Web Worker Daily

Krishworld Politics » Blog Archive » Virtual Work Environments says: September 19th, 2006 10:52pm

[...] Tony Conrad, CEO/Founder of Sphere writes onWeb Worker Daily One of the amazing changes taking place in the tech space is companies being formed around a virtual work environment. Sphere has operated this way since inception. The four founders are based in San Francisco, Seattle & Denver. We have team members living in Vancouver, Portland, Phoenix, Denver, San Francisco, New York, and Boston. Our Advisors are based in San Francisco, Connecticut, New York, Boston and Atlanta. [...]

pam says: September 20th, 2006 12:26am

This is awesome.

While I’ve been itchy about full time work for a while, it was more the geographic constraints than it was commitment anxiety – I live abroad part of the year. That freaks many manager out, big time.

I am really psyched to see this model taking ground for full operations rather than only for contractors.

Yuuguu » Virtual toolkit says: September 20th, 2006 1:23am

[...] The CEO of Sphere blogs about the issues of running a successful virtual organisation. [...]

shannonclark says: September 20th, 2006 1:37am

An idea not limited to a purely virtual company that was one of the best policies of at least the engagement I worked on for Perot Systems when I worked there (in the mid-90’s) was that when ANYONE was traveling to a city with co-workers they could, no questions asked, expense taking those co-workers out for meals.

This is a very, very simple policy – but one that pays many dividends. Key to it is that it was true for anyone, not just for executives or “the boss” but any team member who had to travel. When I was in London training developers and new members of the team I was on, I could and did take some of them out for dinner one evening, the bonding over good food (i.e. using the expense account well) meant that later when I would IM about something we already had a rapport.

I’ve found that even as little as a single coffee together or even better a meal (best usually being lunches or dinners) helps cement bonds that can then persist and grow through emails, IM’s, conference calls and other collaboration tools – but that it is a very rare relationship – whether personal or business – that becomes a deep and in the case of business profitable one, without some face to face interaction at least once. (video conferences do help as do proxy relationships – i.e. not directly sharing a lunch/dinner but the existence of a third party with whom we both share strong bonds – family, past work together in person etc).

In the upcoming months I may have a set of consulting projects where I would be interfacing with US clients on behalf of teams geographically dispersed (mostly in this case in South America). I’m comfortable taking on this consulting engagement because I have a strong relationship with the founder of the company and trust him and the quality of his employees, as well I have had some in person interactions with his developers when they were here in the US. Not to mention that the fact that many of his developers have worked here on client projects gives me confidence that they will “get” US business and US market requirements.

But too I would be planning as soon as possible on a trip in person to meet with the teams, share meals, and get to know them at least once in person.

Shannon

Mike McDerment says: September 20th, 2006 6:57am

Over the past three years, Joe (who founded FreshBooks with me and is our Chief Architect) has probably graced our office 15 times…that’s about once every three months…and we live in the same city :)

To communication we use (pretty much exclusively):

- telephone
- email
- the web (to show work in progress)

These tools are simple, tried, tested and true…and for a team of six, they manage the load effectively.

MUTE MATT says: September 20th, 2006 7:06am

I’m curious to know what Premiere Global Services provides that something like iChat AV does not.

Amie Gillingham says: September 20th, 2006 9:57am

It’s nice to see other “virtual” organizations out there. Our company, EBSQ, LLC, has always worked this way, and it’s helpful to see what tools other folks are using since we’re always on the lookout for better ways to improve efficiency, communication, and in general, keeping us all motivated and on the same page.

Currently, we use email, IM, an internal feed of site processes so we can track events in real time, and Basecamp. We also try to do some face time once or twice a year. While I personally like Basecamp and feel it keeps us more organized, I know our programmers would like a more robust tool where they can do collaborative coding more easily. Any recommendations out there?

LivNLet says: September 20th, 2006 2:03pm

I just wanted to comment on working spaces. I’ve recently discovered Kinkos. I subscribed to the T-Mobile hotspot service and bring everything I need (inlcuding power strip) to their computer centers. It’s way cheaper than a coffee shop and I stay for as long as I need (sometimes over ten hours when I get into that devTrance thing) and none of the staff even bat an eye. It’s even better if I need to print or get something ready for a client, since I’m already there.

Another thing that has proven to be a invaluable resource for our team (we are all remote as well) is leasing our own dedicated server for dev and staging purposes. This gives us a true customizable environment to work as we need.

Rex Dixon says: September 20th, 2006 9:09pm

I hope that this is a glimpse into the future! Great job, and thanks for sharing how you operate in basics.

Rex
7 Minutes with Rex Dixon (cyberears.com) – http://www.cyberears.com/index.php/Show/audio/157

Technically Speaking (blog) – http://rexdixon.wordpress.com

7 Minutes with Rex Dixon (clickcaster.com) – http://clickcaster.com/rex-dixon

Kashif says: September 21st, 2006 4:44am

I mainly use email and IM to communicate with my partner and freelancers, that we occasionally work with. I would like to know more about tools that can increase online productivity.

Charlie Brook says: September 21st, 2006 6:20am

Our company has worked this way since it was formed just over 3 years ago, and we have built a lot of the tools we use to make it work. But we are a small company, the big revolution will be when big companies start to work in this way. They currently seem to have major trust issues with letting their staff work how they want, understandable I guess… but surely unnecessary.

We treat our staff in much the same way we treat our freelancers, giving them projects to complete with deadlines as appropriate. Our staff seem to produce more inspirational work, and the moral is always high, which we attribute to the freedom and trust bestowed upon them.

I’d like to think that the same would work for big companies, but I wonder if the trust element only works because of the close bonds that form between the workers in a small business.

Joe says: September 21st, 2006 6:23am

Amie Gillingham says;

“While I personally like Basecamp and feel it keeps us more organized, I know our programmers would like a more robust tool where they can do collaborative coding more easily. Any recommendations out there?”

We use Basecamp too. But for managing development use Trac – http://trac.edgewall.org/. Before the move to Basecamp we used eGroupware and Gforge.

Joe

Amie Gillingham says: September 21st, 2006 9:35am

Thanks for the tip, Joe!

GigaOM » What’s on Web Worker Daily says: September 22nd, 2006 2:42pm

[...] A Virtual Toolkit for Everyone’s Island: How Sphere works virtually and keep the team spirits up. [...]

cfarish.com » Blog Archive » Virtual Analyst says: September 26th, 2006 6:08am

[...] CFA Magazine wrote about the $4 billion market for outsourced investment research and analytics. [Disclosure: I work with a boutique company that provides these services.] There is a tremendous opportunity for both large and smaller organizations to move some of their analytics work offshore – the CFA designation, for example, is a global standard, and everyone who takes that test and passes it knows the exact same test was given to everyone, no matter if you were in Shanghai, Bangalore, Manila or New York City. One of the things that immediately becomes obvious is not just the amount of technlolgy available that makes all this very easy (as soon as you find the right partners), but also the need for constant, human contact. Here’s a great clip from Tony Conrad, CEO of Sphere (comes from Om Malik’s new blog, Web Worker Daily) on the right components for both productivity and CULTURE within the group: Here are some tools we couldn’t live without: [...]

Eber says: September 28th, 2006 11:17am

this is very cool…. i already work at home and find it very good….