Most days, I work remotely from my office — either from a satellite
facility locally or from home. There are many upsides to doing this, but
one big downside is that I miss out on a lot of the ancillary discussion at
the office that promotes learning, teambuilding, networking, etc. You lose
something when the background audio and visual stimulation doesn’t translate
into a telephone- and email-based work environment.
So it was with some interest that I encountered an article on
the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal (subscriber link)
about what some folks are doing to remedy the lack of external cues caused
by being based in a virtual workspace:
When professional investor Ken Sullivan bought a big pile of
Treasury notes recently, he did it surrounded by the sounds of people
shouting out prices. It was almost as if he were right there among the
brokers on the floor of Chicago’s bond-trading pits.Mr. Sullivan was actually… sitting in the office cubicle where he
works. And the shouting didn’t come from any humans. It came his copy of
MarketSound, computer software that cranks out pretend trading
noises.[...]MarketSound is designed to generate realistic mix of background noises
that fluctuate in time with the market, as well as spoken prices in a choice
of three voices. Its automated voices read out stock quotes and other
market data.[...]One voice, recorded by a British nightclub singer, clears her throat,
saying “ahem, excuse me,” before reading her next price. It is programmed
to happen randomly, once every month or so.
I just find the idea so cool that I thought it merited mention. 