April 15, 2024 • 20 mins
Marisa dives into the virtual office platform SoWork, designed for immersive remote work experiences. With a mix of humor and insightful observations, Wayne and Marisa discuss the generational divides in adopting such technology and explore its unique features, from customizable avatars to proximity chats that mimic walking by someone's desk. Tune in to hear Marisa’s firsthand experiences, including decorating virtual offices for birthdays and the practical uses of these virtual spaces in remote work settings.
Key Takeaways
1. Experiment with Virtual Spaces: Consider how platforms like SoWork can enhance team interaction and cultural connection in your remote or hybrid teams.
2. Embrace Customization: Use customization features to make virtual offices more personal and engaging for team members.
3. Explore Hybrid Work Tools: For those managing hybrid teams, explore tools that bridge the gap between physical and virtual presence to maintain team cohesion.
4. Celebrate Virtually: Look for creative ways to celebrate team milestones and personal events to foster a sense of community and belonging, even remotely.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction
02:40 Exploring SoWork
06:05 Customization and Interaction
09:29 Hybrid Work Integration
16:07 Cultural Touches and Virtual Celebrations
18:36 Conclusion
Related Episodes
Additional Resources
- SoWork
- Remo
- Other Virtual Office Platforms
- GodSquad Church - World's First Church for Gamers
- Long-Distance Leadership Series
- Learn more about Wayne Turmel
- Email Wayne Turmel
- Connect with Wayne Turmel on LinkedIn
- Learn more about Marisa Eikenberry
- Email Marisa Eikenberry
- Connect with Marisa Eikenberry on LinkedIn
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Welcome back to Long-Distance Worklife.
Where we help you lead, work and thrivein remote and hybrid teams.
I'm Marisa Eikenberry,a fellow remote worker.
And joining me is remote workexpert, my co-host, Wayne Turmel. Hi.
Hello, Marisa. How are you? I'm great.
How are you.
Feeling?
My mortality.
Well, that should be great.
(00:28):
Generally, I generally think of myself
as, you know, open to the worldand still open to new experiences.
And there are dayswhen I realize that I am a grumpy old
white guywho has been far more institutionalized
(00:48):
in the traditional workplacethan I thought I was.
And then you've got me. I'man old soul, so.
Well, yes.
And you still walk around in that 32 yearold body
interacting with 32 yearolds, doing 32 year old things and
the reason for this venting, dearlistener,
(01:10):
is we have been havingconversations offline
about some of the different meetingplatforms out there.
And I don't careif you zoom routines or WebEx or
Joe's virtual meeting,I or whatever you use, I don't care.
But there is a trend to more
(01:30):
of a virtual reality video game style,
and it makes me break out in a rash.
And I have been told I am wrong
and wrong necessarily.
I am firmly prepared to believethat it is generational right.
(01:51):
This is just one of those things.
I don't play video gamesunless you count Frogger on
a, you know, bar tabletop, I guess.
Right.
But that was likethe last cool game that I played.
So Marisa has actually tested outa number of these platforms.
And we're going to talk about
(02:12):
what they bring to the table,what she likes, what she doesn't like.
And she's going to try to convince me
at least somewhat that the dark sideis not completely dark.
So we're going to talk aboutthe gamification, the virtual reality
kind of approachto some of these meetings and
(02:33):
are they going to make a differencein how we do our work.
So, Marisa, why don't you start withwhat have you been up to?
Yeah, So we actually got an emailfrom somebody about a
program called SoWork,and I looked into it
because I think the tagline on thefor the subject line was something about,
you know, startyour work guild here or something.
(02:56):
I'm like, That's gamer language.
Like, I need to open up this email, right?
So I was checking it outbecause basically that whole idea
so work is that it was built by gamersto have a virtual office
and to be able to interminglein all the good office stuff remotely.
I'm a gamer myself, so I reached out toyou and I was like, Pick me, choose me.
(03:20):
I volunteer as a tribute.
Let me test this out.
Yeah. As opposed to me who?
And I would rather pokea red hot iron in my eye than do this.
So bless your heart for.
For doing.
And with that, too, like,
as I was, you know, having this moment of,okay, I really want to test this out.
It was also an instantart will not test this with me.
(03:43):
I need to go find other people who will.
