Tyler + Work

I'm Tyler: a husband, dog owner, professional, and student. This is a blog about working from home and its related technology. You can also find me on my personal tumblr where I keep photographs I've taken and unrelated things I find interesting.

[tylerpluswork]

The Balance

The folks over at CERN and the Large Hadron Collider made big news recently when they announced they may have identified the Higgs Boson, the long sought after "God particle" that has been theorized to be the provider of mass to all other particles.

As it relates to technology, eWeek wrote a good article on why it's important to all of us. 

If you've heard all this talk and don't know what the Higgs Boson is, I highly recommend the video above. One of things I love most about working from home is the ability to take mental breaks and engage myself in other passions (such as music, photography, and watching videos on quantum physics). It also affords me the ability to have a better work-life balance with all of these things AND move towards my master's degree!

[tylerpluswork]

Some good research on the current estimates of how many people are telecommuting. Estimates sit at about 20 to 30 million in the U.S. but the article also goes on to talk about difficult it can be to arrive at a true number based on the various definition of telecommuting.

Based on all the research we’ve done, our estimate is that 20 to 30 million people currently work from home at least one day a week. 15 to 20 million are road warriors / mobile workers; 10 to 15 million are home businesses; 15 to 20 million work at home part time (with about half doing so 1-2 days a week; and about 3 million are based at home full time. ( Telework Research Network). WorldatWork estimates that about 44 million people work at home at least once a year.

Source

[tylerpluswork]

The Wall Street Journal had a good article recently about virtual meetings and some of the challenges they introduce. I have to say that I've pulled the old put-a-dress-shirt-on-top-of-athletic-shorts trick a time or two during our push to use our webcams more. But one of the biggest annoyances for me is background noise ... I encounter people having this issue very frequently:

“Background noise such as dogs barking, doorbells ringing, housecleaners vacuuming, traffic outside, typing or eating” are common problems, she says. One employee breathes heavily into the phone, not realizing it creates background noise. Sutton Fell often breaks into teleconferences to instruct participants: “Hey, if you’re not speaking, please put yourself on mute.”

Source

[tylerpluswork]

Apartment Therapy, one of my favorite home blogs, had a nice feature the other day on some solutions for home office organization.

Everyone hates cord clutter (at least I think everyone does.) There's a lot of solutions out there from zip ties to elaborate covers. However, the one above may be my new favorite, a nifty wire management system called Cablox. This might be my next investment and weekend project.

Source

[tylerpluswork]

TechZone360 offers a list of the top 5 tools to stay productive in a virtual environment. Most of them seem like no-brainers, but a few really hit home.

A Wireless Headset Did you know that the use of a wireless headset in a work setting can significantly increase your level of productivity? If you aren’t currently using one, it might seem unlikely, but think of the possible benefits of multi-tasking when you aren’t distracted and tied up holding a handset to your ear while on a call. Whether you work in an office, from the privacy of your own home, or you are forced to take calls from the road while on the go, a wireless headset provides the convenience of being hands-free and can also reduce health issues related to muscle tension and neck strain. 

I desperately need one of these. I replaced my home phone system a couple years ago and mistakenly got handsets without microphone inputs ... needless to say I have some pretty severe neck strain. I don't use my cell phone for work calls because of the unreliable connection in my area, so I need a phone that allows a headset to be plugged in (or better yet, bluetooth connection).

Update: Looks like some of the newer phones are supporting bluetooth now.

[tylerpluswork]

The Wall Street Journal published an article a few days ago citing an increase in telecommuting in Japan leading to greater employee satisfaction. Much of the increase in telecommuting is due to the power shortages Japan faced after the earthquake, but it seems to be working. Employers are seeing engagement increase while cutting operating costs of their offices.

Source

[tylerpluswork]

Chicago's Daily Herald posted an interesting article yesterday about the "perils" of working from home. Particularly, what some people tend to do when they don't have anyone watching over them in the office.

Skeptical bosses will likely have their doubts re-enforced by the same survey, which shows that 43 percent of workers say they’ve watched TV or a movie while “working” remotely, while 35 percent have done household chores, and 28 percent have cooked dinner

I can't say I've never done one of those things while at home and "on the clock" but then again, there has been ample evidence to suggest that it may not be such a bad thing overall. There also seems to be a growing desire to work from home, at least in part. In fact, in that same survey, 68 percent of survey respondents who haven’t worked remotely “identify at least one extremely popular perk or pleasure they’d be willing to give up in order to work from home just one day a week.”

Source

[tylerpluswork]

Another interesting infographic on working remote from PR Web and SmartFile. One of the most interesting items about telecommunting? How much gas and oil we can save as a result. Click on the image for a full-fize.

Source

[tylerpluswork]

Crazy and Incredible Tech of the Week

Wow, right? That's the Leap, an entirely new way to interact with your computer. It was introduced a few months ago and recently the company's CTO sat down with The Verge for a look inside the technology and capabilities of the device. A device like this must certainly cost hundreds of dollars right? Wrong ... you can pre-order the device for $75 through the Leap website. Expected to ship December 2012. Is this the future of user interaction?

