What will the workplace of the future look like? Will it be an extension of the present, with a physical office space and a team of workers, including telecommuters, temporary workers, and outsourced support staff, and the workers who toil at the physical office space? Perhaps the virtual offices, with only a post office box, will be more prominent? While today, many companies use virtual workers for computer work and secretarial work, virtual offices are starting to become ubiquitous as well.

Virtual worlds

Virtual worlds, such as Second Life, Entropia, and Google’s Lively, are obvious locations for virtual work. There are more than 100 youth-oriented virtual worlds online or in development.¹ These virtual worlds are used by people from all over the world. World of Warcraft has 8.5 million subscribers; Habbo Hotel, a Finnish social game, has more than 7.5 million users² and Second Life as 1.2 million users.³

Many people run online businesses connected solely to these virtual worlds. Architects, engineers, clothing designers, and product designers all find work creating virtual buildings, virtual cars, avatar clothing and accessories, weapons and costumes, and other tools used by avatars in these virtual worlds. The needed skill set is similar to the real-world, including a mastery of programming and design and 3-D modeling software, as well as financial skills to manage virtual currency transactions that can be cashed in for real money.

Many institutions use second life for educational purposes. Medical schools such as the University of Kansas Medical Center use Second Life to simulate medical procedures, to counsel schizophrenic patients dealing with hallucinations, and to practice detecting heart murmurs.⁴ Case Western University School of Dental Medicine use Second Life to help students practice communications skills with mock patients.⁵ The Second Life Bar Association organizes seminar for lawyers wishing to attend continuing education courses and learn about cutting-edge issues.⁶

Second Life is truly an alternative version of reality, with convention centers (such as Virtualis) that host trade shows, schools, homes, dance clubs, concert venues, government buildings, stores, vacation spots, museums, theatres, counseling centers, and more. Many have quit their “real” jobs to work in this virtual world.

Other Virtual Jobs

Virtual work though can also be found outside the “virtual worlds.” Freelance workers can find jobs online in graphic design, writing, engineering, translation, marketing, accounting, administrative and legal services, and more.

Virtual Law firms are taking root online. Virtual Law Partners opened up their virtual office in July 2008 and plan to offer competitive rates by eliminating the costs of running a physical office, in addition to minimizing their environmental impact. The firm plans to add four new attorneys a month and becomes a global practice. It hopes to become profitable within a year. With no requirements on billable hours and a flexible schedule, Virtual Law Partners are already swamped with resumes.

Snagfilms, offer documentary filmmakers a platform to show feature-length, professionally-produced, documentary films in a virtual movie theatre. This site differs from Youtube, which only allows short videos clips to be uploaded to the site by amateurs and professional alike. Snagfilms offers widgets that can be embedded into blogs and social networking sites. Using streaming technology, Snagfilms allows users to buy the DVD. Snagfilms relies on viral marketing to get the word out about its product. Profits are made from advertising and DVD sales, so the movies are free to watch.⁷

Going Virtual

ITBusiness, a Canadian website, offers suggestions to anyone interested in building a virtual office. Their suggestions include:
1) hiring a virtual receptionist and using Skype for outbound long-distance calls, as well as for conference calls;
2) using on-line software, such as Google Docs and Zoho software, for word processing, spreadsheets, and other functions that can be stored and shared online;
3) using a robotic personal assistant, such as Highrise, to organize your address book and to create a caseload for each of your projects;
4) outsourcing your calendar to online calendars such as Google Calendar, which allows users to see, suggest, and comment on others scheduled activities;
5) holding virtual meetings on sites such as GoToMeeting and freeconference.com.⁸

What is incredible about most of these suggestions is that many of them are free or very low cost, especially compared to the costs of similar non-virtual options.

Josh Catone, a blogger for Sitepoint.com, a technology blog, notes the pros and cons for working virtually. Working virtually has lower overhead costs since there are no rent or transportation fees and there area also great online tools to keep in touch. However, it is difficult ot raise funds when potential funders want to meet the whole team. There can be a loss of productivity if workers are easily distracted. There is a loss of face-to-face contact, which can sometimes achieve much more than virtual meetings. Finally, social aspect is lost, which means that some workers may get lonely.

Conclusion

The nature of work is constantly changing as the Internet continues to expand and become more and more central to businesses around the world. As with many other trends, outsourcing for the best and cheapest workers will increase competition for jobs everywhere. Workers will need to be flexible, technology-savvy, and creative to achieve success in the globalized workforce.

1 Tiffany, Laura. “Virtual Success.” MSNBC. July 14, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25677430/
2 Sinha, Manish. “Second Life: Poster child, whipping boy or just a passing fad?” http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1177648
3 Stroud, Sara. “Virtual Law.” Times-Herald. July 23, 2008. http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_9970203
4 Chang, Alvin. “Virtual world provides learning ground for KU med students.” The Kansas City Star. July 14, 2008. http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/story/705210.html
5 “Virtual Toothache Helps Student Dentists.” Science Daily. July 24, 2008. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080721114604.htm
6 Stroud, Sara. “Virtual Law.” Times-Herald. July 23, 2008. http://www.timesheraldonline.com/ci_9970203
7 Mossberg, Walter. “SnagFilms Finds Virtual Theaters For Documentaries.” Wall Street Journal. July 17, 2008. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121625545312460425.html?mod=2_1567_middlebox
8 http://www.itbusiness.ca/it/client/en/home/News.asp?id=49081

* Picture: http://www.flickr.com/photos/photolibraries/2319666912/in/photostream/