And that's okay.
You need to go find your tribe. Go in, do.
And that's okay. So
I volunteer
with a the world'sfirst online church for gamers.
Yes, that is a phrase I just said.
But anyway, I knew that these are peoplewho they're online all the time.
Gaming is their thing.
(04:05):
Like they'remore likely to test this with me.
So I posted it in the media teamthat I volunteer with,
and I was like,Hey, I'm testing this out for work.
You guys are under no obligationto check this out,
but it would be really cool if you did.
And they loved it.
Of course they did.
Loved it.
At first they were just testing out
some stuff that I was,you know, testing in a test server.
(04:29):
How many times they tested.
Okay.
Now, first of all, my first thought is,of course, they loved it.
These are people who can't be botheredto get out of their pajamas to go worship.
That's a whole different
We are meeting the people where they are.
But that isthat is a different discussion.
But, you know,and the people that that I was testing
with, you know, there are peoplethat we were on a team together.
(04:51):
We're volunteering together.We work together all the time.
So I started testing it with them.
The director of media team was like,This is awesome, shared it with staff,
and now the church created a server.
We're still testing out how it works,but it's pretty much staff and media team
and we've had a blast with it.
It's just it's been incredible.
(05:12):
Okay, now for those of you watching,Marisa will have screenshots and things.
The rest of you just have to play along.
Use radio of the mind.
Or check out the YouTube video.
Or check out the bayand we will have links to all of the stuff
in the show notes.
So, okay, so you're creating a guild,you're doing a meeting.
(05:34):
What does that start with?
What it looks like?
Yeah.
And then talk to me about the impactand how it actually works.
Yeah.
So they have a couple different
maps,I guess you could say to start out with.
But we actually created one from scratch.
But it looks like an office buildingand it's very top down kind of look.
(05:56):
And so you can make a room over hereand this is the kitchen
and this is your officeand these are cubicles over here,
and this is a meeting spaceand a co-working space. And
you can kind of make whatever you want,but it does look a lot like an office.
If you had no ceiling on it.
And you're looking
right and everybody has a little avatar
(06:17):
that you can customize,you know, hair outfit,
whatever,change it as much as you want to.
And and you walk around.
Yeah I, I avatars freak me out in general.
I'm not sure I'm ready to havea performance evaluation with an art book.
(06:38):
Thankfully, they're not like that.
All of them are human.
I mean, you can, you know,
change your hair colorto be something different or whatever.
You can have different types of costumes,and some of those are premium features.
And so we were just on a free server.
But yeah, I mean, you can,you know, throw a guitar on your back,
(07:00):
throw, you know,I think they have like swords,
so you can't get a little goofy with that.
But no, no orcs this time.
Okay,
So at least we're talking human to humancontact.
Well.
But it's interestingthat you say that, though,
because from my understanding,the people who created
this part of the whole thingwas that they had a team.
(07:23):
I think they were Harvard creatinglike a business and 2020 happened.
So suddenly their team became remoteand they couldn't
figure out how to get this culture pieceand this connection piece to happen.
And they were like,okay, we we play World of Warcraft.
We know that this is possible to do onlineand it's in
that piece is something I've been sayingon LinkedIn for a long time for
(07:46):
people who follow me there.
But you know, gamers know how to connectonline with people that they've never met.
And so they were trying to figure out how
how do we bring thatinto the remote work space?
And so work was born.
I'm pretty sure that it launchedthe public last year.
So there's still a lot of beta stuffthat's happening.
There's still some glitchy stuffthat's happening occasionally, too,
(08:09):
and they're changing stuff all the time.
Even in the months
that I've been testing it,they've had so many different updates.
This is voice to voice.
So when you and I are having a meeting,our avatars are sitting in chairs,
but we're talking.
Yes. And you can't have cameras up.
So you still can have a webcamup and be talking
and you can actually like click a buttonand like not see any of the office space.
(08:32):
If you didn't watch it,
you just really wantedto focus on the meeting
and then it would look like it looks likeright now to us, you can't do that.
But yes, you're correct. Like,
you know,you go sit in chairs in the meeting room
or they have proximity chat so peoplecan actually like walk by your office.
And as long as they're close to youand you don't have your do not disturb on,
it'll automatically connectand start a conversation.
