Beyond Folders : communication skills, remote office, collaboration

Dial in, Log on: Your Conference has Begun

Community Manager — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:32:00 GMT

When the corner office is across the globe, personnel increasingly need to work across wide geographies and multiple teams. In a past post Teams and Time Zones: Tips for a Global Workforce we offer ideas for managing the logistics of working in different offices and time zones. Useful options for bridging the time zone divide include web and teleconferencing: both can help shrink the divide, facilitating both informal meetings among a handful of colleagues and gatherings for audiences into the thousands.

Best Practices

To make web and teleconferences run smoothly, keep in mind a few simple points. Try to schedule conferences at a time that's convenient for all participants. If that's not possible, rotate the times so that all parties have a turn at the less desirable (i.e. late/early) time slots.

Be sure to introduce yourself when speaking at least the first few times; don't assume participants will automatically recognize your voice. As with any meeting, limit side conversations. Make use of that mute button if you must colloquy separately from the meeting.

Practice politeness: limit typing and cell phone use during calls, you want to give your audience your full attention. Add a personal touch; if using a web cam, make routine eye contact just as you would a face-to-face meeting. If a webcam isn't available, consider uploading a .jpeg photo.

For more useful tips on web conferencing, check out these resources:

For more useful tips on teleconferencing, check out these resources:

Do you make use of web or teleconferencing? What tips do you have to make web and teleconferencing productive? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Bradley Eggers

Leading a Remote Team

Community Manager — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:44:00 GMT

FiFA World Cup fever, which heightened in intensity as the finals neared, united sports fans across the globe in front of their TVs. Global happenings like the World Cup, the Olympics or even Oscar night, can seemingly shrink the world to a small village but when tasked with managing a remote workforce-across continents or cities-the distance between remote team members can seem vast.

Remote is Close to Home

Remote teams and how they work is more than an interesting abstraction at our company. We have subsidiaries in 31 countries and distribution in more than 120, additionally, our global management and sales forces are working from a myriad of locations. In the Beyond Folders blog we've written about managing the challenges of a global workforce in Teams and Time Zones: Tips for a Global Workforce and posted tips enabling employees to gain recognition in Remote Workers Do Not Have to Be Invisible.

Managing remote teams presents a singular challenge: when the old model of "MBWA" or management by walking around, popularized as a catchphrase in the first business bestseller, In Search of Excellence, no longer applies, what is the new model?

In short, successful leaders of remote teams must demonstrate a willingness to travel and be adept users of social media. I am a fan of two fascinating articles making these points; in Management by Flying Around Harvard professor Rosabeth Moss Kantar argues that "showing up is the number one key to success." And in Leading Virtual Teams to Real Results, two leading businesswomen and writers, maintain that social media is a crucial tool for leading remote teams.

For a constructive read on managing both the logistics and morale of remote teams, I would steer readers to How to Manage Employees in Remote Locations.

Do you lead a remote team? How do you maximize morale and productivity remotely? Share your thoughts here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Bradley Eggers

When Your Office is a Starbucks (or a Safari): Tips for the Digital Nomad

Community Manager — Wed, 26 May 2010 12:46:00 GMT

Technology is increasingly allowing digital nomads-location independent workers-to leverage the internet and devices like smartphones, making any spot on the globe a workplace. Whether your office is at the local coffeehouse, or in a far-flung locale, digital nomads require certain tools in their backpacks for success.

The Digital Nomad

Here are some tips for the nomadic life:

Make technology your lifeline. When your laptop is your office, you need more than yellow post-it notes to make it work seamlessly. Leading social media marketer and proponent of the "I-can-work-anywhere-movement" Chris Brogan says every nomad should pack five-must have tools.

They include:

A cable power strip
Wireless card
Pens and a moleskin journal
Flip Mino video camera
Laptop

According to DigitalNomad.com other essential services include a USPS box for snail mail, Gmail, an online storage service to access documents remotely and Kayak.com and Farecast.com for travel.

Learn from the experts. Journalist and work-lifestyle visionary Daniel Pink first coined the phrase Free Agent Nation in a 1997 Fast Company article.

Since then, seismic shifts in the global economy and technology have created legions of digital nomads and online resources such as LocationIndependent.com which offers a collection of road-tested resources and articles. For best practices for location independent practitioners, follow the pioneers in Ten Digital Nomads to Learn From.

Manage your mindset. Recognize that many of the old rules do not apply. In some offices face time is expected. For location independent workers, time in an office chair does not equal work. Work equals work. You can manage your time efficiently with online tools such as calendars, to-do lists and contact management software.

Police productivity and periodically review goals. There is no corporate year-end performance review. You define your success. Just be sure to take time to measure it!

Ready to say good-bye to the corner office or cubicle? While the promise of increased flexibility and greater productivity (good-bye commute time and office politics!) is a tremendous lure, for some, the loss of office camaraderie, lack of benefits and the stress of managing invoices is too great a downside.

Be sure to examine the pros and cons of being location independent before making the leap.

Do you have tips or tales of life as digital nomad? If so, we invite you to share them here and on the Beyond Folders Community's Facebook and Twitter pages.

by Carly Fadako