When I heard this past weekend that ABC News was going to be doing a series on the future of the workplace, my first thought was of my old virtual office in Second Life (reLink). My second thought was of the new mobile workforce that’s congregating at coffee shops around the country. My third thought was of Croquet and related news (e.g. the recent sale of 3DSolve to Lockheed Martin). My fourth thought was… well, needless to say, I’m interested in the topic.

Now ABC has been the only television station I’ve been able to receive for years, and I’m a fan of Betsy Stark, so I’m also admittedly biased on that count, but even so I think the segment is well done. Consequently, I’m looking forward to the remaining segments and suggest readers be on the lookout as well.

I want to add that the first installment was posted to YouTube (above) but that ABC is carrying it on their website (Link)… and, I assume, will host the remaining segments as well. I’m not too keen on posting YouTube videos that may be violating copyright, but for my part consider this a Fair Use review. That said, I won’t be posting any more. I’m also not sure where the remaining segments on ABC will go but if you search “virtual workplace” on their site, they should be easily found. Hopefully the above sampling will be enough to convince you it’s worth the trouble.

Lastly, the Virtual World News site mentions the segment (Link) and towards the end adds that virtual meetings in Second Life, which is heavily featured in the video, are still somewhat problematic. With any luck, that won’t be a reality for much longer if Linden Lab carries through with both their “grid of grids” work and open sources the back end.