Metaverse-style avatars are now available in Microsoft Teams

 Do we need fancy avatars?   Will it create anything useful?   Will take a look.  

Metaverse-style avatars are now available in Microsoft Teams  By Luke Hughes published about 6 hours ago in Techradar

Get the metaverse look without a pricey headset

Microsoft has announced that animated avatars are now available in preview for its Teams collaboration platform.

Via the Avatars app in the Microsoft Teams App Store, members of the Technical Access Program can now design up to three avatars for use during meetings, and choose from an array of reaction gestures.

So-called Mesh avatars were first announced for Microsoft Teams in a blog post(opens in new tab) by John Roach, the company’s CTO of digital advisory services, back in November 2021.

Microsoft’s release of the feature at its Ignite event reiterates its commitment to blurring the line between video conferencing software and metaverses, which some business leaders believe are the next big development in collaboration tools following the shift to hybrid working. 

These spaces are designed around mesh avatars interacting inside a virtual space equipped with the tools that teams need to collaborate, such as whiteboards, document storage, and video conferencing software.

If Microsoft continues to develop metaverse-adjacent features for the Teams platform, it could manage to scupper Meta’s plans for the sector with its own Horizon Workrooms metaverse.

> Check out our list of the best business webcams right now

> Microsoft Teams is about to enter a whole new (virtual) dimension

> Zoom’s new animated avatars are the stuff of nightmares

Horizon Workrooms could end up being seen as a less convenient offering when up against Teams, a video conferencing app that’s already in use by many organizations and benefits from Microsoft 365 integration.

Until then, organizations looking to try out the new mesh avatars but without access to the private preview build can sign up for updates on the Teams website(opens in new tab). ...  ' 

Microsoft Works with Meta

Now this does make sense 

Microsoft partners with Meta to bring Teams, Office, Windows, and Xbox to VR

The biggest Microsoft and Meta partnership since the Windows Phone days

By TOM WARREN / @tomwarren   in The Verge

Oct 11, 2022, 1:46 PM 

A first look at Microsoft Teams running in a Meta VR headset

Microsoft Teams on Meta’s Quest VR headsets. Image: Meta

Microsoft and Meta looked like they were on a collision course last year, poised to compete heavily for the future of work in the metaverse. But today, both companies announced they are partnering to collaborate on how people will work and even game in virtual reality. That starts with Microsoft bringing its biggest services — Teams, Office, Windows, and even Xbox Cloud Gaming — to Meta’s Quest VR headsets.

It’s a surprise partnership that will see Microsoft and Meta combine their strengths. Microsoft sees an opportunity to bring Teams and its other productivity experiences to a capable VR headset, and Meta gets a key partner in its grand metaverse plan. .... ' 

Algorithm Optimally Divvies up Tasks for Human-Robot Teams

Good look at the cooperative issue. 

 ACM NEWS

Algorithm Optimally Divvies up Tasks for Human-Robot Teams  By SciTechDaily, May 26, 2022

As robots increasingly join people working on the factory floor, in warehouses, and elsewhere on the job, determining who will do which tasks increases in complexity and importance. People are better suited for some jobs, robots for others. And in some cases, it is advantageous to spend time teaching a robot to do a task now and reap the rewards later.

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute (RI) have developed an algorithmic planner that helps delegate tasks to humans and robots. The planner, "Act, Delegate or Learn" (ADL), considers a list of duties and decides how best to assign them. The researchers asked three questions: When should a robot act to complete a task? When should a task be delegated to a human? And when should a robot learn a new task?

“There are costs associated with the decisions made, such as the time it takes a human to complete a task or teach a robot to complete a task and the cost of a robot failing at a task,” said Shivam Vats, the lead researcher and a Ph.D. student in the RI. “Given all those costs, our system will give you the optimal division of labor.”

From SciTechDaily

View Full Article  

MS Teams with Colaborative Apps

 Makes good sense.   Especially apps that aid in bringing in multiple opinions, decision and task oriented views.  See some of the work we did in this space, well before the focus now being seen with apps like Teams and Zoom.  See 'Business Sphere' tag.

Microsoft wants Teams to be your go-to for collaborative apps  in Engadget

What if Teams could be the Windows for real-time apps?

