Daddy Wears Slippers to Work — book blog about working at home

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Hey!  Anybody still out there?  Yeah, it’s been a busy summer (and fall) and the book and this blog have been on a bit o’ hiatus.  Fall is in the air, winter is coming, so let’s get revved back up here, eh?

Okay … to kick things back off here, LifeHacker points to John Dvorak PC Mag article about (the lack of) telework adoption in business.  Yep, I totally agree, most businesses aren’t doing enough to embrace telework, but … there are some good reasons for this.  Yeah teleworkers are more efficient, happier folks (by and large), but humans are social creatures.  I think work is just one social aspect that we exist in.  I know that sometimes I really wish I had an office to go hang out in—and I’ve been working from home for 6.5 years!  That and well, I think people want to look you in the eye to get the measure of the man they are talking with.  Even video doesn’t do this.

Wait, am I being a telework heretic?  I don’t think so.  I think the reality of the situation is that few jobs can be totally remote or from home.  I think businesses should be encouraged to let people work from home sometimes but then also be within easy reach of the office.  I think a touch of reality is important in any major change in how people do business, let’s take it slow.  Okay that and maybe doing some guerilla telework ;-).

Tags: telework

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Today eMarketer covers the report I covered earlier this week on how many people could work at home versus how many do.  There is some interesting comparative data that suggests more people are working at home, but also that remote workers aren’t expected to grow for the next couple years.  I beg to differ because we still don’t know what will happen if gas prices soar or there is a major terrorist attack.  Anything that might make people shift to want to avoid driving or the city itself.

Beyond that though there is a cool table that gives the pros and cons of remote work.  Yep, those are all on the money.

Tags: remote work, telework, telecommuting

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Couple bits from C|Net News.com this morning on the Microsoft—Nortel alliance announced today.  I first heard this on the news this morning (yes, I do watch TV news, generally when I’m eating my Cheerios circular oat-based cereal) and I turned to Lorraine and said, "This could be great for telecommuters.".  Why?  First here are some snippets from the News.com article:

Microsoft has been pushing the idea of unified communications–enabling people to integrate all their business communications applications: telephony, instant messaging, e-mail and others–into a single platform. With a central platform, people can choose who contacts them, and when. They can also determine over which type of communications they get contacted–whether it be e-mail, phone or IM.

Microsoft has already announced some unified-communications products. Earlier this year, it combined its Exchange unit with the real-time communications group that handles its Live Communications Server for instant messaging and presence management–software that detects whether you are online. The company has also said the next version of the Exchange e-mail server will be able to handle voice mail and allow workers to check e-mail by phone.

Unified messaging (all your calls, voicemails, IM, e-mail) has been one of those Holy Grails of business people.  Imagine having everything in one place?  Cool, eh?  Now, combine this with a remote VoIP system and you can have your office on your desk at home.  I’ve done this with a Mitel VoIP solution and that just covered calls and voicemail.  With remote VoIP, unified messaging, and a broadband connection, well you can be more connected with the office.  That’s a good thing, right? ;-).

Tags: VoIP, Nortel, Microsoft, unified messaging

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Yesterday my buddy Andy Wibbels gave me a plug on his site.  Now, it’s traditional in blogging circles that when you get a link from a high-profile blogger like Andy, you make sure you do some posts that day.  Well, I didn’t.  Why?  Two reasons, and both apply directly to my book.

First, I was busy.  I think I had meetings from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM solid.  Sure all on the computer and Skype, but I did need to focus on the work at had.  Working at home still means you’re working.

Second, I’ve been sick.  Rather sick.  Which, though, shows the other benefit of working from home.  You can get rest, stay in contact with the office, and not infect your co-workers with whatever creeping crud you’ve acquired.

I’m finally on the mend and getting to write something here.  So, welcome.  Do come back often because I usually will be posting frequently including chapters/sections in progress for people to comment on.

Tags: work at home, work from home, Andy Wibbels

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What is going to keep the global economy going if there is a global flu pandemic (which is not and "if" but a "when")?  How are people going to work if they can’t get to work?  Offices shut down, transit closed … work from home, of course.  Telework is, actually, a real part in flu pandemic planning for companies.  From ITNews in Australia, it sounds like Sun is well on it’s way to being ready.

So if your company isn’t getting a least a few ducks in a row (sorry, couldn’t resist), they should be.

Update: I got an e-mail from Hobie Swan of MindJet about how MindManager has been used to map out creative solutions to handling a bird-flu pandemic (direct PDF download).

Tags: avian flu, flu pandemic, telework, telecommuting, work at home, work from home, MindJet, MindManager

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I’ve written a couple of posts about Net Neutrality over the past couple weeks (this week, last week). While you might think this is just a music and video aficionado’s issue, it isn’t, far from it. If you work from home, even some of the time, this should ping up on your radar big time. Why? Because it’s high-speed Internet and the level net playing field that has helped make telework feasible in the last 5 years.

Imagine if an e-mail you send at 8 AM doesn’t get delivered until noon because your ISP isn’t paying tolls to the telcos. Imagine downloading the latest report from Forrester or another online data provider, and it taking twice as long as it does now. How about searching with Google. Sure Google will come up quickly, but what about the sites in the results? Think about how much longer research will take.

I’ve actually dealt with a tiered system in the past, and let me tell you it sucked. In my last days at GlaxoSmithKline we were using Lotus Notes. One “feature”—I use the term loosely—was that some e-mail would be queued for later delivery if the system thought it was “low priority”. Not the person sending it setting the priority to low, no, the system analyzed the sender, subject, etc and decided that it wasn’t needed right away. Result? I told all my suppliers to mark all their e-mails urgent/highest priority to make sure I would get it right away. Yep I was gaming the system, but I had to, I was left with no choice. More than once a really important e-mail didn’t get to me until lunchtime, the end of the day, or even the day after because the system was having a heavy e-mail day and just kept delaying all “non-urgent” e-mails.

And if you don’t think the same thing won’t happen in a tiered Internet world … I have a bridge in New York City for sale … cheap.

Tags: net neutrality, telework, telecommuting, work from home, work at home

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