In the age of continuous connectivity, many a web worker may feel a sense of wry irony in the fact that often, when we need answers on something, the person we need those answers from is uncontactable.
We all diligently plan ahead, so we allow plenty of time for our colleague to pull together the necessary input to our project. We go out of our way to establish some kind of understanding and rapport. We explain the timeframes and constraints of the project so they know where we’re coming from. And we try to make our follow-up requests as polite and professional as possible.
To no avail, sadly. Read the rest of this entry »
Video conferencing is hot, and as such, companies are jockeying for position in the space. The latest to do so is Cisco, which as Stacey reported over at GigaOM, today offered $3 billion — in cash — for Norwegian video conferencing equipment manufacturer Tandberg. As Stacey notes in her analysis, this move will enable Cisco to move even deeper into the video conferencing market, and underlines Cisco’s belief in its growth.
While heavyweight fixed telepresence systems such as those offered by Cisco are aimed at the enterprise and so are unlikely to be used by many web workers, there is already a huge choice of web app video conferencing options available in this highly competitive space, from higher-end tools like WebEx (also a Cisco product) through midrange offerings like Dimdim (see my recent look at Dimdim Webinar) all the way down to no-frills options like Skype and Tinychat (see my review here). Investment and innovation in this market should bring benefits for us all, as video conferencing makes remote collaboration much easier, from one-to-one meetings all the way up to larger webinars and presentations. Fewer on-site meetings mean reduced travel costs, less time wasted on travel, and a healthier planet, too.
Additionally, as more of us work remotely, we are becoming increasingly isolated from our colleagues. In “Coworking in Rural Places,” Aliza explained how she uses video conferencing to create a “pseudo-coworking space” with her business partner, easing the isolation of working in remote Tok, Alaska. Video conferencing is a great way to establish the rapport that can be so hard to build without the benefit of daily face-to-face interaction.
Do you use video conferencing as part of your remote working setup? What tools do you use?
I’ve been working on the web — in one form or another — since 1994, and on the Internet since 1987, so I’ve had a number of years to learn some very tough lessons along the way. In trying to summarize my best advice to someone who is interested in web working, I distilled my learning into five specific tips. All these lessons were learned in the School of Hard Knocks, with a little Murphy’s Law thrown in for good measure. Read the rest of this entry »
I use public transport a lot. And where I live, public transport is notoriously unreliable. This was getting to be quite annoying, since waiting for trains and trams meant wasting precious work time. Or so I thought.
But then one day, standing on a deserted platform having missed my train by seconds (and facing a 70-minute wait for the next one), I decided to take matters into my own hands. I decided to make wait time into work time. Read the rest of this entry »
If you’ve ever been robbed in a public place, you’ll know all too well the feeling of horror that ensues. For the remote worker on the road, that horror increases exponentially with the realization that you’ve lost your work, your colleagues’ details and data, your stored access passwords, and so on.
With your computer, that thief may also be able to access your and your contacts’ personal details, your online banking and payment accounts, email accounts, and other accounts on sites through which you may purchase goods, store sensitive data … the list just goes on! Read the rest of this entry »
It doesn’t matter how focused you are, working from your remote office likely entails more than a few distractions. For each of us those distractions will be different (I just had to break my morning’s work to move my goat to a new patch of grass; you may not have to cram this particular commitment into your schedule). And, truth be told, they’re not always unwelcome. Read the rest of this entry »
When a friend of mine heard that I was teleworking, she said “I can’t imagine doing my work without my boss watching my back. What motivates you to get anything done?”
I paused for a second, then replied, “I love doing it.”
Fast forward to a few hours later — one of my hosting accounts crashed, a delinquent client’s bill was two weeks overdue, and I received a long line of harsh comments on one of my blog posts post. Remembering what I said about loving my work, I felt tempted to take it back.
How do we stay motivated when crises come to us in groups? Or, to address a broader issue, how do we find the motivation to get things done when we’re feeling stuck? Read the rest of this entry »
We’ve all read the news stories that identify social implications of a world increasingly conducted electronically, rather than in person. It seems that in an environment where individuals and organizations can manufacture themselves new personas, and nothing’s real until we broadcast it across a network of contacts, many web workers are feeling increasingly isolated. Read the rest of this entry »
Web Work 101: How To Escape The Cubicle
