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.

Deposit Checks by Iphone

I know I’m dating myself when I say I remember a time before Automated Teller Machines when people would have to physically cash a check at the bank or grocery store in order to have some money on hand. Well, online banking was the next step forward, with the ability to manage your accounts, transfer funds, and even pay bills securely online, right from a web browser.

Chase Bank has introduced another small but significant advance in mobile banking by including Quick Deposit to their iPhone app, a feature that lets users deposit checks directly from their iPhones.

Using Chase Mobile, account holders can now select one of their accounts and enter the amount of the check, then the app prompts you to take a photo of both sides of the check and click a button to submit your deposit. When the deposit goes through you receive a confirmation email and can destroy the original check.

I was able to deposit a number of checks with no problem at all and I felt the system worked smoothly – the deposits appeared in my account quickly. I did have difficulty with one corporate client’s check which is printed and has a background pattern to discourage fraud – I contacted Chase and the CSR I spoke to was very helpful: he said it was a known issue and that it is not EVERY check with a background pattern (I was able to deposit other checks with designs) and that Chase was working on a fix where at the very least you could call and have a rep visually OK the mobile deposit. He also passed along some other Chase Customer mobile deposit tips he had heard including placing the check against a black background, photographing it in a very dark room with the flash enabled, or placing the check on a piece of green screen material.

Unfortunately, I tried all of those with no success on my ‘problem’ check – so, they’re still working out the kinks but it was good to know that another solution was in the works. I can practically eliminate trips to the bank if I can deposit all of my checks remotely – and in my opinion, removing that tedious errand from my life might be one of the best things an iphone application has done for me yet.

App Store – Chase Mobile SM.

[img credit: TheTruthAbout…]

2nd Annual Telework Week March 5-9, 2012: Highlights in The Anywhere Office

Today marks the beginning of the second annual  Telework Week hosted by Telework Exchange. The goal is to encourage people and organizations to pledge to telework during this week in order to get a first hand account of just how flexible, simple, and economical it can be to work in this mode. Already, more than 64,000 pledges have signed up for Telework Week, collectively saving more than $4.7 million in commuting costs in just one week.

I thought this event was a great opportunity to look back on my own year and review what we have accomplished to champion telework here in The Anywhere Office. Early in the year we published a free white paper called, WORK UNCHAINED: Workshifting and the Competitive Edge of The Anywhere Office®‘- this 16 page special report details:

• Why workshifting provides a critical competitive edge
• Common mistakes to avoid when enabling a mobile workforce
• Best practices for evaluating your organization before implementing a workshifting strategy
• How to assess information, communication and collaboration needs
• Key tools to consider when implementing a workshifting program

Then I was fortunate to be included on a panel of  experts along with Jeff Zbar and Rachel Hastings to produce a teleseminar entitled, Telecommuting in the 21st Century: How to Implement or Improve Virtual Teams and Flexible Work in Your Organization which I turned into a free 13 part audio series. These 13 sessions comprise over an hour of informative content and will provide you with all the information you need to help you evaluate if telecommuting is a good fit for your business and how to get started or improve your virtual team work.

Finally, and perhaps most significantly for me, I redeveloped my virtual team leadership webinar –  The Art of Virtual Leadership. It now contains new and updated material and for the first time it’s available on-demand on any device that has Internet access. This 3-hour concise go-at-your-own pace course is packed with easy-to-understand overviews, key takeaways, action plans, checklists, tips, audio interviews, best practices, steps to take, proven strategies and more.

So, I’m proud of what we’ve created and contributed this year – and I hope you all can find some useful guidance and advice in this information. In order to celebrate Telework Week 2012 in the hopes that more organazations and individuals will realize the tremendous benefits of telecommuting, workshifting, and virtual teamwork, I am going to give away 2 FREE enrollments to The Art of Virtual Leadership webinar (registration is currently $157).

