In the first post on this subject, I spoke about how I've been able to arrange my home so I can effectively work from home. The major focus of that post is on the physical side of the equation, with the most effective element being the door bar, a device that not only bars the door shut, but communicates to the family when I'm working and when I'm free.
Once I was able to conquer the physical barriers to working from home, I had to tackle the technical barriers. A major challenge to working at home is the fact that you are physically separated from the people you work with. Obviously this is why we typically trudge into an office every day, so we can bug each other much easier than we could otherwise. With the right approach, we can invite our peers into our world to bug us on our schedule, and it's almost as convenient as being there in person.
Now, just like working in a corporate office, there are pros and cons to working from home. The fact that you are physically separated from your colleagues, be they co-workers, clients, partners, etc, presents a benefit and challenge. Benefit? It's much more difficult for others to bug you at random. Challenge? Ad hoc communication and general socializing can suffer.
Fortunately there are several technologies which make the world a much smaller place and mitigate some of these communication gaps that come from the distance.
There are some obvious technologies I use whether I'm at home or the office. I won't cover these since they are ubiquitous (high speed Internet, email, cell phone, etc, blah, etc). Let's focus on the stuff that makes working from home as good, or better, than working from the office.
1. Skype
Benefits: Cheap calls, Free Video Conferencing, IM included
I'm a big fan of Skype. Free calls around the world. Easy, decent quality, free video conferencing between 2 people. I use the paid version of Skype that gives me an actual number and let's me call land lines from my computer. Since Sprint is the anti productivity network w/ crappy coverage at my house, I generally use Skype for most of my calling from the home office.
Now Skype is cool, but you also need coolio headphones to use with Skype. Of course you could use some speaker/mic combo on your laptop or computer, but a way better option is to get something built for communication. Nothing better for rich 2 way audio than the stuff designed for gamers. I use a Fatal1ty over the ear headset with a detachable mic.
It's great for having a conversation where you hear everything evenly in both ears. The quality is great. I'd say 95% of the time Skype does me right with great voice clarity. That's probably as good as any cell phone as far as I'm concerned.
2. IVDesk
Benefits: Access anywhere, anytime, from any computer; Everything protected with no work on my part
I've been working with IVDesk for a couple of years now. They have a fantastic solution for eliminating much of the pain associated with running corporate IT. Their offering, essentially IT as a service, or I've heard them call it, Service as a Service. IVDesk is short for Internet Virtual Desktop. They simply do it all for you and let you access your corporate desktop via an internet connection. The desktop runs in their datacenter with all the functionality you'd expect, Windows, Office, Internet browsing, file sharing, Exchange/Outlook mail, etc. Everything is there, monitored and protected 24x7 by their professional support staff. I met IVDesk a while back when we were searching for a home for
IVDesk became the provider for hosting this service for my friend Chuck Palmer. They have provided fantastic service, always on uptime, and been a very good partner for him and me.
So I have a desktop that lives in the IVDesk cloud. I can connect to it from any machine with a remote desktop client (which means any Mac/Windows/Linux/iPhone/Palm Pre/and others). What's cool is not only do I not have to do any maintenance on this thing, it is always there. If my machine takes a one way trip to the dump, I just find another machine and connect back to my session. It picks up right where I left off, not skipping a beat. No worries about losing data at all, it's all protected from the mishaps so common with PCs and laptops. Plus, it's always fast. If my machine is dogging for whatever reason, my IVDesk just zooms along since it runs from dedicated server hardware and is connected to a really really fast internet connection.
If you had an IVDesk connection that you used for work, think about how nice that would be on those days in Minnesota where it drops a foot of snow while you're sleeping. You wake up and say, oh well, instead of driving for 3 hours through that junk, I'll just log into to my IVDesk from home and get right to work while those other poor souls battle it out on the freeways. Very nice, very convenient.
3. TokBox
Benefits: FREE Multiuser video chat and video conferencing
I have to mention this snazzy service I just discovered a few weeks ago. Situation: I was to collaborate with some colleagues over at Agosto on a client presentation. We were planning on running through the presentation all together. I couldn't make it onsite, so planned to dial in and listen over the phone. Not as good as being there, but at least I could listen in. Then Eric Bandy invites me in to a TokBox session. Wicked cool. A flash based site that let's you have up to 20 video streams participate in a realtime video conference for the low low price of nothing. Eric pointed his laptop at the presenter and I was at the presentation.
4. Pandora
Benefits: Freakishly genius music stations customized just for me
I know Pandora really doesn't have much to do with making working from home any better than working from the office, but I tend to use it ALL the time when I'm in the home office. In the corporate office, if I listened to music, it was with headphones. So I typically wouldn't because I didn't always have some nearby and I'd constantly be taking them off to talk to someone or make a call. At home, I have speakers plugged into the notebook and I can crank music as loud as I want, muting it for calls when needed.
Pandora makes the music experience delectable. It learns my tastes and finds stuff I'll likely enjoy. For instance, when I'm doing work that requires serious thought, I play my "Thinking" station. It's preloaded with classical, acoustic and movie scores from composers like John Williams and Hans Zimmer. When I'm doing less serious stuff, let'er rip with anything from Jack Johnson to Eddie Vetter.
5. Shower
Benefits: I don't smell; I feel like a pro
Silly I know, but hells bells man, you gotta take a shower once in a while! When I work from home, it's most tempting to jump right into work straight out of bed. No harm there, but I certainly feel much more like a civilized human being when I shower/shave/get dressed in something decent even if I'm not going to see anyone else that day. I always get more done from home when I dress appropriately. Call me a behaviorist - Feelings follow behavior. Dress professionally, feel professional, be professional.
If you have any other killer ideas for making work from home less work, drop a comment below.
-dave
Posts
Post a Comment