Earlier today the following question was posed in LinkedIn Answers:
The day of the 'Nation State' is over. It's the new era of the 'Sovereign Individual'.
The questioner wanted to know whether, in light of the tremendous exchanges of people, trade, etc. across national borders everyday, people considered the time of the Nation-State to be coming to a close in favor of the rise of the "Sovereign Individual."
This question reminded me of my brief blog entry the other day about employment laws and virtual worlds, to the effect that employment in virtual worlds actually poses a rather complex legal situation when people can meet "as if" in person with others around the world and work with them (and hire them) without respect to physical location.
Here's my response on LinkedIn:
Yes, this is a fascinating subject. My two cents: Consider virtual reality and the virtual workspace. When I ran IT outsourcing for a large telecom, we constantly struggled with distance. Interpersonal connection between our global workers was a significant barrier to achieving those productivity goals we had set for ourselves. We continually ran into misunderstandings and confusion across distance. Remote working was another issue. Managers typically don't trust it because they cannot "see" their employees working.
Technology is changing all of this and that leads me to the answer to your question. After I left that role, I ran into the virtual world Second Life and other virtual reality environments. In those environments, one "feels" as if he/she is "with" others in the same environment. Even NASA recently commented that virtual worlds technology is under consideration as a means of keeping Mars astronauts connected to their families during the long voyage because, according to NASA, the virtual experience "encodes into our memories as if we were in the same place." Taken back to Earth, this means, that virtual worlds can absolutely make the remote "essentially local." Of course, graphics, speeds, worlds will improve, but we're getting there.
Now -- consider the business ramifications. I can sit at my desk in Colorado and you can sit at your desk in "Houston, Texas area." A colleague can sit as her desk in Bangalore or Shanghai. Yet, we can be in the same virtual space "as if" in person. We can do business together "as if" we worked in the same office park somewhere.
One step further, maybe we decide to hire employees. We post an ad internationally and get 100 responses from 100 different countries. We want the best, of course, so we hire 50 in 50 different places. All virtual, all the time. We never "meet" in person.
Now the complexity given the present situation. In addition to a virtual worlds entrepreneur, I am an employment lawyer and HR consultant. Consider the existing employment, labor, tax, benefits, etc. laws that we will have to deal with in our present company. We are virtual, but the world is still governed locally. I predict, therefore, a new need for international employment law like we've only seen before in the most complex of multinationals.
In short, the issues raised are numerous and complex. As it is easier to cross borders, and work with people "as if" in person, a new paradigm will be needed to handle these interactions. Perhaps countries will give in to the sovereignity of individuals in the face of emerging technologies that render political borders unmanageable. Or, more likely, a new breed of enterprise will need to arise -- one that is global in reach -- to manage all of these substantial cross border issues for employers who are simply lost in red tape. |
