http://teleworkExchange/news-and-resources/blog The latest telework blogs. en-us info@telework.com (Telework Exchange) jtews@okco.com (Jake Tews) Telework Rss My father was a reporter for most of his life, and he always cautioned me not to "bury the lead." So let's start this (hopefully regular) conversation with a discussion of work. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/36 Happy New Year and welcome to 2011. I believe this is going to be a banner year for a number of reasons. First, it kicks off the second decade of the new century. No, 2010 was part of the first decade because there is no Year Zero (remember the false millennium in 2000). So if the first decade was talking about change and a new way of looking at things, the second decade can be about implementing these new ideas. One of these ideas is certainly telework. For the last few years there has been a small group of us running around trying to get people to talk about how work is changing and the old concepts of management need to adapt to the new realities, but it was not always an easy sell. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/67 Today I want to talk a little bit about productivity tools and my recent epiphany. Don't worry; I'll leave my non-secular discussions for different forum. But, full disclosure time; I used to think that instant messaging (IM) was fine for most people, but I thought I could live without it. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/87 If you were one of the 750+ people who joined us for last week's Telework Exchange Town Hall Meeting, then you would know the answer. I hope you recovered from all of the "pokening" and "crowdsurfingsourcing." In case you missed it, you can find much of the material and summaries of the sessions on our site. And be sure to mark your calendar for the Spring - the next Town Hall Meeting is April 28, 2011. Let me tell you some of my highlights from the Town Hall Meeting. I also look forward to comments from the folks who attended on what was interesting and useful and what we can improve on for the future. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/90 I once heard that the most popular day for online shopping is the Monday after Thanksgiving or "Cyber Monday" - when everyone heads back to work. Of course, teleworkers probably shop online all of the time, right? Well, at least they do it when they aren't looking at dirty pictures. Why should we work? We are at home, big brother is not looking over our shoulder, and no one holds us accountable. Michael Hardy writes in Government Computer News that a new study by the security firm MessageLabs shows that the mobile workforce (which includes but does not comprise only teleworkers) is responsible for a disproportionate amount of network security alerts. Now, some in the anti-telework community have taken this data as proof that teleworking is dangerous and unproductive. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/91 Every time I sit on a panel, give a speech, or host a webinar, I invariably get asked about the data security risks of allowing employees to work from home or other remote locations. I find this to be a very interesting topic, but it has little to do with telework, per se. The issue of data security is very relevant and very serious. Groups ranging from pranksters on one end of the spectrum to foreign intelligence services on the other and a whole host of malicious actors in between are probing, testing, and, sorry to say, getting into your systems and data every day. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/94 Ah, election season. What a joy. It's a time when your television is full of ads about who is going to ruin your life faster, (pre-recorded) phone calls from national leaders "personally" asking you to vote for their guy or gal, and flyers, door hangers, and other collateral in lots of bright colors. It's OK, it's over and you can plug the phone back in, answer the door when someone knocks, and actually find the mail you were looking for in the stack again. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/97 Teleworkers are more productive, better focused, and still have more time to spend with their families and doing civic work. Studies have shown this, and even people who are skeptical often change their mind when they try it themselves. Yet, some in government have failed to embrace this tool as a way to gain efficiency, improve morale, help the environment, and save money. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/197 I guess I should start with full disclosure that the anti-telework lobby is paying me $50,000 to come up with a foolproof plan to send telework to an early grave. Why? Clearly telework is bad and they just want it d-e-a-d. Oh, you mean why are they paying me so much? Not sure, but now their saying its actually going to be paid in Iranian Rials, so that's either $50 million or $5. Well, I'll be living large on the French Riviera or just having (one) grande soy latte when I get done with this. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/198 I've used this space to talk about a lot of issues related to telework, such as the personal benefits to the teleworker and the productivity increase it can provide to the employer. I have even talked about the sustainability and security benefits, but today I want to talk to you about how telework can be a hugely effective tool in the effort to create resilience in your organization during times of crisis. This is especially important as we head into Telework Week next month. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/199 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. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/306 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!" http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/693 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. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/894 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. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/919 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. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/948 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… http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/983 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.” http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/1047 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. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/1122 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. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/1171 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. http://www.teleworkexchange.com/news-and-resources/blog-detail/1244