You may not have noticed, but Microsoft Teams is slowing evolving from a Slack-like workplace chat app to a collaborative platform of its own. In addition to just talking with your coworkers, you can also install apps within Teams to manage Asana projects, or build a custom app that's specifically tuned to your company's needs. At Build 2021, Microsoft is making a bigger push to make Teams a platform for collaborative apps.  ... " 

Knowledge Sharing Across Silos

From the APQC Blog: 

Why Knowledge Sharing Across Siloes Is More Important in 2021

Team-based collaboration got a huge boost in 2020

However, we don’t seem the same upswing when it comes to open, boundary-spanning collaboration. Less than a quarter of participants rate communities of practice, enterprise social networks, or expertise location tools as highly critical to their work, and these approaches received only small bumps in the wake of the pandemic. In the transition to virtual work, people simply haven’t turned to core KM tools as much as they might have.

Knowledge Management Adoption Still Lags

The emphasis on team- and project-based collaboration is not surprising. People’s work lives have been turned upside down, and their most immediate need—and instinct—has been to faithfully replicate what they had lost. And admittedly, daily interaction with close coworkers is essential to keeping the lights on and getting things done. 

But when employees collaborate only in pre-established closed groups, they aren’t realizing the full benefits of the tools they’ve embraced. Communities, enterprise social networks, and expertise location tools allow people to connect with likeminded colleagues regardless of team affiliation, surface hidden expertise, and seek out global perspectives. All of this is critical to the kind of innovation and creative problem solving required to respond to breakneck change. If people stay within the walled gardens of department chat, they’re leaving a lot on the table.  

The good news is that participating in a virtual community or enterprise social network uses many of the same skills that employees have honed in team-based sites. And with the mechanics of participation less of a hurdle for users, KM can focus on the incentives and cultural queues that position open channels as safe and rewarding places to engage. These aren’t easy challenges to overcome, but we have a golden opportunity to capitalize on digital trends and take open knowledge sharing to the next level. ... ' 

Future of Work by Microsoft Teams

Nice to see Microsoft Teams expanding their capabilities.   Have now used Teams now many times, like it. Now lets see more assistance built in.

Microsoft aims to enable the future of work with new Teams features and devices  By  Mike Wheatley

Microsoft Corp. is doubling down on what it says will be the “future of work” amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

At its Ignite 2020 virtual event today, it announced a host of new products and services it says will help people to become more productive, whether they’re working remotely or simply being careful to maintain social distancing upon their return to the office.

For remote workers the main focus has been on expanding the capabilities of Microsoft’s Teams collaboration app, Microsoft 365 Corporate Vice President Jared Spataro said in a blog post. For example, Teams Together Mode, which is an experience that’s meant to help participants feel closer together even when they are apart by placing them in a shared background, is getting more options, including auditoriums, conference rooms and even a virtual coffee shop.  ... " 

Research on Human - AI Teaming

Good piece on the topic.    Not too different from teaming with other methods, like analytics   But here there may be higher expectations and hints of expected 'autonomy'.   I would suggest and add that there should be more embedded risk analysis considered, mostly due to sometimes overblown expectations of such methods.  Humans will necessarily always be in the loup.

Teaming Up with Artificial Intelligence   By Bennie Mols in CACM

Daniel S. Weld of the University of Washington in Seattle was part of a team that analyzed 20 years of research on the interactions between people and artificial intelligences.

Creating a good artificial intelligence (AI) user experience is not easy. Everyone who uses autocorrect while writing knows that while the system usually does a pretty good job of acthing and correcting errors, it sometimes makes bizarre mistakes. The same is true for the autopilot in a Tesla, but unfortunately the stakes are much higher on the road than when sitting behind a computer.

Daniel S. Weld of the University of Washington in Seattle has done a lot of research on human-AI teams. Last year, he and a group of colleagues from Microsoft proposed 18 generally applicable design guidelines for human-AI interaction, which were validated through multiple rounds of evaluation.

Bennie Mols interviewed Weld about the challenges of building a human-AI dream team:

What makes a human-AI team different from a team of a human and a digital system without AI?

First of all, AI systems are probabilistic: sometimes they get it right, but sometimes they err. Unfortunately, their mistakes are often unpredictable. In contrast, classical computer programs, like spreadsheets, work in a much more predictable way.

Second, AI can behave differently in subtly different contexts. Sometimes the change in context isn't even clear to the human. Google Search might give different auto-suggest results to different people, based on their previous behavior, which was different.

The third important difference is that AI systems can change over time, for example through learning.

How did your research team arrive at the guidelines for human-AI-interaction?

