I’ve worked for a multitude of Web sites, but they’ve always emphasized function over form, useful and usable over truly engaging. There was never enough time or money or even talent to do more. And maybe that’s why, with one exception, none of them has ever been or will ever be the kind of destination where people arrive and say, “I gotta tell my brother/friend/mom about this…”
What did they lack above all else? Desirability comes to mind — that sense of play or uniqueness that lures visitors in and immerses them in experiences that transport them.
So how do we inject desirability into the sites we work on?
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Although not all web workers prefer to work outside of corporate offices, a lot of us do. So finding companies that are amenable to the idea of telecommuting is always a boon. Those organizations often have leadership that is comfortable with the idea of managing people who are “out of sight.”
One such firm is SunGard Higher Education, based in Malvern, Pennsylvania, which provides software, consulting and outsourcing services to 1,600 universities and colleges worldwide.
According to senior VP Jeff Cottle, the company has 2,800 employees, of which 700 are “assigned as remote and do not have an office location.” Many of the others telecommute on a flex schedule, he said. “We don’t have a formal policy about who can and who can’t telecommute. Our managers make the decision of whether an individual can telecommute. When making that decision, the manager considers the person’s work responsibilities and his or her performance, among other factors.”
To find out what employment at SunGard as a telecommuter is like, we talked to Christine Mitchell, a professional services consultant specializing in content management.
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We’ve covered “How to Manage Kids in the Home Office” and provided “10 (More) Tips on Doing Productive Web Work with Kids in the House.” But neither article included one resource we’ve come to rely on in my household: TumbleBooks.
This online collection of lightly animated, talking picture books keeps my five-year-old engrossed long enough for me to get through that client call without interruption. Best of all, it’s a free service offered through the public library where I live. All you need on your end is a high-speed connection and a flash reader.
The entire collection is offered in English, but your kids can also listen to a few of the titles in Spanish or French; you simply have to set the language preference.
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Efforts to change how a vital process works in business often fail — whether due to project mismanagement, miscommunication, too few resources, a reordering of priorities. But the key factor may be a lack of expertise in change management, according to Forrester analyst Connie Moore, who writes on the topic in, “Peer Practices: An Interview With A Business Change Management Practitioner.”
Whether we’re talking about how to reduce the number of days in the accounts receivable process or the process for keeping servers patched, according to Moore, process projects can be sabotaged from within. Workers fear loss of their jobs, having to learn new skills and/or working with new systems. Managers fear losing their power, control and authority.
So what can we web workers — who thrive on new ways of doing our jobs — do to help our companies and colleagues through the hiccups of change?
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Companies spend a fortune putting people through Myers-Briggs, 360-degree feedback and predictive indexing — in the hope of finding the silver bullet that will alleviate the inevitable clashes that arise in work.
Web workers who are telecommuters have to try even harder to reach out to co-workers and clients. Without that on-going on-site “face and feel,” we can become as ephemeral as avatars to those we most deal with in work. Add to that personality conflict, and reaching out can become a truly loathsome chore.
The book The Personality Code is meant for people like us. It includes access via a sign-in code to an online version of a personality test to teach you what kind of person you are. The test, named IDISC, is based on a 1928 volume, Emotions of Normal People, by William Marston (the same guy who invented Wonder Woman). By asking you to pick the adjectives that most describe and least describe your behavior from among 112 choices, the service instantly — well, after 15 minutes of test-taking — reveals which one of 14 personality types best describes you.
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As web workers most of us already grasp the idea that we should be able to control our Web experience – to generate content, view content in a manner we prefer and the rest of it. But companies that sell online – especially those for which online is simply another channel, along with retail outlets and catalogs – are still struggling with the concept of Web 2.0. How do they preserve their brands when the users are in control?
It’s left to people such as Dayna Bateman, senior strategic analyst at e-commerce company Fry Inc., to show merchants how to engage the customer online without locking down the experience. Fry clients include Eddie Bauer, Godiva Chocolatier, Crate and Barrel, The Home Depot, Spiegel and Whirlpool.
Professional Mashup
With the right education (a master’s degree isn’t uncommon) and experience (in tactical and strategic information architecture, heuristic evaluation, usability testing, content generation and management, database design, IT integration, project management – you name it…), you may want to mull over a similar career. More commonly referred to by titles such as information architect, interaction or user experience designer or usability engineer, the job had average pay in 2006 of $82,400, according to a survey by The Information Architecture Institute. Of the work, Bateman says, “It’s in demand. There’s work that needs to be done. And folks are willing to pay for it.”
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Say you’re a web worker doing tech support off the beaten Google map. You work in a cubicle answering the phone all day (or night), maybe teaching newbies how to handle calls because you’ve been on the team the longest. But you dream of something different — a chance to leave that cube, to travel, work on new things every day, be your own boss. How do you get from here to there?
Shane Bell figured out how, and he thinks there’s plenty of room for others to use his secret weapon too. It’s OnForce, a service like Best Buy’s Geek Squad, that matches buyers of on-site technical support with the technical pros who can do the work. As ZDNet described it, “Not only is it very Priceline-esque in the way it operates (I have this job that needs to be done and here’s what I’ll pay for it), it also serves the market of buyers that need IT services and need them now (like, within the next few to 24 hours).”
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You’re hot and you’re thirsty, and the Wisdom Cafe is a long haul into town. So what are you going to reach for?
Early on in the history of this site, Om Malik invited web folks to share what they nosh on as they work. I don’t worry about the eating part. For the most part, since my home office is a flight above the fridge, my lazy self refuses to tackle those stairs whenever a craving hits.
But what I can’t do without is a glass of OJ first thing in the morning, followed by a non-stop cup o’ tea. My favorite: Dynasty 100% Natural Jasmine. Nothing fancy. I drink it out of a Starbucks commuter mug purchased in the Forbidden City on a trip to Beijing last year — the better to prevent spillage.
In fact, as I write this in my office — which lacks air conditioning and heating and probably stands right now at about 85 degrees — the water in my Braun kettle is steaming up my National Geographic Map of the World. Time for another mug’s worth (steeped precisely for five minutes — or until I remember to remove the bag). On hot days it keeps my body temperature off-kilter enough not to notice the heat, and on cold days, it keeps my fingers warm enough to type.
We’ve talked about what comes first in your day — coffee or tea. My question to you is: What keeps you quenched — Google Gulp, PomaGrand, Kool-aid Jammers 10 or some concoction a bit more exotic?
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