(08:55):
Now, that's interesting to mebecause one of the big complaints
about remote work or hybrid work is
and I just had a flashon how this applies to hybrid work,
but you don't have the incidental somebody
walking by your desk and your brain goes,I need to talk to them.
What you're telling me is this is runningin the background all the time
(09:19):
and you get some form of alertthat says Marisa is walking past
your office or Marisa is aroundand you go, Do I need to talk to Marisa?
No, I can continue to ignore her or.
Yeah, right.
So physical, different waysthat it can happen.
So like, I have it minimized right now,like I'm in do not disturb mode
because obviously we're podcasting,
(09:41):
but if somebody walked by my
desk and, like, got close enough to meto actually trigger that proximity chat,
I actually get like a windowthat pops up in front of me
that says, you know, somebody, whoevertheir name is, is connecting to you.
And so that wayI know to go back into that platform
and I can actually see what's going on.
But I mean,it is a very automatic connection.
(10:04):
But where I had the flash abouthybrid work
is the big thing is we're out of sight,out of mind for each other.
Right?
Like,if I'm in the office today and you're not,
I look aroundand I'm generally talking to the people.
And if I have a question,I go to the people in the office and go,
Hey, before I start typing and chattingand Marisa's around.
(10:26):
Theoretically, if this is runningin the background while a team's working,
you can still get the proximity noticesand you can still see that
so-and-so is working and available
even if they're notin your physical space.
Right?
That is kind of intriguing, I guess.
(10:47):
Yeah, because since you could seethe whole office at once.
So they have like a WhatsAppopening menu basically.
So you can see who's all online.
If they have a status up,you can see what that status is.
There is a chat feature.
So right now it's kind of like Slack.
They're about to update it.
I haven't seen what the updatelooks like yet.
I'm very excited to see that.
(11:07):
So you can say like a messagenotification or something
if you needed to that way,but you could see who's online
and if you zoom out, you could actuallysee where they are in the map.
So you could just like go over to themif you needed to get a hold of them
or something.
Yeah, I, I get that.
I mean, I get how that can work.
And by the way,we're talking specifically about SoWork.
(11:30):
There are a number of other similarplatforms out there, Remo and some others
that.
So we're not advocatingfor one versus the other,
but we will have linksto a couple of these things so that if
you're listening to this and you'reintrigued, you can certainly check it out.
So why does this whole idea creep me out?
(11:55):
Well, that might be a whole separatediscussion.
Well, no, it's a very simple discussion,which is,
as a 62 year old man, even one
who is reasonably technology savvy.
I don't interact a lot.
I mean, Alexa sitsbeside us in the TV room,
(12:15):
and the main functionthat Alexa serves for us is Alexa.
How tall is Tom Cruise?
And we get the answer and I say,Thank you, Alexa.
And that's the end of that, right?
Meanwhile, I have a staff.
Of homes and lives.
Yeah, right, exactly.
And you know,
(12:36):
the movie Demon Seed came out in 1975,
and people with smart houses should see itbefore you get smug, is all I'm saying.
And I was young enough to see itand be scarred by it.
My mom was four, so.
And this has been a blessing.
Makes the last episode
(12:57):
so much. My last episode.
You don't know what my name is, what I.
But all of this sillinessand you know, there is
while there is an element of fun to this,which is part of the point,
right, is to add some fun
and lessen the formality for all of this.
(13:20):
But for people of a certain age,
our relationship with technology
and our willingness to interact
using technology,
to me, I can get on Zoomand I can talk to you and I can see you
and I can talk to youif I need to push three buttons
to get your avatar to show upand I'm still not talking to you,
(13:43):
that seems like more workthan the benefit is worth.
It's actually pretty easy.
I mean, I'm not going to like,sit here and be like, This is forever.
No, no, no.I know you're not selling for anybody.
But yeah, because.Because you are trying to talk.
This man off the ledge.
Yeah, because I don't thinkthat this is good for every team.
I really don't.
(14:03):
I do think there's a certain levelof some of it's generational.
Some of it's just whatyou interact with normally.
You know, if you're somebody who'sa little bit more perpetually online,
you're probably going to enjoy thisa little bit more like that kind of thing.
For the most part,getting on a video call or an audio call.
With this platform, it's it's really easy.
