Five years ago Ivan Bowman moved 800 miles away from his office.

First he & his coworkers tried email, phone calls, IM but it all felt very detached. ‘Out of site, out of mind’, they found.

Then they set up a ‘video portal’ in his old cube. This seems like a cool idea of giving the telecommuting person a physical home w/in the office. People can still drop by for chats. Meetings can easily be held there. The problem they found was the ambient watercooler conversations he couldn’t partake in. (although apparently he could hear very well – enough to hear those hallway conversations but not be able to contribute. how frustrating that must have been!).

The 3rd solution seems to be the winner. Now having a year’s worth of usage – ivan’s robot is working. A coworker put together a robot with webcam, laptop and enough batteries to last the work day. the robot can roam the halls, go to meetings, etc. it sounds like the perfect match of virtual & physical.

link: http://www.telepresenceoptions.com/2008/05/send_your_robot_to_work/