Readings for Section 4.1

Managing Virtual Teams
I must say that when I first read Managing Virtual Teams, at the start of last week, I was rather surprised to learn that so many companies were now doing virtual based meetings. I knew a lot of companies did Skype type meetings but to have a meeting in a virtual world?
But as the week went on and I thought on it some more I started to understand. Why not meet everyone in a virtual world? It would make getting everyone together, who live all over the world etc, a lot easier and cheaper. And lets face it, it is where the world is heading. It would not surprise me if some day in the future hardly anyone, well at least anyone who worked in an office type environment, would even have to leave home to go to work, which would definitely appeals to me as I would be able to work around my children being at school etc.
I was very interested to read about the $8 billion energy company who gave 200 participants access to an online computer conference which they could access via the World Wide Web and how well they did. Not only was it easier for the participants to join the on line discussion but it also changed the nature of every one's conversations when they bumped into each other, they felt like they had something interesting in common to talk about.
I am looking forward to the day when I get to work somewhere where I get to have meetings like this!

Mastering the Miles
I could not help, while reading Mastering the Miles: 7 Secrets for Building Successful IT Project Teams Across the Hall or Across the Ocean, feeling like these 7 steps were familiar and wondered is it what our course tutor is trying to get us to do?
 When I finished reading it I felt all these steps is exactly what he is trying to get us to do so that the teams we are in will be successful and work together well.
I wonder has anyone in our course actually worked like this?
Had Virtual Meetings within their work place?
I would be interested to know if they have and to find out how well it worked.