is effective.... let me add efficient... It must be seen as an efficient way to setup, share, learn, track, record events for business purposes. If it looks like too much fun, it will take some time to adopt in the business world.

It can't be seen as a distraction from real work.

Blog-O-Rithm ... Informative thought...and other random stuff

Attack of the Clones - Mooooo!

"Cloned Food is Safe", says FDA

And the cows say,"All your farm are belong to us, ........ Moooooo!"

Not so sure about all this.... I'd like to sit in the non-clone section of the restaurant please. If less than 5% of cloned animals are surviving.... I don't crave them on my plate.

Imagine future generations explaining to their children where their dinner comes from... I guess it's just as well.... The children may be "replicants" themselves.

Oh, this is all too strange...
I want my meal to have had a mother, and a father........

At least warn me on the package..

Will Foster Farms, become Foster Labs..... Will we get Dejavu, at the McClonald's drive through?

Will that double Whopper taste strangely familiar?

Let me off at the next stop!

The food of the storm troopers is coming soon.

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Questions

....In keeping with my blog title:

Have you challenged your assumptions recently?

Are you arguing for your limitations?

Are you enjoying the journey?

Have you decided how it's going to be?

Are you really paying attention to now?

Are you sleeping well?

Are you challenging yourself?

Are you really doing all that you can?

In what areas are you playing the victim?

Do you really believe?

What are you reading, doing, watching that really inspires you?

What's the next action?

Have you really told them how much they mean to you?

Is it really all about retirement?

Give something anonymously.

Had a real heartfelt, gut level laugh recently?

Identify anything in the way, and tell it who's boss.

“Named must your fear be before banish it you can.” Yoda.

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Communication is the key.

Track back the issues of the day. How many of the issues, conflicts, arguments, happened due to some sort of issue with communication?

We communicate in many ways, so I'm referring to all of them: Verbal, Written, non-verbal.... We have phones, email, text, radios, signs, symbols, gestures. The means of communication ar many and varied, but when it is incomplete, or misunderstood.... trouble occurs. This happens on small scale between friends, family, and coworkers... and it happens on large scale between groups, teams, armies, and countries.

If you are human, you know what I'm talking about. There are daily examples. I heard my wife upset the other day because she was angry that her employee did not work on the order that was obviously the priority because my wife had stacked it all over the office table. The employee had neatly moved the order products off the table, did every other task, then neatly placed every thing back at the end of the day.

Mental telepathy is cool in the movies but not so good in relationships. It never works in the workplace.... And I assure you, it takes more than this with teenagers. You can put their shoes on the stairs for a week! But, a little verbal communication (with a smile), is pretty effective........Ok, that doesn't work, either, but your odds are better.

It's amazing how often what gets said is NOT what gets heard.

Conflict resolution involves dialog that goes something like: "When you said, blahblah, I heard, yadayada,"....

"But, I didn't say yadayada, I was only wanting to make sure that , blahblah!

Did you ever observe two people just trying to be "heard", and neither is willing to take a turn listening? Reconciliation begins when one side will really listen.

It's tough because their "unheard" side of the story has to get put on hold for just a moment.
Our ears can really get waxed over with how wronged we are, how misunderstood, victimized. These are strong words,but the dynamic occurs in smaller scale, all the same.

Good communication has to involve, not just listening.. but really good hearing.

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