As a manager you may be willing to hire the best talent no matter where they’re located, but how do you go about determining if a candidate is excellent not only at their job but also at working remotely? There are questions that can help. Read more »
Recently, BlueSprig co-founders Jason Johnson and Hugo Dong raised $10 million for their apps business. Sounds like a typical startup story but there’s a twist. Dong lives in China. Johnson in San Francisco. How do entrepreneurs separated by a 16-hour time difference make it work? Read more »
Among cutting-edge companies the realities of virtual teams may be fairly old news, but according to several recent articles, the same isn’t true for many mainstream HR departments who are badly behind when it comes to grappling with the implications of widespread remote work. Read more »
A challenge of managing a virtual team is getting timely and thorough participation from team members. One way to ensure everyone has their say — or is at least given the opportunity to provide input — is to apply some principles of crowdsourcing to internal team communications. Read more »
Working with virtual staff members can take some getting used to. Just like other management skills, it takes practice; working with virtual staff is not a skill you pick up overnight. But there are some steps you can take to make the process a little easier: Read more »
Training timelines seem to grow by leaps and bounds whenever there’s a little distance between the trainer and the trainees. When you’re working with a virtual team you can’t let the fact that you don’t see every member of your team in person slow you down. Read more »
Too often, out of sight can mean out of mind when you have team members spread out in various offices around the world. Even those of us with the best intentions sometimes forget to thank people or recognize them for doing great work. Read more »
It can be hard to feel connected and on the same page with employees and team members, especially when working remotely. By finding ways to relate to the people on your team, you can improve communications, build better connections and create an even stronger organization. Read more »
In last week’s post, I wrote about what it takes to become a virtual CEO, after speaking with Chris Ducker of Virtual Business Lifestyle. During our conversation, Ducker also shared his tips for keeping a virtual team happy and motivated. Read more »
Is it really possible to take a company from a physical location to a virtual space, and take a team used to face-to-face work entirely online? Here’s a breakdown of some of the things to consider before making the leap to the cloud. Read more »
The tricky part in having remote employees is making sure that they feel like they are an integral part of team and not second-class citizens. Here are a few ways to make sure that your virtual team members feel loved, instead of neglected: Read more »
When your team starts working virtually, people of different generations are going to adjust to the situation better, and perhaps faster, than others. Here are some technology and management considerations to take into account when planning a multi-generational virtual team. Read more »
As virtual teams and remote workers become more common, employers increasingly feeling the need to employ remote monitoring and management tools. The latest of these is Peerdrum, an app that enables managers to track remote workers by taking a snapshot of their screens every few minutes. Read more »
Throughout my online career, I’ve been part of several web working teams. On most teams I am just a regular member, but there’s the rare occasion when I find myself the team leader. Like now, for example, when my former graphic design classmates asked me to […] Read more »
At first peek, web app Teambox looks like another collaboration tool: it’s a Basecamp rival that facilitates collaboration and notifies team members of additions and changes to your projects. Both come with a simple, user-friendly interface. But Teambox has one bonus; it lets teams create unlimited […] Read more »
As more and more companies and teams are going strictly virtual, there are a whole new set of issues to consider and challenges to address. Using my own virtual social media marketing team as an example, I’ve identified a number of needs that require some kind […] Read more »
I was recently asked to manage a team of graphic designers, all of them fresh graduates with hardly any professional experience. Always eager to help, I accepted the opportunity, knowing that it would be challenging and educational, for both myself and the team. I soon discovered […] Read more »
From time to time, a lone teleworker finds herself working with a team. This could be at the request of the client, or simply because a certain project demands it. In these cases, a strong team dynamic is needed to make the project a success. The […] Read more »
A lot of apps have been promising to bring Microsoft document editing capabilities to the iPhone, like DocumentsToGo, which enjoyed prominence on the Palm OS, and continues to be a popular choice for BlackBerry users. But now it looks like Quickoffice might be the first app […] Read more »
In the recent past, I’ve covered a couple of the different white-label solutions from third-party developers for carriers that offer the iPhone. These offerings are generally meant to correct some oversight on Apple’s part, or answer a perceived desire for some feature on the part of […] Read more »
Ah, the age old business question: “Do I want more work?” The question, of course, is actually “Can I handle more work?” or even “How much more work can I handle?” Do you know how much more work you can handle? Are you at that tipping/breaking […] Read more »
Collaboration is always a challenge for any team, but when that team is virtual, cloud collaboration presents its own set of organizational and tracking problems. GroupSwim is looking to step into the slot between e-mail correspondence and full-featured robust project management systems ala Basecamp. According to […] Read more »
We’ve talked before that metered access is a boneheaded idea that is bad for innovation, bad for Microsoft and Google, and ultimately bad for you. Until today, the idea seemed like an eventuality, not an immediate reality. But then NBC and TonicTV launched a new service […] Read more »
Some server administrators set share drives to auto disconnect users after a set time of inactivity (ie fifteen minutes). As a user it’s super frustrating to connect to a server every time you need access. I’ve written an AppleScript that first checks to see if the […] Read more »
From pre-packaged California rolls at supermarkets to high-end sushi restaurants where you can easily spend a week’s pay, the Japanese speciality has become popular worldwide and nearly ubiquitous in urban America. You can even get decent (if overpriced) sushi at many American ballparks! Many feel that […] Read more »
We were a bit ahead of the Google AdSense for video story when we published last night, and some more important details have emerged this morning. Publishers who want to participate must serve at least 1 million video streams per month, be based in the U.S., […] Read more »
OK, after clicking on a bunch of links in the email and on the HP web site a clearer picture is emerging (I think). It appears that the only thing shipping now is the extra travel A/C adapter. Hence the 4 pounds of which I’m hoping […] Read more »
http://www.youtube.com/v/rIz6K39xh_c I’m back home from the AT&T store to give you eight minutes with the 875U. I can’t overstate how large this AirCard is; should be fine for most notebooks, but UMPC owners will want to take this into consideration. I’ll be testing the actual power […] Read more »
My story on Qualcomm, The Next Monopoly, has only just hit the stands and already I need to update the information. According to reports coming from 3GSM, Qualcomm’s MediaFLO mobile TV technology is all set to take on the European DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcast-Handheld) and T-DMB […] Read more »
Sure everyone was obsessing about the whole Google VoIP thing, but we missed some of the big stuff that happened today in the handheld space. For starters, PalmOne CEO Todd Bradley, hightailed it out of the handheld and Treo maker. President Ed Colligan is taking over, […] Read more »