John on a video conference

On my first day of work at HP back in August of 2001 I met my boss over the phone.  My boss, Mike, worked and lived in Atlanta, GA.  We did weekly team meetings on the phone and used web cams that streamed our live pictures to an internal “hollywood squares” webpage so that we could all see each other.   Over the course of my HP career, I worked with teammates in half a dozen states and numerous countries in Europe and Asia.  The cool thing about the organization I came into was that they were sort of the virtual team collaboration pioneers in HP so we experimented with all kinds of tools and techniques, with one of the most memorable being a virtual party we had where there were break out rooms on the conference lines and games like virtual pictionary using the NetMeeting whiteboard.  Fun times. 

Anyways, this trip down memory lane was spurred when I heard that a former HP colleague of mine, Loyal Mealer, recently put together a nice repository of telecommuting information called CommuteZero.  

In Loyal’s own words:

We created it to share the techniques and tools that make telecommuting and other forms of virtual work productive, easier and even fun. We want to encourage the use of virtual work as a way to improve business effectiveness and productivity, save on fuel, reduce pollution, and improve the quality of our lives. What better way to be green than to leave the car in the garage or avoid that next flight? Plus, you’ll lower your stress and have more time for family and friends.

Looking through the site I see many of the great tips and best practices that we used at HP so I recommend checking it out (blog) if you’re already working virtually or just thinking about it.  

Once you can get in your own virtual working groove, you’ll never want to go back. 

Justin

Benefits

• Better posture: I’ve found that you can’t really slouch when you’re standing.  Sometimes I’ll end up putting my elbows on the table while reading something, but that’s the exception rather than the norm.  With a normal desk (or even a stability ball), it’s to way to easy to get into comfortable positions that aren’t that ergonomically great for you.
• More alertness: It’s pretty hard to fall asleep standing.  I’ve done it before (and also fallen asleep mid-sentence), but it doesn’t happen too often  Since my body’s in a much more active position, I don’t get comfortable enough to get sleepy.  Always a good thing while working.
• Breaks from the computer: While working, there’s never a time when I’m constantly typing or reading, there is, on occasion, some thinking that happens.  What’s great about standing is that it’s easy to just go walk around while thinking since you’re already on your feet.  Or if I’m tired, I’ll just go sit down on the couch and think.  Much nicer than staring at the monitor all the time.
• Burn more calories!:  Standing and walking more just burns more calories.  This computer life is a pretty sedentary and unhealthy one – might as well get some extra calorie burning in while you’re working.  Others have tried walking while working (treadmill under the desk), but that seems like overkill at this point.  However, I will sometimes play some upbeat music and dance in place while working

Getting Started
Before you commit to a standing desk, give it a try first.  Find a counter or a bookshelf where you can place your computer and/or monitor in a way that your arms are bent at 45 degrees and your monitor is roughly at eye height. Try it for a few hours a day for a week and see how it goes.  In the beginning, there was definitely an adjustment period for my legs and feet.  My mother-in-law bought me a soft standing pad from a Korean supermarket (I think it was around $10 bucks) that really helps ease the pressure of standing on the floor – and, yes, the pad is pink with a cartoon dog on it.

I’ve been pretty happy with the Utby desk from Ikea (choose “brown/black” from color, and 47 1/4″ from size).  It’s meant for the kitchen so there’s no drawers, but the crossbars make it very sturdy and also make nice foot rests.  Oh, and I’ve got a barstool behind for those moments of weakness and I just really want to sit while working.  Usually, when I’m reading things online. 

If you want to know more, read about them on wikipedia and on the 37signals blog.  Lots of the ones advertised as “standing” or “standup” desks are pretty expensive, so I’d recommend just looking around for simpler desk/tables/bars that happen to be tall.  If you’re handy, you can also try building your own.

Happy standing!
Justin

Has it really been 6 months since the last blog post?

It starts small with denial

At first it was just a few days and a few weeks.  We were busy working on a new website and with a consulting gig.  Productive and paying work trumps all (not that we don’t appreciate the few bucks a month we make on the text link ads ).  

And then it starts snowballing with rationalization

A month or so went by and then it was the holidays – Thanksgiving, a trip to Hawaii, a ski trip, Christmas.  No one browses the web or reads our blog on vacation anyways, right?  With all those holidays, we have work to catch up on!  

