This article came through on my twitter feed yesterday from Technology Review: The Rise of the Virtual Office. Since this is one of my main areas of research, I have tons of thoughts of this.
First, I think it’s incorrect to talk of the “rise” of the virtual office. It’s been rising for quite a while. It has well risen. If we were making bread, it’s past time to put this thing in the oven and bake it. I think the best way of thinking of how pervasive the “virtual” is in our work is that there is no such comparison as a virtual to a face-to-face team. ALL TEAMS ARE VIRTUAL–even those who interact regularly face-to-face. You can count on team members to also communicate through email, text, and POT (plain old telephone). Thus, all teams are virtual teams now–just on a continuum from low (same location, but still use email) to high virtuality (international).
Second, although the article starts by discussing that virtual organizations remain “organizations” with strict hierarchies (a highly debatable statement) and the human need for social interaction at work (I agree completely), it then spends the rest of the time discussing the importance of technology in virtual offices. I know that it is my bias as a psychologist who studies people communicating over technology (and the journal is Technology Review–not People Using Technology Review). But without people, technology is nothing. And yes, security is important, but the virtual office without the virtual workers is not an office at all.
In any case, maybe it is time for a People Using Technology Review journal. (Although some marketing guru could come up with a better name than that) Managers and other practitioners as well as researchers who follow the current trends in technology should also know about the current trends in research–like Wanda Orlikowski’s new sociomaterial theoretical approach to understanding how technology affects the structure of work and the health and productivity of its employees. Actually, her approach is so comprehensive, she is arguing that we have neglected the physical (as well as technological) components of work in *all* of our research, and our organizational theories have significant problems because of it. Indeed, statements like that make me want to arrange a conference call between her and Dan Stokols and say, “You two need to talk.”
So here is where I backtrack. I hate criticizing other people’s work. Even when I write a review for a paper that is absolutely awful, I always include something supportive and positive (“Nice font!”) to them and then say something a bit more caustic to the editor (“UGH!!!”). And yesterday’s article is the start of a month long discussion of technology at work. So you have to start somewhere! I also went back to Technology Review to see if I misread something about the original article. Today’s article is on securing the virtual office, so perhaps they were using yesterday’s article to set up the importance for today’s article.
Nonetheless, it seems like a good idea to walk across campus to Dr. Orlikowski’s office and see what she has to say about the virtual office. Technology is exciting. Technology can do some really cool things. But without serving or being used by people, it doesn’t exist (cf Google +). Ok, maybe that’s too broad of a statement, but I hope it makes you think.