A new study suggests that almost half (45 percent) of the workers at small- and medium-sized businesses spend most (75 percent) of their time out of their offices. In fact, only 15 percent of the businesses surveyed reported that all of their employees work in a single location.

The survey indicates that these trends will continue. In 2010, nearly half of the businesses surveyed are planning to hire new employees who will work remotely at least part of the time.

The survey was conducted online by virtual phone service RingCentral (which we recently reviewed) among their customers, so it is probably not representative of all businesses. However, it is certainly indicative of a trend that should hardly come as a surprise to web workers.

How much time do you spend out of the office?

Image by sxc.hu user sykicktb

Yesterday I took part in my first Jelly session — and I’ve got to say it was a fun and productive experience that I will be repeating in the future. Jellies are informal, free coworking events that are open to anyone. There were 10 participants at the Jelly I attended, from a range of different backgrounds although they were mainly freelancers, as you might expect. At times, particularly in the morning, the atmosphere was studious and productive, but there was also some interesting chat and opportunities to make new connections.

I always find that a change of scenery does me good, but considering that I was working in a room with 10 other people, sitting around a conference table, and occasionally getting stuck into conversation, I was surprised at the amount of work I got through (and that’s despite the speed of the Wi-Fi connection getting a little slow with 10 people working away).

If you’re feeling a bit isolated at home (or perhaps you just want to brainstorm some ideas) and would like to try out the coworking experience, but perhaps aren’t quite ready to commit to membership of a coworking space, attending a Jelly would be a good first step.

The first Jelly was started in New York back in 2006 by roommates Amit Gupta and Luke Crawford, who originally wanted to recreate some of the benefits of working from an office (without having to work from an office): brainstorming, sharing and camaraderie. So they started inviting people over to work from their house occasionally, and thus Jelly was born. It’s an idea that has spread worldwide.

The Jelly I attended was organized by CoWorkingWest and held in the nice office space of The Office, Bristol, UK, but Jellies are held in over 100 cities all over the world. (Some of them are even held weekly.) If there isn’t one near you, you can always start your own — you just need to pick a venue and get some people involved. They are often held in people’s houses, but also take place in other locations, like coffee shops and offices. As long as there is space for everyone, power and Wi-Fi, you can have a Jelly.

Have you tried working at Jelly?

Usually, when I want to get out of the house for a change of scenery, I head to Cafe Kuvuka, a local coffee shop just at the end of my street, but yesterday afternoon I fancied working somewhere new. I haven’t worked in a library since finishing my degree years ago, so decided it was time to give my local library, the Bristol Central Library, a try, and thought it was worth sharing my thoughts on the experience here.

After working for a good few hours in the library, here are what I consider to be the advantages and disadvantages over working in a cafe:

Pros

• The library is a lot quieter than a coffee shop. There’s no music and conversation is kept to fairly muted, hushed tones. In fact, the academic, studious atmosphere is very conducive to serious “head down” work.
• Nice architecture creates a pleasant working environment. The interior of the Bristol Central Library is great Victorian architecture with a lovely vaulted ceiling, which can be see in the photo above. Large public libraries are often housed in impressive buildings (the New York Public Library looks like a great place to work, for example).
• It’s free. You don’t need to feel that you need to keep buying food or drinks to “pay” for your Wi-Fi. You don’t even have to join the library to use the Internet.
• Comfortable desks. Unlike the tables in coffee shops, which are primarily designed for holding drinks and food, the writing desks at my library are at a much more comfortable height for working, which is far kinder on my spine. The chairs were fairly comfortable, too
• Access to research material. Of course, if you need to access any research material you’re already in the library!

Cons

• No telephone/VoIP calls. You can’t make or receive phone calls while you’re in the building (except in the cafe). That’s OK for me on days when I don’t have meetings planned, but it means that this is not going to be a viable workspace for many.
• Not very much social interaction. One of the reasons that I feel like leaving the house is to have some chitchat with regular people — you can’t really get that in a library. Because you can’t have a conversation, a library is not going to make a good pseudo-coworking venue, either.
• You’re not allowed to plug in your computer. If you run out of power, you can’t plug in as they don’t have many outlets (not in the section that I was in, anyway). I was surprised by this, and would guess that more modern libraries probably wouldn’t have this restriction.
• No eating/drinking at your desk (except in the cafe). I quite like having a cup of coffee or tea while I work.

So, will I return to the library in future? Yes, on days when I really need to knuckle down and concentrate on a single project with zero distraction: it is a nice working environment that encourages concentration and hard work. I think it would be useful to, say, block out four hours of working time for getting a long article done, and head to the library to work solely on that task. However, on normal working days, when I’m merely looking to change my scenery and get a little pleasant conversation with some coffee, I think I’ll stick with my local cafe.

