US company Suitable Technologies believes it has found a way of giving employees the freedom to work remotely while maintaining a mobile presence in the workplace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z23UeJi_uJ4
The company has developed Beam, a remote presence system (RPS) that provides remote workers (referred to as pilots) with a mobile videoconferencing platform.
Beams located in one location can be accessed by the pilot from another, allowing the pilot to engage in face-to-face dialogue via a 17in (43cm) screen.
That’s hilarious! It’s actually a nice idea, but it would take some getting used to. Terrible acting in the video.
I don’t know if I’d laugh or run a mile if I saw my boss approaching me like that. All very queer!
I had some strange looks in the office when I burst out laughing especially when the two ‘beams’ chatted. A good idea especially for very remote working, but the need for collision detection and the problem with those things called doors may be a bit of an issue.
I don’t see the point of this at all. We have video conf technology, we have the ability to view someone’s remote screen. Not sure of the cost of the system, but don’t think I could justify it for the benefit of seeing the corridors between offices. Funny though!!!!
People still make flights even with the current availability of video conferencing. So there has to be something missing and these are intelligent attempts to find out what that is. I remember how important it was to meet my customers in person in one job and how stupid it was that cost constraints prevented me from doing it for a long time. I dodn’t really understand their issues and couldn’t see their perspective in the same way that you might say “I don’t see the point..” After I met them I saw the point extremely well and the quality of our software for their usecase improved a lot.
One of these robots might have been enough to let me get around, talk to various people at my own discretion and see what was happening on some Solaris screen or Linux console for which there was no capture and transmission mechanism. I might have been able to do that much sooner.
My son thought this was great. He wants his teacher to get one so he can run away from it. I can just imagine Mr Steel teaching maths from his boat in the Bahamas.
Won’t these devices suffer from ‘Dalek Syndrome’ when they encounter a flight of stairs?
Tim
As a project manager wife used to make frequent trips to another city to work with a team there. It was really just so they could work face to face during crunch season.
She saw this and said that if her company had this, it would have both allowed her to more frequently work in the remote office and cut down on travel costs severely.
She still would have had to make trips, I’m sure. You can’t replace human interaction completely. But perhaps would have only made the trip once or twice a year instead of weekly during heavy seasons.
The savings on her travel cost would have more than made up for the cost.
As for stairs. Yeah you’d have to ask someone to hit the elevator button for you or just put a beam on each floor.
Video conferencing is just inconvenient when you can’t move.
It’s not for everyone but I know for some reason it would be great.