day 1393: Virtual Reality?

 While I am on a pilgrimage walk on the Camino de Santiago (St. James Way) in Spain, I have asked some of the most committed and courageous faith-driven business leaders I know to guest contribute to Purposed worKING.  Enjoy! - Rusty

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“Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works.  And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near.”

It seems like we read about it almost daily—a small tech start-up is purchased for billions of dollars by a tech behemoth.  One recent deal that garnered widespread publicity was the acquisition of Oculus VR by Facebook.  Oculus is the maker of the Oculus “Rift” virtual reality (VR) headset that promises to finally deliver on the promise of VR that has always seemed just out of reach since the dawn of sci-fi movies and Star Trek.  When you consider Oculus’ product and Facebook’s global reach as a social network, you can picture a virtual community on a scale that is hard to fathom.

Oculus’ VR technology is allegedly so advanced that the author of a January 2014 Gizmodo review of the product exclaimed in the article’s headline, “I Wore the New Oculus Rift and I Never Want to Look at Real Life Again”(!) (My emphasis).

Wow.  That’s a bold statement—a technology so powerful that it might tempt humans to replace real life with virtual reality.  But if this is a possibility, perhaps it’s important to ask:  What are the social consequences of replacing real life with virtual reality? What are the consequences to a work culture influenced by virtual tools such as video conference, and eventually—virtual reality?

I’m currently working on a special project team for my employer.  Ordinarily, we do a weekly conference call or video conference to touch base on project milestones and work through outstanding issues.  We’re able to do this because our employer—like every other modern business—has invested in various forms of connected and wireless technology that allows us to communicate no matter where we are. 

Surely, there are certain advantages, including cost savings and efficiency.  That said, have you ever found yourself incredibly frustrated on a conference call, video conference, WebEx, or in an e-mail exchange with colleagues or clients?  The truth is, a lot can be lost in translation, and we’re not often as good at communicating virtually as we are in-person, where we can read body language and build rapport.  Nuance and context are often casualties of these kinds of muted exchanges.  How efficient is it, really, if everyone hangs up the phone feeling as though the others didn’t understand their point of view? 

Recently, I traveled for a day trip to San Francisco for some client meetings for the project team I am on.  In just 5 hours, we did more to build trust and coalesce around the shared goals and vision for our project than we had accomplished in 4 months of weekly 90-minute phone calls.  Even better, we ended our time together with a casual lunch on a sunny patio with gentle breeze that allowed us to soak in the real world around us.  Simply put, we had acknowledged our humanity and innate desire for community, and in doing so, had been incredibly productive in a business sense.  Points were made clearly, differences were bridged, and voices were heard.  We made progress.

It’s tempting to go all-in on technology, as Facebook did, based on the noble promises of new modes of communication.  Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook imagines a VR world where you could be “enjoying a courtside seat at a game, studying in a classroom of students and teachers all over the world, or consulting a doctor face-to-face—just by putting on your goggles in your home.” 

Surely, technology can be used for good.  But as Christians, we should know better than to go all-in on technology.  As God ordained in Genesis 2, and as Jesus taught us during His earthly ministry, we were meant to be in community.  Real community.  The kind of community where crowds gather to hear, feet are washed, miracles are performed, and trespasses are forgiven. 

So often, we fire off a quick email or text message in the name of efficiency.  It’s worth pondering that while these new tools such as virtual reality carry the promise of improved communication, they can also lose a lot in translation.   It’s also worth considering that in Jesus’ teachings, He intentionally sought out human interaction. His ministry was quite literally, hands-on.  Perhaps He was on to something, and perhaps we’d be well-served to intentionally seek opportunities to build community with our colleagues and clients just as He built community—in the flesh.  And perhaps that’s good for business.

Reference: Hebrews 10: 24-25

Tim Owen

Working husband and dad, trying to figure it all out

 

day 1315: Doing Something In All The Same Way...

"Then make me truly happy be agreeing wholeheartedly with each other, loving one another and working together with one mind and purpose"

If you ever want to do a study on business productivity, it would be fascinating to start with the amount of time and energy that is put into trying to get people to do something in all the same way. Think about that for a moment and in your own experience, how often you have had to have that conversation with someone or a group?  We all have done it.  We have to to win over the wills of individuality and streaks of independence to get people to conform to a a way of doing something so that we can have measurable and predictable outcomes.  Software engineering and startup companies spend an enormous amount of time doing just this.  There have been books after books written on the subject and consultants have made millions of dollars on the simple premise of getting people to do the same things.  Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg himself is after this with his Open Compute Project.  He thinks he can be the one to create a new way of computing, sharing code and getting people to write code in the same way that can be transferred across countries, companies and time zones. This will require lots of people changing to conform to do something new, all the same way. Making change happen in people is complex, hard, and many times frustrating and futile.  But, we have to do so.  We know that the boat moves in the water more efficiently and faster if every oar goes into and out of the water in a synchronized fashion.  If the oars could do it by themselves, then it would be easy. It's those hands that are connected to a body that are connected to a brain that make it hard.

