Category: VR Office Experiment

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…

Day 7 in the Virtual Office!

Total Time in VR: 5 hours and 24 minutes (across 10 VR sessions)

Use Cases: Team Meetings (54 min), Focus Time (1 hr 29 mn), Evening Fun (59 min), 1:1 Meetings (54 min), Mini-Mindfulness (30 min)

While in VR with a co-worker today I was asked an interesting question: “How does this platform (Horizon Workrooms) help you focus better on work?”

I didn’t have to think long to give a simple answer. When I put on the headset, that is when I “go to work”. When I’m at work, my house no longer distracts me, just like it didn’t when I left the house for an office in my past jobs. Once in the VR Office, I focus on tasks, and drive against my to-do lists. And I stay away from my phone and any other “internet distractions”. Some of that is discipline sure, but a lot of that is the fact that the virtual environment I’m in pushes me to focus more on what is before me (across my glorious 3 massive monitors!)

Cup Half Empty: Not a lot to complain about today. Mainly because I swore to myself I’d stop complaining about keyboard tracking for at least a week. I switched to my Apple Magic Keyboard (mini version), which in the past has worked just fine in Workrooms. Alas, today it was also floating above the table and a bit wobbly. Never un-usable, but still a distraction that many people would not tolerate. So a barrier to wide adoption of VR for Work for sure.

Cup Half Full: I attended our All Company Weekly All Hands from VR again this week, and it continues to impress me how awesome it is to have a massive monitor for the thing that I’m watching second-hand, while working on a separate massive screen. I had multiple meetings with my team today, continuing our work with data analytics (meaning we were reviewing spreadsheets on the virtual wall). Suddenly a boring meeting is fun!

#TLDR

Week 2 is chugging along fine. No big earth shaking moments in VR today, but also the VR space is becoming second nature for me. The challenge to articulate how VR helps me focus was clarifying for me. I know more questions like that are coming my way as I keep using VR for Productivity, so it’s good to start practicing quick responses. No delayed Slack text response possible, as the questioner was seating right across the table from me!!

I wrapped up the day with “Evening Fun”, showing up in the stats for the first time. Showing off some VR over at our local coffee shop. It’s fun to watch people fly in VR for the first time, over the glorious Walkabout Minigolf courses!

Till Tomorrow…

Day 6 in the Virtual Office! Happy Halloween!!

Total Time in VR: 4 hours and 45 minutes (across 8 VR sessions)

Use Cases: Focus Time, Team Meetings, 1:1 Meetings, Mini-Mindfulness, Abbey Road, Evening Work

Week 2 has begun in the VR Office! The day started out a little rough. One of my first meetings was in the VR platform “Immersed“. Between my computer failing to map and my co-worker unable to enter my VR room, we gave up and went to Workrooms, which remains quite reliable. This week is all about maintaining momentum, and getting through the honeymoon period in the VR Office. Fingers crossed!

Cup Half Empty:

During the morning I was working in Excel, doing some data analysis. I found the screen harder to read today. I was trying to figure out if my struggles with the spreadsheet where related to the VR screens, or just my foggy attempts at remembering excel formulas I haven’t used in years. This is a good reminder that I need to always be conscious of when the technology is getting in the way of me doing my work, just like the example with the Immersed platform I mentioned earlier. The goal of this experiment is to figure out if you can be productive in VR. And when the tech fails, I can’t spend a bunch of time figuring it out. That type of work needs to be done in the evening, off hours.

Cup Half Full:

I have a new headstrap! This new model has a larger battery on the back and returns balance to my Quest 2. Time will tell if it is a solid choice, but my first impressions are good. I particularly like the color indicator on the dial that indicates battery life.

After fighting with excel in the morning, I had a great session with my team in VR today doing data analysis. The power of three people sitting around a table and working through a problem together can’t be understated. The idea of having that same meeting via video chat on Zoom sounds terrible to me. This is a great example of Virtual Reality bringing an added benefit to remote workers.

#TLDR

After a couple hiccups in the morning, the VR Office Experiment is back in full swing. My desk setup continues to improve, now including a full size mouse pad for comfort on the wrists and perhaps better tracking from the headset. More of my day was in solo work today, but this week has some exciting collaborative sessions in store! Here we go!

Happy Halloween!!

Till Tomorrow…