(14:25):
Not only can you just walk up to somebodyand it starts something instantly,
but you can also, you know,
let's say I scheduled a meeting with youand I'm like, okay, you know, Wayne,
we're going to have a meeting at 1 p.m.,You know, we'll meet in the meeting room.
All you have to do is walkyour avatar over it in the meeting room,
and the second
you cross the threshold into that room,it automatically starts the meeting.
(14:45):
You have to click nothing.
You know, it's so funnybecause I am listening to you
and my brain is processing the informationand the idea of the proximity alert,
Right?
Marisa's walking by my desk.
I'm thinkingthat's really intrusive and annoying.
But then I think about being in the officeand having Marisa
(15:06):
walk by my desk and I go,That's really intrusive and annoying.
Yeah.
Well, and you have to be pretty closefor that to trigger, right?
Because I know that when they have to.
Want to be there.
Yeah.
Because like we were the media team, likewe were trying to figure out our desks
and stuff and like,
you can, you can add a bunch of furnitureand you can add your computer
and they have like gamerlooking computers in there.
(15:26):
And so as we were putting notesin, I know I tested with a friend of mine
that's also in that team to be like, Hey,you sit down and I'm going to sit down
and make sure that we don't triggerthe proximity chat.
Otherwise we may have to changewhere our computer sit.
And thankfully it worked out the fine.
But yeah, you have to be pretty closefor that trigger.
So it's not quite just,they walked right by your door.
(15:47):
It's they're in your office.
Yeah, they're in your space.
Intentionally correct.
Well, this is fascinating.
And for those of you who are listening,
I imaginesome of you are horrified and appalled.
And if so, your AARP card is in the mail
for it.
Can I get you one thingbefore we start to wrap up,
(16:09):
though, that I think was really cool.
And we talk about this conceptall the time about when you're
when you're remote,there's no cake in the breakroom.
That's not a thing anymore. It's not cake.
But one of the things cell workalso allows you to do, and I'm sure
some of these other platforms do as well.
This is just the one that I've testedthe most, is
(16:31):
you can decorate somebody's officefor their birthday or whatever.
So I had to. Tell us the story.This is great.
Yeah.
So I had a birthday a couple weeks ago
and I walked into the officeand went over to my cubicle
and I'm going to show a picture of ithere on the screen.
But I had balloons and cake and stuff
everywhere,and I thought it was great, you know?
(16:54):
I mean,I was able to move some stuff around
and still get to my deskand I thought it was so cool.
I kept it the whole day.
And then we actually had
another media team memberthat their birthday was the following day.
So I basically moved everythingin my office over to there the next day.
And even while that was happening,
like there was another personwho they were on vacation.
(17:14):
So we threw like a hammockand a sandcastle
and a palm tree in their officebecause we just thought it was funny,
but it was this other wayof like showing culture
and showing that you careabout somebody else without necessarily
hopping on a meeting or sending a messageor, you know, taking up this extra time.
But I saw that and felt so specialand it probably took them 5 minutes to do.
(17:36):
And they also just pulled
a prank that backfired on thembecause you thought it was hysterical.
That is true.
And when we were first testing staff waybefore my birthday even happened,
I walked into my testing officeand had pumpkins everywhere.
And apparentlyI was supposed to be annoyed by this.
I thought it was so great.
(17:56):
I took a screenshotand showed it as a LinkedIn lesson.
No culture in a virtual space.
Yeah. So.
Which is great if you live in a medievalfarming village
where swapping gourdsis a symbol of affection.
Anyway, we will have links
to demos and stuff.
(18:18):
We will have links to screenshots.
Those of you watching onvideo will see the finished product
with the screenshots built in.
I am slightly lesshorrified than I was going in.
I dare I say almost intrigued.
But thank you.
Let me know.
I'll get on a meeting.
(18:39):
I'll. I'll walk you around the office.
Thank you for sharing that, Marisa.
I really appreciate that.
My taking it away.
You're taking it home, lady.
I'm okay.
I'm old.
I'm tired.
Fair.
Meanwhile,I'm parked in my virtual office.
so while we don't talkabout virtual offices in this way,
(19:02):
we do talk a lot about remote workand how to work remotely well.
And we do that with our Long DistanceLeadership series, which you can learn
more about at Kevin Eikenberry dotcom forward slash LDLS.
