Collaboration — Collaboration | GigaOM

Collaboration

Remote work may be increasingly mainstream, but there are holdouts like Zaarly exec Shane Mac, who recently opined that startups and distributed teams make a lousy combination. That’s news to the founder of successful startup ProoffHQ, which has been remote from day one. Read More »

A British company surveys workers and finds not only are they more productive when working remotely, but they also feel less creative at the office. Where do they get their most innovative ideas? At the pub (assumedly with a limited quantity of libations). Read More »

 
 

Do you need to break out of the office in 2012?

Remote collaboration tools and connectivity promise to unleash us from the office, but despite these advantages most of us still spend the majority of our days in drab spaces. Perhaps the New Year is the perfect opportunity for knowledge workers to reconsider where they work. Read More »

The impact of more remote workers on the built environment is a fascinating subtopic of the future of work. Will office spaces shrink? Transport plans change? Now there’s a new question about a world of remote workers – will they all move to the exurbs? Read More »

Tech sites present plenty of speculation on new tech and ways of working. Is this just the jabbering of pundits or is all of it making a difference on the ground? A conversation with Barry Frangipane, the co-author of The Venice Experiment, proves work is changing. … Read More »

It’s hard to be against flexible work arrangements. but despite a lot of talk in support of new ways of working to help knowledge workers keep their sanity and families intact; a new survey shows many managers are merely paying lip service to the idea. Read More »

Apple seems to have a significant impact on the future of work without directly intending to. The company’s next generation mobile operating system brings big improvements for consumers, but they’ll be no less beneficial to mobile workers. Read More »

The first step to successful remote working is communication. Binfire offers distributed teams a free solution for online collaboration that makes it simple to stay on track, with several useful features that I haven’t seen in other project management solutions so far, including: Read More »

Knoodle offers a training solution that provides a presentation with a split screen; you can have text or PowerPoint slides on one side of the screen and video on the other, then sync the video with the slides so they automatically advance at the right time. Read More »

If you’re working with a distributed team, you should be regularly gauging and improving your effectiveness. Here are a few questions to help you quickly zone in on problem areas with your virtual workforce, as well as some suggested solutions to help you correct them. Read More »

Remote work may yet become the default mode of doing business for many, but we aren’t there yet. You may be feeling pressure from employees to allow remote working, but it’s best to go with a trial run before putting real money on the line. Read More »

Between the continuing economic recovery and the political unrest throughout the Middle East, 2011 has seen oil prices continue to rise. It’s obvious raising the cost of commuting increases the appeal of web working, but have we already seen an increase in home-based work? Read More »

More Must Reads

If you’re just starting to consider the option of working remotely, whether through flexible work arrangements with your current employees or by hiring new team members who will work remotely from the start, you’ll want to establish some guidelines to keep your team productive and happy. Read More »

If you’d like to work from home but your company doesn’t allow it, why not become the prime mover in a program to see if working from home can’t help boost productivity? It’s easier than ever to make the argument to the decision-makers in your organization. Read More »

I should admit to a dirty little secret: I’m a productivity junkie. I get an enormous amount of pleasure out of finding faster and more efficient ways to accomplish everyday tasks; I love to find better ways to gather and process information more quickly. Read More »

I spent last week at a conference in San Francisco with many of my colleagues and community members from around the world, but the giant volcanic ash cloud over Europe put a damper on the final day of the conference. Read More »

I’ve been on my fair share of remote writing projects, including technical writing, contributing to books and writing for publications. Working on such projects and hearing from clients and colleagues about successful (and less so) remote writing projects, I’ve come to see that … Read More »

A new study suggests that almost half (45 percent) of the workers at small- and medium-sized businesses spend most (75 percent) of their time out of their offices. In fact, only 15 percent of the businesses surveyed reported that all of their employees work … Read More »

Recently, Simon reported on a couple of interesting studies looking at the use of collaboration technologies in the workplace, Forrester’s “The State Of Workforce Technology Adoption: US Benchmark 2009” and Frost & Sullivan’s “Meetings Around the World II: Charting the Course … Read More »

We talk a lot here on WWD about the benefits of being a web worker. But not everyone is suited to it, and not everyone likes it, despite the fact that the freedom and comfort of working from home can sound like nirvana. In “7 … Read More »

Have you had a break today? It sounds simple enough, but we all know how difficult it can be to drag ourselves away from our desks during the work day. Since we’re not surrounded by colleagues heading out for lunch or coffee, and we all have … Read More »

The barriers to working from home are usually human, according to Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who presents remote working as a solution for “business growth, working families, and a green future.” Kanter, a Harvard Business School professor, cites leadership as an important factor in successful … Read More »

Many large corporations, and even Federal government agencies, are increasingly interested in launching telecommuting programs as a tool for reducing overhead and for employee retention. However, such programs aren’t turnkey affairs. They require infrastructure, planning and strategy in order to be successful. This post is going to … Read More »

Employers are increasingly concerned about the risks to their data security posed by telecommuting employees. As a telecommuter, your ability to discuss and address those concerns is important, to make sure that you’re allowed to continue telecommuting, or to convince an employer to let you start … Read More »

While some employers will pay for the equipment expenses of their teleworking employees, there’s only so much they can cover. Freelancers like myself have it in even tougher — they need to provide their own gear from the beginning. I guess the price of location independence … Read More »

When I started working remotely, I had the nice — if misguided — idea that I’d spend my days working away in the home office with a pot of tea at my elbow. But in the last couple of weeks I’ve done more work out of … Read More »

Web workers, especially those of us who are self-employed, will sometimes encounter people who, it seems, take us less seriously because we don’t have a corporate cube to work in. There are two ways to deal with this. Some web workers go to great lengths to mask … Read More »

Are you having a good day today? Remote working can be great, but it can also prove a lonely proposition; some days it can seem like you never leave the house, or as if no one knows or cares whether you’re working or not. For many, … Read More »

In a recent post, I blogged about the telecommuting trend, including a data point from a WorldatWork study that found a 39 percent increase in the number of telecommuters in the U.S. between 2006 and 2008. Many businesses are actively seeking to embrace … Read More »

Today, I received a CD of images from another remote contractor, who included a blank with compliments slip in the envelope, but nothing else. As someone who works remotely, I can’t believe people are still doing this stuff! Are you? If so, stop it! Think about it: … Read More »

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