Telework Exchange - A Public - Private Partnership Focused On Eliminating Telework Gridlock

I recently read an interview in the New York Times Magazinewith Phil Libin, the CEO of the software company Evernote. If you have ever been interested in the idea of pure outcome-based management, you should watch this company. For context, Evernote is a note taking and archiving/organizing program that is very cool (but does require some commitment to be useful). This is not a review of Evernote, but rather a discussion of the management of the company itself.

It’s time to clear the air. Last week was Telework Week and while more than 70,000 people pledged to work from somewhere other than their office, I have been accused of being a blind advocate for telework…a cheerleader, if you will. And trust me, that is the only time my name and cheerleader were ever used in the same sentence. Let’s see where I really stand on this issue. It may surprise some of you.

This week, as part of the annual Telework Weekevent, more than 64,900 people have pledged to work from somewhere other than their office. I could talk about the millions of dollars saved by these people ($5.1M) or the millions of pounds of pollutants they will keep out of or air and water (6.1M), but today I want to talk to you about another important benefit of this telework test drive: its effect on how we work and manage others.

I had a very interesting conversation the other day with some folks from both government and industry about the return on investment (ROI) of telework. The coolest thing about working for Telework Exchange is that we bring smart people from both groups together to find innovative ways to address tough issues. So now, put your thinking caps on and join this conversation.

Twenty years ago, we used to talk about the transit systems (typically buses and trains) as providing mobility and access. The idea was that people who didn’t have cars or didn’t want to use them, could get where they wanted to go (mobility) and could have access to work, education, healthcare, and recreation opportunities that might be lost without the transit system.

In 1811, some English textile workers, fearing changes to their way of life, took axe and sledgehammer in hand and went after the new mechanical looms coming into use during the Industrial Revolution. This attack on new technology because it was new and different (and therefore, bad) usually earned them the hangman’s noose, but it also and coined a new term. Members of this movement identified with a mythical leader known as General Ned Ludd and, thus, people who oppose technology because it's new and different are often known as Luddites.

I’ve started about three different columns since the last one I wrote about Alan Greenspan and knowledge workers. No, your email alert is not on the fritz, I have them all in a state of near completion and you will be seeing them soon. I’m not sure why I wasn’t happy with them, but they weren’t quite ready for prime time. So, I was catching up on some reading over the Thanksgiving holiday and I came across a piece in The Economist that got me thinking. The column, written under the Schumpeter pen name (or nom de plume if we are getting all français), focuses on management issues. This one was entitled The French Way of Work, and asked the question, “Are French workers lazy?”

A short while back I had the pleasure of hearing former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan talk about innovation and the global economy. Dr. Greenspan was pretty clear that there is no silver bullet to solve the global financial crisis, but that innovation and smart policy were certainly very good weapons in the fight.

I've heard this question before – is telework a scam? Sometimes it’s not even a question, more like a statement. Do teleworkers actually “work”? Last month, a jobs web site called CareerBuilder.com published a study that found that 17 percent of the teleworkers they surveyed said they worked an hour or less a day. Another 8 percent reported they worked 2-4 hours a day. The data show one quarter of their survey population is working less than half of the nominal eight-hour workday. That got a lot of people in this space spun up, so let’s look at the numbers and the bigger picture.

In 1966, director Bruce Brown made the iconic surfer film, Endless Summer. The movie suggests that if you only had the time and cash, you could keep summer alive all year long by chasing the sun between hemispheres. Oh, to wish and hope for such a thing is why we play the lottery, but when you are like me and are lucky to get one of the numbers right on the MegaSpin, you need to pack up those dreams and get ready for the traffic. Yep, even here in the Commonwealth of Virginia, schools are back in session, beach towels and chairs are packed away, and smell of burgers, dogs, and corn on the grill is just a memory.

There’s an old joke about a lost tourist asking for directions in Boston and being told, “You can’t get there from here.” Like any good saying, this one mixes a little humor and a little truth. But on a really bad day – a day that will be long remembered because of a catastrophic event such as a major terrorist attack or natural disaster – it may not just be the lost tourist who is stuck at the end of a one-way street. In the past we operated on the assumption that we would have some warning to get key people out of harm’s way. We thought in terms of moving the people who need to make decisions in the immediate aftermath of the incident from one place to another. This is the type of thinking that led to the creation of empty buildings often called “alternate” or “COOP” sites. But today, the threat has changed and, as we have learned, our enemies attack with no warning or need of provocation. It can happen at any time and in any place – and we better be ready with more than a building stocked with computers, phones, and packaged food.

When I started writing this blog last year, a friend asked me what I was going to say. Of course, I told her I was planning to write about telework. “You know, working from home or someplace other than your office,” I said. It’s becoming a big deal in the government and lots of private companies are already onboard, I told her. She gave me that smile that friends give when they are happy that you are happy, but they don’t really understand why anyone would pay for whatever it is you are buying or selling. “No really,” I said, “this is big.”

Welcome back to the inside of my head. If this is your first visit, get ready for a bumpy ride because we are going to do a little traveling this week. I just got back from two weeks on the road and it was a very busy trip. With my great Telework Exchange colleagues Cindy and Brittany, I made a guest appearance at GSA Expo in San Diego. Before you get jealous, we were working pretty hard and we did not win the good hotel lottery. But I promised the ladies I wouldn’t talk about the ghosts, so no more on that…

Have you ever stared at a blank page, with no idea how to start writing? It sucks, doesn’t it? I know I am not the first writer to experience this, because people have written books about not be able to write (funny, isn’t it?). It's not really writer's block, because I have lots of great things to tell you about. It’s more of a feeling of uncertainty as to where the whole telework discussion is going.

OK, the government didn’t shut down last week. Yes, there was a lot of drama and brinksmanship in Washington over the past few weeks, but cooler heads did prevail and my former colleagues and other friends working for Uncle Sam are still at their desks…or are they? A lot of them are not at their desks because they are teleworking, like they do on a regular basis.

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. This is probably the most famous English language pangram (a sentence using all 26 letters in the alphabet). By the way, that sentence consists of 44 keystrokes and nine words and it took me about 10 seconds to type. So why am I telling you this? As a regular reader of this space, you are probably aware of my penchant for useless trivia. But no, I make this point because it has come to my attention that there are a bunch of folks out there who think that the silver bullet for managing teleworkers is the keystroke recorder.

The other weekend I went up the mountains with my friend Larry; since he drove, I offered to pick up the gas. On the way home we stopped to fill up his car and the bill was over $50 – and his tank wasn't even empty. Nationally, the price of gas averaged about $3.50 a gallon this month and some experts predict that a gallon of gas will hit five dollars later this year. Those of you who drive to work every day and now composing comments to this blog that say, "tell us something we don't know!"

How many times have you had an e-mail exchange with someone that went on for three, six, even ten back and forth messages, just to set up a meeting? Sure, you could have "had the meeting" via e-mail or even picked up the phone and called, but sometimes you need to look the person in the eye to get across what you need to say or hear from them. E-mail and phone are OK, but it's not the same. So, you finally get the meeting set for a week from next Tuesday and then your boss calls and says you need to go to Dubuque a week from next Tuesday and the scheduling dance starts all over again.