USA Today recently reported on its top 2012 business trends. To my great surprise and overwhelming joy, the "death of the 9 to 5" was a prominent item on the list. Cited for obvious reasons - the proliferation of mobile devices, laptops and wireless connectivity - which a mainstream audience could comprehend, the report failed to underscore the true value of what it means to lay the traditional 9 to 5 to rest and what challenges may lay in its path.

Greater productivity, creativity and physical and mental well-being come to mind immediately; anyone who currently workshifts can certainly attest to one or all of these benefits. But I cannot help focusing on how the mainstream needs to change to make workshifting more commonplace.

For the most part, organizations are wary of workshifters. They save this "special arrangement" for unique situations, which, in my mind, only serves to exacerbate the bias. Instead, organizations who dare to allow some (if not all employees) to workshift should examine the methods, processes and upsides of the workshifting minority and slowly begin to infiltrate the practice and the technology into the greater employee population.

I recently worked on a proposal with a senior level manager at Citrix. We were able to arrange an off-site meeting on a day when he was - you guessed it - workshifting. By way of conversation, he shared with me that the practice of workshifting is not only encouraged but also enforced by the organization, ensuring that employees "walk the walk" and utilize the technology upon which the company's mission is built. Now, that makes sense since Citrix strongly supports "powering the virtual workforce" - their technology is available for all to adopt, collaborate and then transform their organizations with!

According to Citrix CEO, Mark Templeton, "Three simple words are changing the world: whatever, whenever, wherever." Amen to that and to the death of the 9 to 5.

Photo Credit: kitch

This post is the third and final in our 3-part series called "Building Trust at Work", with Chris Brogan. Chris is president of Human Business Works, providing business, communications and emerging technology strategy for mid- to large-sized businesses. He blogs regularly at chrisbrogan.com.

While talking with Dan Heath, bestselling co-author of Made to Stick, I wanted to discover how we could use what we'd learned (in the previous talks with Dan Pink and Charlie Green) to help both leaders and employees build the foundations of trust necessary for remote work. Heath (and his brother Chip) is an expert on change, and that's why I went to him.

This change FEELS big.

Allowing employees to work remotely is a huge change, says Heath. Most managers and leaders are used to managing by sight in close proximity so that they can notice whether people seem busy. It feels like a major shift, this precedent of allowing people to work remotely, with no supervision and no sense of the outcome. That's why the next step is so important.

Shrink the change.

Heath points out that the best way to approach this change is to break it into small chunks, such as by explaining it's a trial or an experiment. If you ask the boss to trial it with 2 or 3 workers instead of the entire organization, and if you give it 3 months to succeed, then you'll have a better chance of getting the green light. Smaller changes mean that everyone feels a lot more comfortable in measuring what happens and understanding the impact.

What are the next steps?

We've missed something important if all we've done is decide to make the change smaller. You and your boss have to agree on what your definition of success will be and how it will be measured. Remember that we've got to shift from butts-in-chairs management to results-based management. We can't measure people by their responsiveness to email, because that just sets up your teams to be ready and eager for distractions from tasks. So what steps can you take to reach your goals?

1. Seek time milestones for projects. To measure against time is a way to see how distance doesn't matter.
2. Set participation goals. Being remote doesn't mean being out of the loop with office culture. Make sure meetings are kept and that you are able to facilitate collaboration the same as when you're in the office.
3. Consider a satisfaction survey. Even if you're just measuring this for your internal clients, ask for satisfaction ratings (simple ones) a month or two before you make the switch to remote work and then again for the first 3 months after you make the switch. Is anything negatively impacted?

There are literally dozens of ways you might consider measuring success. Be wary of how you want to frame this story, as it matters depending on which battle you're hoping to win.

One thing is for certain: selling the benefits of workshifting hinges on trust. And one way to establish trust is to build success stories between 2 parties, starting small but ending strong, which aligns well with the advice from Dan Heath.

What's your plan to increase trust at work? Which example resonated the most with you?

Today we have a video guest post from Maria McManus as a follow up to her last post, Geeks: The Best Kept Valentine's Secret. Maria is the co-founder of the Leading Geeks Company, a firm dedicated to helping businesses people collaborate productively with tech people. She is writing a book called "Loving Geeks: A Nongeek's Guide to Finding True Love with the Best People on Earth."

If you haven't considered geek romance, this video will tell you what you're missing. If you've already discovered what great mates geeks make, this video will make you say "Amen!"