We started by analyzing 20 years of research on human-AI interaction. We did a user evaluation with 20 AI products and 50 practitioners, and we also did expert reviews. This led to 18 guidelines divided over four phases of the human-AI interaction process: the initial phase, this is before the interaction has started; the phase during interaction; the phase after the interaction, in case the AI system made a mistake; and finally, over time. During the last phase, the system might get updates, while humans might evolve their interaction with the system. .... " 

Skype for Business to be Retired

This had been rumored, now its out,   been using Teams now for a year, its nicely done.  Unclear how this be done with regards to Business vs 'Home'  users.

...Skype for business: OOO
Skype for Business Online is headed for retirement.

New Office 365 customers will be onboarded to Microsoft Teams. Existing Skype for Business customers will be encouraged to make that transition, too. However, there are migration issues to consider, as well as other alternatives.

Here's how to prepare for the end of Skype for Business.  (hpe.com)

Google Announces Ambient Mode on Some Phone Devices

What they have called an 'intent based' rather than 'App based' design, for some phones now, and likely to happen on all their devices. I would imagine this would work quite well, but better for some kinds of task-based proactive,  alert, need or goal approaches.   Might work well for team situations where there are shared goals and needs to coordinate efforts via an AI of some type.    This could mean that the device might proactively choose tasks or data to be shown, providing an element of direction and management?  I would consider the potential for workplace applications quite interesting, and even controversial.

" ... Ambient Mode brings a proactive Google Assistant experience to your Android phone. Arvind Chandrababu, product manager on the Assistant for Mobile team, shares how it easily shares the information that matters most to you.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaRzJo_19nY

From9to5 Google:

"... Ambient Mode lets you “turn your phone into a digital photo frame, control music, other smart home devices and more.” Enabled during charging, it is officially “available on select devices on Android O [8.0] and above. According to Ars Technica’s Ron Amadeo, devices from Sony and OEM Transsion will also receive Ambient Mode with wider availability next week. Lenovo already showed off two tablets with this experience. One way to think about this new mode is as a stock always-on display for OEMs that do not have their own custom implementations.  ... " 

Cognitive Automation

Augmentation is the near term approach here, but I expect augmentation to become more automated over time.    Checking, validation and  Numbers presented here are interesting, dependent much on the specific kind of tasks that are involved, even within an industry.  The tasks may then be changed to better fit with the augmentation.

Cognitive Automation is the Immediate Future of Team Management    By Srini Murali / 04 Nov 2019 / AI / Productivity / Work in ReadwriteWeb

Cognitive automation
   
For all the anticipation of increased automation at work, commentators have spent a lot of energy trying to convince people it can only handle easy, repetitive processes. It’s time to finally confront the truth: Per the McKinsey Global Institute, today’s robots can handle up to a quarter of the average CEO’s job and 35% of management tasks.

While robotic process automation refers to using robots to speed up concrete processes, cognitive automation takes a more advanced version of the same underlying tool set and applies it to more conceptual, judgment-based tasks — what we now call “knowledge work.”

Using specific AI techniques that approximate the way our brains work, cognitive automation helps us make better decisions, complete tasks faster, and meet goals more easily — and it’s swiftly gaining traction. 

KPMG predicts spending on intelligent automation will hit $232 billion by 2025, up from $12.4 billion in 2018.

Of course, we’re a long way off from managerial jobs being fully automated, but these findings indicate that automation can — and should — play a bigger role in how we lead the 21st-century workforce.

Where Cognitive Automation Fits Into the Workforce

At Exela Technologies, our managers wouldn’t be able to support our global workforce of more than 22,000 employees without the help of cognitive automation. Among other things, this technology enables us to obtain information from scattered sources, conduct deep analysis, and collaborate more easily.

We’re not the only ones, either. Deloitte found that increased reliance on cognitive automation in the insurance industry improved firms’ recruitment and development processes, removing much of the heavy-lifting that human managers once performed.

Business leadership has a lot to gain from cognitive automation. Here are some ways managers can take advantage of it.

1. Capture and dissect data.
Intelligent systems can gather more data than manual processes, then analyze that data more effectively to uncover trends, detect anomalies, and produce predictive models.

One sector where we see this technology emerging rapidly is healthcare. AI technology can now compare a patient’s medical history with established guidelines for common illnesses to help identify gaps in care and specific opportunities for improved treatment. When done by a human, this analysis could take hours. When done by a machine, it takes seconds.

