TAO Podcast (Mobile Work Tip) – Using Threaded Discussion Boards

Email has become a primary form of business communication. I believe one of the reasons it is so popular is that it is the most accepted and widespread method of asynchronous communication. But email is so pervasive and convenient that it can be easy to overlook other options and spiral into email overload.

When we talk about asynchronous communication we mean that all parties involved do not need to be present and available at the same time. Examples include e-mail, discussion boards, and text messaging over cell phones. Direct communication, where all parties involved in the communication are present at the same time, is what we refer to as synchronous communication. Examples include a telephone conversation, a company board meeting, chat rooms, and instant messaging.

In this Mobile Work Audio Tip Phil talks about some benefits of asynchronous communication and the use of discussion boards and threaded discussions.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:04 — 1.9MB)

Hannah, Gustav, Ike, Chicken Little, and The Boy Who Cried ‘Wolf’

We’re mid-way through the 5th Annual National Preparedness month and the 2008 Hurricane Season is starting to reach maturity. Living in South Florida puts you in a heightened sense of awareness around storm season. So far this year we have been very fortunate; but I have been following the news around the last few named storms and just this morning on the news they were saying that 20,000 people did not evacuate Galveston, TX even though the language of the evacuation order said, ‘Leave or face certain death.’

I also watched reports of Ike making landfall in Texas and a rain drenched reporter was showing a street full of businesses and pointing out that only about 1 in 15 had boarded up their windows.

It’s that fundamental human impulse that says, ‘I’ll play the odds’ or ‘it won’t happen to ME’ that leads some people to defy these types of warnings and shirk common sense preparation. Unfortunately,  it happens to people just like YOU and the annoyance of something as mundane as boarding up some windows can mean the difference between a storm being an inconvenience and a catastrophe. Read more

For Sun Microsystems, Open Work is Working

I came across this video the other day while I was looking for some statistics on the benefits and cost savings of virtual teams. It’s about Sun Microsystems 10-year old Open Work program. Started in 1998, this work from anywhere initiative has made them more flexible, increased productivity, and saved money.

In this video you’ll hear from Dave Douglas, vice president of eco-responsibility and Sun’s “Chief Green Evangelist”, and find out how the project operates and why it’s been a success.

You also get an interesting peak into what one of their “drop-in” locations is like and how employees use a special Java ID card to log onto any system to access their work and be productive. Read more

Trust in Virtual Teams

I recently came across a guest-post by Chris Bowler on Anywired.com titled Building Trust In a Virtual Team. I wanted to share it here because as we continue to develop our training materials and workshops I have noticed what I consider to be a recurring misconception among organizations attempting to transition to virtual teamwork. While conducting pre-workshop surveys or talking with clients it often surfaces that the biggest concern that many teams have is that technology is going to be the greatest challenge to working as a virtual team.

Yet, if you look at the results of almost any of the research into critical success factors for virtual teamwork you begin to see that activities like building trust and fostering informal communication play easily as large a role as technology in the success of your virtual team. But most organizations do not feel that they have to invest as much energy or attention in determining how they are going to approach these issues.

I thought that Mr. Bowler’s post was dead-on because he doesn’t talk around the issue: he says that trust is the biggest challenge, staight-up, and then he rolls up his sleeves and gives some real-world advice about how you can improve trust on your team.

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

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