Today we have a guest post from Maria McManus. Maria is the co-founder of the Leading Geeks Company, a firm dedicated to helping businesses people collaborate productively with tech people. She is writing a book called "Loving Geeks: A Nongeek's Guide to Finding True Love with the Best People on Earth."

I never thought I'd love a geek, never in a million years.

I dated artists and musicians. I thought I wanted love songs and poetry.

If geeks were sexy, I couldn't see it. I admit that I was a little geek-curious, but my interest in them was thwarted by tepid first impressions. They were fashion-oblivious, avoided eye contact, and took way too long to respond when I said hello. But then I found myself romantically involved with a geek, and I started to rethink sexy.

What's going on here? Could it be that there's a real Superman behind white shirt and pocket protector of my Clark Kent?

And, I had to find out if it was just my guy or if geeks really were kind of wonderful. So I surveyed and interviewed dozens of women who love geeks and what I discovered really surprised me.

Geeks really do make exceptionally great mates. And it's their very geekiness that gives them decided romantic advantages.

That rational, logical approach to .... well everything ... means that when he commits to you, he has thought it through, and really means it. That steadfast devotion to truth means that he won't lie to you. That boundless curiosity means that you'll always have something to talk about. That attention to detail means that he'll pick up on your subtle cues in bed. And that spirit of experimentation means that your sex life will never be boring, as you try new things to optimize your pleasure.

So this Valentine's Day, if you don't have a geek to love, go out and try to snag one.

And if you already love a geek, it's time to count your lucky stars and tell your geek how truly fortunate you are.

And if you are a geek who is single and lonely, and you have even a shadow of a doubt about your worthiness as a lover, take a minute to realize what a great catch you are.

Download "Loving Geeks: The Unsung Heroes of Romance" You'll get 10 surprising reasons the analytically minded make the best mates.

Photo Credit: linnybinnypix.

This post is the second in our 3-part series called "Building Trust at Work", with Chris Brogan. Chris is president of Human Business Works, providing business, communications and emerging technology strategy for mid- to large-sized businesses. He blogs regularly at chrisbrogan.com.

Bestselling author Charles H. Green wrote the book on trust. His seminal work with David Maister, The Trusted Advisor, taught countless business professionals how to go beyond simply booking billable hours with clients to instead provide them much, much more. He, along with Andrea Howe, recently released The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, which further explores the concept of how leaders in organizations work with trust. So who better to talk with about how to build trust at work than Charles? After all, trust is one of the core elements behind successful efforts to launch remote and distributed employee programs.

According to Green, there are 4 pillars of trust. Through his work in surveying many leaders and stakeholders from companies of varying sizes and industries, he's discovered that workshifting success takes credibility, reliability, intimacy and low self-orientation.

Credibility

Credibility makes sense without much explanation. If you aren't very credible (people won't take your word for things), then there's not enough trust to allow you to work on a project-centric basis. To repair credibility, simply make small commitments and keep them. If you miss a commitment, own up immediately, and then take extra steps to do even better.

Reliability

Reliability is also clearly important. If you're being counted on to do the work, do it. But the way we express reliability is another matter altogether. Sometimes, we feel that being responsive - answering email within a few minutes - is the same. It's not. That just means you're easily distracted from your important work.

Other times, leaders feel that "butts in chairs" is the only measure of reliability. That's equally as wrong. The goal here is to build up trust by delivering within certain parameters and by keeping that level of quality going. If credibility is about doing what you say you'll do, then reliability is about doing it in a way that people can count on.

Intimacy

Intimacy is a strange word when thinking about work relationships. In this case, it's a mix of being attentive to details (an intimate relationship with the work at hand) and to the needs of the people related to the project.

If your boss needs morning email briefs to feel comfortable, then intimacy would suggest that you know to help by sending these along without being asked. If you're working remotely, you miss some of the "hallway chatter," so your role is to know what's being said anyway through inquiries to team members. Though you need all 4 pillars according to Green, intimacy strikes me as being one of the most crucial.

Low Self-Orientation

Having low self-orientation is one of the areas where people could use more improvement. The idea is that one must be a team- and goal-oriented individual. If you're to be working remotely and with less supervision, doing your best work from afar with the needs of the company in mind will garner you the trust of your employer and teammates. By focusing on the success of the team and the project, you're demonstrating a strong level of trustworthiness that isn't easily faked - and that becomes gold to the leadership at hand.

The 4 pillars of trust, as Green laid them out, make a great deal of sense for people seeking to build a strong relationship between leadership, team members and remote workers. It's a powerful mix of metrics to consider. If you're worthy of high marks in all 4, you'll likely do well.