I really how no idea how many visits this site gets, either directly or via RSS. My host’s control panel gives some information, but it is a bit hard to digest.
I’ve started using Google Analytics for some other sites I’m managing and find it quite a bit better to deal with (especially with the awesome Analytics app for iPhone!). I’ve just enabled it for wahlog.com, so I’ll know better what the heck people are doing here!
I was thinking this morning of how geographically distributed my coworkers and I are right now:
Currently:
Charleston, SC; Ann Arbor, MI; Poulsobo, WA; Marietta, GA, Los Gatos, CA.
In the past, add to that list:
San Diego, CA; Firestone, Colorado; Eaton Rapids, MI, Branford, CT; Mexico; England.
For projects in conjunction with other companies, add people and teams in:
Mountain View, CA and Redmond, WA (among others).
The amazing thing, which is a testament to the people I work with and for, is that it works day in and day out. Not to say that there have been issues (I’ve mentioned them in the past) but we get it done quite well.
My boss sent me this:
Texai Overview | Willow Garage
The Texai is a remote presence robot under development at Willow Garage.
The Texai Project began as a solution to a problem. Two Willow Garage engineers, Dallas Goecker and Curt Meyers, working 2000 miles apart, needed a more efficient method of interacting and collaborating throughout the day. Skype and conference calls hindered the casual conversations more representative of day-to-day, in-person interactions around the office. Seeking a better solution, Dallas and Curt applied their knowledge of building battle bots and the PR2 to create Texas One.
Awesome!
A good summary of Charleston’s incubators from Charleston Regional Business Journal.
See also:
More on Charleston Digital Corridor’s Endeavor
The Lowcountry Innovation Center
Spark Charleston
Yesterday evening, I attended the open house for and at Spark Charleston:
Spark Charleston is a startup incubator in the heart of historic downtown Charleston, SC that will offer free space & office amenities to high potential startup companies & entrepreneurs.
The concept and space are perfect for this purpose – nothing too fancy, too ambitious or too cushy. The terms are great for those committed to their ideas; I think the collaborative space, backed by the free resources Spark will be offering will be a major benefit to a nascent organization.
In speaking with some of the people I met last night (Chris Clark, Spark Project Coordinator (@sparkchs), Trevor Reed (@TrevorBReed) and Brian Rogel (@BrianRogel) and a few others) I rose the point that there is now a progression of workspaces in Charleston that can cater to a person or group or company at a variety of levels:
This lineage offers entry points, committement levels and support structures that can satisfy most any need. I’m happy that the business environment here has the need for such facilities and that the need is being met in such wonderful ways.
Preoccupations – The Art of 10 Years of Telecommuting – NYTimes.com
My experience tracks very closely to Ms. Marino’s. I love that Edumunds.com has a telecommuting policy – so incredibly valuable and forward thinking. I wonder how long they’ve had it, and what its language is.
I’d love to write a telecommuting policy from the standpoint of the telecommuter and see how it matches up with one authored by the representatives of the company itself (HR/management). I have a feeling it would be quite different. I’ll add that to my list of things to do.
Thoughts? Email me at wahlog@wahlog.com (one day comments will be reenabled).
(via Lifehacker)
Blue Angels!
They’re in town for a weekend air show and are practicing today. The are crisscrossing the neighborhood at impossibly low altitudes like crazy.
Lunch today: watch Blue Angels from in front of house with daughter on shoulders. Come inside, watch Van Halen “Dreams” video while eating.
AWESOME.
Can’t get that in an office!
Tips for Effective Meetings | Productivity501
5. Use meetings to argue
This sounds bad, but really, this is what makes an effective meeting. Meetings let you get people together and work through differences in person. You can pit various ideas against each other and come up with the best solutions. If you don’t have any arguing going on in your meetings, then you are probably having meetings for the wrong reasons.
You have to learn to argue fair. You are discussing ideas, not personally attacking people. It may take a bit to get a team to open up to the point where they can passionately express their views, but that is what you need for meetings to really become productive.
It is *very* hard to argue effectively when you’re working remotely. The reason I’ve found to be the biggest blocker is that you can’t use body language and vocal variations to add the “meta” information to the communication you’re having to add value to the argument. Much like how Rand’s game doesn’t work well over the phone, arguing in a teleconference loses all of the subtleties necessary for effectiveness.
Because of that, the probability for hurt feelings, or at least miscommunicated or misdirected intentions, is quite high. To end an argument with someone with a smile, or by pouring a cup of coffee for them, indicates quite clearly that the argument was not personal but professional in nature. It is nearly impossible to do that if you’re some miles away, and the approach to meeting arguments needs to be approached differently.
I don’t have any good advice – I’ve been all over the place on this, including simply biting my tongue when I should have argued and having quite emotional arguments that hijacked the entire meeting (when I should have bitten my tongue!). My only tip would be to go light on the vocal argument and prepare a well-written textual argument. By writing out your thoughts, you’ll have a much better constructed, evaluated, considered and supported position with which to challenge someone. Plus, the record gets kept – everyone seeing the message thread will know who said what.
Via lifehacker
Marco.org – It’s time for the tech industry to distribute…
It’s time for the tech industry to distribute itself beyond the Silicon Valley power center. … Ultimately, I think it’s important that our industry supports people’s ability to live and work wherever they choose, because we need to be around real people in order to understand what the real problems that need solving are.
Marco Arment quoting Alex Payne
So, so true. Charleston it turning into a fairly strong technology center, which is wonderful, but I don’t think it has hit the critical mass needed to be the Southeast’s technology hub.
Ages and age ago I wrote about trust in a post entitled Trust and the Distributed Team.
On the Rands In Repose blog, he writes about trust again:
Here’s my question: do you or do you not want be the person someone trusts when they need help? Manager or not, do you see the act of someone trusting you as fitting with who you are?
Yes, there’s a line that needs to be drawn between you and your co-workers, but artificially distancing yourself from the people you spend all day every day with seems like a good way to put artificial barriers between yourself the people you need to get your job done.
Is that who you are or who you want to work for?
The topic of trust is where I draw a line in both my personal and management philosophy. My belief is that a team built on trust and respect is vastly more productive and efficient than the one where managers are distant supervisors and co-workers are 9-to-5 people you occasionally see in meetings. You’re not striving to be everyone’s pal; that’s not the goal. The goal is a set of relationships where there is a mutual belief in each other’s the reliability, truth, ability, and strengths.
It’s awesome.
I need to continue formalizing something concrete and concise on the issue of trust as it relates to being a remote worker. Rand’s game of B.A.B. doesn’t work too well over the phone – trash talking isn’t aided by the visual cues a person reveals when doing the trash talking, so words could be taken quite differently than intended.
By the way – the book “Managing Humans” is a great read. Highly recommended.