Virtual Workspaces: For Better or For Worse?
Over the last two years, the idea of “remote” has become essential to how we work, learn, and collaborate. As we move forward in a forever changed workplace, we are now faced with a brand-new question — Has the move to remote changed what we consider normal for the better or for worse?
Like many students around the globe, I transitioned into a virtual learning system in a very precarious situation. All my new friends, peers, and teachers have all been contained by the four corners of my screen. And honestly, it has not been the most effective educational environment to work and learn in.
At the start of not only my college experience, but my college courses, they implemented the use of video conferencing software (alongside most educational institutions and businesses). To me, all of these current video platforms, really fail to grasp at a key-cornerstone of education and business. Interactive Collaboration.
Interactive spaces, and the process of working with people on the other side of your computer screen, is hard to grasp at any level of this new digital environment. How do you provide the same level of personal, tangible reality? To learn together, play together, and work together without actually being together?
Connection vs Collaboration
At my college we run a Debate Society that normally (apparently) brings in an audience of 500 people into our auditorium. But while running it online, it has only brought around 10–30 people per session. Why is this?
I think there are several reasons.
First, people are less excited whenever you are doing the same thing repeatedly. Imagine for example, you are listening to a new song, or you’re visiting a new city or even a new restaurant. The first few times you will feel the thrill and adrenaline of trying something new! Now imagine listening to that same song for 10 hours every day or revisiting that location every day for years. Would you eventually get tired of it? Would it have the same appeal?
When you have students or workers clicking from meeting to meeting, sometimes without breaks or when they just sit in the same place day after day, it doesn’t just tire them out, it reduces their ability to think critically or be truly creative.
Another reason why our usual virtual interaction suffers on these video conferences is because there’s no proper style of integration to engage with each other. This has to be done on a proactive level in addition to hosting a video and there is little encouragement within the software.
In the development events I host, I involve attendees with everything from Q&A’s, to spontaneous pop-quizzes, to asking them for questions to interview someone with. I believe that working with your audience and getting them involved will always produce a brighter outcome.
In virtual spaces you need to put the audience at the forefront to maintain their engagement and creativity.
This is demonstrated greatly in the game design concepts behind Player Retention: success is found when you can continually engage your players over periods of time and pull them into your vision. This can be done by first putting them at the forefront of your planning. Ask yourself if what you’re building will get them to want to actually engage in the experience you are building.
With many remote connection platforms, there’s no creativity, or ingenuity within them to expand how we can collaborate. Voice, Video, and Text Chat. These are all standards with how we can connect with someone who is not physically near you, but there’s little functionality to encourage collaboration beyond that.
Some of this is a result of the mentality that this was (or is) all temporary.
We shouldn’t be taking this moment of “returning to normal” to see if remote working should go back-into the shadows. Instead, we should be using these new digital environments to improve the foundations of the workplace and seek ways to rebuild the digital infrastructure of professionalism.
In doing this, we can change the way the digital world is thought about, and bring in a new generation of professionals for this ever-expanding and changing world.
Managing a Remote Workforce
As a Developer Event’s Organizer and Community Manager I have to manage a lot of individual teams and collaborate with people around the world. Using Roblox has made it much easier to manage my team.
Seamless and easy Global Connectivity is key for me to be able to manage and collaborate at a global scale. Some of the tools on default platforms often require that you connect to one individual server which is in the most case stored either on the host’s computer, or in an obscure server location.
When using Roblox, I can take advantage of the platform’s ‘Compute Cloud.’ The way it works is that it automatically changes server locations based on where everyone is located to connect them as close to equidistant points as possible. This gives everyone the same experience without costing one person’s internet usage and allows for me to easily connect to anyone across the globe.
I’m also able to take advantage of Roblox’s Universal Game Engine (the application is compatible with just about every device from Android, to iOS, to Mac, to Windows). No matter where you are, either on the train or at your home-computer, if you have an internet connection, it’s possible to communicate and collaborate together as a Roblox developer. Being able to collaborate anytime, anywhere makes remote working and team management much more efficient. It’s important to me that my team can connect wherever they are and collaborate together on our various projects.
Being able to effectively lead a team is not something that can be easily taught. Even so, I don’t think someone with the best qualifications would become the best leader. A good leader should inspire and support the people around them. And for me, being able to manage a remote team through Roblox certainly brings out a more human and creative side of myself, a side that people probably would not see otherwise.
The Future is a Virtual Co-Experience
“Anyone can go out and paint, anyone can go out and record a video on the web, and why can’t games be like that?”
While writing this, I remembered this quote from Justin Sousa, the head of community at Roblox, and it really spoke to me. Having the opportunity to do things that you could do in real life, but now online is a key part of the ‘virtual co-experience’ that Roblox was founded on. I think it can really change the world for the better.
Platforms like Roblox are fundamentally transforming our existing digital infrastructures through their vision to create an accessible and collaborative platform, one that the world has never seen before. Building a virtual co-experience on a global scale isn’t just a new idea, but it’s a new way of thinking. This way of thinking leads to the ability to create the tools that you need to bring this new digital world of shared collaboration to new heights.
If we go back to the Debate Society example, I believe if we transitioned from presenting through a video chat to conveying our thoughts and views through an avatar, we’d see more people willing to engage and participate.
Oscar Wilde said that if you “give a man a mask and he will tell you the truth.”
Avatars open an avenue for personalization and will result in people feeling more comfortable with themselves. Reducing the pressure one could feel on video or in person will open the door for more voices coming forward and more people feeling like it’s safe to express themselves.
The future of the workforce is changing, and that change has certainly been expedited recently. Before the pandemic forced organizations to rethink remote working, 47% of US Companies had never considered hiring remote employees with only 17% allowing employees to work remotely 5+ days a week. But now, many sectors have found ways that we can make remote working, well, work.
Now we need to look to the future and ask:
“Is this a future that you want to return to normal or just continue using tools that simply connect us?” Or could we strive to try something, create something new — something that lets us collaborate no matter where we are? Let’s not only change how we work, but also change the world for the better.
About the Author
Hi! I’m James, aka. DimwittedSorcery. I’m a Community Events Organizer, teaching through my Event’s Chapter about Cyber Security, Business Management, and Responsible eSports.
I’m also a Community Lead for exploreDev, where I help bring community education directly to aspiring and veteran developers. What drives me is that I’m always learning how to engage communities together through play!
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