Have you tried library working? Does it help you to concentrate?

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stevecadman/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Coworking is a great trend, one that is taking root in even the most unlikely of soil, including areas where it has a chance of making a big difference, like Detroit. For freelancers and small startups, a coworking space provides a great opportunity to work with others, and to have office space to show off when a client comes calling, without incurring the cost of a more permanent lease.

But coworking doesn’t come with zero cost, unless it’s done on the very small scale of inviting someone into your own home, or being invited into the home of another. You could also try meeting at somewhere that doesn’t charge beyond the price of a coffee, like a Starbucks, but how reliable is that really? In a big city, space is at a premium, so there’s no guarantee there’ll be room to meet there. So the question is, is investing in proper coworking space worth your while? How and when does it become a justifiable expense?

Step 1: Identify What You Have to Gain from Coworking

I’m not talking about the good feeling and sense of camaraderie you miss from your days working in an office setting, although you should feel free to list that, as well. It may not have a tangible monetary effect, but it will help with morale, which is always important.

Putting that aside, though, what are you intending to get out of coworking? Have you spoken to others who’ve tried it, and attempted to gauge the actual impact it’s had on their business? Maybe what you’re actually looking for is meeting space for occasional use, which is something else entirely and can be had much more cheaply.

If you are looking to build meaningful professional relationships, the kind that can’t come from email exchanges and the occasional lunch, then coworking presents a tangible benefit. If you need your company to have a public face, and one that exists in a brick-and-mortar sense, and you need that consistently, then coworking presents an attractive proposition. If your working hours are interrupted in consistent and unpredictable ways at your home office, damaging your productivity, then coworking could help.

Step 2: Assess the Risks and Costs Associated with Coworking

Once you know what you want to get out of the deal, carefully examine what it will cost you to get it. Depending on how long you’ve been working remotely, you may be in for a surprise at what a return to the commuting lifestyle will actually run to, all told.

For example, where is the nearest coworking venture in your city? Does your city even have one? (We won’t address the costs of starting your own at the moment.) Will you have to take transit, or do you have your own transportation? Just getting to or from your new office could represent a significant additional cost that your usual budget doesn’t include.

Workspace rental fees is another cost associated with coworking. For example, one near my home in downtown Toronto charges $350 a month for office space that’s accessible 24 hrs, with some meeting room time included. It’s $75 per work day if you don’t need the freedom of 24/7 accessibility. For many of us, those aren’t costs that our working budget can easily absorb.

Step 3: Make an Informed Decision

Once you have all the variables on the table, you still probably won’t have a very cut-and-dry choice. At least you’ll be informed, though. The more you focus on the hard benefits and costs associated with coworking, and the less you focus on your desire to socialize or try something new, the better. If all else fails, work out a set term for an initial trial, and then do a rigorous follow-up analysis to see if it’s economically tenable in the long run, and, more importantly, if you got some tangible benefit, enjoyed it and remained productive.

Photo credit: hyku on flickr

Recently, Simon reported on a couple of interesting studies looking at the use of collaboration technologies in the workplace, Forrester’s “The State Of Workforce Technology Adoption: US Benchmark 2009” and Frost & Sullivan’s “Meetings Around the World II: Charting the Course of Advanced Collaboration.” Both reports have great stories to tell about the current state of collaboration technology acceptance within corporations. However, both reports skim over what is perhaps the key element in driving online collaboration within an organization: Corporate culture.

It is not enough to just deploy the latest collaboration tools, whether that is Microsoft SharePoint; Office Communications Server; Google Apps; a corporate VoIP telephony system; mobile devices like the BlackBerry or iPhone; or the latest online collaboration tool reviewed on WebWorkerDaily. The challenge is getting people using them — and for that you need a collaborative corporate culture.

Some integral elements of a collaborative corporate culture include:

