Although many people feel remote collaboration is all about technology – the truth is virtual team work is a human endeavor – it’s about people working with people. Sure the tech is important as it enables people to work together while apart – but the strategy behind which tools you choose and how you use them is easily just as critical.

As Jason and I often say it’s about “the right tools thoughtfully applied”. Yesterday I came across a great blog post by Isaac Gube (@IAMTHEGUBE) about the tools and strategies he and his brother put into place when they launched their latest venture DesignInstruct.com – a regularly updated web magazine for designers and digital artists where you can find and learn design tips and tricks. The Brothers Gube clearly share the same philosophy as the Brothers Montero:

Design Instruct is our first real venture together. It is the first time my brother and I sought to actually build something of our own (unless of course you count all the make-believe forts we built when we were kids).

There are many challenges associated with working with someone over a long distance. However, we found that there are solutions to those challenges, and so far, we’ve managed to make it work.

via How to Make Remote Team Collaboration Work.

I love the way the post breaks down the 5 main challenges they had and describes the solutions they came up with.  When technology was needed they used free or low cost tools that can be embraced by any small business owner, solo professional, or entrepreneur.

The important thing is they did their own workflow analysis, tooks a step back, and developed a structure and approach that worked for them. The spirit and philosophy they brought to this approach echoes my own:

Working on the Internet over a long distance is definitely different than working together in the same physical location. But being different doesn’t mean that it’s a worse way to work.

Of course, it’s a different way to work, but it’s also a very effective way to work once you acknowledge the challenges and are willing to adapt.

Just think, a few years ago, working from such great distances would have been quite an ordeal, and today it is done with such great ease and effectiveness.

I strongly encourage you to read their blog post and please share some comments below about the tools and strategies you’ve found to help you collaborate and work across the web.

It’s no surprise with all the ads you see for iPhones, iPads, Blackberry’s, and Android phones that accessing the web on mobile devices is a growing trend. I probably spend a good 1/3 or more of my time on the internet using my iPod Touch rather than my laptop to search Google, view websites, and connect with people on Twitter.

This article shares some eye-opening stats and graphs from Morgan Stanley analysts showing the most important online trends:

Mobile Web Will Rule by 2015

Here are a few highlights:

• Video accounts for 69% of mobile data traffic.
• Facebook is the single largest repository for user-generated content such as pics, videos, links and comments.
• Apple and Android platforms are gaining in the mobile OS market, while Windows Mobile, RIM and Palm decline.
• If Skype were a telecommunications carrier, it would be the largest carrier in the world, with 521 million registered users.
• The average iPhone user only spends 45% of his on-device time making voice calls.

OK – put your futurist hats on . . . what do you think will be the biggest changes or technology in the next 5 years? Post a comment below and let us know!

It’s no surprise that telecommuting, workshifting, or virtual work - whatever you choose to call it - not only makes smart business sense but can also help you run a more environmentally friendly business.

Whether you are a large corporation, small business, or solo professional there is a lot you can do to lighten your ecological footprint. When you reduce the need to travel and take advantage of technology to collaborate from anywhere you keep tons of carbon emissions from polluting the world.  A shift to printing less and using more digital documents saves untold numbers of trees.

By taking The Anywhere Office® approach you’ll save money, be more productive, and be more green. So this Earth Day make a commitment to make even a small adjustment to the way you work to do your part.

You can start by downloading The Anywhere Office Toolbox – our free eBook contains information and links to technology, services, and other resources we find of benefit to mobile workers, virtual teams and supporting virtual offices and distributed work.

You’ll find tools for gaining remote access to your documents or computer, holding web meetings and conferences, sending and receiving digital faxes, sending video email and holding video conferences, dealing with time-zones, and marketing your business online.

These are all free or affordable solutions with free trials – so there is no excuse!  Incorporate some of these tools today and make your business more green.

Unchain yourself from the office; work where and when you want.

