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

• 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

Pros:

• Traveling can be an interesting mental exercise to train yourself to adapt to change (and everyone knows that adapting to change is good…).  It forces you to break or adapt your regular routine and constantly encounter new things and scenarios.
• It’s a great way to keep networking in different locations.
• You get to visit with friends and family.
• It breaks the monotony of working at home.
• You get a lot of work and reading done.  Once you start realizing how productive you can be at the airport, you’ll start wanting to go early.  I think it’s good that most airports don’t have free wi-fi since it forces me to work offline.
• Even a working trip can be a mini-vacation.

Cons:

• Change can be mentally draining.
• Too much travel can just make you feel dirty and blah.  It usually takes me a day or two to recover.  In some cases you may come down with pneumonia.
• Sleeping can be difficult with changing sleep environments and times – ranging from different beds to couches to sleeping at 6am.
• Without a car, local travel becomes it’s own planning activity.
• Too much eating out.

Some Tips on Southwest:

• I think Southwest is one of the better ways to fly.  The A-B-C seating priority lines used to be annoying for those of us with carry-on luggage, but now that pretty much everyone has to check-in their bags (because of the liquid restriction), the open seating is nice since you don’t need to find a seat with overhead space.  If you get A seating you have a pretty good shot at getting that emergency row.
• You better check-in online beforehand (24 hours ahead) at southwest.com.  Even if you don’t have a printer, just check-in then go to any of the kiosks at the airport and print out your boarding pass.  Checking in early is the only way to guarantee a decent seating priority.
• Southwest is great for flexible travel.  It’s generally the same price to buy each leg individually or part of a larger round trip and any leg you don’t fly automatically turns into credit.  Keep the confirmation code and next time you fly you can apply that flight credit to your next ticket. 

General Travel Tips:

• Get some good headphones. I’ve got the Sennheiser HD 280 Pro.  Foldable, good sound and you’ll barely hear the engine noise or crying babies.  I love it.
• Fall sleep before take off and before landing if you those transitions make you nauseous. 
• 24-hour fitness membership is a great way to have a consistent place to workout.
• Get a good laptop backpack with easy laptop access for the security checkpoint.
• Don’t wear a belt.  Wear shoes that are easy to take off and put on.  Wear socks.

Got any other tips or observations to share?

- JC

Powered by Qumana

• How to become an early riser
• 10 ways to optimize your normal days
• 10 ways to relaxify your workspace

I figured a new start deserved a new workspace.  I haven’t really changed it since my telecommuting days at HP, so this seemed like a good time to mix it up.  I rearranged my office space to be in a more comfortable corner of my condo – right next to the window so I can get some nice natural light and enjoy the summer view.  The moving, cleaning and organizing also served as a much needed reboot to clear some junk off my desk and take care of some overdue items.

A renewed start also seems like a good time to try a new schedule.  Today I woke-up at 6:30 and then did a good 45 min of cardio.  Now, I’m wide awake (partially due to the coffee) and chomping at the bit to get back to coding and it’s only 8 am!  Hmm, I guess that’s when normal people go to work anyways  

-JC

Powered by Qumana

While browsing Lifehacker I found this AllBusiness blog post about a topic near and dear to our hearts: how to work from home. One of the biggest adjustments I had to make after leaving Microsoft 3 months ago was adapting to the drastic change in my work environment. Making your home a place of productivity in addition to one of rest and relaxation requires a lot of changes, both around the house and in your own actions and perspectives. For most people (that means me) trying to be more productive at home is a never ending battle, but with the right motivation and dedication you can definitely make it work. Here’s a list of the more successful things that have helped me. I’ll save the list of unsuccessful things for a future post.

• Establish a dedicated office. Keep the stuff in the area strictly work-related; no bills, leisure books, tv, etc. to distract you from what you should be doing when you’re there. Making your entire home the “office” does not work.
• Make lists. You should know what you must accomplish that day, and additionally things you’d like to get done if there’s time. Finishing the must list means you can call it a day – this helps you avoid burnout, as starting a business is a marathon, not a sprint. Work on the like list if you’re feeling particularly energetic.
• Stay accountable. Relying on others is really effective here. If you’re lucky enough to have business partners, set up regular status checks, and make sure to share not only what you have done but what you will by the next checkpoint. If you’re flying solo, you can still leverage the pressure of being accountable to others by setting up situations where others expect something from you, like scheduling lunch or coffee where you’ll give a demo of your latest stuff to a friend. Having paying customers helps a lot in this regard too.
• Take the right breaks. Taking a break between tasks helps you unwind from and process the previous work and refocus your energies fully on the next task. There have been too many times where I’ve “finished” one task only to find myself disengaged on the next one because my mind was still thinking about what I was just working on.
• Stop taking the wrong breaks. My personal Achilles’ heel. Your home, by nature, is your most comfortable and distracting place on the planet. Add to that a high-speed internet connection with email, IM, and sites like Youtube and Myspace, along with zero parental supervision, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. One thing that’s worked for me is turning the wrong breaks into the right breaks; by promising myself time to browse/chat after each task, I’m better able to keep my focus on where it should be. If that’s not enough, you can try using two browsers like the AllBusiness article mentions, or better yet, two computers, with one dedicated to work. If all else fails, disconnect your internet. Seriously.
• Get out of the house. Coming from an office environment where I was used to seeing lots of people every day, it was disheartening to suddenly find myself home alone all day. Now I try to find a reason to get out of the house each day. This can be as simple as going to the gym or running, but I’ve found that just being around people helps. What also works well, if your work lets you, is working at a cafe or library every once in a while. The change of pace is refreshing, and oftentimes helps you focus better on your work.
• Be regular. And I’m not talking about Metamucil here. In our first working session, Justin and I worked ourselves to exhaustion. We were so passionate about getting stuff done that we would work til we passed out, shifting our schedules later and later in the day. After two weeks of that we finally learned that it’s not the way you train for a marathon. Since we’re all creatures of habit, it helps productivity to have regular work hours and to stick to them. There’ll definitely be the days when work demands much more from you, but even in those cases it’s important to have a normal “pace” of work that you can return to.