And thank you so much for listeningto the long distance work life
for shownotestranscripts and other resources.
Make sure to visit long distance work dotcom if you haven't yet,
(19:22):
subscribe to the podcast so you won't missany future episodes while you're there.
Be sure to like and review.
This helps us know what you loveabout our show and feel free
to contact us via email or LinkedInwith the links in our show notes.
Let us know you listen to this episode
or suggest a topic for Wayneand I to tackle in a future episode.
And if you have more things like thisfor me to test, let me know.
(19:43):
Thank you for joining us.
Guinea pig at the Kevin Eikenberry Group.
I mean, I am nothingif not an eager beaver
like I.
But thank you so much,listeners, for joining us.
And as we like to say,don't let the weasels get you down.
Welcome back to Long-Distance Worklife.
Where we help you lead, work and thrivein remote and hybrid teams.
I'm Marisa Eikenberry,a fellow remote worker.
And joining me is remote workexpert, my co-host, Wayne Turmel. Hi.
Hello, Marisa. How are you? I'm great.
How are you.
Feeling?
My mortality.
Well, that should be great.
(00:28):
Generally, I generally think of myself
as, you know, open to the worldand still open to new experiences.
And there are dayswhen I realize that I am a grumpy old
white guywho has been far more institutionalized
(00:48):
in the traditional workplacethan I thought I was.
And then you've got me. I'man old soul, so.
Well, yes.
And you still walk around in that 32 yearold body
interacting with 32 yearolds, doing 32 year old things and
the reason for this venting, dearlistener,
(01:10):
is we have been havingconversations offline
about some of the different meetingplatforms out there.
And I don't careif you zoom routines or WebEx or
Joe's virtual meeting,I or whatever you use, I don't care.
But there is a trend to more
(01:30):
of a virtual reality video game style,
and it makes me break out in a rash.
And I have been told I am wrong
and wrong necessarily.
I am firmly prepared to believethat it is generational right.
(01:51):
This is just one of those things.
I don't play video gamesunless you count Frogger on
a, you know, bar tabletop, I guess.
Right.
But that was likethe last cool game that I played.
So Marisa has actually tested outa number of these platforms.
And we're going to talk about
(02:12):
what they bring to the table,what she likes, what she doesn't like.
And she's going to try to convince me
at least somewhat that the dark sideis not completely dark.
So we're going to talk aboutthe gamification, the virtual reality
kind of approachto some of these meetings and
(02:33):
are they going to make a differencein how we do our work.
So, Marisa, why don't you start withwhat have you been up to?
Yeah, So we actually got an emailfrom somebody about a
program called SoWork,and I looked into it
because I think the tagline on thefor the subject line was something about,
you know, startyour work guild here or something.
(02:56):
I'm like, That's gamer language.
Like, I need to open up this email, right?
So I was checking it outbecause basically that whole idea
so work is that it was built by gamersto have a virtual office
and to be able to interminglein all the good office stuff remotely.
I'm a gamer myself, so I reached out toyou and I was like, Pick me, choose me.
(03:20):
I volunteer as a tribute.
Let me test this out.
Yeah. As opposed to me who?
And I would rather pokea red hot iron in my eye than do this.
So bless your heart for.
For doing.
And with that, too, like,
as I was, you know, having this moment of,okay, I really want to test this out.
It was also an instantart will not test this with me.
(03:43):
I need to go find other people who will.
And that's okay.
You need to go find your tribe. Go in, do.
And that's okay. So
I volunteer
with a the world'sfirst online church for gamers.
Yes, that is a phrase I just said.
But anyway, I knew that these are peoplewho they're online all the time.
Gaming is their thing.
(04:05):
Like they'remore likely to test this with me.
So I posted it in the media teamthat I volunteer with,
and I was like,Hey, I'm testing this out for work.
You guys are under no obligationto check this out,
but it would be really cool if you did.
And they loved it.
Of course they did.
Loved it.
At first they were just testing out
some stuff that I was,you know, testing in a test server.
(04:29):
How many times they tested.
Okay.
Now, first of all, my first thought is,of course, they loved it.
These are people who can't be botheredto get out of their pajamas to go worship.
That's a whole different
We are meeting the people where they are.
