Global Teams Collaborate in the Cloud

Pushing the limits of collaboration and time shifting!

For 48 hours, 11 teams from 37 countries collaborated together online to competitively demonstrate the best use of building information modelling (BIM) to design a museum in East London for the third successful Build London Live collaborative BIM event.

Global Teams Collaborate in the Cloud to Demonstrate the Best Use of Building Information Modelling.

Study: Video-conferencing Ups Productivity of Virtual Teams – World News Report

We all understand the importance of face-to-face communication and non-verbal cues. This study would suggest that even ‘virtual’ face time promotes more effective distributed team work.

MANCHESTER, England, November 6, 2012 /PRNewswire/ —

New research shows that video-conferencing is more effective than telephone and email for remote team-working.

The research was conducted by the globally-recognised Fraunhofer Institute, a specialist in workplace collaboration technology, for OmniJoin, a new video and webconferencing solution from technology giant Brother.

It tested the impact of video-conferencing on the behaviour and productivity of two teams who undertook simulated workplace tasks* while based at different locations.

The key findings were that, compared to collaborating by telephone and email, video-conferencing…

Read more:

Study: Video-conferencing Ups Productivity of Virtual Teams – World News Report.

How Social Media Icon Chris Brogan Would Run Your Virtual Team – Forbes

It is inspiring to hear the perspective of someone whose brain works like Chris Brogan’s on the topic of virtual team management. Brogan is a social media pro’s pro. His blog is in the Top 5 of Advertising Age’s Power 150, he’s a New York Times bestselling author and he speaks and consults with the world’s premier companies about the intersection of technology, media, and customers acquisition.

In this Forbe’s interview Brogan speaks of maintaining a ‘leadership presence’ and promotes the use of ‘just having video cameras on and open’ while working so that you get that “random banter” element that’s missing in virtual experiences.

I’ve yet to meet a professional who says they prefer virtual leadership. Instead, it’s a part of the job generally endured and managed as best as possible. Death by meeting has been replaced by a long slow soul-crush by global conference call.

But what if, instead of simply coping with virtual management, we were inspired because of it? How could we reach more people, in authentic ways, and build stronger connection?

KH: You talk about the human digital channel. How does that apply to relationships inside an organization?

CB: The human digital channel as I talk about it is a sales channel, but inside organizations, the same premises relate. I talk about needing sustainable, relationship-minded business practices. Internally, this is true as well. We have a paperwork glut. We have a trust deficit. These things could be fixed, if people cared to fix them, and then ALL of business would function better.

Read the rest of this great interview here:

How Social Media Icon Chris Brogan Would Run Your Virtual Team – Forbes.

Simpletelecommute.com

Nicole Boivin wrote to tell us about simpletelcommute.com:  a brand new, telecommute, virtual jobs, work at home and contractor job search engine that features job listings from 40+ major sites and smaller as well. I paid a quick visit and took the engine for a test spin. It seemed to work great and return a healthy number of search results from what appeared to be some of the top trusted legitimate work from home opportunity sites. There also appeared to be a clear organization structure to the categories of jobs to narrow down your search.

I’ll be sure to spend some more time on this site.
http://www.simpletelecommute.com/

If anyone takes a closer look or follows up on any leads through this site I would really like to hear your feedback. Please leave a comment below.

Working Remotely: From the Few, to the Many, to the Most (Infographic)

Interesting infographic depicting the evolution of workshifting and remote work.

It’s common practice that most of us spend some time each day working with remote team members and colleagues, but it’s a reality that is very different to 10-15 years ago. The idea for the infographic was to try to show the movement over the past decade from remote work being a rare event to its current status as a common event. It proved more difficult to find numbers that worked together in a coherent way, but I think that the infographic tells the story it needs to tell.

For more about this graphic and these statistics visit Plantronics Blogcentral | The Smarter Office.