Work can be overwhelming some days. The tasks are almost too much to handle with no hope of being able to sift through the steadily mounting paper work. How are you supposed to find time to enjoy your work? Are you supposed to enjoy your work in the first place? Some companies are implementing productive ways to bring more enjoyment to their employees. The business world is creatively reaching out in to the virtual world play arena to better connect. For example, instead of holding conference calls limited to voice-voice communication, companies are creating virtual meeting places where avatars of people can interact and bring together clients and businesses from across the world in one single space. With the aid of clients like Second Life and OpenSim, a company can create a virtual conference complex complete with interactive text boards, graphs, and access to internet data to name a few. The attendees can “physically” interact in the same virtual room via a virtual representation of themselves while, in reality, be separated by oceans. It may look like a video game, but this is also where the magic happens, where big decisions and deals are made.

The business world is not unique in its use of virtual worlds. There are universities and colleges across the world implementing this method for class lectures. Students can “attend” class in the virtual world created by their instructor and participate in class discussion. Even THE Ohio State University has a professor in Women’s Studies using Second Life for teaching and research.

Adapt this to science and you have the collaborative efforts of scientists across the world uniting in a single virtual space. As Sean Dague mentioned in his OpenSim (the open source alternative to Second Life) talk at the Ohio Linux Fest, whole molecules can be built in a visual ball and stick model. You can construct an entire folded protein, rotate it, and even zoom through it as if you were a single carbon looking for the chance to make the next covalent bond. Granted, there are programs out there that will allow 3D rendering of molecules (i.e. Stanford University’s Folding@Home available for many platforms including the PS3), but the added advantages of using OpenSim include the ability for a collaborative effort, a setting conducive to conducting business, and as open source client, new features can be added by anyone in the community. With OpenSim, researchers can share data, bring up articles on boards for others to see, and potentially even invite guest speakers for conferences.

Scientists live for their work. They enjoy it to such an extent that it happens to consume all of their thoughts, day or night. Bringing clients like OpenSim to the science community will help maintain that sense of enjoyment. After all, when those brilliant ideas strike, just hop on to OpenSim and share with trusted collaborators, postdocs, or doctorate students because you know the science consumes them too.

1. momsie

   I love the ideology of using second life (kind of what Sarah and team won with at USIS)…but here’s my question: so much of what is communicated in a boardroom, etc, has to do with body language and facial expression—can avatars assume those in the split second between hearing the words you speak and the sound coming out of the avatar’s mouth? Or is the avatar less an actual human communicator and more a representation to look at for the hearer, and when he/she replies, they have a symbol of you before them?

   Oct 3rd, 2009

2. wideopenmind

   The idea for writing this was confirmed when hearing about the use of OpenSim and knowing Sarah all ready proposed using Second Life at work. Using it for science is a newer concept for me. In a book Sarah let Steve borrow (”How to Wow”), it talked about how most of communication is through non-verbal cues. This leads to the downside of interacting with people via avatars as you mentioned. There aren’t any reactionary facial expressions, so you’re limited to reading sarcasm, joking, and other verbal cues in a text format (communication by instant messaging).

   Oct 5th, 2009

3. popsie

   There are many fascinating social factors around this, I’m sure. One that comes to mind is the body language differences across oceans. Would masking these actually aid communication in some cases to avoid distraction or even misreads? How is this a factor among people who already know each other well vs those who have never met? This side of eternity I think that face to face is superior to mouse to mouse.

   Now when space and time limitations cease to be — wow! “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” and “now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,[a]we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”

   Nov 7th, 2009

4. Bruce

   There are many fascinating social factors around this, I’m sure. One that comes to mind is the body language differences across oceans. Would masking these actually aid communication in some cases to avoid distraction or even misreads? How is this a factor among people who already know each other well vs those who have never met? This side of eternity I think that face to face is superior to mouse to mouse.

   Now when space and time limitations cease to be — wow! “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” and “now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,[a]we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is”

   May 19th, 2010

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