What They Say
The ETH Zurich in Switzerland made a ten minute video that showed its concept of how intellectual working life could be made more efficient by managing actual and virtual events that can be either real time or asynchronous – in other words they can be dealt with when it is convenient. A VR headset effectively blocks the view of that kind of event which means that in tasks that need a level of ‘flow’ – such as programming or writing, there is less disruption. The system understands the ‘dependencies’ of different tasks, so makes sure that when they are viewed (using video recordings), they are viewed in an order that makes sense.
The work was published in a paper here.
What We Think
This is interesting as last week, after comments by Meta, I thought that I couldn’t imagine wanting to work using a headset. I still feel that way, but the video is interesting in showing how tasks being asynchronous could improve some working practices. One of the reasons that email can be such a great communication tool is that it is asynchronous. You can send it when you like and read it when you like, unlike Zoom or telephones or Whatsapp. However, the cynicism of my advanced years suggests to me that in many of the working environments I have been in over the years, I’m not sure I’d trust my co-workers not to use the system in ways it was not intended” (BR)