These are the top things that have worked for me (or that I’m working on) to help me actually “work” from home. What kinds of things have worked well for you?

-JL

]]> http://www.twobitoperation.com/blog/how-to-actually-work-when-youre-working-from-home/feed/ 5 http://www.twobitoperation.com/blog/office-life/ http://www.twobitoperation.com/blog/office-life/#comments Fri, 28 Apr 2006 05:25:39 +0000 Justin http://twobitoperation.com/blog/2006/04/28/office-life/ I watched “The Office” today on NBC and chatted with an old co-worker (who, by the way, just left HP today) and it got me thinking about working and office life. It’s been almost 3 months since we quit the rat race and my memory is fading fast about working in the corporate world. The more I watch “The Office” the more I think maybe that’s the way it was when I worked too. Was it really that awkward and funny too? I do seem to remember some funny moments but I wonder what a show about my old team would look like…

Since we had a virtual team I guess it would show alot of people (maybe Hollywood Squares style) sitting either in their cube or at home with a phone headset on while talking on the phone and looking at slides on their screen. The people talking or presenting would probably be pacing around the room or looking up at the ceiling (since you dont have to make eye contact in a virtual world) and the listeners would probably be trying to multitask (like making lunch, checking email, IMing, etc.) since they’ve been on the phone all day long and haven’t had a chance to do anything else. Then there would probably be all kinds of things going on in the house in the background (kids crying, dogs barking) as the people scramble to hit mute (many times not quick enough). There’s not as much in person interaction awkwardnes as “The Office”, but there’s a different kind of awkwardness when you have to work with someone you’ve never met before.

Ahh memories. Would it make a good show? It’s funny to me when I reflect about it now as an outsider…Maybe I’ll write the pilot if this venture doesn’t pan out

-JC

• Easily share calendars with other google account holders
• Gmail integration – when you send an email you can also send a calendar invite (similar to sending a meeting invite using Outlook)
• Comments on events – anyone can make comments on the event so you can also use it as a planning tool (and you can allow or prevent others from inviting others to the event)
• Have your daily agenda sent to you via email. Have other notifications via email or SMS to your phone.
• Easily search for and subscribe to public calendars (holidays, sports/tv schedules, etc.)
• Beautiful AJAX implementation – no downloads required and a very quick and rewarding user experience (seems quicker than gmail)

We’re trying to use it to help manage our schedule, milestones and tasks (supposedly a task list is coming soon too). We planned out the phases of work to complete for the next few months including tasks for each and then placed them on a shared calendar that we can both see and edit. The phases show up as multi-day events and in the notes we have the tasks outlined. We can then make comments on the event about each task’s status. Ok, it’s not the most elegant solution, but it’s good enough for our purposes. We tried using basecamp but we found that we didn’t use it much since it involved checking yet another website. It’s much easier for us to check Google Calendar when we check Gmail. Score another for Google.

-JC

• Define objectives and tasks SMART – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and tangible.
• Track them with online tools such as Basecamp. Basecamp is quite lightweight, easy to use, and free to try for single projects.
• Have constant and open communications through:
• Unlimited mobile-to-mobile minutes: we’re on Sprint
• All-in-one printers that can scan/fax to share documents: I have an HP, John has a Brother. Doing this over the unlimited minutes landline from Vonage and emailing PDFs.
• Instant messaging of course: GoogleTalk, MSN, etc.
• Web-based group chat: Campfire looks really interesting, but we haven’t set it up yet.
• PC-to-PC calling: Skype. Sometimes this is easier when you’re at the computer and just want to do a quick call with no headset.
• If you’re doing code development, you’ll definitely need a version control system. We’re using Subversion on our site hosted by Site5. In addition to code, once you have it setup, you could also use it for other business documents.
• Share bookmarks online: del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site that makes it really easy to share and find bookmarks online.

Any other tips you want to share? Let us know.

- JC