But that isthat is a different discussion.
But, you know,and the people that that I was testing
with, you know, there are peoplethat we were on a team together.
(04:51):
We're volunteering together.We work together all the time.
So I started testing it with them.
The director of media team was like,This is awesome, shared it with staff,
and now the church created a server.
We're still testing out how it works,but it's pretty much staff and media team
and we've had a blast with it.
It's just it's been incredible.
(05:12):
Okay, now for those of you watching,Marisa will have screenshots and things.
The rest of you just have to play along.
Use radio of the mind.
Or check out the YouTube video.
Or check out the bayand we will have links to all of the stuff
in the show notes.
So, okay, so you're creating a guild,you're doing a meeting.
(05:34):
What does that start with?
What it looks like?
Yeah.
And then talk to me about the impactand how it actually works.
Yeah.
So they have a couple different
maps,I guess you could say to start out with.
But we actually created one from scratch.
But it looks like an office buildingand it's very top down kind of look.
(05:56):
And so you can make a room over hereand this is the kitchen
and this is your officeand these are cubicles over here,
and this is a meeting spaceand a co-working space. And
you can kind of make whatever you want,but it does look a lot like an office.
If you had no ceiling on it.
And you're looking
right and everybody has a little avatar
(06:17):
that you can customize,you know, hair outfit,
whatever,change it as much as you want to.
And and you walk around.
Yeah I, I avatars freak me out in general.
I'm not sure I'm ready to havea performance evaluation with an art book.
(06:38):
Thankfully, they're not like that.
All of them are human.
I mean, you can, you know,
change your hair colorto be something different or whatever.
You can have different types of costumes,and some of those are premium features.
And so we were just on a free server.
But yeah, I mean, you can,you know, throw a guitar on your back,
(07:00):
throw, you know,I think they have like swords,
so you can't get a little goofy with that.
But no, no orcs this time.
Okay,
So at least we're talking human to humancontact.
Well.
But it's interestingthat you say that, though,
because from my understanding,the people who created
this part of the whole thingwas that they had a team.
(07:23):
I think they were Harvard creatinglike a business and 2020 happened.
So suddenly their team became remoteand they couldn't
figure out how to get this culture pieceand this connection piece to happen.
And they were like,okay, we we play World of Warcraft.
We know that this is possible to do onlineand it's in
that piece is something I've been sayingon LinkedIn for a long time for
(07:46):
people who follow me there.
But you know, gamers know how to connectonline with people that they've never met.
And so they were trying to figure out how
how do we bring thatinto the remote work space?
And so work was born.
I'm pretty sure that it launchedthe public last year.
So there's still a lot of beta stuffthat's happening.
There's still some glitchy stuffthat's happening occasionally, too,
(08:09):
and they're changing stuff all the time.
Even in the months
that I've been testing it,they've had so many different updates.
This is voice to voice.
So when you and I are having a meeting,our avatars are sitting in chairs,
but we're talking.
Yes. And you can't have cameras up.
So you still can have a webcamup and be talking
and you can actually like click a buttonand like not see any of the office space.
(08:32):
If you didn't watch it,
you just really wantedto focus on the meeting
and then it would look like it looks likeright now to us, you can't do that.
But yes, you're correct. Like,
you know,you go sit in chairs in the meeting room
or they have proximity chat so peoplecan actually like walk by your office.
And as long as they're close to youand you don't have your do not disturb on,
it'll automatically connectand start a conversation.
(08:55):
Now, that's interesting to mebecause one of the big complaints
about remote work or hybrid work is
and I just had a flashon how this applies to hybrid work,
but you don't have the incidental somebody
walking by your desk and your brain goes,I need to talk to them.
What you're telling me is this is runningin the background all the time
(09:19):
and you get some form of alertthat says Marisa is walking past
your office or Marisa is aroundand you go, Do I need to talk to Marisa?
No, I can continue to ignore her or.
Yeah, right.
So physical, different waysthat it can happen.
So like, I have it minimized right now,like I'm in do not disturb mode
because obviously we're podcasting,
(09:41):
but if somebody walked by my
desk and, like, got close enough to meto actually trigger that proximity chat,
I actually get like a windowthat pops up in front of me
that says, you know, somebody, whoevertheir name is, is connecting to you.