And more rationalization… 

Plus, aren’t there all these articles talking about how there’s too much information on the Internet?  Maybe it’s better if we just took a break – it’s like conserving energy.  There were some business opportunities that required our attention anyways. 

Until you almost forget about it

“We have a blog?” After a number of months, old routines are broken and new ones are created – new ones that have no idea that a blog ever existed.  And so months went on where we followed the new routine working on some new things, but there was always something lurking in the back of my head.  

“Am I forgetting something? I feel like something’s missing.”

“Oh yeah, we have a blog!”

Recognition is only the 1st step to recovery

Even after that realization, a couple more months went by.  There were things I wanted to blog, but for some reason I just couldn’t muster the time or energy to do it.  There’s always something else to do – something to work one, something to read, something to watch, or someone to see.  The more time went by, the harder it got – it was the feeling of embarrassment that we’d let it go so long…you know that feeling when you can’t look someone straight in the eye.

There’s never a good time for anything – so just start

My to do list isn’t lacking – there are definitely things I should probably be working on, but there’s always stuff to work on.  If there’s one thing we learned from entrepreneurship, it’s that there’s never a good time for anything.  There’s always a reason to delay, but you have to just do it or it’ll never get done.  So here I am, blogging away trying to get over the hump.  Hopefully, things can get back to normal after this inaugural post of 2008…in May.

Reaffirming why

As I’m blogging, I’m also remembering why we started blogging in the first place. If you take a look at our about page, here’s what we initially wrote:

• To document what we’ve learned for the benefit of others who may be interested in starting a small business and so that we have records of our experience.
• To internalize what we are learning more effectively. They say that the best way to learn something is to learn it well enough to teach others.
• To update all our fans on our progress.

I think I’ll add one more now:

• To connect with other entrepreneurs.  Blogging is a great way to meet other like-minded people and I feel like not blogging has left me feeling disconnected from the community.

It’s been easy to just work on our stuff and keep our heads down, but in a virtual work environment sometimes you just need an outlet to the rest of the world.  I feel better already (even though I do feel like I’m talking to myself).

Moving on

Now let’s get back to the regularly scheduled programming.  I’ve always had a problem with procrastination since I was young, so maybe all these little lessons will finally teach me a lesson.  I hope the procrastination bug doesn’t bite you too.  If it does, just don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Justin

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy

It’s ok if your answer is ‘no’, or ‘not as much as before’. There’s no way you can keep that kind of excitement and energy going for a long period of time. The lower your energy and excitement drop, the less efficient you get. If your mind is engrossed with the same thing for every waking hour of every day, there’s no way around it. Your senses can get dulled.

So what can you do about it?

Mix it up

You’re an entrepreneur. You started your company because you had an idea and it probably isn’t the only idea you’ve had.

1. Pick a small idea that you’ve been excited about but haven’t had the time to think about. It doesn’t matter if it’s related to your current business. In fact, it might be better if it’s not.
2. Take a day or two off and just run with it full steam. I bet it’ll be an extremely productive couple days.
3. After a few days of exploration, you’ll have a better sense of whether the new idea has any legs. If it does, that’s awesome! Or if the idea was really simple, you might even be done and launched after a few days, which is even more awesome!
4. Now you can ratchet back your effort to maybe an hour or two a day.

Finish your dinner before you can go play

There’s lots of reasons why diversions are helpful.

• Sometimes you need a little excitement and reward at the end of the day. Make that your other little pet project and only work on it after you’ve finished all your “real” work. A little pot of gold at the end of every day can make your day’s go by more quickly and efficiently. You’ll wake up early in the morning excited about working on your new idea and power through “work”.
• Dividing up your time puts more constraints on you and that’s a good thing. Try to do what used to take you 12 hours in 10 so you have 2 hours to work on your new idea. Knowing that your time is more boxed can make you use your time more efficiently. When you know you have all day to work on something, your mind can have a tendency to be a little lazy (at least mine does ).
• When you have a mental block or a difficult issue with your business, sometimes it helps to just think about something else. Business is business and by taking time each day to think about a different business that’s at a different stage, you’re keeping your mind fresh and flexible.

