Workplace of the Future? IBM's Virtual World is one possiblity.

I know its been tried before, I participated in a similar experiment in the early 90's while working for AT&T with limited success. Now IBM is taking a stab at designing the work place of the future, in it workers from all over the world would meet and interact in a Virtual Environment similar to Second Life, called the Metaverse but with the security features that IBM expects already in place.

This time communications may have advanced enough to actually pull it off. The primary complaints of Telecommuting experiments in the past is that managers cannot verify that their charges are actually on the job. A Virtual Environment solves the problem because the managers will see their charges at work in the virtual environment, or at least a virtual representation of their charges.

If this type of work environment were to take hold, the only limitation a Virtually Enabled company employee would be high speed network access and a suitable PC. Think of the savings in time, office space and last but not least travel expenses, not a minimal amount given oil hitting $100 a barrel these days.

I hope their experiment or another similar experiment solves the Virtual Worker problem once and for all, and we'll all be able to live and work where we really want to in the near future.

For more on IBM's Virtual World experiment check out PC World - Business Center: IBM Virtual World Defies Laws of Physics:

IBM's uptight, starched-shirt image has survived for many decades, but the stereotype may finally meet its demise at the hands of a giant boulder and a meeting room up in the sky.

IBM is building a virtual world to help its employees collaborate, and while it's not the first big technology company to do so, Big Blue may be unusual in that it decided not to mess with those silly laws of physics in its own virtual environment.

"Why do we need walls and ceilings to do a meeting?" asks Michael Ackerbauer of IBM, who is building the company's virtual world, called the Metaverse. "We've had meetings under water and up in the air. Meetings are where you want them to be."

There have been some mixed reactions to the unconventional model, Ackerbauer admits.

"Some are saying 'wow, this is great, I'm ready to go.' Others are scratching their heads," he says.

Ackerbauer described the Metaverse project this week at Big Blue's Manhattan offices, where IBM CIO Mark Hennessy was meeting with analysts and journalists to show off a range of technologies IBM uses to help its employees collaborate.

IBM's two-year-old Metaverse project is in its early stages and it's not clear just how extensively it will be used throughout the company, which has 372,000 employees worldwide. While a small subset of IBMers do real work in the Metaverse, some of Ackerbauer's initiatives are simply experiments to see what's possible.

That's where the giant boulder comes in. The greenish rock is several times the height of the virtual world's human inhabitants, who gather around the boulder like office workers chatting by a water cooler.

"You can kick this boulder about 1,400 kilometers," Ackerbauer says. "We're just coming up with goofy games on the fly. Let's see how far we can kick it ... what would it be like in zero gravity?"

Something useful will come out of this, Ackerbauer believes. If a few people from different countries gather around the boulder, they're more likely to work together in the future, he says.

"There's business value to making work fun and making them want to come in every day," he says.

Ackerbauer and his team of 10 employees have learned both from massively multiplayer online games as well as Second Life. IBM interacts with customers in Second Life already, and owns plenty of virtual Second Life real estate.

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