And so that wayI know to go back into that platform
and I can actually see what's going on.
But I mean,it is a very automatic connection.
(10:04):
But where I had the flash abouthybrid work
is the big thing is we're out of sight,out of mind for each other.
Right?
Like,if I'm in the office today and you're not,
I look aroundand I'm generally talking to the people.
And if I have a question,I go to the people in the office and go,
Hey, before I start typing and chattingand Marisa's around.
(10:26):
Theoretically, if this is runningin the background while a team's working,
you can still get the proximity noticesand you can still see that
so-and-so is working and available
even if they're notin your physical space.
Right?
That is kind of intriguing, I guess.
(10:47):
Yeah, because since you could seethe whole office at once.
So they have like a WhatsAppopening menu basically.
So you can see who's all online.
If they have a status up,you can see what that status is.
There is a chat feature.
So right now it's kind of like Slack.
They're about to update it.
I haven't seen what the updatelooks like yet.
I'm very excited to see that.
(11:07):
So you can say like a messagenotification or something
if you needed to that way,but you could see who's online
and if you zoom out, you could actuallysee where they are in the map.
So you could just like go over to themif you needed to get a hold of them
or something.
Yeah, I, I get that.
I mean, I get how that can work.
And by the way,we're talking specifically about SoWork.
(11:30):
There are a number of other similarplatforms out there, Remo and some others
that.
So we're not advocatingfor one versus the other,
but we will have linksto a couple of these things so that if
you're listening to this and you'reintrigued, you can certainly check it out.
So why does this whole idea creep me out?
(11:55):
Well, that might be a whole separatediscussion.
Well, no, it's a very simple discussion,which is,
as a 62 year old man, even one
who is reasonably technology savvy.
I don't interact a lot.
I mean, Alexa sitsbeside us in the TV room,
(12:15):
and the main functionthat Alexa serves for us is Alexa.
How tall is Tom Cruise?
And we get the answer and I say,Thank you, Alexa.
And that's the end of that, right?
Meanwhile, I have a staff.
Of homes and lives.
Yeah, right, exactly.
And you know,
(12:36):
the movie Demon Seed came out in 1975,
and people with smart houses should see itbefore you get smug, is all I'm saying.
And I was young enough to see itand be scarred by it.
My mom was four, so.
And this has been a blessing.
Makes the last episode
(12:57):
so much. My last episode.
You don't know what my name is, what I.
But all of this sillinessand you know, there is
while there is an element of fun to this,which is part of the point,
right, is to add some fun
and lessen the formality for all of this.
(13:20):
But for people of a certain age,
our relationship with technology
and our willingness to interact
using technology,
to me, I can get on Zoomand I can talk to you and I can see you
and I can talk to youif I need to push three buttons
to get your avatar to show upand I'm still not talking to you,
(13:43):
that seems like more workthan the benefit is worth.
It's actually pretty easy.
I mean, I'm not going to like,sit here and be like, This is forever.
No, no, no.I know you're not selling for anybody.
But yeah, because.Because you are trying to talk.
This man off the ledge.
Yeah, because I don't thinkthat this is good for every team.
I really don't.
(14:03):
I do think there's a certain levelof some of it's generational.
Some of it's just whatyou interact with normally.
You know, if you're somebody who'sa little bit more perpetually online,
you're probably going to enjoy thisa little bit more like that kind of thing.
For the most part,getting on a video call or an audio call.
With this platform, it's it's really easy.
(14:25):
Not only can you just walk up to somebodyand it starts something instantly,
but you can also, you know,
let's say I scheduled a meeting with youand I'm like, okay, you know, Wayne,
we're going to have a meeting at 1 p.m.,You know, we'll meet in the meeting room.
All you have to do is walkyour avatar over it in the meeting room,
and the second
you cross the threshold into that room,it automatically starts the meeting.
(14:45):
You have to click nothing.
You know, it's so funnybecause I am listening to you
and my brain is processing the informationand the idea of the proximity alert,
Right?
Marisa's walking by my desk.
I'm thinkingthat's really intrusive and annoying.
But then I think about being in the officeand having Marisa
(15:06):
walk by my desk and I go,That's really intrusive and annoying.
Yeah.
Well, and you have to be pretty closefor that to trigger, right?
