Key Topics
Virtual communications encompasses a broad spectrum of concepts, technologies and practices that are central to our daily lives. In our society today, we can now communicate with a friend or co-worker in another country or continent instantaneously. We can earn a college degree or take continuous learning classes online with the click of a few buttons. The proliferation of information and communication tools, like e-mail, instant messaging and Internet telephony has revolutionized the way we work and live. How we use the technologies, such as email and collaboration tools, can influence the quality of the work we do and can determine our ability to function as a high producing, high performing workforce. Virtual communications facilitates the ability to know and understand how to access and share information electronically and is a portal through which a world of limitless learning opportunities exist.
Organizations of today have been transformed not only by how new and evolving
information and communication technologies have altered the economy, but also
how they have changed the way work gets done. The old industrial age paradigm
of working nine to five, punching a time clock, and returning home from the
factory to dinner waiting on the table is long gone. Thomas Stewart, in his
book, Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations, asserts
that the fundamental wealth of organizations resides in "knowledge and
communications" more than anything else (Stewart, 1997). Current news reports
each day describe the many patterns occurring in all sectors of the economy
leading to major changes such as downsizing, low unemployment, convergence,
and instant millionaires.
Some small examples of this can be seen in how work has shifted from individual
tasks to group projects, from working alone to working with many others both
inside and outside the office, and from routine processes to creative, knowledge
based processes. One look around the offices of today will reveal a tendency
to situate employees in large open spaces, with many ways to encourage the visual
and written display and communication of information. Employees in organizations
work non-traditional hours, work from home, travel to other locations and perform
many tasks at one time. As a result, the ability to understand and use virtual
communications is essential to our ability to be productive members of the workforce
and to reduce unnecessary obstacles to our daily work.
Virtual communications have not only become essential to organizations in the
work place, but more and more people are using virtual communications for entertainment
and education purposes. Whether it's the Marine Corp's adapting of the interactive
video game Dune for battle simulations or a Sailor out at sea linking up with
a university online to earn college credit, virtual communications has forever
changed the way we work and play.
This section is designed to give individuals at every level of the organization an understanding of the basic principles and practices of virtual communications. Because there is a tremendous difference in our individual competencies and experience in this area, this guide will help beginners and experts to be aware of the main considerations in virtual communications.
What may now be considered "traditional" virtual communications tools - e-mail, networks, and telephones - will continue to increase in capacity and clarity. Cost will continue to decrease. The remainder of the world will get connected.
There is no doubt that revolutionary tools will cause existing virtual communication to pale in comparison. On the practical end, reliable wireless communications seem to be the future. Increasing their reach, reliability and capacity will lead to innovative applications such as robust connections with a far-flung Navy fleet or troops in the field in various parts of the world. The ability to move large volumes of data will speed the supply system and enable activities in terms of logistics.
Wireless companies will continue to invest billions of dollars to build infrastructures that services run on, even though the companies building these networks don't expect them to pay off for a decade or longer, according to the wireless-communication.org.
In the future, "wireless" will become the mode of communication for a number of devices. Wireless will become a standard option for PDAs, MP3 players, and digital cameras. In a paper published by the Berkeley Wireless Research Center, author Robert W. Broderson states, "We believe that we are now on a threshold of wireless connectivity which will become the dominant method of interconnecting the myriad of future devices which will consume and produce data. These communications will range from the high end involving computers, high-quality video, cameras and displays, to simple internet access devices and appliances for reading and listening; for communications between people and the control of utilities to the lowest end in which very low bandwidth communications will be used to extract information from large numbers of distributed sensors. A fundamental belief we have is that many new applications will evolve when inexpensive, wireless communications become available and it is these new areas that the most important new developments will occur."
The future of virtual communication will depend heavily upon the wide-spread implementation of wireless technology. Private-sector enterprises anticipate deploying more wireless technology. For example, FedEx utilizes wireless technology on a large-scale basis with its hand-held "super-tracker" units and bar-code scanners. Currently, FedEx employees scan information from packages and insert the super tracker into a dock which uploads the information and can retransmit it over a wireless network. FedEx wants to eliminate manual data entry and transmission by extending the wireless network to the courier.
Statistics support the pervasiveness of wireless. According to Wireless Data Communication 2001: A Study of the Worldwide Wireless Data Communications Market, July 2001,
In addition, data networking will impact wireless communication and move it to a new level. According to Jan M. Rabaey, "For a wide host of devices, wireless will serve as the 'last interconnection hop' to the high data-rate wired networks. The basic trends in these devices can be best summarized under the following two headers: "ubiquity" and 'more bits/sec.'"
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