Outsourcing IT systems and using software as a service (SaaS)

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. Read more

The growth of telework and virtual teams in midmarket companies

This past week I was interviewed for an article in eWeek entitled Telework Migrates to the Midmarket. The reporter was asking me why I thought midmarket companies (which she defined as companies with 50 – 1000 employees) were starting to embrace more telework and virtual teamwork. While it has been my observation that companies of all sizes, not just midmarket companies, are embracing the concept of having their employees work from outside the office – the question made me think – why the increase specifically in companies of this size? I think there are 2 main reasons for this . . .

My initial, more obvious thought, is that it is largely due to the increase in easy-to-use, affordable technology that companies of any size can implement without the need of a large IT staff – such as web based collaboration tools, remote access to computers, and web meeting services. These subscription services allow companies access to all the tools they need to work from anywhere without the IT headaches for implementation. Even solo professionals can take advantage of these tools. Read more

Virtual Collaboration and Brainstorming – Use the right tools

I recently stumbled on a great article on Read-Write-Web about the “Work From Home” Generation.

They give a good overview of the pros and cons. While I agree with almost all of it, the first issue they raise as a negative is “Brainstorming is difficult”. While I agree initially it can be more challenging while you adapt to collaborating with others virtually, like anything it becomes much easier with practice. A large part of successfully brainstorming and collaboration with others across distance is choosing and “thoughtfully applying” the right technology. This is something we often talk about and stress in our workshops and books. Read more

Happy Holidays from The Anywhere Office – a musical gift!

We’d like to take a moment to wish you and your family a wonderful holiday season and the very best for the coming year.

Please enjoy a musical gift from us . . . a special holiday doo-wop song from our good friends Sha-Boom (just click the play button at the bottom of this post – or download the mp3 to your computer).

You can also view our online Holiday Card to you which includes some fun holiday videos!

We really appreciate you being a subscriber to The Anywhere Office and downloading our free virtual office and virtual team resources! We’re fired up about some new webcasts, eBooks, and other surprises we have planned for 2008! Be sure to keep visiting this blog to stay updated and share your comments and thoughts.

We hope you enjoy this time with family and friends and look forward to an exciting and prosperous new year.

With warmest regards,
Phil & Jason Montero

Here is a photo of myself and Jason sitting on Santa’s lap as kids – poor Santa!

Our Holiday Gift to you . . . This Doo-Wop Christmas song from Sha-Boom:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 4:33 — 0.0KB)

Dropping Outlook for webmail? My 60 day experiment

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.

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