Never hire based solely on geography again (My Mindjet Interview)

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Elissa Vallano for an article she was writing for the Mindjet Blog about remote collaboration and one of the true benefits of working virtually: being able to hire the best talent regardless of location.

In this interview I shared tips for creating an effective distributed team, including my 3 keys for remote collaboration in The Anywhere Office – 1. a shift in perspective  2. finding the right tools and thoughtfully applying them and 3. becoming a conscious communicator. The result of these steps is a highly productive virtual team that functions as smoothly as its in-office counterparts.

The interview was used for an excellent article which you can find here, “Never hire based solely on geography again“.

If you are not familiar with Mindjet,  they provide software and services that allow teams to collaborate in the cloud sharing tasks, mind mapping.  I recently discovered them and look forward to learning more about their services.

Their blog is full of great articles, so I encourage you to check it out!

Image Credits: Mindjet

Is Your Small Business Using Social Media to its Greatest Potential?

This guest post was submitted to The Anywhere Office by Dominick Frasso of Vistage International

The way businesses connect with their customers has changed dramatically in the past 20 years. The Internet completely revamped the way we do business. Today, however, another trend-within-a-trend is once again changing things up. Social media have taken the consumer marketplace by storm. Rather than looking to the yellow pages or calling up a friend for a recommendation, customers are seeking others pinions on Facebook and Twitter. 
The smart small business will put social media to work for them, bringing in new customers and providing new avenues for customer service and customer referrals.
Yet, simply having a social media strategy isn’t enough. You need to use social media in the most effective way possible if you’re going to see a true social media ROI.
 Here are some things your small business needs to be doing if you want to get the most from social media:

• Choose a central social media hub around which all else revolves. For some businesses, Facebook makes sense. For others, it will be Twitter. Small businesses can easily spread themselves too thin across several social media platforms, and wind up making effective use of none of them. Figure out where your target market is, and build your social media presence there. Channel all of you social media efforts right there. Read more

Telework Week 2012 Recap & Winners of The Art of Virtual Leadership

Aaaaaaand it’s a wrap! I would count last week as a successful Telework Week 2012. More than 69,000 pledged to telework.  Collectively, these pledges saved $5.5 million and removed 3,358 tons of pollutants from the air during Telework Week.  If all pledges teleworked for a year, they would collectively save $275 million.

Here is a snapshot of the final stats:

Pretty impressive! Currently, Telework Exchange and Cisco are compiling a report on the success of Telework Week 2012.   They will release the report at the upcoming Spring Town Hall Meeting on May 2.  To register for the event, click here.  To sign up to receive the latest information on the report, please contact info@teleworkexchange.com.

It’s been proven time and again that telework or remote work can save money, be good for the environment, help improve employee recruiting and retention, and lead to increased productivity.

I challenge you to take this opportunity to go beyond “telework week” and really think about what providing a more flexible workplace can mean to you, your employees, and your business. Then stop thinking and START DOING!

Here are some resources we’ve put together to help you learn more about telework and jump start your efforts:

• WORK UNCHAINED: Workshifting and the Competitive Edge of The Anywhere Office® A Special Report
• Telecommuting in the 21st Century – 13 Part Audio Series on How to Implement or Improve Virtual Teams and Flexible Work in Your Organization
• The Art of Virtual Leadership Webinar – On demand video webinar on managing remote teams

Announcing the Winners of our Virtual Team Management Webinar

Speaking of The Art of Virtual Leadership we had a fun contest encouraging you all to tweet about telework week and the resources we shared to help spread the word.  We are giving away 2 FREE enrollments to The Art of Virtual Leadership webinar (registration is currently $157).

The lucky winners are (drum roll please . . . . . . .) Read more

Top Apps in 2012 For Telecommuters

Stay in touch with what matters most—from wherever you work

Thanks to technology I am able to work remotely from home. I’m what you’d call a telecommuter. I’m hooked up for 8-hours a day with my head office, but I don’t work there. How? Well it’s thanks to the thousands of telecommuting apps on the market for the iPhone, Android, T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S, and BlackBerry smart phone—I’m able to stay productive and efficient with no boss breathing down my neck.

Working from home has never been easier with the following 5 top apps for telecommuters. The following apps help remote workers track time, remind them about important deadlines, offer file-sharing with other remote employees, and offer total online synchronization with the head office. Now they won’t help distract you from watching Ellen every day (for that you’ll need to exercise your own sort of willpower), but they will give you access to all of the critical tools you need so you can work while away from your office or even on the go!

1. Skype (Free – for iPhone and iPad)

Skype for mobile offers video chat with your most important contacts—right at your fingertips. The thing I love the most about Skype is that it’s simple with no fancy bells and whistles. Once you log into your Skype account, you can use the app to call, video chat, or instant message (with nifty emoticons to spice up your messages) anyone in the world. Plus, if you want to call a landline or mobile phone, simply buy some Skype Credit (it’s far cheaper than a phone bill). Skype will also keep track of your recent calls and instant messages so you can look back at work discussions if you need reference.

2. Pinger Textfree (Free – for Android)

The Pinger Textfree app is similar to Skype in that it offers unlimited SMS texts and picture messaging with your personalized Pinger number. However, you can use this app to text friends who don’t even have Pinger Textfree—all you need is a data connection to send texts to anyone around the globe for free. Make Pinger your default text and even reach out to friends on Facebook who don’t have text.

3. Salesforce Mobile (Free – for BlackBerry)

Salesforce mobile gives remote workers peace of mind by putting all critical records and information at their fingertips—regardless of how far away they are from head office. Ideal for telecommuters, Salesforce Mobile helps home-based and remote workers keep their fingers on the pulse of late-breaking office news and projects in real time so they can collaborate easily with remote teams, respond to sales leads, log their own client notes and progress from anywhere, and get live access to the central business dashboard (or project center) to look up sales account activity, and communicate back to teams, even when they’re on the road.

4. Dropbox (Free – for Android)

This app is a file and multimedia sharing cloud for remote-based businesses. I use Dropbox as a remote worker every hour of every day. This app allows me to drop documents, photos, videos, client emails and other correspondence, and business notes into the central Dropbox for sharing with my co-workers from absolutely anywhere. Simply install Dropbox on your computer, drop files into the tool, and Dropbox will instantly save the additions to the central Dropbox folder for sharing across the company. And if you’re away from your computer, you can access your files using the Dropbox app as long as you have a smart phone and a wireless connection. It’s nice to know I always have access to what I need to do my job.

5. Toggl (Free – for iPhone)

Toggl is a time-tracking app that provides both remote teams and telecommuting individuals with easy-to-use web 2.0 time sheets and time tracking reports that are saved to a central system that everyone has access to. The Toggl app’s user-friendly interface will save your workers time because it offers one-click tracking so they can focus on doing their jobs rather than trying to figure out how to use a complex app.

Author Bio: Melanie Gray is a writer for GoingCellular, a popular site that provides cell phone related news, commentary, and reviews on all popular providers.

10 Tips for Running Online Meetings

The Globe and Mail delivers again with this helpful article of real-world tips for improving your online and virtual meetings. I think #10 might be the best and most overlooked, it can be so difficult to force yourself to do nothing, it is like some kind of Zen koan.

10 tips for running online meetings – The Globe and Mail.

Leave a comment with any tips you have found for facilitating online meetings.

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