Today's post is from Jennifer Marcus Newton, a freelance writer located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She routinely works from all the usual workshifting haunts--cafes, park benches, airports--and also maintains a tidy writing studio and messy home office. Her most remote work location was among the yaks in Shangri-La. Work/life balance for her means using both a Mac and fountain pen. Contact her at fidhlear@gmail.com.

Did you know that since 1963, the U.S. President has declared an official National Small Business Week every year? This special designation is a way to "recognize the contributions of small businesses to the economic well-being of America," as stated on the National Small Business Week Web site.

Contributing to the economic well-being of America is a tall order and, quite frankly, an extremely critical task. From Boston to Berkeley, an estimated 27.2 million SMBs in the U.S. conduct business, create products and provide jobs and services every single day. It's difficult to fully appreciate the enormity of a number like 27.2 million.

While we're talking numbers, consider this:
 

• "More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business. They also create 60 - 80 percent of new jobs in the country. Small businesses drive innovation, create 21st century jobs and increase U.S. competitiveness."
  

• "Small businesses are major contributors to the strength of the American economy."

  http://www.nationalsmallbusinessweek.com
  

As the 2010 National Small Business Week kicks off, Citrix Online is abuzz with the topic of SMB mobility and productivity. In a recent survey, Citrix Online polled SMB employees on their work habits. Survey findings paint an intriguing disparity between mobility and access to productivity-enhancing tools. In the last 5 years, the majority (54 percent) of survey respondents have become more mobile. Yet, 60 percent of those surveyed report that their current employers do not provide mobile tools and resources to increase productivity.

That's kind of appalling, especially when you consider IDC's predictions about the mobile workforce: "The U.S. is expected to remain the most highly concentrated market for mobile workers, with 75.5 percent of the workforce mobile by 2013." Mobility has certainly taken root in the U.S. workforce, and the demand for greater mobility will only continue to grow in the near future. So, too, will the demand for productivity-enhancing tools.

This week is an ideal time for SMB organizations to think about how to strategically address the mobility and productivity needs of their current and future employees. There's no denying that the economy is showing signs of recovery. Companies of all sizes - including SMBs - will be looking to hire top talent in the coming months. In the candidate pool, there will be plenty of Gen Y workers, a group increasingly identified by its attraction to workshifting.

Indeed, SMBs (all 27.2 million of them) play a critical role in the economic recovery. And to make the greatest possible contribution to the well-being of America, mobile SMB employees need the right tools to be as productive as possible.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: ThinkPanama

I'm dusting off my blogging shoes to share a personal story.  I admit I haven't written much lately but I'm back ... and I want to tell you about a recent workshifting  experience.

Life happens. When you're a twenty-something, things just seem to change every day. About 4 months ago my girlfriend began a nursing program in the Washington, DC area. Being a naïve young man, I was sure that I could do the long-distance thing and work remotely from DC every month or so. It didn't work - and I was left in a position trying to prioritize my personal and professional life. Not a fun place to be.

But what's different about my story is that I work for a company that totally supports workshifting. Citrix Online has developed a workshifting DNA. I believe this is far different than just saying employees can work remotely. A company that has a workshifting DNA makes a conscious effort to support remote people beyond just answering their calls. So fortunately, I'll be working from my new home in the DC area for the next year.

There are a few things that define a workshifting DNA, in my mind.  First, every in-person meeting hosted at Citrix Online includes a virtual meeting invitation. It's automatic. No questions, no second thoughts. If there's going to be an in-person meeting, you add a virtual meeting. Who knows who's going to be at home, on the road or working from Starbucks? Think about it. Who are you leaving out of your in-person meetings?

Second, we have an official remote work policy. This policy requires a signature all the way up to the Vice President. Why does this matter? Because it's an acknowledgment by the management team that they will support you remotely. Remote employees are often forgotten. This simple acknowledgment says, "we'll support you and your growth while you're remote."

And probably most important, goals are solidified before going remote. Without clearly understanding what is to be accomplished remotely, employees will soon be lost. Managers need to meet early and often to discuss key initiatives and goals with remote employees. This includes goals all the way out to 3 years.

Why does this matter and why should you care? As much as I like to think I'm unique, I'm not. There are millions of people who want to workshift. Some of these people are the most qualified for the jobs you're hiring for. And some of these people are working for you right now and are considering leaving. As a company strategy, talent should be prioritized over location. Companies with a workshifting DNA are like those early adopters of full 401k policies for all employees. And there is no doubt in my mind that like the 401k, workshifting will soon be available through all successful companies. Cheers to those companies who are on board with workshifting already, as it will pay off to their bottom line.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: Mark Cummins

Have you ever been asked that question, either by an adult (who might understand your answer) or a small child (who probably won't)? How do you describe what you do all day? Well, the answer might be simpler than you think; it all depends on how much detail you want to go into. In truth, there is an infinity of different answers, all of which lie on a spectrum that, at one end, provides no detail at all, and at the other, an excruciating amount. Useful answers tend to be somewhere in between these two extremes.
 