Google has a well documented 20% free time policy where people get to work on their own ideas a day a week. New ideas spawn new business and improve current ones while making life a little more exciting. What’s your new idea?

- Justin

• Company Kool-Aid (WebNote): The tagline, motto, mantra. How does the company do business and what attitude should employees take? There are often banners or signs posted in the hallways or on the walls reminding you how to act.
• Current Goals (WebNote): As a team, there are often short-term goals that the team is trying to rally towards and these are also posted.
• Project Schedules (To Do List, iCal calendar import): There’s nothing more motivational that publicly posted schedules. They keep people accountable and keep people on track. I’ve seen giant Project Plans printed and posted on walls.
• Team Roles (WebNote): It helps to know who to go to and who’s responsible for what. A simple list will do.
• Processes (WebNote): Are there certain protocols people should remember? Or a daily routine that should be followed?
• Suggestions (WebNote): How can we make our product better or make the working conditions better? An informal way to note suggestions helps get discussions going.
• Company/Industry News (RSS feed import, Serph RSS feed import, Technorati Blog Search, Web Search): In the breakroom you’ll often see related news printed and posted. It’s a great way to keep people informed of how the company is being perceived and make them feel like their work is making an impact. You can also use it to keep up on the competition.
• Progress (Alexa traffic graph, WebNote for manual notes): The team wants to know if it’s hitting the goals and gaining market share. Keep them informed to keep them motivated.
• Helpful Tools/Tips (Shared Del.icio.us bookmarks import): Some companies do informal roundtables or “coffee talks” where people can share tools or techniques that are helping them on the job.

Just setup a shared NetVibes account and have everyone set it to the browser home page. Then when everyone starts their browsing in the morning, they can also easily mentally sync up on what’s going on in your virtual company. We group things into 3 panes:

For more tips on using NetVibes, Mashable has a post on making it a personal office.

Anyone still in an office or remember what other things kept the team synchronized?

- Justin

The first was due to pure luck – Digital Bootcamp’s demo was right next to ours at Tech Cocktail, so on a whim I entered their raffle, where you guess the number of Digital Bootcamp dogtags in a big mason jar. Who knew that jar could hold over 600 dogtags? I ended up with the closest guess, so over the weekend we visited Mike (while sporting my Menuism tee) to pick up my prize – a nifty iPod nano. Sweet!

If that was all there was to say about Digital Bootcamp, this would’ve been just a “yay-I-won-something” post, but it’s definitely not. Besides being a successful entrepreneur (DB’s going strong after 15 years), Mike hosts a monthly “Circle of Progress” Entrepreneur’s Meetup group, where entrepreneurs of all backgrounds meet to keep each other accountable. Justin and I attended last night and found it helpful. There usually aren’t many people around to keep an entrepreneur on track, so having a support group of some kind, structured or not, is critical to keeping things rolling. The “Circle of Progress” records member’s monthly commitments, so it’s easy to track what’s been accomplished or not, but the most valuable aspect is simply declaring publicly what you intend to do in the coming month and what you did and didn’t accomplish last month – peer pressure and public humiliation works wonders.

Justin and I have tried on and off to do something like this with our networks in Seattle and Chicago, and hopefully seeing what Mike’s done with this group will be the kick in the butt necessary to get something really going. Mike’s doing some neat stuff here in Chicago – if you get a chance drop by the DB offices and have him show you his neat auction purchases.

More on accountability to come!

-John

Anyone do anything fun? I went skiing in South Lake Tahoe. Snow wasn’t that great, but it was fun playing Monopoly Here and Now with the family.

Justin

Happy New Year!
Justin

1. Drink coffee
2. Take 15 min nap right away
3. Be productive!

This combination is supposed to provide a longer period of alertness than the coffee alone.  The caffeine supposedly clears the body of the "sleepy chemicals" and then the combination of waking up and the caffeine kicking in really gets you going.

I did it a little wrong (2 cups of coffee over 30 min of browsing, then slept for 30 min) but it seems to work.  I’m much more awake than I was a couple hours ago or any other morning for that matter.

Any thoughts? Anyone else willing to try?

- JC

Powered by Qumana

- JC

Powered by Qumana