• “Come-and-go-as-you-please” schedules. If your company is doing a seat check every morning in its cubicle farm, you don’t have a corporate culture conducive for much online collaboration. While “face time” is an old school management crutch, today’s workforce runs at a different pace with alternative work schedules, telecommuting, offsite contractors, and a myriad of employee personal commitments can foster what I like to call a “come-and-go-as-you-please” schedule. A collaborative culture helps do away with the age-old myths of the value employees get by spending time roosting in an office.
• No knowledge archipelagos. An old IT contractor colleague of mine once coined the term “knowledge archipelagos.” A knowledge archipelago is formed when employees hoard institutional knowledge, whether it is key documents on employee’s local hard drives or crucial  information in their heads, much like an archipelago of islands. Organizations that have a central repository of information  — off local hard drives and individual’s email inboxes — don’t have knowledge archipelagos, meaning that you don’t have to run down somebody to get access to their information. Sharing of project artifacts and corporate information online is integral to a collaborative corporate culture.
• Presence beyond the office (and regular office hours). I once had a client consider that if I was online via AIM, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, or Windows Live Messenger, regardless of the hour or day that I was available to discuss work topics. While this attitude may seem invasive to some, it can make you more conscious your personal online time after hours. I’ve worked with other clients where IM wasn’t part of the mix during or after work hours. Again, it’s all about the culture.
• Technically savvy employees. Through my career as a consultant, the organizations I saw excel at online collaboration and remote working had a very technical savvy employee base, which shaped the corporate culture because a majority of them were early adopters, and lived a large part of their working day online. Their needs and work schedules fed into corporate culture and had an influence into the acceptance of online collaboration in the corporate culture.
• Supportive management. A true collaborative culture requires a supportive management team that wants their workers to be accessible to each other through multiple channels and realizes that traditional working modes won’t attract and retain the best talent. It also helps if these managers are early adopters and are champions for online collaboration and the benefits it gives to workers. The management team should also champion the environment, and be technically savvy (not just falling for the latest Web 2.0 tool fad). Another quality of supportive management is that they aren’t shy about recruiting employers or contractors outside of commuting distance from their nearest office.

Culture is key to successful online collaboration and that is an element that is often times hard to capture in reports and surveys. Web workers seeking new opportunities need to seek prospective clients and employers where the corporate culture is more than just four walls and a cubicle farm and there is a strong track  record of online collaboration and remote working already in place.

What elements of corporate culture do you see driving online collaboration and remote working in your employer and clients?

Image by Robinsonma from stock.xchng.

Last week, I reported on the surprisingly low numbers of American information workers using collaborative technology (just one in four uses IM at work, for example). Another study, released today, shows why businesses should be adopting these tools: Businesses that invest in advanced collaborative technology perform better, and they net a good rate of return on their investment.

The Frost & Sullivan report, “Meetings Around the World II: Charting the Course of Advanced Collaboration,” sponsored by Verizon and Cisco, surveyed 3,662 decision-makers in organizations in 10 countries. It found that 44 percent of organizations had deployed collaborative tools (VoIP, document sharing, videoconferencing and IM). The study found that as businesses invest more in these technologies, their return gets proportionally greater.

While the study shows that companies investing in top-of-the-range telepresence and telephony systems get the most return, even organizations deploying just basic collaborative tools (like IM and web conferencing) reap a return on collaborative investment of over two times. The study suggests this is because teams using collaborative tools can benefit from a network effect — the more users on a network, the more value is realized from it.

The study revealed some other interesting findings:

• Collaboration technologies can help reduce stress. More than half of respondents say collaboration tools allow for greater balance between work and personal life and help them gain more control over their busy lives.
• Confidence in virtual meeting is growing. More than half think conferencing tools are a good alternative to visiting business contacts face-to-face.
• Telecommuting is becoming more popular. Almost half (47 percent) of respondents report having a formal telecommuting policy in place. However, less than a third (27 percent) telecommute at least once a week, and 22 percent telecommute on a daily basis. This tallies with the numbers in a Forrester study, which reported that one-third of workers telecommuted at least some of the time.
• The environment is top of mind. More than half (53 percent) say reducing an organization’s carbon footprint and other environmental concerns are important factors in determining collaborative technology requirements.

This report shows why businesses need to move with the times, start taking advantage of the technology and tools that are available, and improve on those numbers that I reported on last week. The good news is that more than 80 percent of organizations surveyed that have not adopted collaborative tools plan to deploy some form of them in the next two to three years.

Does your experience tally with these figures — has investing more in collaborative tools had a positive impact on your business?

I don’t know about you, but every time I go to a conference or trade show, after about an hour I’m getting a headache from overstimulation: Too much shiny stuff and bad lighting. Crowds. My face hurts from smiling at the poor booth people while they do their pitches. My feet hurt. And why is there never enough air? So when I had the chance to “attend” my first virtual conference a couple of weeks ago, I jumped at it.

One of the things I do is translation and, like all of the translators I know, I have a profile on ProZ.com. This year is the site’s 10th anniversary and, to celebrate, it held its first virtual conference on International Translation Day. It was free, and I signed up, even though I knew I wouldn’t get any free pens out of it.

The exhibitors were major translation agencies and computer assisted translation (CAT) tool companies, so it was worth my time to check them all out. There were several ways to get to the “booths.” Each had an interactive information area with links to text and video you could view on the spot, or you could save documents to your “briefcase” to take with you. There were reps available in every booth for live chat, and you could also chat with other visitors to the booth.

An exhibitor booth

There was a “conference hall” with live webcasts that could also be viewed later, on useful topics like how to negotiate rates. There were scheduled networking events, essentially a chat room, for specific groups (translators of certain languages, for example). It was possible to exchange “business cards” with other attendees (the app used the data you registered with).