Here's an example: to what extent are people the same? You could categorise us all identically, by saying that we're mammals. Or you could claim that people fall into two categories - male and female. Or you could divide us up by other characteristics: eye colour, hair colour, ear shape, foot size,  .... or you could choose so many descriptive characteristics that everybody, even an identical twin, falls into a category of size 1. In fact, the technique of deciding how detailed your answer needs to be is an important one (as it determines the level of abstraction at which you are operating), and can help us solve some of the problems of remote working.

If you are trying to come up with a technological "solution" (and I use quotes because it will only be a solution if it works for you), then you don't want a view of the world in which all remote workers look different; you want one where they look the same. That way, you only have to devise one solution, not millions. So we need to take a highly abstract view of what remote workers do. An important first distinction is between task workers and knowledge workers; we can lump task workers together, because all they need is access to whatever software lets them carry out their allotted tasks (such as a CRM system for a home-worker who would otherwise be a call centre operative), plus any comms equipment (such as a phone to talk to customers). There's probably a bit more to task workers' lives, in that they may need to communicate with their coworkers, but they generally live at the task end of the task-knowledge spectrum.

So what about knowledge workers (and the knowledge-working component of task work)? Here the situation is more complex, but we can attempt a broad classification, with a small number of categories, which fits most jobs pretty well. It's safe to say that the vast majority of knowledge workers undertake a subset of the following activities, in some proportion:

• Decision-making
• Generating new or improved "material" (any kind of artefact, output or information),
• As a solo activity
• As a group activity
• Finding material
• Which is new to you
• Which you've seen or worked on before
• Communicating with others
• Synchronously (at the same time, e.g. phone)
• Asynchronously (at different times, e.g. email)
• Pre-communication activities
• Discovering who can help you or answer your questions
• Determining someone's availability
• Determining the best way of contacting someone
• Sharing your material with others
• Dealing with incoming material (shared with you by others)
• Filtering (removing the dross)
• Prioritisation (sorting the non-dross)

Some people may carry out other minor activities that don't fall into any of these categories, but the list above is complete for most purposes. Now go down the list and look at each item: with the exception of decision-making and solo material generation, all activities require access to remote people, remote information, or both. Therefore, any software that can realistically claim to be a "solution" must provide the remote worker with help in all such activities. Instantly, we can see that many touted solutions are nothing of the sort, because they only address a fraction of the problem space. And the more solutions you need to get all the bases covered, the less well such solutions will be integrated.

But does integration of these partial solutions matter? You betcha! The brain works through chains of association, by following links between remembered people, places, things and experiences. If software isn't chained together in the same way, it won't keep up with the way in which you think; you'll be dragged down to its pace and way of doing things, not freed up by it. The best overall solutions will be designed around the way you want to use them - that's largely what a great User Experience is about.

In my next post, I'll start exploring some of the technologies at our disposal today, and examine the degree to which they can help the remote worker. But I feel fairly confident in saying that we haven't yet seen the killer app in this area.

Do you agree?

Photo Credit: mkosut

Today we have a guest post from Sean Ryan.  Sean is a research analyst with IDC focused on mobile enterprise software.

Things get a bit tricky when it comes to helpdesk support for mobile and remote workers. Organizations don't typically have their own Geek Squad to race out to employee homes and resolve computer issues. Trying to resolve software problems solely over the phone can be cumbersome, time-consuming, and could ultimately lead to other issues if the employee misunderstands some part of the instructions given.

For these reasons, helpdesk technicians need tools to let them provide remote support to an employee's computer in order to directly troubleshoot and resolve the problem. With a growing variety of devices needing support, it's preferable that such solutions be clientless, hosted solutions. Such tools are becoming even more essential for helpdesks to invest in as the business landscape continues to favor an increase in the number of mobile and remote workers.


Below are 5 reasons why organizations must prepare to support a growing mobile workforce:

• Changes in business culture are enabling a growing number of knowledge-based business professionals to work from home one day a week or more. Companies are doing this to promote work/life balance for families, to retain good people by rewarding them with flexibility, to enable employees to extend business hours or work on the weekends from home to meet deadlines, and to allow employees with longer commutes to be more productive.
  
  
• The need for business continuity in light of unforeseen disruptions such as poor weather conditions or concern over the spread of a flu pandemic means that helpdesks need to be able to support employees regardless of employee location and regardless of their own location.
  
  
• Due to current economic conditions and the ever-increasing need of enterprises to trim costs, IT helpdesks face resource constraints, with fewer helpdesk personnel responsible for supporting more workers. In some cases, the helpdesk technician may need to be on call to support employees outside normal business hours and at a variety of locations.
  
  
• Mobile workers (those who travel frequently for business) are often executives, outside sales people, and others critical to the success of an organization. It's imperative that helpdesks have the right tools in place to effectively support these individuals.
  
  
• A growing number of devices and connectivity options are enhancing productivity -- but are also adding complexity for the enterprise. Beyond PCs and laptops, helpdesk technicians must now also contend with BlackBerrys, iPhones, and netbooks running over WIFI, WIMAX, 3G, and the like. They must be outfitted with the right software tools to effectively support such a variety of devices, and across a vast territory as mobile workers are the ones using these devices and connectivity options.
  

The market for clientless remote support software (remote support software that's hosted and does not require a native client installed on the end device) is one that IDC has been tracking for some time. For the reasons above, as well as others, we expect the adoption of these solutions to grow by a compound annual growth rate of 22.6% over the next five years.

Yet, this is not to say that clientless remote support software can solve all ills; hardware issues such as a hard drive crashing still would require the remote worker to go into the office or to ship the device to the helpdesk, or would require support from a local third-party provider contracted by the organization. By and large, however, such tools can reduce the amount of downtime for mobile workers, reduce resolution times for the helpdesk, provide IT with greater controls and visibility, and extend support across locations and device types.

I've been having some troubles with my laptop's wireless card over the past couple weeks that have resulted in many (painful) hours of support calls. As most of you Workshifters can attest, there's nothing more frustrating than having IT issues that prevent you from connecting with the rest of your team and getting your work done. It's an isolating, maddening experience that, in my case, often results in a series of "troubleshooting" solutions that features numerous restarts (maybe it will just go away if I restart?), lots of whining and plenty of phone calls to my unassuming coworkers, husband and anyone else I can think of. Since this approach rarely works, I've spent my fair share of time on IT support calls throughout the first year of my Workshifting experience.

As Workshifters, we have to be more adept at overcoming IT hiccups than our office counterparts. This can be a challenge for those of us who aren't particularly tech savvy. I'd like to believe that I've gotten a little better at handling these challenges over the past year.

Here are some things that have helped me along the way:

7 Tips for Keeping Your Cool During IT Support Calls

1. Chances are, you'll be asked to shut down and restart your machine at least once during your support call. This can be a time-consuming process since many of us have configured our machines to automatically launch numerous programs when the computer is started. I recommend reducing these programs to the bare minimum in order to speed up the process. This will reduce the amount of time you and the technician are sitting around in silence, twiddling your thumbs. On PCs you can do this through your Start Up folder.
    
   
2. Try and isolate the problem to a specific component, such as your modem, certain software or your wireless router. For example, if you can't connect to the Internet, you can try and determine if you're having the same issue on another computer or if it's isolated to your machine. This will prevent you from having to sit through a support call with one service provider, only to have them tell you that it's not their product that's causing the problem.
   
   
3. Make sure you ask your support representative if they keep a record of the issue on file. This will prevent you from having to re-explain the situation over and over again if you're working with more than one person. Most companies do this, but it can't hurt to double check.
   
   
4. Keep a record of who you're talking to and when you've contacted them - this can especially come in handy when you're trying to resolve a service-related issue.
   
   
5. Many computer problems are related to cabling and connections. Before you delve into the IT support world, make sure all cables are connected firmly. After all, that's probably one of the first questions you're going to get. (See Ian Fortey's hilarious post "Why tech support sucks: a look behind the scenes" for more on this).
   
   
6. Before you pick up the phone to call support, make a list of the things you've tried to do on your own to resolve the issue. Also, make note of any error messages that may have popped up. Share this information with your technician at the beginning of the call.
   
   
7. Also, Google the problem (especially if it's a software problem).  Who knows? You might get lucky..

What about you? Is there anything that has helped you make it through support calls without losing your cool?

Photo by: paloaltosoftware

Today we have a guest post from Brenda Dentinger.  Brenda has been with Citrix for over 5 years and is an expert in technology and support services. She is exclusively focused on the remote services and support industry and often writes about remote support topics in her blog.  This post is a cross-post from Brenda's remote support blog that I thought would be interesting for our community.

Business Week's (BW) article Telecommuting: Once a Perk, Now Necessity highlights the benefits of working remotely. In fact, some companies are mandating that employees work from home vs spending hours in the car each way for the daily commute. "The flexibility will cut costs and at the same time accommodate both loud talkers and hermits." writes BW author Michelle Conlin.

Yet, HRRecruitingAlert.com reported that execs are resistant to the idea even though people are often more productive when working from home. A telecommuter, BW highlights in their article, Eve Gleb, said she inititally didn't know what to do with her extra time but now she goes for a walk and is more productive then when she is at the office. Another BW telecommuter, Grace Renteria, said "I only go into the office when I don't have a lot going on." (How that for a shift in perceptions about web commuting!) According, HRRecruitingAlert.com 21% of employees would take a pay cut to telecommute. Yet, Eve Gleb's company actually gave her more money to telecommute and Grace Renteria saves $70 on gas a week, $15 a day on lunch + wear and tear on her car. (hum....there just might be something to this.)

Some other findings from their report:

• 75% of employees want the freedom to work remotely.
• 56% have never been able to telecommute.
• Managers' most common arguments against telecommuting include: Job duties demand office attendance (cited by 38% of managers), remote work hurts relationship-building (19%) and productivity will decline if employees work from home (15%).

Now, internal IT managers and help desks need to provide remote support to these web commuters, aka, mobile workers. Many times companies will set up a VPN but when that fails, you still need a way to support your mobile workers and that's where remote support tools can help out.

Are you seeing your remote workers on the rise in your companies?? Tell us your story.

Photo by: wrumsby