Home Office Advantage

September/October 2007 Issue: Page 88

Print | Email | Digg This

Motivating yourself when you work from home is not as challenging as having to deal with co-workers in a virtual office environment.

Many online marketers started out working from home as a way to escape the Dilbert-like cubicle farms of corporate life in favor of a flexible schedule. And while these home-based workers may have managed to avoid rush-hour traffic, endless meetings and the watchful eye of superiors, their work life is hardly about hanging out in pajamas.

According to 2000 U.S. Census data, more than 4.2 million people choose to work at home on a daily basis. And while the solitary work life can pose unique challenges for the self-employed, there are even more distinct technical, organizational and social skills needed to be successful (and remain sane) while working from home when you are part of a larger entity.

Online commerce has multiplied the opportunities for working as part of a virtual organization. Since technology (in the form of fast Internet access, file sharing and Web-based applications) has made it relatively easy to earn a living online, virtual office managers should focus on implementing strategies that often differ from what occurs in corporate America. You need to concentrate on sharing documents online, streamlining communications and organizing your time.

Put Your Work Online

In the corporate world of days gone by, workers kept their files on their PCs or on password-only accessible servers, protecting their documents as if they were the launch sequence for nuclear weapons. Now personal lives – through blogs, photo sharing and MySpace – are rapidly moving online, and work life should not be any different.

Making your relevant business documents and files available to peers will increase creativity and enhance productivity. From business strategy papers to spreadsheets to brainstorming notes, sharing documents online is essential to getting input from co-workers who aren't in the same ZIP code.

Sharing your documents also eliminates the clutter of emailing documents back and forth and the frustration of sorting through folders to find out where you previously saved attachments. Maintaining a shared calendar through Google Calendar or Apple's iCal can eliminate email strings that attempt to nail down an open time for a conference call.

Virtual office workers don't usually have an IT department or top-heavy applications such as Lotus Notes to store and share their files, which many workers will consider a blessing. By organizing a common set of online folders, co-workers can quickly survey all aspects of a project and stay on top of progress.

Several secure online services simplify making files accessible to co-workers. Free services Google Docs and Spreadsheets and Microsoft's Live Folders allow you to store up to 500 megabytes of content, while Apple's iDrive permits 1 gigabyte of storage. The services enable you to specify the people (via their email addresses and passwords) with access. Subscription services such as Box.net offer additional security, storage capacity (up to 15 gigabytes) and workgroup features for around $20 per month.

"I feel like I know what my team is doing much more than I did when I was in an office," says Sam Harrelson, general manager for the U.S. for search marketing firm Clicks2Customers. "I can access [what I need] at any time instead of having to go down the hall to ask someone for a document." Getting into the habit of storing files online and using a Web-based email service also provides access to files when you are away from your virtual office.

Harrelson, who works from his home in Asheville, North Carolina, manages staff in other states and reports to management in South Africa. He recommends putting documents online through social network sites to save time. He and his peers use a private Facebook group to share files and store contact information, thus creating a public Rolodex. Clicks2Customers uses a private wiki to trade ideas, and it also enables individual contributions to be identified. Harrelson also recommends setting up an RSS feed to track a project's evolution.

Basecamp, an online service developed by 37 Signals, provides extensive workgroup functionality including project management, file sharing and messaging, but at a much lower price than the corporate applications that often require IT interventions.

Bambi Francisco, the founder of Web startup Vator.tv, says her company uses filesharing service Basecamp to manage its software development effort, which is primarily done in Pakistan. The site includes to-do lists, milestone tracking and messaging/ comment threads that can automatically generate emails or RSS feeds. Centralizing all of the files and messages related to a project in a single location will keep everyone on task and makes the necessary information always available.

Controlling Communications

Francisco says written documents and messaging can simplify communications between people with accents and for whom English is not their primary language. Her peers were all born outside of the U.S., and reading an email or online status report can be easier than phone conversations. "Email has never been more important [for her business communications]," she says.

The isolation of the virtual office requires the most dramatic change in work routine and psychological adjustment. For a "people person," having only the office furniture (and perhaps a pet) for company can create a yearning for the digital approximation of human contact. Virtual office workers need to become comfortable with cyber relationships and appropriately using instant messaging and telephone/videoconferencing.

In many cases, instant messaging is the most efficient method of getting questions answered or discussing a pressing matter. Making a phone call is a commitment – social convention dictates the exchange of salutations, and ending a conversation after just a few minutes can feel awkward. IM doesn't have these limitations, and keeping an IM window to a peer open enables both parties to continue working in between messages.

Because of the usually immediate feedback, IM is replacing email as the most effective communications tool for virtual office dwellers. Continued on Page 2...

Pages: 1 2 3

Print | Email | Digg This