If you have employees working remotely or are just getting started with telecommuting, virtual teams, or workshifting you won’t want to miss the free webinar I’m delivering next Thursday, April 29th:

Work Unchained: The Competitive Edge
of the Anywhere Office®
Thursday, April 29 at 11 AM (PDT) / 2 PM (EDT)

Business as usual no longer involves working in a traditional workplace at set hours. Today’s workforce is more mobile than ever, and every day more people are working from virtual offices, client sites, home offices, coffee shops, airports, hotels, and any number of remote workplaces. Companies that take an ad-hoc approach to this work-style struggle, while those with a strategic, planned approach reap the benefit and flexibility of distributed work.

I partnered with Citrix (makers of GoToMyPC) to deliver this free Webinar. Learn how to evaluate your own organization’s workflow to strategically turn your ordinary office into The Anywhere Office®.

Attend to learn:

• Why workshifting provides a critical competitive edge
• Common mistakes to avoid when enabling a mobile workforce
• Best practices for evaluating your organization before implementing a workshifting strategy
• And more…

Click here to reserve your complimentary seat

I’m looking forward to the presentation and I hope you’ll join us!

It’s not unusual in these days of webworking and remote collaboration to have the need to share large files with colleagues, clients, or even family members.  Not only do we have large reports but there are also the ever growing collection of photos, audio, and video files.

While Gmail allows you to send attachment up to a generous 25 MB in size – there are times where that just isn’t large enough as you may have files that are 100 or more MB to send. Here are 4 great services I’ve found that will let you easily send large files to others:

YouSendIt – The free version of this service will let you send files up to 100 MB with a 1 GB monthly download limit. The file will remain available for 7 days to download.  Simply go to their website, fill out a short form (with your email address, the address of who you want to send the file to, a subject line, and short message), then click the browse button and choose which file you want to send.  It upload the file to their servers and emails a link to the person you are sending the file to. If you want additional features including the ability to send files up to 2GB in size you can choose one of their paid services (including pay per use if you only need to do this once in a while).

Dropbox – Dropbox not only lets you easily share files with others but it also allows you to sync your files online and across your computers automatically. They give you 2GB of online storage for free and you can pay for up to 100 GB. You need to download a small program but it’s free and work on Windows, Mac, or Linux systems. It creates a dropbox folder on your computer where you can easily copy files to upload them or share them with others.  What I love about Dropbox is that you can share an entire folder and make it public or just share it with a group of people. There are some other great features:

• Shared folders allow several people to collaborate on a set of files.
• You can see other people’s changes instantly.
• Automatic backup of your files.
• Web access. A copy of your files are stored on Dropbox’s secure servers. This lets you access them from any computer or mobile device. They even have an iPhone App.

You start with 2GB for free but they will give you up to 8 GB free for referring other people.  Here is my referral link so if you want to try it out please click here to share the love!

Drop.io – Similar to Dropbox, Drop.io is a simple, free way to swap files. Users set up a “drop” for the files they’d like to share, set a password for it, and then anyone with access can add to the drop, download the files, and edit or delete files. What’s great is without even setting up an account you can create as many 100 MB drops as you want with a few clicks.  If you want more space or additional features you can upgrade to one of their paid accounts.

Pando –  If you have certain individuals that you often need to share large files with Pando might be the best option for you.  This service will let you email files and folders up to 1 GB in size. The only catch is that while the other three services I mentioned don’t require the person you are sharing with to download or install any software (you just send them a link) Pando requires each person using it (the sender and the receiver) to have the Pando software installed.  However if you send someone a file and they don’t have Pando it will inform them they need the software and provide a link where they can install it.  While this is a bit annoying the ability to easily send files as large as 1 GB to those you often work with make it a small price to pay. Like the other services you can upgrade to a paid or pro version for enhanced features.

What do I use?

I used to use Pando a few years ago when Jason and were collaborating on a song with some other musicians remotely. It worked great because there were about 4 of us that were constantly sending files back and forth so it was no big deal to have us all install the software. That being said I like the other services because the person I’m sharing files with doesn’t need to have anything installed. I can just send them a link. These days I tend to use Dropbox or YouSendit. I haven’t used Dropio but I have received files others have sent me through that service and it was quick and easy to access them.

Sending large files is often a stumbling block for working with others – but now it doesn’t have to be.  There are a lot of other services that offer similar features but these are the 4 I recommend.

