September 5th, 2007 by 
Mr. Juice
Have A Robot You Control Be In The Office For You
Hello Stupid!
September 01, 2007 Programmer Ivan Bowman spends his days at iAnywhere Solutions Inc. in much the same way his colleagues do. He writes code, exchanges notes in other developers’ offices, attends meetings and, on occasion, hangs out in the kitchen or lounge over coffee and snacks. About the only thing he can’t do is drink the coffee or eat the snacks — or touch anything, for that matter. It’s not that Bowman doesn’t have hands or a mouth; they’re just in Halifax, along with the rest of his body. In fact, it’s not really Bowman in the Waterloo office at all. It’s IvanAnywhere, a robot Bowman uses to interact with his colleagues in Waterloo from his home office 1,350 kilometres away. “Robot” is a bit of a stretch, actually. IvanAnywhere is basically a coat rack on wheels with attached speakers, camera and touch-screen computer. The computer screen displays a live shot of Bowman’s face from his living room in Nova Scotia. But in the three months since IvanAnywhere first went online, he has become such a normal part of the third floor at iAnywhere that co-workers barely even notice they’re talking to a machine rather than to Bowman’s human form. “We are all so used to Ivan, they don’t even give it a second thought,” says Glenn Paulley, Bowman’s boss and the originator of the IvanAnywhere idea. When Bowman has a question for a colleague, he doesn’t pick up the phone; he uses his joystick to drive his doppelganger to the team member’s office. If Paulley needs Bowman’s time on a software issue, he calls IvanAnywhere to his office, just as he would with any other employee. Bowman uses IvanAnywhere to take part in meetings, even giving presentations with the help of a projector. Every once in a while, he’ll motor to the floor’s lounge area to look out the window and chat with passersby, much as he would if he were in Waterloo. Bowman has worked for the database software company since 1993. Five years ago, when his wife got a job in Halifax, his employers allowed him to follow her east and telecommute. While Bowman could type out code as well in Halifax as he could in Waterloo, he was missing out on the personal give-and-take essential to the flow of ideas. – This is awesome. Is this the wave of the future, being able to work from home while having this thing be your doppleganger? Business co workers doppelganger robot Tech therecord write software |
