Presentation for Day 2 of PULV Intl. Week Seminar on Virtual Worlds

1. WORKING AND
LEARNING IN VIRTUAL
WORLDS – DAY 2
William Barnett, Ph.D.
Entergy Endowed Professor of CIS
College of Business Administration, University of Louisiana at Monroe

2. 1. What are the problems caused by working
in virtual teams?
2. How can organizations overcome these
difficulties
3. How can Virtual Worlds improve work in
today’s highy virtualized workforce?
Virtual World at Work

3. Virtual Distance
 Problems with virtual teams and other workers
 Lots of virtual workers
 Virtual Distance
 Defined by Lojeski and Reilly
 Psychological feeling of being away from others
 Creates critical risks to work team success
“Tech isn’t hard…people are”
Dr. Barnett to IS Development Course

4. Elements of Virtual Distance

5. Physical Distance
 Ways that workforce members are seperated
by real things both temporal and spatial
 Elements
 Geography – actual distance
 Temporal – Time zone differences and dispersant
work schedules
 Organizational – sense of separateness by
differences in organizational affiliations
 Us vs. Them

6. Operational Distance
 The feeling that you’re on a different playing
field than those you work with
 Elements
 Communication distance –result of feeling that
interactions are less meaningful
 Multitasking – occupied my many and varied tasks.
Disturbances while working (email, IM)
 Readiness Distance – detachment that grows when
tech support can’t fix problems in a timely manner
 Distribution asymmetry – uneven distribution of
personnel from various locations

7. Affinity Distance
 Occurs when we don’t establish the kinds of
personal relationships that satisfy our social
needs
 Elements
 Cultural distance – caused by differences in team
member values (internal rules/guidelines)
 Social Distance-range of people from different social
positions
 Relationship Distance- caused by lack of
connections/relationships from past working initiatives
 Interdependence Distance-commitment or lack of it
between team members

8. Increasing Social Presence
 Increased Social Presence can reduce Virtual
Distance
 Extent that communication medium supports a
feeling that those involved are jointly
interacting
 “in the moment”
 “interacting freely”
 Providing a common Context
 Elements

9. Elements of Social Presence
 Copresence – parties are in the same
surroundings
 Visibility – parties see each other
 Audibility – parties can hear each other
 Contemporality – parties receive utterances at
the time they are produced
 Simularity – parties can send and receive
messages at once
 Sequentiallity – turn taking

10. Communication Media
Richness
 Improved media richness can also mitigate
elements of Virtual Distance
 Rich Media exchange supports:
 Use of Natural Language
 Paralinguistic Cues
 Ability to personalize information
 Rapid feedback

11. Virtual Work Constraint Model
Cost Presence
Distance
Barnett, Griffin, and Wood 2009, Whitepaper: Elements of Virtual World Implementation

12. Case: Louisiana Board of Regents

13. Avatars: Dorky and Divine
 How can working as an avatar in a virtual
environment overcome my real world issues?
 Avatars become an extension of ourselves
 Media Equation (shared experience)
 We’re wired like that (Mirror Neurons)
So, why do you watch sports on TV?
 Active use
 Social interaction is reclaimed from the
anonymous web

14. Social Aspects of an Avatar
 Elements
 Profile – Your vital statistics
 Friends – Your Immediate Society
 Groups – Your Distant Society
 Avatar Personality Types
 Explorer
 Socializer
 Achievers
 Controllers

15. So, Who is your Avatar?
 Class discussion:
 Who is your avatar?
 What is your avatar’s demographic?
 What kind of Groups did you join?
 What ways do you use the “Metaverse”?
 How could you use the “Metaverse”?

16. Homework: Meetup
 Self select into 3-5 person groups
 Meet in Second Life
 Find a business*
 Why would you buy from this business?
 Why would you NOT buy from this business?
 What do you think they are doing wrong as they
try to get your business?
* Business must not violate laws and regulations of PULV, of the EU, of
France, the United States, or the State of Louisiana.