Useful Links – “Follow me on Twitter” Edition

April 29, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

The buzz about Twitter has been steadily growing over the past few months so I’m sure you have heard something about it. I’ve recently begun using it and am discovering it is a wonderful way to communicate, network, find useful resources, get questions answered, and connect with other like minded people.

If you’re on Twitter – I invite you to follow me – http://twitter.com/philmontero. I will be sharing lots of ideas, resources, and links much like I do on this blog. Its also gives you a chance to pick my brain and ask your most pressing question about virtual teams, mobile work technology, or remote collaboration.

Now on with the links . . .

OPM announces new governmentwide telework policy: Office of Personnel Management Director John Berry on Wednesday announced a broad new telework plan for employees, in part to deal with growing concern over the spread of swine flu in the United States. Why does it always take something this serious for people to think about the benefits of telework?

Effective Communication for Managing Virtual Office Employees: This article from Entrepreneur.com shares helpful strategies and software to better manage employees from afar.

5 Things You’ll Miss by Not Working In An Office: While there is no shortage of things you won’t miss about the office when telecommuting you may be surprised to find there are a few things you long for. The good news is, once you know what you’re missing, you can find ways to enjoy those same benefits while working remotely.

4 Ways to Make Every Day Earth Day with The Anywhere Office

April 22, 2009 by · 4 Comments 

While we have been preaching the environmental benefits of telecommuting and virtual teams for many, many years -today being Earth Day seemed like a good time to give you a quick rundown of some ways that the tools and strategies of The Anywhere Office® can help you go green and make every day Earth Day.

Here are 4 things you can easily do starting today to make a difference:

Eliminate or reduce the daily commute

Do you or your employees commute daily to a central office?  Consider telecommuting even a few days a week or month.  This can reduce tons of CO2 emissions annually.  Just how much?  Check out the carbon calculator at http://www.thegreenoffice.com/carboncalculator/calculator/.

SunMicrosystems Open Work program saved million in real estate and energy costs and cut carbon emissions by 29,000 tons in 2007.

If you need to access computers or documents in the office you can use a remote access service like GoToMyPC for easy remote access.

Or take a bold leap forward and go completely virtual by allowing your team or organization to work full time from their home offices. Read more

Growing Your Business in Difficult Economic Times

March 16, 2009 by · 9 Comments 

Cut costs, improve productivity, and actually GROW your business while your competition is operating in survival mode.

Whether you view the current situation in the global marketplace as a depression, a recession, or simply an economic crisis; no one can argue that there aren’t several important indicators of a worldwide economic downturn.

These include high oil prices, which contribute to both high food prices and a declining dollar value; a sub-prime mortgage crisis; increasing unemployment; the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers; a substantial credit shortage leading to the bankruptcy of several large and well established investment banks and an intervention totalling HUNDREDS of BILLIONS that has yet to slow plunging stock values or stabilize a faltering real estate market.

Each and every one of us has begun to feel the effects – in our neighborhoods, at the grocery store, in the job market…

What does all of this mean for your business? Should you let employees go? Put a freeze on hiring? Cut back on marketing? Backburner plans to explore new markets?

Trimming fat from your business is smart in lean times; but there is a danger of entering a downward spiral which leads to going out of business. When revenues are low you cut back on marketing – which brings less clients, which in turn decreases revenue further – leading to more cutbacks. A few cycles of this and you’ll be out of business.

It is only natural to revisit your overall business strategy when market conditions change, but it is important to recognize that slow economical conditions may offer a significant opportunity to improve your business model. Read more

Useful Links – “Let’s light this candle” Edition

February 26, 2009 by · Leave a Comment 

On a daily basis I keep my eye on blogs, news, services, and other happenings related to virtual teams, virtual offices, and other topics concerning living a digital lifestyle and working from anywhere. I come across lots of interesting articles and useful websites that would be of interest to readers of this blog – however I don’t always have time or need to write much about them – other than pointing you at them so you can explore them on your own.

So welcome to a new regular feature we’ll be starting – our Useful Links posts.  So let’s light this candle and jump right in . . . enjoy!

Flex Your Force: Building the Virtual Office: Connecting knowledge workers and managers through both technology and social practices is a management imperative of the new millennium. Sun Vice President of Open Work Services Ann Bamesberger shares with Sun Executive Boardroom readers ways in which today’s managers can help their teams work effectively across distance and time.

I do not work in the nude and other issues with working (and learning) online: In this article Janet Clarey looks at some of the similarities between working at home and ‘e-learning’ at the office. She offers solutions to some of the common problems and misconceptions.

How to Send Large Files without Email: We’ve all been faced with the need to send someone a large file (maybe a report or video) that is to big to send via email. Robin Good reviews some of the best services and tools available for sending large files online without needing tech knowledge or using file transfer protocol (FTP).

What President Obama Teaches Us For Leading Virtually: This article takes an interesting look at some of the strategies and technology that President Obama used in his campaign. Obama’s use of technology offers some insights and lessons to leading virtually, both in teams and organizations.

Dropping Outlook for Webmail (an update on my adventures in cloud computing)

November 25, 2008 by · 7 Comments 

It was almost a year ago when I posted about my 60 day experiment to stop using Outlook as my primary email program and contact manager and instead moved to a web-based email system. Several people commented on that posting and I felt it was time for an update.

Let me say that after having moved my email onto the web I have been much happier and accessing my email is much more flexible. In fact, that move has prompted me to move  other services I need, such as my calendar and to do list, to the cloud.

So let me briefly review what is no longer an experiment, but is now the new way I am working.  First off, as for email, although I started by using Yahoo Mail Plus – after about 4 months I decided to give Google Apps and Gmail a try.  There were a number of things I liked about Yahoo but there were some things that made me crazy too – such as often losing a message while writing it for no reason (the screen would just go blank), plus a big problem: the Yahoo Calendar. This is where Yahoo lost me as a user and Google won. Read more

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