The platform Proz used, provided by Unisfair, was pretty user friendly, and my overall experience was a positive one, although the interface was kind of cheesy. This particular platform may be too pricey for individuals, but there are probably ways to duplicate the overall effect using other apps if you want to get creative and hold a gathering of your own.

It seems like the virtual event concept is still pretty new and that there’s room for improvement. I’d like to see an app that does all the same things but in a much less literal way: Simplified, lean and mean, with less Flash.

Proz has decided to leave the conference up until next September if you’re interested in checking it out.

If you’ve attended a virtual conference, I’d like to hear your take on it.

As someone who covers cutting-edge tools for WebWorkerDaily, it’s very tempting to think that everyone uses the kind of technology that we rave about every day. Clearly that’s not the case, but some figures in a new Forrester report, “The State Of Workforce Technology Adoption: US Benchmark 2009,” which surveyed 2,001 U.S. information workers, in companies of 100 or more employees, really surprised me. For example, according to the study, one out of every five information workers shares a computer:

Also very surprising is the low take-up of collaborative software, like video conferencing tools, document sharing and even IM:

Email is obviously still king when it comes to collaboration in most workplaces (a topic I wrote about for GigaOM Pro, sub required, in “Email: The Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated“), but I was shocked by the IM stats. According to the study, only about 25 percent of workers use IM at all — and only about 10 percent use it on a daily basis. Is corporate America that far behind the curve? It’s not like IM is a new thing. Obviously there are concerns about employees “goofing off” on company time, but surely the productivity benefits outweigh that risk.

This low adoption rate of collaborative technologies is even more surprising given that the same study reveals that one in three of the workers surveyed telecommutes at least some of the time. Part of the reason behind this low takeup might be that the workers surveyed seem very change-averse — according to the study, only 10 percent would be happy to see their word processor changed, for example.

The figures revealed in this report represent a serious opportunity for vendors in the corporate sector — if they can penetrate a market that is obviously reluctant to embrace new productivity-enhancing tools. If only one in 10 workers is currently using video conferencing on even a monthly basis, for example, there is plenty of room for the sector to grow substantially in the future. No wonder there are so many companies currently jockeying for position in the market. It’s up to vendors to create tools that demonstrate clear productivity benefits, can be slotted into current working practices and are very easy to use.

If this report is any indication, few businesses are taking advantage of the productivity-boosting technologies and tools that many of us take for granted. If you work for such an organization, maybe it’s time to demonstrate how much more efficient it could be if it adopted just a few of these tools.

Are you also surprised by these figures? Do you believe that they’re representative of corporate America?

News of a possible H1N1 virus, or “Swine Flu,” pandemic is causing many commercial firms and government agencies to examine their Continuity of Operations (COOP) plans so business can soldier on during the crisis. The threat of an H1N1 outbreak is even prompting the United States Centers for Disease Control to recommend that small businesses have telework and business continuity plans in place.

This could place even organizations with well developed telecommuting programs in a challenging position, because a major virus outbreak may mean that their remote worker needs exceed their current capacity.

On the flip side, there are organizations that are far from telecommuting-friendly, which face even more challenges because they aren’t set up for remote working. In order to keep their business running in such a crisis they are going to need to buy or build an infrastructure to meet a new model of working.

At WebWorkerDaily, we get a chance to review some of the best office productivity, social media, online collaboration, project management, and Web 2.0 tools that in a worst case scenario — like a pandemic outbreak — can help an organization maintain some semblance of operations and communications, even though its employees and contractors are working from home during the crisis.

Perhaps your organization already has a well-honed telecommuting policy, however it is prudent to look for chinks in your telecommuting plans before the worst case scenario happens. Here is a look at some tools and services you can use to keep business operations running.

Office Suites
While Microsoft Office is probably your corporate standard, an extreme scenario like a pandemic outbreak could place your newly minted web workers on their home PCs or on a limited number of organization owned notebook PCs — there might not be enough Office licenses to cope with this scenario. This means you may need to consider web office solutions to make up the shortfall. Good choices include:

• Google Apps is a good choice for augmenting your corporate standard Office suite, even though it is not as feature-rich. There are fee-based and free versions available.

• Zoho Business is another ready solution, with a wider variety of applications that Google Apps.

• Simon and I recently covered the impending rollout of  Office Web Apps. While it isn’t available yet, the model it promises is ideal for a scenario like this, because it can offer users remote access to their important Microsoft Office files with a familiar interface.

Web office suites can help you keep your work accessible online, which is especially handy if all your workers don’t have remote access to your corporate network.

Social Media
Whether or not your organization has embraced social media behind the firewall, suddenly becoming a home-based organization means that employees are largely cut off from each other. Social networking tools can help them stay in touch with each other and the organization as a whole.