Attended cognitive automation — where humans work alongside automated systems — enables great advances in accuracy and productivity.

Another area in the healthcare ecosystem where we see cognitive automation adding significant value is clinical documentation improvement and the prevention of fraud, waste, and abuse. On the provider side, intelligent automated data processing systems are capable of reviewing large volumes of healthcare records to identify potential information gaps and coding errors so providers are more likely to be paid in full and on time. On the payer side, cognitive automation can help flag anomalous transactions to detect potential fraud, waste, and abuse to limit overpayment.

At Exela, we build and deploy systems such as these to perform services for our healthcare industry partners. We also created similar tools that assist with other areas of our business. As part of the sales lead generation process in our legal arm, for instance.   .... " 

We monitor federal and state court activity for business opportunities, such as large class-action settlements. Given that there are tens of thousands of daily updates to case files, it’s nearly impossible for our employees to efficiently differentiate between the “good” and “bad” leads.

To address this, we developed an AI system that uses machine learning based on exposure to an initial sample set and iterative tuning using continuous feedback. The system detects “trigger events” from thousands of regular updates.

These trigger events are then classified, (e.g., complaint, dismissal, etc.), and the content summarized, it alerts stakeholders and integrates with our existing CRM systems to automatically log the newly acquired data. ... "

Microsoft Moves to Teams, Drops Skype for Business Online

Have now been using Teams since its inception.  Works well for team operations, chats and goal focused collaboration.    Skype works but has always been shaky,  its advantage is its huge global enrollment.   How will either of these operate versus Slack?  Right now Teams is free.   But converting between any of these will be cumbersome for the enterprise.

Microsoft will drop Skype for Business Online on July 31, 2021
As part of its Skype for Business Online to Teams transition, Microsoft will enable Skype consumer users to communicate with Teams ones using chat and calling starting in Q1 2020.

By Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft  .... '

Teams for Digital Procurement

Procurement a long time interest ... huge amounts of money involved, a classic place for better analytics.

Digital Procurement: The Benefits Go Far Beyond Efficiency
Procurement teams can play a key role in shaping a company’s digital strategy.

By Coleman Radell  and David Schannon  of Bain.

Managing Teams of Robots with Brainwaves and Hand Gestures

Is this the way we will control and work with teams of robots?    In the MIT News.

How to control robots with brainwaves and hand gestures

Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory system enables people to correct robot mistakes on multiple-choice tasks.    By Adam Conner-Simons | CSAIL 

Getting robots to do things isn’t easy: Usually, scientists have to either explicitly program them or get them to understand how humans communicate via language.

But what if we could control robots more intuitively, using just hand gestures and brainwaves?

A new system spearheaded by researchers from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) aims to do exactly that, allowing users to instantly correct robot mistakes with nothing more than brain signals and the flick of a finger.

Building off the team’s past work focused on simple binary-choice activities, the new work expands the scope to multiple-choice tasks, opening up new possibilities for how human workers could manage teams of robots.

By monitoring brain activity, the system can detect in real-time if a person notices an error as a robot does a task. Using an interface that measures muscle activity, the person can then make hand gestures to scroll through and select the correct option for the robot to execute. .... " 

Power of Small Independent Teams

We did this in the AI space.   Yes, provided they are not siloed and have connections to the right resources to build and validate their work.   They also have especially good value when connecting to outside the company resources, acting as a translator , and resource pointer.  Empowered is the key word.   More than agile.  That needs work in many companies.

Unleashing the power of small, independent teams
By Oliver Bossert, Alena Kretzberg, and Jürgen Laartz  in McKinsey

 Small, independent teams are the lifeblood of the agile organization. Top executives can unleash them by driving ambition, removing red tape, and helping managers adjust to the new norms.

What does it take to set loose the independent teams that make agile organizations hum? These teams are the organizational units through which agile, project-based work gets done. The typical agile company has several such teams, most composed of a small number of people who have many or all of the skills the team needs to carry out its mission. (Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos contends that a team is too big when it needs more than two pizza pies for lunch.) This multidisciplinary way of composing teams has implications for nearly every business function. Take IT management. Instead of concentrating technology professionals in a central department, agile companies embed software designers and engineers in independent teams, where they can work continually on high-value projects.

