Day 9 in the Virtual Office!
Total Time in VR: 5 hours and 46 minutes (across 9 VR sessions)
Use Cases: Focus Time (1 hr 44min), 1:1 Meetings (1 hr 9min), OssoVR Platform (1 hr), Community Time (49 min), MiniMindfulness (32 min), Team Meetings (29 min)
I’ve been thinking more about how the VR Office impacts productivity. I worry sometimes that people might think I’m in VR because I think it’s “fun”. And while it is kind of fun, for sure, that’s not the value I’m finding in my second week of the VR Office Experiment. This morning I wrote this in my notes: “I am always in the computer, like Tron. There is no point when I look away from the computer screen.” I wrote this when I was working in the office with my three monitors configured for 5 windows (see the video below). I turned to think a minute and looked out a virtual window at a virtual world. I didn’t turn and look at my physical office. I basically am part of the program when I enter the VR Office. And I believe that is a good thing (which I know could be controversial to some…)
I made this short video to show how the screens look in the “Lake Office” of Horizon Workrooms. Across the screens I can monitor Slack, my Calendar, my video editing, my to-do list, and run my tunes. I swapped out my main screen for iMovie, keeping my actual work behind the curtain. 🙂
Cup Half Empty: While the video shows a lot of windows, it’s worth noting that sizing the windows takes some work. I can auto-size the far left and far right, but the middle screens have to be sized manually. It was also brought to my attention today by a co-worker (while having a 1:1 meeting in VR) that I have three screens because I’m working on a Mac. He entered his VR Office with a Dell laptop and could only get two screens (with the promise of a third “coming soon”).
Cup Half Full: Today was a very productive day in VR. I was knocking items off my list all day long. I also had a 1:1 with one of the guys on my team playing ForeVR Cornhole today. It’s awesome to just “walk and talk” like we would if we worked on a physical campus with a coffee shop onsite. I even asked permission to post our picture, even though the image doesn’t show his name. You see, to me that avatar is a real person with the same rights of approval as would be expected if the picture was in the physical world.
#TLDR
Another good day in the VR Office. I’m hitting a groove with how I manage my time between VR and outside VR. I don’t insist everything happen in VR, and I think that is key to future adoption of this type of workspace. It’s not all or nothing. It’s about using VR for the right purpose and for the right amount of time. Still searching for both those answers. But it is a fun search!
Till Tomorrow…
Carrier Pigeon XR 