Some corporate-grade social media tools that might fit the bill include:

• Socialtext, a corporate social networking and collaboration tool that we’ve covered previously.
• Yammer, a Twitter clone, is another option for injecting social media into your organizational communications (see our previous coverage).

Each solution has fee-based and free versions.

Project Management

Putting your project management tools online is a prudent move, even before a crisis — but it could become a necessity in light of maintaining corporate operations in the midst of an H1N1 outbreak. However, Microsoft Project maintains its crown as the most popular — albeit mostly desktop-bound — corporate project management solution. Here are some good online project management tools:

• Basecamp is a the most well-known of all of the online PM tools  — we’ve written about it many times previously.
• Zoho Projects is an economical and innovative project management solution that Doriano previously covered for WWD.
• Charles reviewed Team Effect which garnered some mixed comments but is worthy a trial.
• PBWorks (formerly PBWiki) is another online project management option and according to Simon’s review it is definitely worth considering

Each of these solutions have fee-based and free versions.

Instant Messaging
Keeping your team in touch with each other even if they are all stuck at home is vital. If your organization isn’t already using instant messaging, then you need to consider it as part of your contingency plan.

Some instant messaging solutions you should consider include:

• Open source clients like Pidgin and Adium which let you encrypt chat sessions over commercial IM networks including AIM, GTalk, Windows Live, and Yahoo.
• Microsoft Office Communications Server also offers web-based access to its IM client. If your organization is running it, take steps to ensure your staff has access to it from home.

Web Conferencing & Collaboration
Today’s web conferencing and collaboration tools are ideal for keeping your team working together even though they’re not all working from the same office. Here are some options for web conferencing:

• Acrobat.com includes ConnectNow. Thursday covered Acrobat.com coming out of beta. It has free and fee-based versions and includes online collaboration features.
• Dimdim, which we’ve covered before, is an excellent low-cost teleconferencing tool
• Simon covered the beta launch of Team Apart, a free online collaboration tool that offers white board, video conferencing, and file sharing. Depending on the progress of the beta, it might be worth considering.

Crises and Web Working
Whether you are building out or just augmenting your communications infrastructure in light of the H1N1 threat, I recommend checking out these  applications now and not on the eve of a crisis. You should also make sure that employees know how to use these applications and how to access them well in advance of having to actually implement your crisis plan..

How is your organization preparing to continue operations during an H1N1 virus outbreak?

Image by mzacha from stock.xchng.

Intriguing “hackerspace/makerspace” i3 Detroit is holding its grand opening tomorrow, with an open house between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m at its new facility at 322 East Fourth St. in Royal Oak, Mich., followed by a party that kicks off at 7 p.m. Unlike some run-of-the-mill coworking spaces, which tend to be more like a cross between an office and a coffee shop, i3 Detroit’s 1,500-square-foot facility contains an assortment of fabrication tools, a classroom and a stock of many common components to use during project builds, which according to founder Russ Wolfe should create “a collaborative environment for people to explore the balance between technology, art and culture.”

i3 Detroit is a non-profit organization, and paid membership ($100 per month) includes 24-hour entry to the facility, access to all tools and preferred admittance to classes.

If you’re involved with an unusual coworking project, tell us about it in the comments.

As a web worker, you have the freedom to work from anywhere that has an Internet connection. A coffee shop or a library can make for just as good a workspace as a home office. But workplaces are not created equal. The differences between individual coffee shops can turn one into the perfect place to plant your laptop, while making another an impossible place to get any work done. The trick is learning to recognize what makes the best workspace for you before you buy a cup of coffee and find a chair.

More Than Just Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi is crucial to a web worker’s ability to work on the road, but just knowing a that your local library branch offers free Wi-Fi isn’t enough to tell you that it’s a great workspace. Knowing how good the Wi-Fi is will tell you how much work you’ll be able to get done, especially if you’re working on something that requires a lot of bandwidth. If you’re working in a coffee shop when someone has to reboot the router every hour or in a co-working space where everyone is a heavy Internet user, you may not be able to get the kind of access you need for your work. Unfortunately, it can be hard to figure out the status of the Wi-Fi until you sit down and turn on your computer. It may be worth booting up and trying it out before you settle in for the long haul.

Depending on how long you plan to work, you may also need an electrical outlet to plug your laptop into. You’ll find different policies on just outlet usage, depending on where you go to work: at most chain coffee shops, there are at least a few outlets that customers can use. In some independent coffee shops, though, it’s becoming more common to find outlets taped over, unavailable for your use. Keep an eye out for accessible power on your way in — if you look around and there are no outlets you can use, it may be time to move on to the next place on your list.