What do you think?  How do you transfer large files with others?  Post a comment below and share your tips!

This is a questions I am sure many of you are asking yourself – and a lot of people have been asking me.  So with Microsoft’s Windows 7 now a week old here are my thoughts and some links to help you make this decision for yourself.

If you’re running Vista – it’s almost a no brainer.  It’s no surprise to anyone all the issues Vista has.  It has made many people down right disgruntled (me being one of them).  Plain and simple Windows 7 is what Vista should have been.  It takes less resources to run (even runs on portable netbooks), it’s snappier, more stable, works with more hardware, and had some really nice interface improvements that are more fun and can make you more productive.  The great thing if you are upgrading from Vista is that you don’t have to reinstall everything – you can just run the upgrade on your current Vista system and it will keep all your programs and data in place.  Of course that being said – make SURE you backup your system before doing the upgrade just in case something goes wrong.

One thing to note is that while I have read that installing Windows 7 on a freshly formatted system only takes about 20 minutes – doing an upgrade to my existing Vista system took almost 5 hours.  From what I have heard that is not unusual.  However after answering a few initial questions I did not need to interact with or babysit the install.  It chugged merrily away on the laptop in my home office and 5 hours later I was punching in the activation code and playing around with the new interface.

Normally I always like to wipe my system clean before installing a new operating system but I honestly am too busy to take the 2 – 3 days it would require to reinstall all of my software along with their various upgrades, patches, and customizations and restore all my data – so I opted this time to upgrade over my existing Vista installation.

If you are planning to upgrade from XP – it’s a bigger decision. You CANNOT upgrade an existing XP installation so your only choice is to backup your system, wipe it completely clean, install Windows 7 and then proceed with the painstaking process of reinstalling all of your software programs, updating them, and restoring all your data.  It’s either that or by a brand new computer with Windows 7 on it (although you will still need to install all your software and copy your data onto it).

If you’ve recently made the jump to Windows 7 or you’re thinking about it here are some links to webpages, video, and tip books that will help you make the decision or learn more about your new operating system:

• Windows Upgrade Advisor – Microsoft’s downloadable tool can also run some diagnostics on your computer to determine whether your computer’s hardware meet minimum specifications.
• 5 Things You Should Know About Upgrading From XP to Windows 7
• Windows 7: How to upgrade your computer – Tips on what to look out for should you decide to upgrade your computer, and a consideration of whether it is worth the effort.
• Getting Started with Windows 7 – Some videos from Microsoft introducing new features
• Microsoft Windows Training Portal – A collection of training information. Checkout the section called E-learning where they have some free online courses for Consumers, IT Pros, and Information Workers teaching you about the best new features.
• Windows 7 Videos and Tours – More videos about new features including a few 7-second demos.
• Free e-book: Windows 7 Tips and Tricks eBook – This free windows 7 tips and tricks e-book from Microsoft provides quick guide and tips to make your windows 7 experience smooth and easy.
• Free e-book: Windows 7 troubleshooting tips – a short e-book called “What You Can Do Before You Call Tech Support.” written by the same person who wrote the Windows 7 Resource Kit.

Why I’m still planning on switching to Mac:

Although I’m very impressed with Windows 7 and consider it  MUCH better than Vista I’m still planning on making a switch. Windows Vista was the last in a series of straws for me that made me (like many other people) decide to switch to a Mac.  While I haven’t made the jump yet – I am still planning on doing this in the not too distant future.  I’m doing a lot more multimedia these days (which the Mac excels at) and I’ve migrated many of the programs and systems I use to the cloud (Gmail, Google calendar, Google Docs, Wordpress, Highrise for contact management, etc.). This means that I can pretty much be platform agnostic as most of what I do simply requires an internet connection and a browser.  Macs have better hardware, are more stable, plus there is the great advantage that a Mac can run both the Mac OS and Windows so I can have the best of both worlds.  When I get my Mac I can install Windows 7 on it and can then run pretty much any program or work with any file.

So should you upgrade to Windows 7?  The choice will depend on your hardware and your time.  I hope this blog post will help you make that decision and make the most of Windows 7 if you do.

