Are We Really Moving Towards the Virtual Office?

After listening to the presentations on Wednesday, I was really intrigued by the information given on the virtual office. I had not idea that some companies existed without having a physical office and further, conducted all of their daily business strictly from laptops and cell phones. While this option is great for small companies who don’t have the funds to shell out huge amounts of money for an office space, I think a very vital component of work life is lost: daily face-to face communication. Human interaction is possibly one of my most important aspects of my day. I can’t imagine the day when I only talked to people from my home and on my cell phone- that sounds miserable.

At the beginning of our reading this week there is a quote by Voltaire that states, “Work keeps at bay three great evils: boredom, vice, and need.” I believe Voltaire makes a simple yet truthful point. As discussed in the presentation, there are positives to a virtual office, and there are also an abundance of negatives that include the some of these “evils.” For one, boredom is definitely a risk in my eyes. Certain types of the teleworkers breed isolation. What if you have ideas for a new pitch or questions you just quickly want to bounce off some of your coworkers? There’s no one around. In addition to that, as mentioned in the presentation, isolation can hurt you when it comes time for raises and promotions. When you are never at the office, it gives the idea that you aren’t really adding anything to the company or organization.

I know this shift is probably inevitable, but is it really a positive change? There are still so many unanswered questions. Which form of telework would be the less destructive to the physical office space? Will there be a balance of the physical and the virtual office? Would you feel comfortable working in a virtual office, or would you even want to?

Enabling Technologies Should Matter to us All

What struck me most about Gary Bishop's talk was the line that disabled people are a

“a minority you can join at any time. ” This struck me, as I had taken a first year seminar on wheel chair accessibility at the UNC system schools, and my professor there would constantly remind us that we are all just "temporarily abled." Indeed, we will all eventually, if not through an accident then just naturally, lose our abilities to do what we consider "basic" functions. Our eye sight will fade. Our hearing will deteriorate. Our joints and muscles aren't going to want to make the same walks up the stairs that they used to. And so from this point of view I believe that enabling technologies are important not just for the blind or deaf or those confined to wheel chairs, but for us all--because we are all likely to join the "disabled" list at some point in our lives.

What I also liked about Bishop's talk was his focus on public service--that working on enabling technologies is a great way to give back and make some people's lives a little easier, a little more fun. This is certainly a worthy goal. When working on my project for the first year seminar, the class saw how grossly un-wheelchair friendly UNC-sytem facilities were. At some schools, the disability services buildings weren't even wheelchair accessible. This is why it's so important that enabling technologies work to make people's lives easier, because their lives are filled with constant challenges. And as Bishop enthusiastically reminded the audience, this type of public service can be a lot of fun. I loved his idea for a "create your own adventure" books--these could work well not only for young kids, but for aging adults looking for some excitement and fantasy in their lives. The iDaft game was also extremely creative, but also extremely useful.

What I'm wondering then is what will it take for enabling technologies to receive more support and funding? Do we think the engineers are going to need to show how it helps not only people with "permanent disabilities," but also the rest of us who will eventually become disabled in some way? Or maybe do they just need to get them into more schools so they can show broader ranges of success? Or will this have to be done one computer programmer/engineer at a time?

The "paperless" world...

The presentation on centralized medical databases started my thinking about this topic. Specifically how the group presented the fact that President Obama is requiring all hospitals to become 'computerized' by 2014, and pushing it forward with his administration planning on spending $19billion to modernize medical-record keeping. This would be helpful in many ways, and I fully support this modernization, agreeing with all the positives that the team presented on Wednesday. Also, this week in the DTH there were letter's to the editor about the University cutting back on paper supplies in order to cut back simple expenses in the budget. This letter talked about the ridiculous amount of paper that is printed from the ITS printers each day, much of it for class notes, etc.

The recent activity mentioned above started my thinking about the eventual "paperless world". What will this involved? Basic digitalization of nearly everything, inclduing every form of media and eventually money. Now, some of you may be thinking, "Most media are digitized already, and we use plastic cards very frequently", well yes this is very true, but think about if the hardcopy didn't exist. Hardcopy forms still exist and are printed all the time for mass communication, but eventually will there ever be a time where we use and read digital copies of everything? I think this will happen, sooner than later, and so does Bill Gates. An article (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article584108.ece) I found, has Gates quoting that the world is on the verge of this digital age. Though the article is somewhat dated (2005), this still does not change his nor my opinion about this topic.

There are several potential problems with complete digitization, including the ease of corruption by hackers and various other unethical problems we have touched on in lecture that could occur. But if you think about the positivies, and how our society thrives on the ease of gaining information then this really is feasible. It will start with healthcare, as they will eventually throw away (burn) all medical records, and then mass media will begin the stoppage of hard copies. Textbooks will become electronic and we'll all be taking notes on our tablet PCs. What do you think our society will be like when the digital age fully takes over? What are your views on absorbing current media only through the screen on your computer? Do you think a complete modernization into the "paperless world" is even feasible? Do the benefits outweigh the negatives of this ever happening? These are a few of the questions that come to mind as I conclude, so I leave it to you... what do you think about where our technology is taking us?