In order to enter the contest and be eligible to win your free enrollment you must do the following 2 steps:

1. Follow me on Twitter – @philmontero (I share information on telework, virtual teams, mobile technology, and tips on how to work in The Anywhere Office so I promise it’ll be worth it!)
2. Send out the following Tweet (you can copy and paste it into twitter or use the tweet button below):
   RT @philmontero: It’s #telework week – visit The Anywhere Office for free resources – win a $157 webinar. http://bit.ly/twk2012 #tlwk2012

To make it even easier simply click this tweet button Tweet
and you will be taken to your twitter page with the text already in place so you can just click SEND.

I am also offering a 20% discount to anyone who enrolls for The Art of Virtual Leadership during Telework Week 2012 (let’s say through Sunday March 11th). Use coupon code telework2012 in the shopping cart while registering for the webinar to receive an additional 20% off of the already discounted $197 registration fee.

Have a great Telework Week, let’s shoot for a telework MONTH next year…

Phil Montero
Founder of TheAnywhereOffice.com

Follow me on Twitter
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel
Connect with me on LinkedIn

Links to Resources Mentioned Above:

Work Unchained Report: http://youcanworkfromanywhere.com/workunchained-specialreport.htm
Telecommuting in the 21st Century Audio: http://www.theanywhereoffice.com/telecommuting-in-the-21st-century
Art of Virtual Leadership Webinar: http://www.youcanworkfromanywhere.com/avl/

5 Situations Where Remote Workers are at a Disadvantage

Melanie Slaugh, a reader of our blog and host of MyISPFinder, recently published a great article examining some of the real challenges of telecommuting or working remotely from the office.
Being aware that issues like this exist allows you to plan for how to address them. It is also important that remote workers and their managers and principles are able to have open communication about how and where they are struggling so that the distributed work or virtual team process can be improved and refined over time.

5 Situations Where Remote Workers are at a Disadvantage.

Are there other universal disadvantages any one else has experienced while working remotely? Leave your comments below.

Why You Should Pay Attention to the Growth of Online Education

If you’re like me, then the idea of online education occupies a precarious position in your mind. While you fully support and believe in the prospects of an online education, you have reservations as to how many people actually get one. Sure, you figure that some people need online education because of the same stock reasons: they can’t afford the average college tuition; they’re tied down by a rigorous day job; or they want to pursue an education in a vocational field. Basically you feel like online education is a good idea, but something that’s not meant for everyone, right?

Not so fast. As a recent study from College Board and the Babson Survey Research Group shows, online education is growing at a fast clip, with more students enrolled in online courses now than ever before. The online college student has essentially become a key demographic in higher education. So what does that mean for web-based entrepreneurs?

More people are taking online courses

Firstly, the rate of growth in the online student demographic points to the growing trend of online education. As I said before, people had previously thought of online education with skepticism, assuming that it only fit certain lifestyles. But the College Board study suggested that as many as 6.1 million people enrolled in online classes in the fall semester of 2010 alone—that’s no small figure. What’s happening is that more and more people (students, teachers, and administrators alike) are realizing first-hand that online education has potential for all students, not just people forced into a distance education experience. The College Board also stated that 65% of higher education schools implement online education into their degree programs. Online education has merits for everyone, and more teachers are designing their courses to accommodate the online model for their students.

A new kind of workforce

Imagine how a legion of online college graduates will impact the workforce. Online college students could completely change the landscape of their professions, boasting an entirely different set of skills they learned through their schooling. Not only will they know the fundamentals in their profession, these prospective employees will also bring an impressive array of web experience and computer savvy.

Think about it: many of these students spent the majority of their education doing readings, projects, tests, correspondence and more over the web, relying entirely on their computers to help them learn and absorb lesson materials. Graduates from online college programs would be a great addition to any web-centered enterprise because they’ve spent their undergraduate career using the web as a learning tool. They’ve relied on the web as their number one resource.

Moreover, graduates of an online education understand the power of the internet, that the web is something more than a series of YouTube videos and tweets. More than anyone else, a person with an online degree could grasp the potential behind a new online business venture because they’ve already experienced firsthand the revolutionary effects of the web. To put it another way: if a person put their trust in the web for higher education, you can bet that they would do the same for a professional career.

Author Bio: This guest post is contributed by Lauren Bailey, who regularly writes for Accredited Online Colleges (http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/). She welcomes your comments at her email Id: blauren99 @gmail.com.

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