The growth of telework and virtual teams in midmarket companies

This past week I was interviewed for an article in eWeek entitled Telework Migrates to the Midmarket. The reporter was asking me why I thought midmarket companies (which she defined as companies with 50 - 1000 employees) were starting to embrace more telework and virtual teamwork. While it has been my observation that companies of all sizes, not just midmarket companies, are embracing the concept of having their employees work from outside the office - the question made me think - why the increase specifically in companies of this size? I think there are 2 main reasons for this . . .

My initial, more obvious thought, is that it is largely due to the increase in easy-to-use, affordable technology that companies of any size can implement without the need of a large IT staff - such as web based collaboration tools, remote access to computers, and web meeting services. These subscription services allow companies access to all the tools they need to work from anywhere without the IT headaches for implementation. Even solo professionals can take advantage of these tools. Read more

TAO Podcast (Mobile Work Tip) - Free Conference Calls

In this Mobile Work Tip Phil talks about using free conference call services for real-time brainstorming with people you don’t get to see face to face.

**get more tips like these in our free Mobile Work Tipbook.**

Travel Delays Highlight the Need for Virtual Team Strategies

Flights delayed for hours by Northeast storms - CNN.com 02/22/2008

We’ve been seeing headlines like this all winter, and we see them EVERY winter; even cavemen knew it was going to snow in winter. But the difficulties imposed on business travel have gone beyond the inevitability of weather delays (which aren’t even always weather events according to CNN 5 Things Airlines Won’t Tell You About Weather Delays), they are compounded by a floundering U.S. Airline industry. Consider this report from the AP wire released earlier this month:

2007 Airline Delays 2nd Worst EverFeb 6, 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — A quarter of domestic flights failed to arrive on time in 2007 — the industry’s second poorest performance on record — and analysts say it is likely to get worse. More than 26 percent of commercial flights in the U.S. arrived late or were canceled last year as rising passenger demand and an industry preference for smaller planes intensified congestion in the skies and on runways. The air-travel logjam, reported Tuesday by the Department of Transportation, comes as a growing number of air traffic controllers near retirement age — a trend the controllers’ union says will magnify the problem.

Pile on top of all this lost time and frustration the rising cost of travel and it seems pretty clear that something, somewhere has to give. Putting into place some simple virtual office and virtual team strategies can not only serve as a business continuity plan when you or one of your people is stuck on the tarmac in the snow, they can also increase your organization’s communication and collaboration abilities while decreasing the amount of required travel every day.

Let’s face it, at least the cavemen adapted the way they worked to deal with the changes in their environment - it’s called evolution people. Isn’t it time we came in out of the cold?

To explore some of the premiere tools and services related to virtual teamwork download a FREE copy of The Anywhere Office Toolbox. We have been playing in this sandbox a long time and the Toolbox details the service providers we believe are the best in their respective businesses. Most of them offer free trials and special discounts.

TAO Podcast (Mobile Work Tip) - Communication Guidelines

Here’s a new installment of The Anywhere Office podcast: Mobile Work Tips. Phil offers up some best practices for remote work and virtual teams in 2 minute, digestible tips. This first one deals with setting communication guidelines. You can find a collection of tips like these relating to virtual teams, home offices, laptops, email, and palm pilots in our free Mobile Work Tipbook and we’ll be posting more to the podcast moving forward. Let us know what you think, or if there are any topics that you’d like to hear more about.

Virtual Collaboration and Brainstorming - Use the right tools

I recently stumbled on a great article on Read-Write-Web about the “Work From Home” Generation.

They give a good overview of the pros and cons. While I agree with almost all of it, the first issue they raise as a negative is “Brainstorming is difficult”. While I agree initially it can be more challenging while you adapt to collaborating with others virtually, like anything it becomes much easier with practice. A large part of successfully brainstorming and collaboration with others across distance is choosing and “thoughtfully applying” the right technology. This is something we often talk about and stress in our workshops and books. Read more

Dropping Outlook for webmail? My 60 day experiment

Let me start by saying that for as long as I can remember I have been a devout Microsoft Outlook user. I lived, breathed, and worked in Outlook all day long using it not only for email - but also for organizing my contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes. About 6 months ago I upgraded to Office 2007 and really like the new version of Outlook - however I have been giving a lot of thought lately to just how mobile my email is (and can be).

This prompted me to start thinking about making the switch to using webmail. By moving away from Outlook to a web based email system I always have access to all my mail from any web browser. At a client site - no problem just jump on the web and I’m able to send, receive or access all of may mail. Visiting friends and family . . . I don’t even need my laptop with me as long as I can use their computer to get on the web.

But me leave the comforts of Outlook? Just the thought of it made me quiver . . . so I decided to conduct a 60 day experiment to see if I could leave my trusty Outlook behind and free myself to truly work the web!

I evaluated the big boys of webmail - Yahoo, Windows Live (formerly Hotmail), and Google’s Gmail. After a painstaking analysis of their various features and options and a few short tests I have decided to go with Yahoo Mail for my experiment. There are a lot of reasons why which I will explain in future posts - but one of the reasons is their new interface which makes the experience of working with it very similar to working with Outlook or any other desktop email program. Also it was important for me to be able to send mail from a number of different email addresses seamlessly so I could consolidate my mail into one program like I did with Outlook. While the other claim to do this they have some shortcomings in this area that Yahoo did not have (as long as I subscribe to their Yahoo! Mail Plus service for $20 a year).

I also like the fact that I can free myself from having to use a smartphone (like my current Treo 650) to access my email being that almost all phones have internet access and Yahoo provides a very usable wap (phone based) interface to access and work with your email. I’m planning on getting a new phone soon and wanted to move to something a bit simpler (my Treo tends to crash a lot and in the end I realized I want my phone to be mostly just that . . . a phone and not try to do everything). I spend enough time troubleshooting my computer - I don’t want to troubleshoot my phone too!

