Whether freelancing, or in the corporate world, we all have to contend with deadlines. Deadlines generally come off sounding like shlock horror villains: they inch closer, approach, loom and grow larger. I’ve worked in settings where deadlines were paramount, and followed rigorously, and in situations where they meant surprisingly little.
In this post I’m going to discuss deadline management. Successfully managing deadlines is part knowing why specific deadlines exist in the first place, part knowing which are soft and which are firm, and a big part relationship management. Striking the right balance depends on the situation at hand, but generally speaking, deadlines fall into one of three categories and should be managed accordingly. Read the rest of this entry »
I never got into Microsoft Access. Maybe this is not the best thing to admit in an online publication like this one, where my admission will be indexed and archived, conceivably, for the rest of recorded history. So, as a note to future employers: By the time you are reading this, I will have mastered Microsoft Access. But for now, I don’t get it.
In the meantime, I still need to use databases on occasion. When I do, I generally turn to the inelegant and probably inappropriate solution that is Microsoft Excel. I’ve even been known to use tables created in Word. What can I say, I have a deep-seated mistrust of numbers and their attendant programs. As I do to solve most problems, I turned to the web for a better answer. That’s where I ran into Grubba. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a great time to be a web worker. Almost every day, a new site, service or product comes on the scene that promises to make our work more efficient (or more fun). Some areas, like project management or image editing, are crowded with options. And in order to gain a following, many services are being offered inexpensively or at no cost.
But as Paisano wrote recently, current conditions won’t last forever. Many sites will eventually become fee-based; others will shut down when their funding runs out, or when their owners decide to move in a different direction.
So when I evaluate a product that I’d like to incorporate into my company’s workflow — especially a product that will be visible to clients — I try to consider the product’s feature set, along with the issues raised in Judi’s 2007 WWD post. I also ask the following questions: Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: backup, data formats, due diligence, evaluation, exit strategy, freemium, hosting, licensing, management, Open Source, saas, support, workflow
Managing the flood of electronic communication — phone, voicemail, email, SMS, IM, micro-blogging and status updates on sites like Facebook — is an increasingly difficult task. It’s being reported that Bill Gates recently left Facebook due to a surfeit of friend requests. I’ve struggled to manage these communications, and like most businesspeople I’ve talked to, my system is based on having different voice, email, IM and social network accounts for personal and professional uses. I can thus give real-time access to clients during business hours, while after-hours access is limited to friends, family and emergencies.
Several upcoming products (Google Wave, for example) want to make every communication channel available in one place in real time and should, in theory, help to make all these communications easier to manage. But will these apps actually make it harder to separate business and personal lives? Will real-time access to all electronic messages make it more difficult for us to provide effective customer service while maintaining personal lives? As Mashable asks: are we ready for the walls between email, messaging and related technologies to come a-tumbling down? Read the rest of this entry »
Recently, I posted about singletasking, a new trend that many are turning to after having burned out on multitasking. One key component of singletasking is setting aside blocks of time during which you check and deal with email, instead of having it interrupt your work flow continually throughout the day. Ignoring email is probably the most challenging aspect of singletasking for me, and I suspect the same is true for many web workers. Read the rest of this entry »
By Justin Draeger
Teleworking has been gaining traction for years and now more than 2.44 million people spend at least part of their work week at home.
But recently some major employers have been pulling telecommuters back into the office. The goal of any would-be teleworker is to show your boss how working from home will benefit him and the company.
If you’re having trouble getting your point across, here are some possible reasons he wants you in the office.
Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