Will you be upgrading? Leave a comment below to share your thoughts about whether you are upgrading to Windows 7 or not and why.

I had the pleasure of joining my friends Sam Bushman and Jay Harrison, the hosts of Techwatch Radio, last Saturday on their weekly tech talk show.  I’ve been a fairly regular guest on their show over the last 5 years and always enjoy the discussions we have. What I love about their show is that, much like this blog,  they take a practical approach to technology and living a digital lifestyle.

The program consists of fast-paced news, callers, guests, and features such as the website of the week and the do’s and dont’s of tech. Sam and Jay focus on balancing technology in your life and letting hi-tech serve you, not own you! Their fun, casual way of simplifying complex issues will help the average person get up-to-speed on the tricks and tools for the times we live in.

Last week I joined them for the second half of the show and we discussed elearning, managing remote workers, the growth of telecommuting, why I’m drinking the Apple Kool-Aid (and switching to a Mac soon), cloud computing, and the shifts involved with successful distributed work. You can listen using the player below and I invite you to comment on this post and share your thoughts on these topics and our discussion.

Techwatch Radio can be heard Saturday mornings from 10-11am ET.  You can listen live from anywhere online or download past shows from their RSS feed.  I subscribe to their podcast and listen on my iPod Touch so I don’t miss a thing!

It was almost a year ago when I posted about my 60 day experiment to stop using Outlook as my primary email program and contact manager and instead moved to a web-based email system. Several people commented on that posting and I felt it was time for an update.

Let me say that after having moved my email onto the web I have been much happier and accessing my email is much more flexible. In fact, that move has prompted me to move  other services I need, such as my calendar and to do list, to the cloud.

So let me briefly review what is no longer an experiment, but is now the new way I am working.  First off, as for email, although I started by using Yahoo Mail Plus – after about 4 months I decided to give Google Apps and Gmail a try.  There were a number of things I liked about Yahoo but there were some things that made me crazy too – such as often losing a message while writing it for no reason (the screen would just go blank), plus a big problem: the Yahoo Calendar. This is where Yahoo lost me as a user and Google won.

With Outlook, I had my email, calendar, and tasks all in one program.  In moving to web-based services I was looking for something to replace all 3 of these and give me easy access not only from any internet connected computer, but also from my cellphone.  While Yahoo does have a calendar program that integrates fairly well with it’s email – it is outdated in that it does not support the iCal format (which is an open internet calendar format).  The advantage of having an iCal compliant calendar is that you can then share it with others (like friends, family, or colleagues) as well as with other applications.  It also allows you to easily import or display other calendars alongside your own.

It was my search for a good web-based calendar that pushed me away from Yahoo and into using Google Apps – specifically Google Apps for Your Domain (GAppsFYD). One of the main advantages of GAppsFYD is that it integrates a number of services (Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Documents, etc.) and allows you to use your own domain for your email rather than using an @gmail.com email address. Another huge advantage is that it’s free (although there are paid versions if you need certain additional features).

When I first moved to Gmail I planned to use the free open source Thunderbird program along with it’s Sunbird Calendar counterpart to access my Gmail.  This would essentially give me a desktop program feel while accessing my email and calendar even though it lived online – however, after a week or so of doing that and reading more about some of the power, advantages, and speed of the Gmail interface – I decided to forgo the desktop apps and work solely in Gmail and Google Calendar.

Google Calendar is awesome and allows me to easily set reminders for my appointments and events that either pop up on my screen, send me an email, or send a text message to my phone (which has now become my default reminder type).  And I can easily access my mail and calendar using the special WAP interface from my cellphone’s web browser.

Now Google Apps isn’t perfect (no system or service really is). A main issue is that it lacks a task feature for to do lists, but that is where Remember The Milk (RTM) comes in.  This is another free, and very popular, online service.  Despite it’s funny name (which I happen to love) it is an amazing, easy to use online to do list and task manager.  What makes it really great is that using a Firefox browser extension I can integrate RTM with Gmail.