Wokplace E Monitoring

After listening to the two groups present their two different topics on Wednesday, there was one topic that stuck out more than the other: workplace e monitoring. I always knew that workplace e monitoring existed but until the group explained it. I was shocked at the extent that companies will go in order to secure company information. Workplace e monitoring is a neccesary entity to ensure that the business is functioning as ordered but to what extent does this process become evasive. I believe that workplace e monitoring can help out functioning of a business but I do think that employers these days are taking it little overboard.
For example, I work in a grocery store as a customer service supervisor. One day while I was helping a customer at the desk, I received a phone call from someone at corporate. While I was talking to the person from corporate, I had taken out my cell phone to look to see who texted me. The person from corporate asked me, "Do you have your phone out?". At first, I could not say anything but "Huh" but then he repeated himself and asked if I had my phone out. He then described to the tee exactly what I was doing and this made me a little uneasy. This only made me think about how far a company was willing to go to ensure there was not foul play at their expense.
I think that workplace e monitoring is good overrall but should be limited. When it allows for you to access a person's most personal thoughts and activities, then it has gone overboard. If workplaces are taking the initiative to track their employees, then who's next? Will Universities start tracking the activities of their students to ensure "SAFETY". I don't know but I know that I am not for it at all

Who's Responsible?

Our speaker on Monday, Gary Bishop, helped make us aware of the usability issues that the disabled deal with on a daily basis. It is obvious that new technologies are assisting with these growing problems, but they are also making it more difficult. Each new technology deals with a new set of issues that the disabled are forced to deal with. I cannot imagine trying to keep up with the world today without eyesight, or be one of the teenagers with cerebral palsy who must sit and watch the other kids read or play games wishing they could participate. Technologies I rely on daily such as text messaging or online news would become difficult to use.

Luckily technology has allowed us to create screen readers so we can get up to date news. And now video games and books can be more interactive to allow disabled kids to play, but these tools come at a great price. Because there aren’t enough users to drive down the price.

Dr. Bishop mentioned the ultimate issue is the cost of keep up with these new technologies. This high need with low number of users has driven the price of these devices to the point that what he believes only the Universities can supply them. The question is does it become our responsibility as an institution to supply the disabled with usability applications and devices such as the ones he presented? And can there be a market for private industry to develop cost-efficient products?

Data mining and googling yourself...

One issue that really struck me this week was data mining. I did not realize that there were private companies doing data mining and collecting information on private citizens. That bothered me more than if it was just the government doing it because at least that is something that is not such a far fetched activity for the government whether it is legal or not. But the fact that there are private companies making logs of where I go on the internet, what I like to buy, etc is really unsettling. The internet creates a false sense of anonymity and reading the text and watching the video made me realize just how much of a trace I am leaving without even realizing it. I know some of it is supposed to make things easier for consumers like by keeping a record of what you buy the store can suggest things you may like but I don’t really find that to be that helpful especially when amazon sends me emails telling about new releases for obscure things.

I started to wonder what kind of things people could find out about me on the internet with my minimal skills. I found out a lot of stuff that I did on the internet just by typing in old email address, log-in names etc. It was crazy the amount of stuff I could find and for how far back. I could trace posts that I made on blogs and forums under a particular name. I even found pictures that I had uploaded on forums that I was not even a member of. I’d never thought before this week to google user names because I figured it did not matter because no one knows who I am, but that really isn’t the case. For one, in some places my email address was visible and in other places my name. If someone happened to find out one of my personal email addresses, they could google and find all of this stuff about me and get a really odd picture of what my interests are. The fact that anyone could read comments left by me is odd since taken out of context they could seem crazy.

During the video, they were asking people on the street about the monitoring that was going on and a lady said it didn’t bother her because she had nothing to hide. But, it really isn’t about that really. It is about principle and about choice. You should be able to chose what sort of information to reveal about yourself. One’s purchasing habits should not be so easily accessible. Do you think that data mining is a serious fringe on personal rights? Does it bother you that it is used for commercial profit? Also would after reading the text, watching the video and listening to presentations about e-monitoring affect the way you conduct yourself on the internet in the future?

THE BUSINESS OF ENABLING TECHNOLOGIES

               In business, analysts and investors are always looking for the next big thing.  A company with a lot of room for growth has the potential to do very well because it has room to expand and make a lot of money.  Enabling technologies is a rarely discussed industry in the mainstream media, giving it potential to be a diamond in the rough.  If researchers like Professor Bishop are able to create effective enabling technologies with reasonable price tags, there is the possibility for great upside for a worthy cause.  Imagine an extremely effective device developed for autistic children that falls within a reasonable price range.  If you were the parent of an autistic child, you would be very interested in purchasing this device.

The application of enabling technologies could act as an intellectual bridge between those of us who have disabilities and those of us who don’t.  Professor Bishop highlighted the example of Stephen Hawking, whose vast intellectual abilities are misrepresented by the physical challenges he faces in seemingly mundane activities like walking and talking.  One could also look at the case of Kim peek who can read a book in an hour and remember 98.7% of the book’s contents.  Although Kim has the ability to communicate, he does suffer from a rare cognitivie syndrome.  With technologies like Professor Bishop’s tarheel reader, a disabled child’s cognitive faculties could be stimulated resulting in an award winning author or poet.               

                The music applications of enabling technologies are also very intriguing. Children and adults with physical disabilities are extremely limited in mechanical movement and manual dexterity.  This limitations are usually extensive enough to prevent them from operating normal instruments like the guitar of piano.  However, these physical limitations offer no indication of one’s appreciation for music.  There could be scores of disabled patients with extreme musical intelligence but little opportunity for expression.  The chord chaoscillator that Professor Bishop demonstrated could have limitless applications for disabled patients. 

  Who knows the long-term cost benefit for enabling technologies.  There have been millions if not billions of people born throughout the course of history with cognitive or physical disabilities but what has been their contribution to society [through no fault of their own].  If enabling technologies increased the learning capacity or creative expression of disable patients by just 10% who knows what scientific discoveries could be made, what books could be written, or how many musicians could realize their true ability.  Perhaps if enough pioneers like Professor Bishop emerge, enabling technologies could become a viable and invaluable part of developed civilizations.  What other applications of enabling technologies could you imagine?  How likely is it that enabling technologies will become a formidable industry?