Think Ergonomically

When you’re choosing a place to work, it’s important to make sure that you can sit comfortably for a long period of time. If you wind up hunched over your laptop, sitting in an uncomfortable chair, it’s much harder to get work done than if you find a comfortable chair that allows you to easily reach your laptop. Being able to use a table can make a big difference in how comfortable a workspace is, but other factors can be more personal. Look for chairs and arrangements that match your own preferences for comfort.

Coworking spaces can often provide a step above other options when it comes to comfort. Coworking spaces are usually designed from the ground up to provide guests with a place to get their work done, as opposed to a restaurant that may want to encourage customers to move along so new customers can sit down.

The Cost of the Workspace

Despite the fact that some people view being mobile as a way to avoid paying for office space, there are still costs associated with going into a coffee shop and sitting down. You’ll order at least a cup of coffee, and most people consider it polite to keep ordering food and drinks as long as they are taking up a table. A library may have no cost associated with using it as a workspace, but the library staff may ask you to limit your time if there’s a lot of demand at a given time. A coworking space will have an upfront fee.

It’s important to consider the cost of working at a particular location. Even if such expenses are tax deductible (remember to keep receipts!) they can quickly add up.

What do you look for in your mobile workspaces?

Photo credit: Flickr user theregeneration

During the past month, I’ve been busy redecorating and rearranging my home office. I spend most of my time there after all, so it needs to be conducive to productivity. For all my planning, there seems to be an aspect of my home office that I’ve largely ignored — the lighting.

According to a study from the Light Right Consortium, “People who are more satisfied with their lighting rate the space as more attractive, are happier, and are more comfortable and satisfied with their environment and work.” As far as home office improvements go, investing your time on proper lighting seems like it’s worth it.

Here are some pointers to get started on a well-lit office:

Increase amounts of natural light. The best way to light a home office is through natural light, not only because it’s brighter and more even than artificial lighting, but also because it’s free. I’m glad that my home office seems to do well in this area, because one wall is a glass sliding door to an open veranda, while another wall has a large window.

If you don’t have the benefit of natural light in your office, it seems like common sense to compensate for it by using bulbs that replicate daylight (full-spectrum bulbs). But research shows that such bulbs only make a difference if you’re performing tasks that require fine discrimination of color (if you do print design work, for example).

Opt for indirect lighting. Don’t imitate corporate cubicle farms by installing direct, parabolic lighting. Professors at Cornell University conducted a study (pictures here) that showed the negative effects of these lights in an office. These lights were bothersome and made the subjects’ eyes tire and lose focus more easily. Apparently, direct parabolic lights also lessens productivity (as self-reported by employees). For the effect on your eyes alone, it’s better to opt for lensed indirect lighting for your ceiling fixtures.

Plan your furniture layout well. The first thing you have to consider when rearranging furniture is preventing reflected glare on your monitor.

I mentioned above that I have a lot of natural light flowing into my office. This presents a disadvantage, too, because too much direct natural light produces reflected glare on the screen. This lessens my options for monitor placement. My solution to this is to place translucent blinds on the windows to diffuse the sunlight a bit.

Here are other things you need to consider for your layout:

• If you have other glossy or shiny surfaces in the office, make sure that any reflected glare they have is out of your line of sight.
• Use large furniture such as shelves and dividers to maximize or block bright sources of light, depending on your needs.
• For offices that are openly connected to other rooms (no wall), include the lighting in the other room in your plans since it affects the lighting quality in your office.
• Paint your walls in bright colors. Just make sure that they’re not too bright or glossy, producing glare.

Properly space your light fixtures. When planning your fixtures, remember that your entire office should be uniformly lit. Watch out for areas that might be too dark or too bright. Avoid placing fixtures within your usual line of sight, and don’t install them within three inches of a wall (they’ll create sharp areas of shadow and light).

Have as much control as you can. If you can afford it, install dimmers and other methods to control brightness. When used properly, these devices can conserve energy and allow you to adjust your lighting as natural light changes throughout the day. Also, if you’ll be using desk lamps, make sure that you can adjust them on three planes.

Although improving lighting quality in the home office sounds like a lot of work, it’s much better than having a building’s existing lights forced on you. I hope the points I’ve raised above have been — pardon the pun — enlightening.

How well did you plan for the lighting in your home office? What effect does it have on your work?

Image by CraigPJ from sxc.hu

In my Labor Day post, I talked about the importance of web workers advocating for ourselves, and why it is necessary. One of the topics for advocacy that is on everyone’s mind right now (at least in the U.S.) is healthcare, or more particularly health insurance. This topic is of special interest to the segment of web workers who are self-employed or work freelance.

What exactly is the current state of health insurance for the freelance worker in the United States? There are two key issues to consider: access and affordability.

If you are young and healthy by insurance company standards, you can try to buy an individual or family insurance policy. These policies are purchased as individual contracts from an insurance company, as compared to becoming a group member of an insurance pool that is contracted by an employer or other entity. Anne previously provided some tips about shopping for these policies.