Because I know that when they have to.
Want to be there.
Yeah.
Because like we were the media team, likewe were trying to figure out our desks
and stuff and like,
you can, you can add a bunch of furnitureand you can add your computer
and they have like gamerlooking computers in there.
(15:26):
And so as we were putting notesin, I know I tested with a friend of mine
that's also in that team to be like, Hey,you sit down and I'm going to sit down
and make sure that we don't triggerthe proximity chat.
Otherwise we may have to changewhere our computer sit.
And thankfully it worked out the fine.
But yeah, you have to be pretty closefor that trigger.
So it's not quite just,they walked right by your door.
(15:47):
It's they're in your office.
Yeah, they're in your space.
Intentionally correct.
Well, this is fascinating.
And for those of you who are listening,
I imaginesome of you are horrified and appalled.
And if so, your AARP card is in the mail
for it.
Can I get you one thingbefore we start to wrap up,
(16:09):
though, that I think was really cool.
And we talk about this conceptall the time about when you're
when you're remote,there's no cake in the breakroom.
That's not a thing anymore. It's not cake.
But one of the things cell workalso allows you to do, and I'm sure
some of these other platforms do as well.
This is just the one that I've testedthe most, is
(16:31):
you can decorate somebody's officefor their birthday or whatever.
So I had to. Tell us the story.This is great.
Yeah.
So I had a birthday a couple weeks ago
and I walked into the officeand went over to my cubicle
and I'm going to show a picture of ithere on the screen.
But I had balloons and cake and stuff
everywhere,and I thought it was great, you know?
(16:54):
I mean,I was able to move some stuff around
and still get to my deskand I thought it was so cool.
I kept it the whole day.
And then we actually had
another media team memberthat their birthday was the following day.
So I basically moved everythingin my office over to there the next day.
And even while that was happening,
like there was another personwho they were on vacation.
(17:14):
So we threw like a hammockand a sandcastle
and a palm tree in their officebecause we just thought it was funny,
but it was this other wayof like showing culture
and showing that you careabout somebody else without necessarily
hopping on a meeting or sending a messageor, you know, taking up this extra time.
But I saw that and felt so specialand it probably took them 5 minutes to do.
(17:36):
And they also just pulled
a prank that backfired on thembecause you thought it was hysterical.
That is true.
And when we were first testing staff waybefore my birthday even happened,
I walked into my testing officeand had pumpkins everywhere.
And apparentlyI was supposed to be annoyed by this.
I thought it was so great.
(17:56):
I took a screenshotand showed it as a LinkedIn lesson.
No culture in a virtual space.
Yeah. So.
Which is great if you live in a medievalfarming village
where swapping gourdsis a symbol of affection.
Anyway, we will have links
to demos and stuff.
(18:18):
We will have links to screenshots.
Those of you watching onvideo will see the finished product
with the screenshots built in.
I am slightly lesshorrified than I was going in.
I dare I say almost intrigued.
But thank you.
Let me know.
I'll get on a meeting.
(18:39):
I'll. I'll walk you around the office.
Thank you for sharing that, Marisa.
I really appreciate that.
My taking it away.
You're taking it home, lady.
I'm okay.
I'm old.
I'm tired.
Fair.
Meanwhile,I'm parked in my virtual office.
so while we don't talkabout virtual offices in this way,
(19:02):
we do talk a lot about remote workand how to work remotely well.
And we do that with our Long DistanceLeadership series, which you can learn
more about at Kevin Eikenberry dotcom forward slash LDLS.
And thank you so much for listeningto the long distance work life
for shownotestranscripts and other resources.
Make sure to visit long distance work dotcom if you haven't yet,
(19:22):
subscribe to the podcast so you won't missany future episodes while you're there.
Be sure to like and review.
This helps us know what you loveabout our show and feel free
to contact us via email or LinkedInwith the links in our show notes.
Let us know you listen to this episode
or suggest a topic for Wayneand I to tackle in a future episode.
And if you have more things like thisfor me to test, let me know.
(19:43):
Thank you for joining us.
Guinea pig at the Kevin Eikenberry Group.
I mean, I am nothingif not an eager beaver
like I.
But thank you so much,listeners, for joining us.
And as we like to say,don't let the weasels get you down.
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