I decided now would be a good time for the test as I will be traveling a lot for the holidays so it would give me a good chance to really put it through it’s paces. So about 3 weeks ago I made the switch (gulp). I have a copy of all my email forwarding to my Yahoo Plus account (while leaving a copy on the mail server that I still have been downloading into Outlook once a week in case after the 60 days I decide to scrap my webmail experiment).

At first my mouse kept hovering over the Outlook icon on my taskbar every time I went to check or send an email but soon I overcame that and a strange feeling has overtaken me. Let’s call it a lightness of being . . . I feel less tied down not having to live in Outlook anymore. Instead of running into my home office to check my email I just use my phone’s web access to log into yahoo and view messages. And guess what? When I delete a message on my phone it’s gone the next time I access Yahoo’s webmail from my laptop. I also have to admit my laptop has been a lot snappier now that I don’t have a big resource hogging program like Outlook running all the time. Most of the time I am just working in my browser (which I always have open anyway).

I’m not fully convinced I am leaving Outlook yet - but so far I am really enjoying the experience! The next week or so when I am visiting family for the holidays will be much more telling. What about my calendar, tasks, and notes you ask? I’ll save that for another post in a few weeks. At that point I’ll share more details about my experience and what tools I am trying in replace of Outlook there - yes they are also web-based!

So what do you think? Are you an Outlook addict? Have any of you made the switch? Post a comment and let me know your thoughts and experiences.

The Virtues of Going Virtual

Many people consider the pros and cons of moving to a completely virtual office setup but aren’t sure whether it is right for them. I recently came across a blog post from Don Loper who manages a web design firm. At the end of May he made the jump from a physical office to a full virtual office. Read more about his thoughts and experience in this post - The Virtues of Going Virtual.

He also posted some thoughts about the experience a few months later in his post The Virtual Office is Complete (love the photo Don!)

Now while many of you may be thinking it’s easy for him to go with a virtual office setup because he runs a web design firm, I think you will find most of the points he makes to be true of many businesses in varied industries.

Free Business Continuity and Disaster Preparedness Teleseminar

Well it’s July and that means hurricane season in Florida, which is where we call home. The season lasts from June all the way through November (it’s not all paradise here in the land of Palm Trees!). For people living and doing business in Florida, hurricane season is an annual reminder of the importance of business continuity planning and disaster preparedness. No named storms made landfall here last season, but the two years before that caused catastrophic damage and derailed many businesses beyond just South Florida. Currently, a big concern for assistance organizations and authorities in Florida is that people suffer from what they call ‘hurricane amnesia”… in other words, because we went a season without any major storms, folks get complacent and aren’t as diligent about making sure they have supplies and a plan. Well, that’s true of business owners and managers just the same. So remember, the best time to prepare for any emergency is before it happens, and that’s not just true for South Floridians, there are many types of possible business disruptions or emergencies regardless of where you live and work.

Last year we got together a small panel of South Florida experts to discuss best practices, strategies, and tools related to business continuity, disaster recovery planning, and continuity of operations; we offered a free teleseminar in the interest of helping people figure out where to start and what they could do to protect themselves, even on a tight budget. The session went excellently and we not only participated in the presentation, we learned a great deal. We have decided to make an audio recording and the handouts from the teleseminar available for free download throughout the rest of this hurricane season.

Here’s a link to the audio and handouts for our free one-hour teleseminar “Riding the Storm Out”. In this teleseminar we discuss developing a solid disaster preparedness plan, choosing the right communication technology, as well as how to use home offices, virtual offices, and virtual teams to help ensure your business is ready to weather any storm (or interruption).

Make sure your business is prepared and listen in to this valuable audio program today!

Working Together…When Apart - WSJ.com

Working Together…When Apart - WSJ.com

Phil and I have been wood-shedding as of late, releasing updated versions of our Tipbooks, creating 3 new Virtual Training CDs, and conducting a number of Virtual Team Workshops youcanworkfromanywhere.com/store

When I saw this Wall Street Journal article I wanted to share it on the blog because it is a perfect distillation of the key issues and ideas in which we have been immersed.

Although each virtual team situation has unique qualities, there are some fundamental challenges that appear repeatedly - these are highlighted in this excellent article by Lynda Gratton along with 10 steps that any team can take to collaborate more effectively across distance.

In our workshops we often stress the importance of fostering informal communication, and many times organizations are surprised by this (or even dismiss the idea) because it is an area they have given little or no thought. I’d like to point out that the first step Ms. Gratton details relates to informal communication…

Notes from Jessica Lipnack on Virtual Teams and the Networked Organization

I came across this recent blog post with notes from a recent talk given by Jessica Lipnack, author of several books on virtual teams and CEO of Netage. She makes some wonderful observations about strategies for keeping virtual teams connected and some of the typical challenges.

Definitely worth a read . . .
Notes from Jessica Lipnack on Virtual Teams and the Networked Organization

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• Recent Posts

  • The growth of telework and virtual teams in midmarket companies
  • TAO Podcast (Mobile Work Tip) - Remote PC Access
  • TAO Podcast (Mobile Work Tip) - Free Conference Calls
  • Travel Delays Highlight the Need for Virtual Team Strategies
  • TAO Podcast (Mobile Work Tip) - Communication Guidelines
  • Virtual Collaboration and Brainstorming - Use the right tools
  • Happy Holidays from The Anywhere Office - a musical gift!
  • Dropping Outlook for webmail? My 60 day experiment
  • Free Business Continuity Teleseminar for National Preparedness Month
  • Small Adjustments = Big Changes

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