There are a few ways that freelancers can get into health insurance buying groups to get lower rates. Some trade groups, local chambers of commerce, and advocacy groups such as the National Association for the Self-Employed offer discounts on purchasing insurance policies as a member benefit. These programs come with the restriction that people wanting to sign up must meet the health standards of the health insurance company to be eligible for the insurance. One notable exception is a program run by the Freelancer’s Union, which is only offered in the state of New York, and which accepts everyone who meet the group’s membership standards.

If you are self-employed because you own a small business, you may be able to get group rates (and tax benefits) by forming your own small group. You’ll need two or more people who are employees of the business to form a group in most states.

To purchase an individual health insurance policy, applicants have to go through a process called medical underwriting. The insurance company uses this screening process to evaluate the financial risk that you (and anyone else that will be on your policy) pose to them. After filling out your application and health history, the insurance company decides if it can insure you at all, and, if so, what rates it can offer you based on your financial risk.

A wide range of medical conditions can cause an applicant to flunk medical underwriting and be denied insurance coverage altogether. Other conditions can result in insurance rates being set ridiculously high; out of reach for most people. Medical underwriting is fairly standard across the industry, thus creating a class of people who are completely uninsurable in the private insurance market.

Some states have created government programs called high-risk insurance pools that sell insurance to people ineligible to purchase insurance through the open market because of underwriting rejection. These pools are expensive, though: members pay premiums that are usually capped at between 150-200 percent of the average market rate.  The programs are usually subsidized by the state’s taxpayers. Around 30 states offer these pools, but the quality of the offerings of the programs vary widely.

Once you have health insurance, then you face the next challenge: keeping that insurance when you need it most. Individual insurance policy holders don’t have the protection of an employer group contract requiring the insurance company to insure them (called mandatory enrollment) to keep an insurance company from canceling their policies. This means that if you are a private insurance policy holder and you actually start needing your insurance, you may find the company using a process called rescission on you.

In health insurance, rescission happens when an insurance company wants to rid itself of a policy holder that is costing it money in large claims. The entire life history of insurance claims of everyone on the policy are examined in detail, looking for any pre-existing diagnosis that wasn’t reported on the policyholder’s application. It then uses this lack of disclosure of any condition, no matter how minor or unrelated to the current claims that are costing it money, to declare the policy void. Any diagnosis code for a chronic condition or risk factor ever recorded on a claim form by a doctor’s office could be grounds for voiding a policy if that condition wasn’t included on the policy’s application form. Forgetting to disclose your spouse’s deviated septum could be used as grounds to cancel your family’s policy if you need expensive cancer treatment.

There a few exceptions to all of these underwriting procedures and rescission concerns: if you live in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maine or Vermont, your state prohibits medical underwriting, according to ehealthinsurance.com.

I’ve personally experienced the effects of medical underwriting. I have multiple health conditions that are considered completely uninsurable by health insurance companies. Several times, when I have been cold-called by insurance agents who got my business registration information, I have literally been hung up on in mid-sentence the moment the agent heard the word “lupus” come out of my mouth. They knew they couldn’t sell me a policy so I was a waste of time and they moved on to the next prospect without even a polite sign-off.

Because of all of the things I described above, access to and the cost of health insurance should be a serious concern contemplated by anyone considering freelancing. It can prevent web workers from even being able to consider becoming self-employed, or force them back into working for someone else, because of the change in health status of themselves or a family member. For people who are already self-employed, maintaining health insurance is probably an ongoing concern. Last year, Mike reported that FreelanceSwitch research showed that only 31 percent of web workers in North America had health insurance.

Being young and supposedly healthy isn’t a reason to not worry about insurance. I was a young, healthy 18-year-old, right up until the day a blood test to determine if I had “freshman mono” diagnosed a serious blood disorder that is part of my lupus. Many Twitter users are familiar with the hashtag #blamedrewscancer. This meme sprang up after Drew Olanoff was diagnosed in May with Hodgkins Lymphoma and has become a LIVESTRONG fundraiser. Lightning can strike any of us in the form of a health crisis at any time. That is what insurance is for; if you can get it, and if you can afford it.

Do you have health insurance?

Hacker Dojo, a new coworking venture located in Mountain View, Calif., opened for business yesterday. Its location is good news for web workers from the Bay Area looking for a co-working space who aren’t based in San Francisco. Inspired by the monthly DevHouse “hackathon” events, the space is intended to be a venue for hackers, tinkerers and creative people — despite the name, you don’t need to be a programmer to become a member. Hacker Dojo is primarily intended to be a creative community space (a place to hold events, workshops, BarCamps, etc.), with coworking as an additional feature.