[tylerpluswork]

Too many distractions at home? Too many distractions at the local coffee shop? Third Workplace is looking to eradicate those issues for the virtual worker by offering an "office" environment away from the office. They've just opened up the first location in Walnut Creek California and offer hourly rates to monthly plans. The rates include internet connectivity, access to printers/faxes, onsite support, and even refrigerator access.

Could this be an alternative to the telecommuter working from their home? 

Source

[tylerpluswork]

Photo Source: Forbes.com

According to this article on Forbes and some professors at the University of Toronto and the Mayo Clinic, continually concentrating on one task is like working out a muscle for an extended period of time ... the mind needs a break. The article goes over numerous studies that suggest taking sufficient breaks is key to staying productive throughout the day. Working from home certainly lends itself to a lot of opportunities, but you also need to be careful not to get overly distracted.

Source

[tylerpluswork]

Written in 1998, this article is almost 15 years old. But it does hit on some very topical issues in the virtual workplace such as social isolation and employee/employer perception. 

But perhaps the most important reason why the number of telecommuters has leveled off – the reason that I will explore in this essay – is that most employees don’t think that telecommuting can deliver the same social satisfaction that working in a "real" office does. While the substantive work may be the same, employees are hesitant to give up the daily interaction with co-workers and supervisors that makes a job enjoyable. 

This is perhaps still true today, although I think there's one key (and large) difference: social networking. Not as it relates directly to working virtually, but as a society we've been moving more and more towards engaging in "virtual" relationships. There was no Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. in 1998. Our society as a whole is much more accustomed to having a social life in these "virtual" spaces and that in turn I think makes working virtual much easier to accept and transition to.

Source

[tylerpluswork]

The Army is having a job fair at the end of June in Detriot, but you don't actually need to be there to participate. 

Soldiers don't need to actually go to Detroit to participate, either. There are five locations throughout the Army where they can interview with participating employers via video teleconferencing: Fort Drum, N.Y.; Fort Knox, Ky.; Rock Island Arsenal, Ill.; Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.; and Fort Riley, Kan.

Teleconferencing seems to be more and more common in terms of interview practices. It can help save companies on the cost of flying someone out for an in-person interview.

Source

[tylerpluswork]

VMWare announced a set of new features for its virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) at the Cisco Live conference today. The update brings increased speeds and simplified, rapid enterprise deployment.

FastPath allows IT administrators to deploy and decommission virtual desktops in minutes, easily accommodate unplanned events such as spikes and boot storms to ensure a consistent high performance, and centrally enforce VMware View best practices for improved security and management.

As more and more people take their jobs on the road (or at home), I see us moving towards this type of infrastructure as opposed to imaged laptops that are somewhat "disconnected" from the organization.

Source

[tylerpluswork]

World's Worst Password Requirements

I posted earlier about password purgatory and this example from the Texas Attorney General's Child Support website takes the cake. I think Jason Kottke from kottke.org sums it up well:

Exactly eight characters? No consecutive repeating characters? This is the internet equivalent of everyone throwing their supposedly dangerous 3+ oz. liquid containers into one giant barrel where hundreds of people are queuing up for "security". Makes you wonder how non-user-friendly the state's actual child support process is.

[tylerpluswork]

Any.DO

A few days ago I wrote about Clear for the iPhone, a simplistic and minimalist approach to to-do lists. I use it daily to keep track of the things I need to get done (in addition to my old pen and paper for note taking.) And what I liked most about it was that it offered a straight forward and intuitive way to keep a list of things without getting in your way. There's plenty of to-do apps in the app store, all offering a differing level of functionality, features, syncing, backups, etc ... but for someone who just needs a simple list that requires minimal effort to fill it up, Clear was the main choice (heck, the app got a lot of attention for its design).

And then there's Any.DO, a new(er) to-do list app that's available not only for the iPhone, but also Android, and Chrome (Clear is only available on the iPhone.) Not only that, but it syncs your tasks up between devices. It's still a fairly simple app, a lot of the interface behaves similarly to Clear and there's not a lot of clutter. However, it adds the ability to sort tasks by day or category as well as add notes and reminders to them.

But perhaps the biggest feature is the ability to speak your tasks into the app. Sure, you could just pull up the keyboard and hit the microphone button, but that's provided you have an iPhone 4S or Android Ice Cream Sandwich. It also allows you to share tasks to other people by connecting to social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

The app is free so it might be worth giving a shot against your favorite to-do app.

[tylerpluswork]

Distractions

In this article from 2008, long-time telecommuter Jody Gilbert takes a look at 10 reasons why telecommuting might be tough for some people. There's a lot of truth to the list ... a lot of people can't deal well with distractions and it's definitely a battle for someone like me who considers themselves pretty good at it. She offers some good tips for keeping on task and engaged.

On of the most hard hitting points was #8: you can't bring yourself to quit for the day. I find myself routinely working past the end of my work day and often times I do it unknowingly (or until my wife calls me down.)