Wide Teams

Wide Links #16: Meeting, Coaching, Bridging, Chatting

Dec 3, 10 • In Links

A heaping helping of links for remote workers today! In this edition, why work often doesn’t happen at work; an open thread on managing remote workers; advice for improving communication between the main office and remote workers – and much, much more. Making a long-distance relationship work: When feds go remote – Tom Fox tags: wideteams Don’t forget the small talk.When separated by distance, it’s even more important to make small talk about the little things in life to build rapport. Don’t forget to establish a sort of virtual water cooler for your folks by talking with them about their lives, the big game or whatever you can find to make a personal connection. Consider having your team virtually share their favorite recipes or books each week to help them stay connected while telecommuting. Jason

Screenshare-palooza

Sep 16, 10 • In Toolkit

The ability to share your screen with a remote team member is an essential piece of the remote collaboration toolkit. When it comes to screensharing software, there is a dazzling, sometimes baffling array of options. Here are a few I know of. Skype has built-in screensharing. It is currently display-only, but it works across all platforms. They appear to be using the same video compression technology for it as they do for their video chat, which means that while the picture can be a bit blurry, it copes well with temporary network slowdowns. Good old VNC is still one of the most robust and cross-platform solutions for sharing desktop control. There are multiple VNC clients and servers for every OS, both free and paid. DimDim, Yugma, YuuGuu are all launchable from the web, all have names that

Using a Control Channel to facilitate virtual meetings

Jun 29, 10 • In Tips & Hacks

Data communications protocols are often divided into a control channel and a data channel. An example from electrical engineering are the “control lines” and “data lines” in an RS-232 connector. The FTP protocol uses a similar arrangement, where a control connection is opened to port 21, and a data connection to port 20. The source of this common pattern is the realization that it is fundamentally difficult to manage a conversation using the same channel you are using to have the conversation. It’s hard to say “wait, you’re sending me too much information” if the pipe you you need to send that message on is clogged with all that information. Human conversations use a control channel as well. Our data channel, of course, is our voices. But when people are gathered in a room for a