This allows me to show all of my tasks in a pane on the right side of my gmail window.  The Remember The Milk for Gmail Firefox extension allows you to manage your tasks in Gmail (complete, postpone, and edit tasks), add new tasks (and connect them with your emails, contacts, and Google Calendar events), automatically add tasks for starred messages or specific labels, and much more!

RTM also provides instructions for integrating their service directly within Google Calendar as well.

So in short, I no longer miss Microsoft Outlook. I have been happily using Gmail for mail, Google Calendar for my scheduling, and Remember the Milk for task management for a little short of a year.  I can easily access them all online from any web-based computer or from my cellphone, which means I can get at my important information from just about anywhere.

It isn’t all perfect, and of course there are features I would like to have that aren’t there yet (like offline access to Gmail through Google Gears so I can read and use email when offline like on an airplane), but overall the flexibility and freedom is wonderful! In most cases where there are shortcomings I have found other plugins, services, or workarounds.

I am still using Microsoft Office to edit and create most of my documents, but I have begun testing Google Docs which allows you to do this using their online applications.  Time will tell whether I move my document editing fully online as well but for now I am happily working with my head in the clouds!

Have you been using any software as a service or cloud computing platforms, systems, or applications that work well for you?  If so post some comments and let us know about them.

I was being interviewed by a reporter the other day for an article she was writing targeted at IT managers about best practices for managing and supporting teleworkers and remote offices. During our discussion she asked me if I had any advice for dealing with common stumbling blocks.  One of the points I suggested was – don’t think you have to setup all the technology in-house – consider using a variety of subscription services available for remote or mobile workers and virtual teams.

There was a time when implementing virtual teams or a telework program was a daunting task for any organization involving a lot of initial expenses and IT expertise.  One of the strategic advantages available to companies today are the wide variety of subscription services they can use to provide collaboration tools and flexibility to themselves and their employees quickly and without the initial expense of purchasing and setting up servers and sophisticated security systems.

There are subscription services available to handle just about everything including backups, web based collaboration, remote access to PCs, web meetings, contact management (or CRM), even office applications (like Word and Excel).  These are great solutions for companies of all sizes for several reasons

• Low startup costs – Instead of investing in a bunch of hardware there is often a small setup fee or in many cases no setup fee at all.  If after some time you find the solution doesn’t work for your business you can discontinue it’s use without losing your initial investment.
• Scalability - Another huge advantage is how scalable these services are.  Maybe you are a small company with only a handful of people that need to use one of these tools.  Or perhaps you are a large organization that is just starting to pilot virtual teams or telework. If the results are successful you then want to roll this out organization wide.  Most subscription services offer different levels of service.  For example with web-based collaboration tools you usually pay based on the amount of disk space you need for file storage or the number of people that will be using the space.  When you are ready to expand you simply upgrade to a higher level of service and pay a higher monthly fee.
• No IT staff needed – As subscription services the support, updates, upgrades, and maintenance is provided by the company that offers the service.  While an IT department can be helpful in developing the proper strategy for implementing or adopting this tool among your employees and team members – setup and installation is ususally very simple and often can be handled by the end users or team managers themselves.  This allows solo-professionals and small businesses without an IT staff access to the same tools that, until recently, were only available to larger organizations with IT departments.

I read an article just the other day from an Australian news source – “Outsourcing IT makes small-business sense” that was raising some of these same issues.  It said:

“Faced with the challenges of running a small business, growing numbers of owners are opting to rid themselves of one of the biggest: their information technology systems. Rather than battling with the vagaries of software, servers, networks and security, many firms are outsourcing everything to an external service provider. From an economic perspective, IT outsourcing can make sound commercial sense for a small business. Instead of purchasing and managing hardware and software, IT resources are accessed on demand, with the business only paying for the resources it needs.”

This is the exact point I was raising with the reporter I was talking with and advice I give to most of our clients. While there are a large number of these services available – you can investigate some of the ones we recommend by downloading The Anywhere Office Toolbox.

This free ebook provides information and links to technology, services and other resources we find of benefit to mobile workers, virtual teams and supporting virtual offices and distributed work. These providers offer affordable solutions and most have free trials, so I encourage you to explore them further.

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.