God calls for all believers to believe in and follow Him all in one way.  Our deviation from that way is our sinful, human way of thinking that we can do it better or do it without the conformity that we are called to submit.  Each and every day, especially at work, we are called into areas where we can choose to submit and conform to His commands and teaching, or we can go it solo into the ways of the world.  While usually not areas that are devastating to us, even the little ways of disagreement, back-channeling, and office politics, can damage our witness and take over our submission to His will and way for us. We will face more than one of those today.  If we are in the spirit of doing it His way, then we will better ward off the temptations and the straying away from what He wants for us.

Reference: Philippians 2:2 (New Living Translation)

day 896: Success Patterns

"Meditate on it day and night so you may be sure to obey all that is written in it. Only then will you succeed."

I wrote about it last week and it continues to dominate the business sections.  That is the Facebook IPO and all that surrounds the event. As I write this now, the stock is down 13% from it's offering price and all of the skeptics are pounding on their chests.  Many like to say that the success of Facebook, and other internet companies, has come too easily and that because of this we shouldn't value these companies as highly as those that have been around for many decades, if now not centuries.  I would point out though that even though Facebook has only been around for eight years that the person hours that have gone into that company might rival that of decades of an established company. A pattern of success for start-ups is the commitment and sheer energy, hours and cycles that go into the company.  Anyone who has studied Mark Zuckerberg knows that he has been nearly one-dimensional over the last eight years with his work on Facebook dominating everything else in his life.  It certainly has paid off for him and I believe he has earned his success. His success pattern has been one of extreme commitment, dedication and devotion to something he loved, his business.

Joshua gave us a verse about a success pattern for our own lives and that is in how we utilize God's Word.  Think about if we were as committed and devoted to God's Word as we were to the other things in our lives, what might happen for us?  Joshua says that we need to meditate and obey to receive success.  So, simply, think this way about the Bible:  Adopt the pattern of "reading, thinking, speaking and doing" to achieve success.  Read God's Word.  Think about the Bible day and night. Speak out what we have learned and know from the Bible (verses, lessons, etc.), and then do what God's Word says.  It is then that we will find the success that God wants us to have.  It's a simple, but not always easy pattern to follow, but one that we should not ignore.

Reference: Joshua 1:8 (New Living Testament)

day 890: Facing Up, Part 1

" I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked;..."

There's been lots of news so far and there will be more in the coming days about the impending Facebook IPO.  As the larger stories about the company's financial capability get written we also see the stories about the team and the "human interest" stuff.  The one that caught my eye yesterday was the fashion story of Mark Zuckerberg and his "hoodie".  It appears that he decided to wear his hoodie to the investor meetings and that caused some stir among Wall Street.  One investor went as far to say as it was "disrespectful".  I chuckled.  I was always taught that you dress like the customer and if you followed that rule you'd be fine.  In this case, on the surface, it would seem that the Wall Street guy was correct, but when you get down under it, with the over-subscribed demand for Facebook IPO shares, the table has been turned and Mark and Facebook are the customers with all of the money guys wanting/needing their share of the action. If they don't buy into Facebook and the company gets the $104B market valuation, then they have egg on their face.  There is no doubt that the Facebook team are going to go through growing pains but for the moment, until Friday, they are still the young turks, in control of their own destiny and acting so.  There will be a moment soon when it won't feel that way and they will need to grow up.  More on that tomorrow...

Jesus had an exchange with Peter about growing up and foretelling what the end of Peter's life would be about.  It was a good word for all of us in our spiritual journey.  To know what it is to grow older and wiser in our walk with Christ we have to be willing to give up those things that we did when we were "young" and maybe not so wise.  The same can happen to us each day.  We grow older and wiser with each passing day and each moment of decision.  If we think about this regularly, we will find that we can stop for a moment and think before we act or before we speak and apply the filter of what would I have done before and what should I be doing now...later when I know more.  Today, we are going to be faced with decisions that demand us to think backwards before acting forward; decisions that force us to face up to who we are and also who we want to be.  Let's consider each moment and decision in that light today and see if we are growing older and wiser and more like who Christ wants us to be.

Reference:  John 21:18 (New Living Testament)