While some co-working ventures have found times quite tough recently (CubeSpace in Portland, Ore., being forced to close, for example), Hacker Dojo already has a long membership list. Membership fees are just $100 per month, so that list should grow rapidly.

If you’ve found a great co-working spot recently, let us know in the comments.

The coffee shop has long been an valuable digital oasis for freelancers and untethered workers, providing an essential mix of cake, connectivity and company. It has inadvertently, and sometimes deliberately, become the third place, figuratively located between home and work.

Last December we reported that the UK’s Pret a Manger chain was launching free Wi-Fi access — now it seems they’re set to be joined by Starbucks, at just over 500 locations throughout the UK.

Though Starbucks has long offered paid Wi-Fi via T-Mobile and BT, as well as complimentary iPhone usage, this latest development is purported to open connectivity to anyone using Starbucks’ prepay cards.

Curiously, while at one time smaller indie outlets would offer free Wi-Fi connectivity to compete with the bigger players, it seems they’re now curtailing their generosity, just as the larger chains are starting to offer complimentary access.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that some stores are now covering up electrical outlets and limiting the time that customers are allowed to use a laptop — unless they’re eating or drinking something. It seems that in New York City, the recession has driven idle workers to nursing the same cup for hours at a time — behavior that’s starting to impact stores’ businesses.

Coffee shops in New York in particular — one independent chain of stores is aptly called Cafe Grumpy — seem to be leading the charge in withdrawing perks from their customers. This might be more understandable when you learn that some frugal customers are starting bringing their own food, cups and teabags.

There’s always been an unwritten social contract between web workers and store owners: Workers help make a place look busy and spend enough for owners to ignore the overhead caused by their usage of connectivity and power, while cafe owners provide a “demi-office” environment for the workers. When someone tries to take take advantage of such a delicate balance, it’s only understandable that the relationship begins to break down.

Sadly, as CNET’s Rafe Needleman illustrates, independent stores owners are likely to lose this battle as larger chains draw workers away with their drift towards free connectivity.

Personally, I believe independent owners can be more creative in supporting the untethered — perhaps providing low-cost subscription plans for access to various resources is one way to go, or arranging blocks of time or events to support web workers. These are all personal touches that are harder for larger chains to match.

Do you think the coffee shop/web worker social contract is equitable? What can be done to keep a balance?

Last month — courtesy of Nokia — I had the privilege of attending one of the most exciting conferences in the technology calendar, TEDGlobal 2009. Though TED is invitation-only — and monstrously expensive at $4,500 — it succeeds in bringing together an extraordinarily diverse range of speakers and delegates…plus, everyone gets a really, really cool gift bag!

The final session of the week-long conference opened with Daniel Pink, a former speechwriter for Al Gore, now a “career analyst” investigating and examining the changing patterns of work around the world.

Pink has been the subject of much attention lately, with his assertions that “right-brainers will rule this century,” as well as high-profile appearances at TED and a recent interview with Oprah Winfrey. These assertions offer some intriguing insights into “the future of work in a post-broadband world” — notably the patterns of work, business relationships, structures and skills that we’ll perhaps require in the future.

Pink’s latest book speaks of a “conceptual age” of work where “left-brained” reasoning will need to be augmented by what he describes as six critical “right-brain” qualities:

1. Design — The ability to conceive more than purely functional services or products, and develop emotionally engaging, joyful and attractive solutions.
2. Story — In a society abundant with data, the ability to weave a compelling narrative will become increasingly crucial.
3. Symphony — Being able to synthesize disparate, often disconnected, developments into something new, often straddling many industries, will be the basis of innovation.
4. Empathy — Looking beyond analytics to understand underlying motivations can provide unique and distinct insights.
   
5. Play — Wiring levity and play into cultures, experiences and solutions where appropriate.
6. Meaning — Moving past material abundance to “work on stuff that matters.”

Pink’s TED session focused less on these attributes and more on empirical analysis of how workers are usually incentivized, concluding that contemporary incentive systems actually destroy creativity and that autonomy, mastery and purpose are better notions of management than traditional compliance, citing Atlassian as a prime example of a company that incentivizes right-brain activities.

The six aptitudes discussed above may invite controversy and are there to be challenged, but I’m certain many of our readers are already exhibiting many of these qualities, though perhaps without an explicit awareness of doing so. The real value of Pink’s work is in providing labels and language that become the starting point for discussion and debate. For example, how do you get good at “symphony?”

In an interesting counterpoint to Pink’s assertions, Wired UK recently ran a piece, “Stand by for Google’s next market-changing move,” that explores the trends towards the left-brained in the advertising industry; where “data is valued more highly than relationships…and creative genius.”

Read more at TED, Daniel Pink’s site, Oprah and Cooltown Studios.

Are you practicing any of Daniel Pink’s right-brained qualities?