Much like the shirtless dancing guy in the amusing but compelling video above, workshifting is a physical movement--but instead of flailing your arms, you seamlessly move the location of where you do work. One day, you're meeting your manager online from a coffee shop.  And the next, you're prepping a client presentation while sitting at an airport gate.  This is all possible thanks to the World Wide Web and its wondrous ways of allowing us to use remote technologies.

• www.workshifting.com ;)
• "Work Unchained: Workshifting and the Competitive Edge of the Anywhere Office" [podcast, eBook]
• "Leading Virtual Effectiveness: Four Strategies for Effective Communication in a Distributed Workforce" [eBook]
• "The Top Ten Strategies for Managers of Mobile Workers" [white paper]
• "Presenting the Business Case for Web Commuting" [white paper, podcast]

Where do workshifters come from?  Obviously, they're dropped off by a stork. But, are they born workshifters or do they have to become workshifters?

Most workshifters were at one time or another sedentary office workers, before they took the leap to working independently.  Recently, I was preparing to make the shift from occasional workshifter to permanent workshifter.  It occurred to me when making the transition, that despite the fact that I had been working outside the office for several days at a time, the move to permanent workshifting required a lot of preparation.

And so, to help others who are just about to take the plunge, here are some tips for how to effectively prepare yourself.

Tip 1: Start preparing early.  If you stop reading here, that's fine, as long as you take this piece of advice.  It will shock you just how much prep work you have to do to transition to workshifting, especially if you hadn't been conscious of the fact that you might eventually need to.  Because you'll likely be doing this prep work at the same time as your day job, you'll need time to get it done, so start early.

Physical Documents

Tip 2: Develop digital habits. Physical documents are just a given when you work in an office, but as a workshifter, they're a pain in the neck.  No one wants to carry around manilla folders, take the risk of spilling coffee over them, having them get crumpled in your bag, or risk bringing the wrong folder to a meeting.  Instead, workshifters need to go digital, and so that means that while you're still an office worker, you should start developing digital habits: take notes with software, keep a digital calendar, scan documents, opt for electronic versions whenever possible, etc.

Tip 3: Take stock of all your hard copy files. So, all those manilla folders that you've stowed in your filing cabinets over the years, it's time to go through them and decide why you're really keeping them.  Chances are, you will find documents that you recall why you wanted to keep them in the first place.  Trash as much as you can at this point.  It's about streamlining.

Tip 4: Scan everything you need to keep. Now that you've gotten rid of the excess, get access to a scanner and scan all the documents you've decided are important.  Once you've digitized (and backed them up), you will go ahead and shred these paper documents.  They will no longer weigh you down.

Tip 5: Store everything else with colleagues. If you're leaving the office worker role, but remaining with the same company, there may be files that you don't quite need, but that you think others might, or that it would be a good idea if someone had them.  Lean on your colleagues, or your successor to take this stuff from you.  Make sure to explain what it is, and why they might need it, otherwise it will land at the bottom of a filing cabinet, never to be seen again.

Tip 6: Digitize notebooks. As much as I like to think of myself as a digital native, I still take notes in notebooks, on notepads, and on post-its.  When I went back through these notes, I found that most of the stuff was no longer useful, but was surprised to see that some notes I had taken over a year ago could still be useful today.  So, I went through my notebooks and recycled or shredded that which was unnecessary, but added all my notes that were still relevant to a text file, that I could keep at my disposal.

Tip 7: Keep your notes as simple as possible.  In the previous tip, I said put the notes in a text file.  Over the years, colleagues have laughed at me for my staunch devotion to Notepad, the hyper-basic pre-installed Windows text editor (actually I've upgraded to Notepad++, but still find myself opening Notepad out of habit).  While they laugh, I continue to use text editors for many reasons.  They are lightweight, and so I can have a ton of windows open at once and not experience any additional drag on my hardware (and for those who've worked with corporate PC's, you know this can be crucial).  They're also universally readable.  I don't need to worry about the compatibility of my text file if I move it from my office desktop, to my Macbook or to my Linux laptop.  In a pinch, I can even read my text file from a command prompt.  This flexibility will come in handy as a workshifter.

E-mail

Now that you've cleared your physical world of clutter, it's time to do the same for your electronic world, and where better to start than with every knowledge worker's biggest time suck: e-mail. Note that this is really only going to be important if, like me, you're transitioning from a local e-mail client (a la MS Outlook or Lotus Notes) on a company machine to a web-based client, or using an exchange server.  If your email has always been cloud-based, then things should be business as usual for you.

Tip 8: Pick a system and stick to it. There are as many e-mail organization systems as there are people.  I have a colleague who is the neatest most organized person I have ever met.  The consequence of this is that you need a blueprint in order to figure out the folder structure of his Outlook mailbox.  Tracking down an archived e-mail is like navigating a labyrinth.  I am a Gmail fanboy, and my e-mail classification of using only 3 folders spills over from that experience.  This can sometimes be slightly problematic because Outlook's search functionality is not as great as Gmail's, but overall, I still find I have an easier time searching for an e-mail than I do retrieving it from a labyrinth of folders.  In the end, though, which system you use, doesn't matter, as long as it's consistent.

Tip 9: E-mails that you think will be important, save on your company Exchange server. Remember that when you archive e-mails, by definition they're coming off your company's server and being saved elsewhere (by default, that's on your PC).  If you're leaving behind your old machine when you turn workshifter, saving those important e-mails to its hard drive won't be helpful, so instead, make sure important e-mails stay on the server, so that they can be accessed from webmail, your Blackberry, or other e-mail client.

Tip 10: Locally archive things that you probably won't ever need. Like with physical documents, there are many e-mails you will likely never need.  If you are sure you'll never need them, delete them.  If you doubt that you'll ever need them, but aren't sure, archive them.  After all, most companies give you limited space to save e-mail on the server and require you to archive.

Tip 11: Create a copy of your archive. Now, if you're leaving your old computer behind, archiving files that you think you might possibly need some day isn't going to do you any good, so go ahead and create a copy of your archive.  In fact, create multiple copies, because data can easily be lost on something as fragile as a CD/DVD or a web server.

Tip 12: Get used to using webmail services.  I actually spent my last month as an office worker accessing e-mail through webmail.  Partially by necessity (I'll get to that later), but also because it was a good habit to create for when i would be accessing e-mail this way all the time.

Electronic Files

Tip 13: Organize your files. Are you starting to see a theme here?  When making the switch from office worker to workshifter, organizing yourself is a great way to make sure nothing gets missed.  In terms of organizing your files, there are actually software programs that will do this for you (Belvedere for PC, Hazel for Mac).  Or, you can do what I did and take this opportunity to go through your hard drive and see just what all the files that you've saved since you started working for your current employer are.  You can then triage, organize, and delete to your heart's cotent.

Tip 14: Store everything in a specific folder.  For ease of back-up, and to make the next step painless, it's a good idea to save all the files that you will want to keep to the same folder.  That folder can have as many subfolders as you'd like, but it's important that everything be in one place.

Tip 15: Sync that folder to the cloud using Dropbox. As a workshifter, there are tons of applications out there that will promise to make your life easier.  For me, Dropbox wins the crown of favourite workshifting app.  Its potential uses are nearly limitless, but in this case, you'll be doing something very simple.  You'll install Dropbox (Dropbox referral link) on your machine that you're about to abandon (if you follow the above link, you'll get an additional 250 megs on top of the basic 2 gigs - I will also get an additional 250 megs - win win!).  Once that's done, you will take your folder that you've organized all of your files in and move it into your Dropbox folder.  Now, you can do two things with this folder.  First, you can install Dropbox on the machine you will be using from here on out so that you have access to those files indefinitely.  Second, you can share this folder with another user, so that if you want to leave your boss all your old files so he's not lost without you in the office, he'll have access to them too!

Tip 16: Backup to an external hard drive.  Honestly, this tip is mainly for those who work with large files that may be too large for Dropbox's free basic 2 gig limit.  In my case, the vast majority of my files were excel reports, databases, power point presentations and word documents.  Nothing too heavy.  But if you do video editing, or heavy design work, you may want to invest in an external hard drive to bring your old files with you.

Software & Hardware

Tip 17: Make a list of what kinds of files you use. As mentioned above, in my case, the majority of my files were spreadsheets, databases, power point presentations, word documents (and of course text files).  By doing this exercise, I know exactly what medium I spend my time working in.  That's important for the next tip.

Tip 18: Determine what the ideal tools for you would be. Here's where you get to have some fun and create your wishlist of tools you want.  Based on the file types you saw that you used, what tools would you ideally like to have?  Word?  Excel?  MS Project?  Photoshop?  Adobe Premiere?  Write this list down.

Tip 19:  Determine what on that list will be provided for you.  If you're workshifting, but are still an employee of a company, you may still get all the tools and comforts you're used to having at the office on the road, and it's just a matter of asking.  So, see what you can get your workshifting laptop set up with from your IT department.

Tip 20: Find open source alternatives.  If you're not workshifting on the company dime, or you prefer to use your own tools, shelling out for things like corporate editions of MS Office and Photoshop may be cost prohibitive, so find alternatives.  For starters, open source software is awesome.  I have been running Open Office on my home PC for years, and NeoOffice on my MacBook Pro with great success.  To find other open source alternatives for traditioinal software, check out osalt.com.  

Tip 21: Find cloud-based alternatives. Cloud-based software has come a long way in the past year or two, and many cloud-based apps are more than enough for most people.   Cloud-based alternatives can even be more convenient than traditional software because for a workshifter, it allows you to work from any machine with internet access.  Good starting points for cloud-based software are Google Docs, Zoho Docs, and the 37Signals suite of collaboration applications. There are tons more with price tags varying from free to pricey. Explore them all.

Tip 22: Determine your hardware needs.  I firmly believe that it is only once you've decided what software you need that you should decide on what hardware to purchase.  If every piece of software you need is Windows-based, buying a Mac is nonsensical, even if you can dual boot Windows on it.  (Although, it should be said that since having made the switch to Mac, the only file I have had issues with is MS Visio .vsd files, so perhaps I'm overstating the importance of picking the right hardware.)

Now, install your software, access your dropbox and your webmail, and it's like you never left the office!  The transition from office desktop to mobile workstation is complete.  If you've gone with cloud-based apps and webmail, your freedom is virtually unlimited.

Habits to Keep

Tip 23: Take digital notes. I'm horrible at following my own advice on taking notes one way.  In addition to text files, I use Evernote, moleskines, sticky notes and voice memos on my phone.  Don't be me.

Tip 24: Keep all your files in the cloud.  Whether you use Dropbox to keep all your files in the cloud, or Google Docs so that they're just cloud-based documents to begin with, keeping this habit means that you could drop your laptop in a river, and never miss a beat.

Tip 25: Save things in standard file formats. This is especially important if you start using some of the open source software I mentioned earlier.  Open source software generally allows you to save files in about 1,000 different formats.  Always pick the format that most closely resembles the standard file format for industries.  So, while I use Open Office and Neo Office, both of which have a .odf standard file extension, I save everything in MS Office XP format.  That way, I know just about anyone can open my file.

Bonus

Not so much a tip, but an anecdote that illustrates a bonus that comes with this kind of preparedness. I started preparing to transition to full-time workshifter about one month before my planned transition.  About two weeks before the move, my company laptop (an IBM Thinkpad T43 - a tank of a machine) died.  Had this happened to me two weeks earlier, I would have lost about two years worth of work that had been saved on my local hard drive, and that I had not been very diligent about backing up to company servers.  Because of my preparation to move to full-time workshifter, I lost nothing. All my most important files were already in my Dropbox, and ready and waiting for me when I booted up my MacBook Pro.

Being a workshifter is all about planning for eventualities, so planning to become one, has the fortunate byproduct of just plain making you better prepared.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: Matthileo

Some people workshift because they can.  Some view workshifting as a triumph of technology, others a triumph of humanity.  At my company, we workshift deliberately.  We believe that it empowers our staff as well as ourselves to add value and remain creative.  We believe that people work differently, and they should be able to decide how and where to do it.  We view work as "art", and artists always have distinct methods of extracting their best.  

If you are a small business owner and you workshift deliberately it's important to be able to articulate why you workshift  as you begin working with larger and more traditional clients.  

The reason is simple.  If you don't have a good answer, it just might make you look small.  But if you do have a good answer, it just might make you look innovative.

What do you think?

My husband and I both work at non-profit companies and don't make a lot of money. When our daughter was born, we knew there was no way we could afford daycare, so I convinced my boss to allow me to work part-time in the office and part-time from home. To my surprise, she agreed, and everyone thought I was incredibly lucky. My friends and family thought I had it made. I had visions of happily-working-away-in-my-pajamas dancing in my head.

Unfortunately, my romantic notions of working from home were short-lived. In my experience, working from home was a lot harder than working in the office. This is especially true when you have a demanding toddler fighting for your attention day in and day out. There were many days working at home when I yearned to be back in the office again to actually get some work done.

Somehow I survived the year through a lot of trial and error. Then my husband got promoted. His promotion meant a change in our schedules when turned me into the main caregiver for our daughter. I thought I would have to resign from my job, until my boss surprised me again and agreed to allow me to work from home full-time. Although I knew I was lucky to have a boss that valued my work and trusted me enough to let me work from home--and full-time, no less--I knew that double the hours could mean double the trouble for me in terms of juggling full-time workshifting with full-time motherhood. However, three simple lessons I have learned from working at home over the past year will be a strong foundation for my success in this upcoming year...and beyond.


Working in your pajamas is overrated. Showering and brushing your teeth are not.

Don't get me wrong, working in my pajamas felt extremely luxurious the first couple of weeks. Then slacking off on showering and brushing my teeth came next. Working in bed was the natural progression, followed by falling asleep next to my laptop in bed. Working in your pajamas may work for some people, but I had to accept that it did not work for me. It made me feel lazy and unfocused. I needed to start my day getting ready as if I were going to the office--on a casual Friday, of course. This act of getting ready prepared my mind and body for work. At my desk. With clean teeth and hair.


Having a set routine is imperative, no matter what your friends and family think.

A friend once said to me, "So, how does it feel to be a lady of leisure?" It goes without saying that that friend doesn't have kids. Many people think I just lounge around all day because I "work from home"--wink, wink--when, in fact, I have to create a very detailed and exact schedule for my days in order to be productive, and efficient in that productivity. I stick to a set routine so that I can get my work done and still have time for the other aspects of my life, including a little leisure, yes. So, when a friend calls to hang out during a time that I'm supposed to be working, I politely decline.


There's a time for work and a time for play.

This is probably the hardest lesson learned because it involves that tricky little monster. No, not my toddler! I'm talking about guilt--guilt about working while my daughter whines for my attention. This was the single biggest hindrance to my productivity when I first started workshifting. I couldn't handle the guilt! To make matters worse, often times my daughter merely wanted me to sit on the floor next to her while she played. I finally learned that I had to draw a line for both our good. So, I break up my day, alternating work and play. When we play, we play hard. But when it's time to work, I work hard and let her learn to play on her own. This is still a lesson we're both learning each day.

Of course, there were many other lessons I learned over the past year, and I'm sure many more lessons are waiting to be learned over the coming year. I look forward to sharing more with you here.

If you had to narrow it down, what are the three single most important lessons you've learned while workshifting?


Photo Credit: Bright Star

Hello workshifters! I hope everyone is enjoying their summer. A friend of mine took me flying in his Cirrus SR20 recently. It was great fun and quite a learning experience. One of the strongest lessons learned was the amount of attention and communication it takes. There is a lot going on for a pilot during take off, in the air, and landing.

Before we turned the engine on there was an exhaustive pre-flight check. The exterior and cabin inspections are critical to identify and fix any potential problems that may occur during flight. This is done in the same sequence every-time. This is a good practice. At the beginning of your day, go through a pre-flight check to make sure have everything you need to work productively. This is true especially if you are working outside the home. What is your pre-work checklist?

Another thing I noticed was the amount of talking between air control, our plane, and other pilots. I had no clue what the myriad of acronyms, call signs, and aeronautical jargon meant but the pilots spoke it fluently. It wasn't the talking that impressed me. It was the listening. After each command the pilot repeated his instructions back to the tower verbatim. When you are in the air, you can't afford to have miscommunication or, even worse, assumption. This is also true working remotely. More often than I like to admit in the past I have half heard another party on a conference call or made assumptions from an incomplete email. It is better to have someone repeat or clarify than act on something unclear. Try repeating back to the messenger what was said to make sure you received it clearly   

On our way back home we landed at a small airport to refuel. Once on the ground we were met by the airports manager.  My friend Chris and he started chatting and it was like they were old friends. Pilots have a tribe to themselves and welcome each other with open arms. They relate with one another on unique level of shared experiences and expertise. In the workforce as more and more of us trade cube farms for the world as an office, we need to welcome our new friends into the community. We can learn so much from each other and share great stories of digital nomadic adventure.

What do you think?

Welcome to the team. You'll be thrown into yet another new workspace with new faces and new challenges. You'll vet possible solutions then rework, refine, and reduce your strategy. At the same time, your new team will have to establish roles, goals, and subgroups to reach a shared vision.

We've all experienced the phenomenon of rapid team development and project management. Sometimes, it's a painstaking process that makes you want to bang your head against the wall. Other times, things just seem to click--teammates communicate, think entrepreneurially, and do whatever it takes to get the job done.

I recently experienced a Startup Weekend--a  56-hour work-a-thon where the common goal is to dream up a fresh business venture and build it. Over 500 startups have come out of these whirlwind events! During my time with my newly formed Startup Weekend team, some common themes emerged. I've taken those insights and boiled them down into three strategies for thriving in new teams:

• Clarify the vision. Time is your most valuable asset. Before you spend precious minutes moving in any given direction, make sure it's the right move and that everyone is on board. You don't have to hammer out all of the details from the start, but a deep understanding of the project's purpose and the pain you're setting out to solve will go a long way in creating a valuable output.  Once you're all in, it's time to -
• Find out where you fit. How do your skills complement those of your teammates? You probably have a number of areas in which you can excel and create real value. Find out where the holes are in the team and fill in where it makes sense - the work you do that's in your sweet spot will shine that much more.
• Be nimble enough to shift directions. It's important to buy into the team vision to some degree, but don't lose your objectivity. If something just isn't working - stop. During a big push in any project, someone will inevitably say, "We've got to stay on track." But who ever said we wanted to stay on that track!? Sometimes it's good to question whether or not you're on the right track.  If you're not, that's okay. Make a call and adjust accordingly.

The next time you find yourself in a new team situation, keep these strategies in mind. I think you'll find that you're better prepared to tackle your project and find the right track.

Our Startup Weekend team certainly had its challenges, but in the end we were able to crank out a cool new conversion tool named Ninja Button in those three short days. By the end of the weekend, the product was a little rough around the edges, but we had a valuable web-based application and the ability to charge for it as a service.


What do you think of these principles? What team strategies work for you?

Are you one of those perfect neat and tidy types? The kind that never have a pencil out of place or a double booking in your schedule? If that is the case then you really don't need to read this. However, If you are like the rest of the 99% of us....Read On!

Nope I'm not going to blather on about getting your life in order, and I'm not going to preach the latest five tips on how to keep a clean office. Rather, I'm going to tell you a story that just might hit home for many of you up to your ears in paper and stacked up coffee cups.

Years before I had this illustrious career as a glorified typist and web strategist I worked as a Chef in fine dining establishments. For those of you that have ever worked in the business you know that some chefs are the neat and tidy types while others have a lot to learn about keeping an organized work station. I happened to be in the latter group where the perception of speed and efficiency always seemed to trump organization.

About three years into my career as a chef I was offered a job under a classically trained French Chef at one of the finest Country Clubs in New York. I jumped at the chance assuming I would learn more from this man about cooking in a year than I had learned in all of the previous three combined. Little did I know Lesson One would be my first night on the line.

