Posts Tagged ‘communication’
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Podcast #32: Louis Font of Zyncro
In this episode I talk to Louis Font of Zyncro. We talk about his internationally distributed team and how they, as a company, seek to be available to customers 24/7 no matter what time zone they are located in, solving communication gaps between businesses and social networks, and how important physical communication is in the world of remote work. Show Notes: ZyncroBlog Twitter: @zyncro Facebook 00:40 – Introduction 02:22 - Louis’ background 04:20 – Distributed team structure and background 09:08 – Challenges working distributed 10:30 – Cultural differences between team members 12:00 – Zyncro as a company 16:22 – Advice for distributed teams 17:20 – Future of distributed teams
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The Narrating Your Work Experiment
Hans de Zwart recently finished an experiment in which he encouraged his distributed team to “narrate their work”—to issue frequent updates to the team about what they were doing. In this article, he discusses the results of the experiment. This article was originally posted on Hans’ blog, and he has kindly granted permission to reprint it here. A few months back I posted a design for an experiment on my blog. The goal of the experiment was to find out whether it would be possible to use a microblogging tool to narrate our work with the intention of making better performing virtual teams. Over the last two months, the direct team that I work in (consisting of 18 people) basically participated in the experiment in the way that it was designed: They posted constant, daily or weekly updates
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Podcast #28: Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter
In this episode I talk to Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter, a fully dispersed software consultancy. We talked about recruiting the right kinds of people for a distributed team, and how to stay connected as friends as well as coworkers. Show notes: Shane Pearlman is @justlikeair on Twitter Shane & Peter Check out the Shane & Peter Lifeblog Redmine Adium Coworking Freelance Camp
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6 Ways Remote Workers Can Communicate Effectively
Remote workers such as telecommuters and freelancers often face the challenge of little- to no-face time with team members. Lack of in-person communication means one loses access and the non-verbal cues of team members, such as facial expression, body language and sometimes tone of voice. As a result, remote workers face challenges such as misinterpretation of information, lack of information due to delay in response, and low team spirit due to limited personal interaction with team members. There are ways remote workers can overcome these challenges with different communication techniques. Knowing when to use e-mail, the phone, and instant messaging can also help everyone communicate more effectively. Use the phone for urgent matters. If you have a question or a matter to discuss of urgent nature, you want to reach your team member over the
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Podcast #27: Susan Tenby & Jessica Dally of TechSoup
This podcast is a departure from the dispersed software development teams I usually cover. I interviewed Susan Tenby and Jessica Dally of TechSoup, a nonprofit focused on providing other nonprofits with the technology they need to better accomplish their missions. One way they assist nonprofits is in helping them to use Second Life, a massive on-line “virtual world”, to collaborate and build community online. I talked to Susan and Jessica about why TechSoup is a distributed organization, and why organizations are using Second Life to meet, network, and do their work. For someone who spends a lot of time doing remote collaboration, it was eye-opening for me to discover this whole new frontier of online interaction. After listening to this interview you may just be inspired to add a virtual world meeting space to your
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Encouraging Involvement in Distributed Teams
One of the biggest challenges in remote work is simply making sure everyone has a strong sense of involvement. In this article Steven Baker, a veteran of dispersed agile software development teams, shares his experiences and recommendations for keeping the communication, camaraderie, and personal connections alive in a distributed setting. When you don’t occupy the same office for the same period of time every day with your co-workers, you can’t walk to your co-worker’s desk, or turn around in your chair to have a chat about what you’re working on. There is no water cooler to mill around get in the loop on what’s happening, and having lunch together is difficult. Differences in location, timezone, and working hours, can all combine to make you and the members of your team disconnected from each other. This
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Podcast #26: Sahil Parikh of DeskAway.com
In this episode I talked to Sahil Parikh of DeskAway.com, a web-based collaboration tool for distributed teams. This is another episode recovered from near-disastrous technical malfunction, and as a result all of my audio has been re-dubbed. Thankfully, Sahil’s insights into he advantages of a dispersed team have been fully preserved. Show notes: Sahil Parikh is @sahilparikh on Twitter. Check out DeskAway at DeskAway.com / @deskaway
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Wide Links #18
Been a while since I did one of these… here’s a fresh helping of remote-work related links from all around the web. What to Do When An Employee Asks to Telecommute: Online Collaboration « A telecommuting trial run isn’t a bad idea, as long as it’s not biased against success from the start. tags: wideteams Telecommuting is becoming more common in organizations of every size. It makes it possible to work with the best people for your projects, no matter where they are based. It can be an opportunity to keep your team happy and it’s a privilege you may be able to provide without a lot of work or expense on your part. Even if telecommuting doesn’t wind up working for all of your team and on all of the projects you work on,
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Podcast #24: Derek Wade
In this episode, a conversation with Derek Wade, a collaboration expert and Team Coach at Kumido Adaptive Systems. We talk about building “high-gravity” distributed teams, work-scapes, and the benefits of simple, free-form tools for collaboration. This episode is “back from the dead” — all of the audio from my side of the interview was lost, but I reconstructed and re-dubbed my questions so that I could share this interview. Show notes: Derek can be found at derekwwade.net, and is @derekwwade on Twitter. Slides for the presentation “High Gravity Distributed Teams“ The #lrnchat hashtag on Twitter I did a video demo of the Cardmeeting tool
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Podcast #23: Interview with Rob Dempsey of LifeOfTheFreelancer.com (Part 2 of 2)
Part two of a conversation between Rob Dempsey of LifeOfTheFreelancer.com and myself. In this part we dig into the intersection of freelancing and distributed teams: the phenomenon of ad-hoc teams composed of independent consultants who come together to work on a specific project. If you’re a freelancer trying to figure out how you can take on bigger jobs, you need to check out this episode. Show notes: Rob’s site is lifeofthefreelancer.com, @lifeofthefree on Twitter. Since this podcast was recorded, he also launched The Itinerant Entrepreneur. Shane & Peter is a web development consultancy that organizes teams of independent consultants to take on larger projects. We discussed using Campfire from 37Signals for team chat
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The Wide Teams Podcast
A weekly podcast featuring interviews with people who are making dispersed teams work day by day.
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