While much depends on the actions of the individual team members, senior executives must thoughtfully create the environment in which teams and their managers can thrive. In a nutshell, senior executives must move the company—and themselves—away from outmoded command-and-control behaviors and structures that are ill-suited to today’s rapid digital world. They must redouble efforts to overcome resource inertia and break down silos, because independent teams can’t overcome these bureaucratic challenges on their own. They must direct teams to the best opportunities, arm them with the best people, give them the tools they need to move fast, and oversee their work with a light but consistent touch. These ideas may sound straightforward, but they go overlooked by too many leaders who’ve grown up in more traditional organizations.

This article explores how senior leaders can unleash their companies’ full potential by empowering small teams and supporting their managers, whose roles have been redefined by agile thinking (exhibit). Let’s start with a glimpse of what that looks like in action. .... "

How Can Agile Teams Work Together

How to Make Sure Agile Teams Can Work Together   By Alia Crocker, Rob Cross, Heidi K. Gardner in the HBR

Increasing volatility, uncertainty, growing complexity, and ambiguous information (VUCA) has created a business environment in which agile collaboration is more critical than ever. Organizations need to be continually on the lookout for new market developments and competitive threats, identifying essential experts and nimbly forming and disbanding teams to help tackle those issues quickly. However, these cross-functional groups often bump up against misaligned incentives, hierarchical decision-making, and cultural rigidities, causing progress to stall or action to not be taken at all.

Consider the case of an organization in our consortium, the Connected Commons, that uncovered a ground-breaking audio/visual technology which would differentiate the organization in existing channels but also had the potential to open up entirely new markets. The CEO heralded it as a pivot point in growth and formed a cross-functional initiative of 100+ top employees to bring it to new commercial channels. Yet, unfortunately progress did not match expectations. Employees assigned to the effort struggled to make time for the work. They often did not understand the expertise or values of different functions, and advocated too aggressively for their own solutions. The group was surprised several times by the demands of external stakeholders. 

Despite this project’s visibility, critical mandate, and groundbreaking technology, the organization was ultimately hindered when it came to agile collaboration. This story is not unique..... " 

Introduction to TeamOps

Long ago west coast Wiki connect and innovator,  Ross Mayfield, talks TeamOps.   A more structured Slack?  It could use that.    Examining.

Ross Mayfield: CEO & Co-founder of Pingpad. Previously LinkedIn, SlideShare, Socialtext, RateXchange. Husband and Father. ... 

Introduction to TeamOps
TeamOps empowers teams to achieve higher velocity through the agile cycle of planning, acting and learning. TeamOps is the combination of practices, apps and cultural philosophies, prompted by the shift to group messaging like Slack beyond software developers. This speed allows business teams to continuously improve and more effectively deliver and compete. ... " 

Google and Innovation

Well put short piece. 

The 5 Essential Ingredients of a Truly Innovative Team, According to Google
You can't force creativity, but you can create an environment that encourages it. Google has figured out how. ... 
 
By Jessica Stillman in Inc

Automation Making Retail Teams Less Efficient?

 An unexpected view.  Pointers to Wharton researcher work and expert comment in Retailwire.  Perhaps only until we learn to collaborate with advanced, initiative taking automation?

Will automation make retail teams less efficient?
Knowledge@Wharton staff

Presented here for discussion is an excerpt of a current article published with permission from Knowledge@Wharton, the online research and business analysis journal of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

While the arrival of AI-supported automation in the workplace has led to concern about the potential loss of jobs, a new paper by a Wharton marketing professor explores the fate of those who keep their jobs but count robots instead of humans among their co-workers.

In “Men and Machine: When Should a Firm Adopt Automation?,” Wharton’s Pinar Yildirim and co-author Mustafa Dogan, a postdoctoral researcher at Carnegie Mellon University, show that in some cases, automation can actually lead to increased costs and inefficiencies because of its dysfunctional impact on human teams. ..... " 

Humans and Machines Are Better When They Team Up

I think we need to consider job displacement and augmentation, they will occur, just like they have always been doing. 

More Evidence that Humans and Machines Are Better When They Team Up
By worrying about job displacement, we might end up missing a huge opportunity for technological amplification. .... "       by Will Knight in Technology Review

Team Stress Levels

In the enterprise saw much lip service given to this kind of issue, but few solutions other than cautions, here an attempt at measure.    In the HBR: 

An Early Warning System for Your Team’s Stress Level
Thomas Hellwig, Caroline Rook, Elizabeth Florent-Treacy, Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries