Lowry explained that the human has been taken out of work at many large companies and led to a “hierarchical, document-centric culture.” But changing that culture to one that’s more collaborative and social requires people who are willing to admit that they don’t know everything, the so-called “naked intellectualists” who can expose their lack of knowledge and act as a model for other employees trying to learn how to switch gears after what might be a lifetime of thinking in terms of documents, and delivering goods once they are finished and having a very buttoned down mentality.

Of course, this assumes a company wants and benefits form having a human-centric model. In the panel discussion, Dennis O’Malley, VP of Services at Moxie Software explained that offering social and collaborative tools doesn’t always end up boosting productivity. In some ways it may help make a company more agile and improve quality, metrics that may not be easily measured and hard for managers to justify. Yet he believes that over time, implementing collaborative and social tools can help the bottom line by reducing waste or identifying problems early enough so they can be fixed.

He gave an example of a pharmaceutical company that reduced time wasted in its supply chain by 40 percent because employees could anticipate upcoming problems by looking at the social tools. Plus, even if the company doesn’t think it’s ready to be human-centric, employees may disagree and find their own ways around IT structures that force them to use document-centric tools. Lowry said she recently got a sales call form a social vendor who said that 800 employees under the Turner domain were already buying the company’s product, so it might make sense for Turner to buy the product at an enterprise level.

The overall gist of the talk was that social tools are not a panacea, nor are they a problem. When companies understand the value and help employees become used to thinking in a human-centric way as opposed to in a document-centric way, work changes, but ultimately it can change in ways that are beneficial.

Photo by Pinar Ozger.

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• Personal tools lead to practical business
• Millennials in the enterprise, part 1: strategies for supporting the new digital workforce
• A 2011 NewNet Forecast

Flexible office locations and teleworking reduce the need for as many square feet per employee, according to a real estate broker that specializes in flexible work space. Broadband is also changing the workforce in other ways, by altering the definition of work and ideas about how productive an employee could be, according to Your Office Agent, a real-estate consultancy that helps businesses find space for remote workers and flexible offices.

As a broadband lover and remote worker, I’m intrigued with how broadband changes the way people work, so a blog post on the company site yesterday caught my eye. It said:

Companies have traditionally strived to have between 100 and 200 square feet per employee but, by employing alternative workplace strategies such as teleworking, smart working and outsourcing, this can be brought down to as low as 50 square foot per employee. Yes, we are talking about serious savings here.

At GigaOM, about two-thirds of the editorial staff are remote, with most of us working from home or from co-working spaces. Our home office is also devoid of real cubicles, and I would guess that our overall square footage per employee is on the low end when all of that is taken into account. The down side of this flexibility is that it can leave employees without an “office” and feeling distant from colleagues. Another issue is who pays when the employee doesn’t have a home office and wants to work from a co-working venture or a traditional office space?

For example, if someone doesn’t want to work by themselves at home, does a company that is willing to hire them have to suddenly invest in office space? I’ve seen it happen both ways, where a company made the investment and actually saw the business grow and where a company decided not to hire the employee. That’s pretty binary, which is why I think Your Office Agent or companies like LiquidSpace, which is like an AirBnB for office space are so interesting. If you’re interested in these kinds of questions too, we have an entire conference on how broadband is changing work in December called Net:Work.

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• The future of Wi-Fi in the enterprise
• Personal tools lead to practical business
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I have to admit, I’m still not convinced that the iPad will be my laptop replacement. However, with the help of the Apple wireless keyboard and some other peripherals and apps, it can come close. Here are some tips to make your iPad work-worthy.

1. Make audio calls via VoiP. Audio calls via Skype on the iPad work like a dream. Just plug in the earbuds that you usually use for your iPhone, fire up the Skype app and make your audio calls. There are other VoiP apps that will work on the iPad without charging fees, such as Viber, but they require that the other person also has the same software on her device. You can even use Google Voice on the iPad,  albeit with a little extra elbow grease.

2. Editing images and video. You can get digital photos and videos directly from your cameras using the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit, which comes with a USB adapter and SD Card Reader. I was a little skeptical about using the iPad touchscreen for editing images, but after downloading and trying the free PhotoPad by ZAGG, I’ve found it makes it fairly easy to manipulate images, including color and contrast adjustments, rotating and sizing, adding color fills, and even treating images with filters. You can also get Adobe Photoshop Express for free if you’re already familiar with Photoshop.

For video, an app like Splice can help you do some basic video editing (including combining photos and video) for free, or there’s Splice Pro for $1.99. For more editing oomph, you can go for iMovie for $4.99, although it requires a front-facing camera on your device (so iPad 2, iPhone 4 or 4th-generation iPod touch only).

3. Recording voice memos and podcasts. There are a variety of voice memo–recording solutions you can use on your iPad using its built-in microphone, including Voice Memos for iPad by KendiTech, which is similar to the Voice Memos app on the iPhone. For 99 cents, you get the basic version; for an additional 99 cents via an in-app purchase, you get the ability to trim your memos, email memos and download to your computer via USB. The export button makes your memos available via iTunes File Sharing. QuickVoice is another iPad option to record and email audio clips up to 5 MB in size for free. The $2.99 to upgrade to QuickVoice Pro can handle up to 20 MB clips. You can record and export audio clips via iTunes for free using iRecorder voice memos.

If you want more editing features, try GarageBand ($4.99). Although it features instruments, you can use it for podcasting as well.

Here’s a little voice recording hack I learned from a fellow podcaster: You can use the Camera Connection Kit and USB adapter to plug in a lightweight USB microphone to your iPad to increase the quality of your voice recordings. Using a USB mic also helps to cut down on background noise that the built-in iPad mic might pick up.

When I tried to use my high-end Rode Podcaster microphone, my iPad told me it required too much power, so it did not work. But when I plugged in the Konami microphone from my Wii Glee Karaoke game, it worked pretty well. A quick search online reveals that some podcasters use the Blue Microphone Yeti with their iPads.

3. Powering slide presentations. If you’re looking to connect your iPad (or iPhone or iPod) to a standard LCD projector or other VGA-compatible display, you can purchase the Apple VGA adaptor for $29. You can also opt to invest in a handy, super-portable projector, such as the MicroVision ShowWX Laser Pico Projector, starting around $199, or the Mili Pro 2.0 Projector, for around $369.95. To make sure that your PowerPoint presentations are easily accessible on your iPad, check out MightyMeeting, an app that I wrote about recently. Thanks to a recent update, you can also now control your Keynote slideshow presentations on the iPad using an iPhone or iPod touch.

4. Editing Microsoft Office docs. For an app that provides combined file storage with Microsoft Office document editing, check out Soonr, which I wrote about recently. Alternatively, you can also use other file storage/sync solutions, such as Dropbox and SugarSync, and combine them with editing apps like QuickOffice and Documents To Go to provide similar functionality.

What apps, peripherals and hacks have you tried to make your iPad work-worthy?

Image courtesy of stock.xchng user KillR-B

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• The Future of Workplaces
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The IPO of professional social network LinkedIn is probably the most significant web stock issue since Google, so I wanted to take a moment to reflect on LinkedIn’s impact on the world of work. Though ostensibly a general-purpose social networking tool for professionals, and nowhere near as big as Facebook in terms of number of users (LinkedIn has some 100 million users, compared with over 500 million on Facebook), LinkedIn has become an important tool for connecting job seekers and employers, notably introducing several key innovations that repositioned the standard social network profile as a kind of “digital resume,” complete with features with which a user can showcase their skills and demonstrate their professional reputation.

A Digital Resume

Like other social networking apps, LinkedIn enables its users to build a profile and connect with other users. LinkedIn differs from its competition because it defines a user’s profile in terms of work history, rather than other personal details. At its most basic, it’s simply an online version of the traditional printed resume, listing a user’s work history and academic qualifications. However, coupled with LinkedIn’s reputation tools, the profile becomes much more powerful, giving employers more insight into the capabilities of a particular candidate — an attractive proposition for both employers and job seekers.

A Way to Demonstrate Reputation

LinkedIn introduced two key social network profile reputation innovations: Recommendations and LinkedIn Answers. Recommendations allows users to post endorsements from people they’re worked with on their profiles, which are then associated with the particular job the recommendation is for; they’re like an online version of the traditional reference. Despite concerns that the Recommendations system can be gamed — users offering to give each other fake recommendations to bolster their profile, for example — it does provide a way for employers to screen candidates. Employers using LinkedIn Jobs can even limit applications to users with a certain number of Recommendations.

LinkedIn Answers provides a way for users to demonstrate their expertise by answering business questions posted by the community. These answers are then added to the user’s profile, enabling users to showcase their knowledge and providing potential employers or business partners with more information about a potential candidate.

Recommendations and Answers are complementary. While Recommendations can be used to assess what a particular user is like to work with, Answers is a way to assess a user’s knowledge.

The Future

While LinkedIn would probably like to be more than just a Web 2.0 job board, those functions drive a significant portion of its income, so it needs to make sure its digital resume stays relevant. While a LinkedIn profile was once the best way for people to showcase their skills and experience online,  there are now many more ways to measure a person’s digital reputation — Klout score, Odesk and Elance reviews, and Quora answers, for example — which arguably could be even more valid; LinkedIn will need to make sure it doesn’t get overtaken by these newer services.

Additionally, with an increasing number of freelancers in the work market, LinkedIn needs to cater to them specifically. Currently, LinkedIn’s Jobs section is heavily skewed towards traditional employment, while its Answers section is seemingly mainly inhabited by consultants and freelancers. It should reconcile this disconnect by providing a way for freelancers and consultants to find employment though the service, perhaps by modifying its existing Jobs section, or perhaps by integrating an Elance-like freelance jobs marketplace.

As Stacey noted when the IPO was filed, the funds raised should enable the company to make some savvy acquisitions to round out its business offering, perhaps even including acquiring some companies that currently provide services to freelancers, or reputation-based services. Whether those purchases and its own innovations will keep it ahead of competition like Facebook, the newer reputation-based start-ups, and even the traditional job boards like Monster.com, remains to be seen.

Photo courtesy Flickr user Coletivo Mambembe

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Game design can be applied to much more than just games. “Gamification,” or the use of gaming mechanics in non-game applications, can be applied to business software, too. Any task based on a process could incorporate aspects of gaming to make it more engaging and better align it with the way most people are “hard-wired;” we respond well to games.

While Rypple does incorporate organic badge-making, distributing and displaying mechanism in its software, the gamification of work goes beyond simply thinking “let’s give out badges.” Instead it involves a thoughtful, strategic process to enhance the ways we recognize one another in the workplace and how we showcase that recognition.

Rypple recently published an slideshow explaining Debow’s thoughts on enterprise gamification:

While the slideshow points out the potential benefits to bringing game-like processes into the workplace, such as increasing team member motivation and performance, it also notes there are risks and the potential for misuse.

Some key takeaways from the presentation are:

• Gamification isn’t about making work fun. It’s more about understanding human nature and strategy, not frivolity.
• Gaming already exists in work settings. The acts of competition and cooperation are inherent in most work environments. Harnessing those interactions strategically can be a part of “gamification.”
• Gamification is not just about badges and points. That is too simplistic a way of thinking about it.

Job Titles Versus Badges?

Debow also pointed me to an interesting gamification-related related question on Quora: What if you earned badges at work instead of job titles?

The ensuing conversation includes these points:

• There is a place for titles within a company, particularly to delineate hierarchy for decision-making purposes. (as noted by Ben Horowitz)
• Badges are not meant to replace titles but can be used as a supplement to one’s profile or reputation (as noted by Daniel Debow, Ben Horowitz and others)

Ultimately, people seek meaningful work: work with a purpose. They want to master something, improve their skills, and get recognition for their efforts. They want to be a part of something — contribute to the greater whole. Wouldn’t you want a worker like that? Properly implemented gamification systems can enhance these positive aspects of human nature in the workplace.

Photo courtesy stock.xchng user johnnyberg

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Does the above paragraph sound familiar? If it does, then we have something in common:  self-handicapping. It’s finding excuses and obstacles that explain why we’re not responsible for our mistakes, failures, or poor performance. Most of us start experiencing it as students during our first few years at school, but the habit also tends to stay with us even when we turn into capable professionals. An article from The New York Times cites a study where, in workplace scenarios, people’s “…impressions of a character began to sour after the second time the person cited a handicap.”

To avoid self-handicapping at work, we need to recognize it when it occurs. Here are some behaviors associated with self-handicapping:

• Decreased effort. Sometimes, this comes in the form of procrastination, especially when you expect to be evaluated. Self-handicapping also shows when you spend less time preparing or practicing. Research shows that giving in to self-handicapping in one task may lead to having less motivation to complete a succeeding task, too.
• Setting unrealistic goals. Aiming high or having ambitions is a good thing, but it helps to be aware of your true motivations. Sometimes setting unattainable goals is a form of self-handicapping.
• Creating or emphasizing physical or psychological handicaps. We sometimes tell ourselves that we don’t have the right training, state of mind, experiences, and other traits that would make us perform well for a certain task. We make excuses — even flimsy ones — just so our mistakes will be the fault of some external force instead of our own.

The bad news is that like most qualities deeply ingrained in us, there’s no magic pill, no one-size-fits-all cure for self-handicapping. But there are a couple of new mindsets that I’m trying out:

• Praise our own effort rather than talent. While it’s OK to recognize innate skills, acknowledging effort, practice and hard work as the source of your success has greater benefits. This kind of attitude leaves us less afraid of failure, more inclined to try again, and even to have better performance.
• Accepting pain as part of the job. Not physical pain, but the painful idea that you won’t always be as good as you want to be, that sometimes you’ll fail. Self-handicapping is all about protecting your self-image, so one way to “hack” it is to come to terms with the fact that failing is normal. It comes with being human. A few mistakes won’t make you less of a good worker or even a good person. It’s rare that you’ll fail hard enough that it’s irreparable or unforgivable.

Do you experience self-handicapping or self-sabotage? How does it affect your work and how do you deal with it?

Photo by stock.xchng user somadjinn

First, let’s look at how people react to boredom in the work environment. According to Susan Cramm on the Harvard Business Review blogs, there is a good chance that you are making your job boring. Here are her three questions to test whether the thing that’s making your job boring is you:

1. Are you on autopilot? When we have been doing any task for a while, we tend to go on autopilot. This makes our jobs easier, but it also reduces our interest level and leaves us bored.
2. Is your energy level down? Boredom saps our energy reserves and makes it more difficult for us to focus on our work and be successful.
3. Have you become a conformist? After you’ve made the big changes needed early in the job, it can be too easy just to let things slide rather than continuing to look for areas where you can make additional improvements.

I have a few suggestions to help you snap out of your work-related boredom.

• Exercise. Yes, this really is my answer to almost everything. Exercising increases our endorphin levels and helps us stay energized. This will help you get your energy levels back up, and you might even think of some new ideas while you exercise.
• Change the way you do routine tasks. Kick yourself off of autopilot and experiment with some new ways of doing things. Take a routine task, and do something a little differently with the goal of finding some way to improve the process. You just might find a better way to accomplish the task, but even if it isn’t an improvement, you’ll probably come out of it with a renewed interest.
• Pick up a new, challenging project. I try to take on new projects that will be a challenge or at least something a little different from my normal client work; sometimes these are fun, side projects or new client engagements. In Meryl’s plans for 2010 post, she talked about how she takes on a new, challenging project every year to stretch herself. When I was working in corporate jobs, I used to always volunteer for special projects and teach classes for employees because doing something new helped me stay energized and excited about my job.
• Set improvement goals. Pick one thing every couple of months that is important, but that you haven’t focused on in a while, and set a goal of making at least one improvement in that area. This could be a personal development project or some neglected aspect of your work. The idea is to make some kind of regular improvements to break you out of the conformity cycle.
• Find a new hobby or non-work related project. I’ve found that when I am bored outside of work, this can carry over into the work day. Find a fun new hobby that will keep you energized during your off-hours, and you just might find that it helps improve your energy during the work day as well.
• Get a full night of sleep. Yes, I know you are busy and that sleep just cuts down on the hours that you can be doing something more fun. However, being a half-asleep zombie at work will drain your energy and make you feel bored even when the work itself isn’t all that boring. Try it for a week, and see if you don’t have more energy. You might realize that you enjoy those waking hours even more when you are well rested.

These are just a few of the techniques that I have used over the years to avoid succumbing to boredom, but I’m sure that there are other great ways to get re-energized and excited about your work.

How do you break out of the boredom cycle and stay excited about your work?

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• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
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I’m particularly skeptical that I’ll find it useful for work. No doubt I’ll find ample reason to use it for amusement and idle time-killing. The possibility of a larger-scale version of iPhone’s Peggle alone adds up to countless wasted hours. But will I also use it to enhance my productivity? I suppose we’ll find out next week, but before we do, here’s what I’d need for the Tablet to be useful in my work.

Connectivity

I’d like, if I had my druthers, 3G connectivity and Wi-Fi. It’s not something I think we’re very likely to see, though. There will be Wi-Fi, to be sure, but 3G or an always-on connection like the Kindle 2 has is probably just a pipe dream.

If that does turn out to be the case, then there’s one thing I will definitely require of an Apple tablet to get work done on the go: tethering. iPhone tethering is the single most useful thing, workwise, that Apple has done for me to date. If a tablet doesn’t have 3G, but allows me to tether my 3GS, which does, everything will be perfect.

Bluetooth is a must, and I doubt very much that it won’t make its way in. The key will be what Bluetooth profiles are supported. A2DP and hopefully file transfer protocols will be included, but the big question is whether or not Apple will get over its love affair with on-screen keyboards and include input device profiles, too. The ability to use a keyboard with the device would go a long way to making it more productive.

Better Browsing

Mobile Safari is a very capable browser, but there’s much more you can do once you start increasing the screen size of your device. With a 10-inch screen, which is what most of the rumors are saying the Apple tablet will sport, things like proper tabbed browsing become a much more reasonable proposition.

Beyond tabbed browsing, a version of Safari running on a larger, more powerful device can also take other cues from its desktop cousin. How about support for extensions? That would go a long way toward making this tablet a better alternative for when you can’t get to a computer.

Finally, my blue sky request would be that the tablet platform would support alternative browsers. Some Firefox or Chrome action would be just what the doctor ordered, but don’t hold your breath.

More Juice

If the iPhone is setting the standard, then it stands to reason that a bigger more powerful device with a better display will have much shorter battery life. Hopefully that isn’t the case. But how to judge? The iPhone has terrific battery life for a computer, but its awful if you’re thinking in terms of mobile phones.

Ideally, the tablet maintains the battery life the 3GS has, not scaled down proportionally as its size increase. That would mean true all-day use, pretty much, which would be a real boon to productivity on the road. Hopefully the slim battery tech Apple uses in its MacBook Pros can be refined and put to even better use in the new tablet.

Everything Else

These are the things I’ll need to truly incorporate an Apple tablet into my workflow in a meaningful and permanent way. They aren’t the only things, of course, but they are the less-obvious features that are not sure to be included. Great app support will also be a big factor, but that’s something Apple clearly doesn’t need help with, whether the tablet uses OS X or a modified iPhone OS.

What are you looking forward to from next week’s Apple announcement? Do you think it’ll have an effect on how you work?

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During those long months, when you can’t remember what the sun looks like and are slightly surprised at its appearance in films and on television, productivity can take a major nosedive, along with mood and attitude. As a long veteran of Canadian winters, I like to think that I’m prepared for the changes that major weather upheavals can cause in a person, but I never cease to be shocked by the strength of the effects. Accordingly, I’ve put together a list of ways to either get over — or work through — the funk. 

Take a Vacation

As mentioned above, I’ve been less than active here during the past few weeks. That’s partly because my cup was temporarily running over with work elsewhere, but it’s also because I decided to step back and take a significant chunk of time off for the first time in about a year. Making a decision about stepping back from work for a while is far preferable to the alternative, which is continuing to try to maintain a regular schedule, and having the quantity and quality of your work suffer as a result.

Planned time off, with a definite ending, will help you feel focused and eager when you do eventually get back to work. If you love what you do, that is. If you still find yourself dragging your heels, you might want to take a long hard look at what it is you’re doing that isn’t satisfying any longer.

Lower Your Expectations

A big part of the problem of trying to fight the winter doldrums is that people are often their own worst critics. Getting into a blame cycle with yourself won’t help you get work done any faster. In fact, you’ll probably get a lot less done, and just give up on days where you could otherwise have gotten at least a little bit ahead.

If you are perennially cursed by a lower work ethic as the thermometer mercury dips lower, then acknowledge and prepare for that eventuality. The best way to do that is to work more during the months that you feel more productive, and generally behave like a squirrel getting ready for the lean winter months. That way, when you’re doing less than your maximum potential output, you won’t feel nearly as guilty about it, and you’re less likely to get caught in negative attribution patterns. Believe me, if I could actually hibernate, I probably would, but this is the next best thing.

Stay Fit, Active and Healthy

As at-home workers, we’re already severely at risk of falling into a sedentary lifestyle, and that risk is amplified a hundred fold when the outside environment seems intent on killing us. Go out of your way to counter the impulse to stay inside and remain immobile, and I promise that after a few days you’ll feel much, much better for having done so.

Make sure your fruit and vegetable intake stays high, at least on par with what you normally take in during the summer. My registered dietitian friend couldn’t stress this enough. She also recommended taking Vitamin D supplements to make up for the absence of sunlight that normally provides this much-needed nutrient to our systems.

Sign up for a gym near enough to your house that you won’t be discouraged from going by the weather. Failing that, invest in a good Tai Chi or yoga DVD and treat it as a necessary part of your work day, akin to filling out invoices or checking your email.

It’s Only a Season

My parting advice for those of you plagued with a long cold winter, Canadian or otherwise, is to remember that it doesn’t last forever, despite sometimes appearing to. Keep that always in mind, and strap on some skates or grab a toboggan and remember that the cruelest season does have some advantages over its gentler cousins.

How do you work through — or avoid — the winter work lull?

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Now, my phone has more processing power than my first work computer, and I am always connected. This connection isn’t just for work, or even for productivity. I rely on being connected for many routine personal tasks: dictionary, looking up random facts, amusement, recipes, etc. I jump back and forth seamlessly and no longer really think of it as being online or offline. I take it for granted that I can always be connected on a moment’s notice.

Gartner’s Nick Jones agrees that the distinction between online and offline has almost completely disappeared:

Labeling time as “online” vs. “offline” is so last decade. For many of us that distinction already vanished. Many of the things we do at home and work mean we dip into web services continually throughout the day. We post updates to social networks, stream media, check information, stream feeds and tweet (not the latter in my case as I’m a twitter refuser). And behind the scenes loads of gadgets in our home and pocket silently and continuously communicate to access web services, updates, information…There is no “online” vs. “offline” any more, there’s only online.

I spent the last couple of days taking a long weekend off work to just relax at home. I finished reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross, which I had started reading a month ago; I started and finished Cory Doctorow’s “Makers,” a fantastic book; and I started reading Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash.” I stubbornly refused to do any work, but I noticed how often I kept looking things up on my phone or laptop:

• All of my recipes are in Google Docs
• I head to the search box whenever I want to learn more about something
• I play Words with Friends for amusement
• Twitter and Facebook help me keep up with news and my friends

Because I live in a place where Internet access is everywhere, I have stopped thinking about any distinction between “online” and “offline” in favor of an always-connected lifestyle.

What do you think about the distinction between online and offline, and is it still a meaningful distinction in your life?

Photo by Flickr user eschipul used under Creative Commons.

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