A panelist at the NICSA convention discussing the changing workplace and virtual teams

I arrived at the beautiful Doral Resort in Miami today (only a few hours South on the Florida Turnpike for me). It was a beautiful day in the mid 60’s and the sun was shining, so I really enjoyed the drive. I felt guilty guilty for a second getting ready this morning and watching the weather channel when I saw that it was -10 degrees with the wind chill in Boston today (the place I called home before moving to Florida). But only for a second . . . 😉

I’m speaking on a panel tomorrow at the annual NICSA convention. Our session is called Looking Forward/Looking Back: Changing Demographics in the Workplace of the 21st Century.

Our panel (which lasts an hour) will be discussing:

• How to get the best candidates
• How to integrate part-time and remote employees into the culture
• How do alternative work arrangements impact the bottom line in terms of cost savings and increased productivity?

I’m looking forward to an interesting discussion. I’ll post more on Wednesday with more info on how the panel went and a summary of best practices and lessons learned.

No more eyeball management – Best Buy’s shift in perspective about work

One of the main principles of working in The Anywhere Office™ and having the flexibility to work where and when you want is a shift in perspective about what defines “work”. As the saying goes “work is something you do, not someplace you go”.

For managers of remote workers or virtual teams the shift away from eyeball management (knowing someone is working because you see them working) and learning to gauge employee productivity by measurable goals and objectives is often one of the most difficult parts of the transition. However the more fully you can embrace this philosophy, the greater the benefit you stand to derive from a flexible workplace.

For those who think “but how could we do this in our organization” take a look at what Best Buy is doing with their new program called ROWE.

The endeavor, called ROWE, for “results-only work environment,” seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

This is an excellent case study of this shift in perspective. I applaud their efforts and look forward to following this story as they expand this philosophy throughout their organization.

Best Buy smashes the clock – BusinessWeek Online – MSNBC.com

Speaking at the 2006 Document and Training Conference in Boston

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking at the Management Summit of the 2006 Documentation and Training conference in Boston. The conference centers around knowledge management, repurposing content, and the best ways to centralize and share information among knowledge workers, customers, and clients.

My presentation was on how to create Effective Virtual Teams. I shared many of the concepts and tools of The Anywhere Office we discuss in this blog and on the radio show regarding information, communcation, and collaboration.

I met some really nice people and got a peak at some new digital document technology coming out from a variety of vendors. Very interesting.

Many advantages to a virtual office and company

I came across a great article in last Sunday’s Boston Globe called “Virtual Office is what you make it” talking about the trend of working in a virtual office and how for many entrepreneurs and startups they grow their businesses this way from the ground up.

“The future is likely to be the age of virtual businesses,” writes Anita Campbell, founder of Small Business Trends. “Forget three guys in a garage — that was your father’s startup. Today it’s three people spread out across the country or even across continents, each in their home offices or back porches with laptops, mobile phones, and WiFi.”

Check out the article for some interesting insight on virtual companies.

Disaster Preparedness and Business Continuity

A few months ago Phil and I dedicated one of our radio shows to a discussion of business continuity and disaster recovery (show #3 to be exact, “Failing to Plan is Planning to Fail.”).

With hurricane season nearing its peak in the Southeast and news of continuing difficulties with projects like ‘The Big Dig’ in Massachusets, business continuity is a topic that many people are eager to learn more about. Well, the tools and strategies needed to conduct business as usual regardless of location is what The Anywhere Office is all about! So we’re going to delve in to this topic some more – and we figured, if 2 heads are better than one…

We have organized a panel of 4 South Florida experts and are offering a free teleseminar entitled: “Riding the Storm Out: Don’t wait until it’s too late to form a business continuity plan.” This isn’t just going to be a discussion about hurricane preparedness – it will be expert advice on how to develop a plan and systems to confront any contingency, regardless of whether you are an organization or a solo-professional.

Visit YouCanWorkFromAnywhere.com/beprepared/ to get details about the panel, topics, and how to register.

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