So you have heard phrases like, "We are throwing you to the wolves" or "You need to learn to swim sometime!" Well, that was my first Friday night at the Country Club. I had been working in this kitchen a total of three hours before the chef had posted me to the grille station for the evening. I would be cooking all grilled seafood and steaks that night! "Piece of cake", I told myself. After all, I had been working the grille in my previous job and it was a very busy place. I was up for this task. Of course, eager to please my new boss and pumped up on adrenaline I began prepping food for that evenings service. About 30-40 minutes into my prep work the Chef came barreling towards me. I was hoping he was coming to give me a pep talk and to wish me good luck my first night as part of his brigade. Unfortunately, it was not.

The Chef in all of his mighty wisdom whispered in my ear and said, "Look at your station.   You have knives and trimmings everywhere.  A cluttered workspace is a cluttered mind." and he walked away.

So my recommendation to YOU is this. If your working in a cluttered office.... get it uncluttered. I don't care how you do it. Wrangle up the kids, hire a decorator or whatever works for you, but don't put it off a second longer. In fact. Take a photo of the office before and take another with the office after. Post it online and share the link here with us in the comments!

Just remember the phrase from the wise old French Chef: "A cluttered workspace is a cluttered mind."


Photo Credit: NAIT

In the world of project management, one of the highest and most recognized accolades a project manager can achieve is PMP® certification. In return for the many hours of studying and proven project success, as a certified PMP® one of the requirements we are held to by the Project Management Institute® is continuing education to maintain the certification. Despite the costs, time and effort involved in earning "PDUs" (Professional Development Units) to maintain the certification, PMP®s welcome the opportunity - albeit involuntary - to learn new and enlightening facets of the field. Given the international recognition and proliferation of PMPs, many companies are offering webinars and other online learning opportunities to make PDU-acquisition that much less painful! I recently attended a free webinar entitled "A Sixth Sense for Project Management," which spoke to the need for projects managers to find and invoke an intuitive "sixth sense" to overcome and identify that which empirical business acumen and planning simply cannot supersede.

And, so I began pondering....how we, as project managers, must essentially invoke ALL of our senses to manage projects and ensure success.

Sight: A good project manager not only "sees" the vision and scope for the project, as derived from stakeholder requirements, but also keeps the project "visible" throughout the organization and throughout the project life cycle.

Touch: In the world of project management, "touch" is synonymous with impact. Without a doubt, a project manager's ability to lead and influence are paramount to a project's success. Your priority is not only to capture requirements and obtain stakeholder buy-in from inception with a strong scope statement and kickoff, but also to continually "touch" the resources assigned to your project and on whom you rely for its completion. There's a lot of meaning behind the phrase "All hands on deck" when you need stakeholder, resource and project manager cooperation to ensure a project's timely and successful completion.

Hearing: It goes without saying that a project manager must have an acute sense of hearing in order to catch all of the requirements, scheduling constraints and deliverables which are part of every project. However, project managers need to be able to "hear" undercurrents of emerging risks, schedule constraints and resource apathy which will all adversely affect a positive project outcome. Tuning in to such inaudible signals is crucial so that you can avoid hearing stakeholders shout at the top of their lungs when a project gets off track. 

Smell: A project manager does not need to be a bomb-sniffing dog to know when the wheels are stuck, rubber is burning, and a project is veering off track.

Taste: A good project manager must be able to taste for "done-ness" to know when requirements have been fulfilled and a project is fully ready for implementation. And, much like a restaurant tasting, all members of the project team must agree on the level of "done-ness" in order for the product to be offered. Ultimately, there is no sense a project manager likes more than this one and the taste of sweet success when milestones are met, schedules align, budget constraints are not exceeded and stakeholder expectations satisfied!

When managing a project, whether large or small, personal or professional, you need not be a certified PMP® like me to appreciate that you will engage 100% of yourself and your senses. It is important to recognize the relationship between a project manager's "sense-ibilities" and the innate ability to initiate, drive, and guide a project to success.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: Snowpea&Bokchoi

Today's post is from Rebecca Morgan, CSP, CMC, an internationally sought-after management consultant, speaker and bestselling author specializing in creating innovative solutions for workplace effectiveness challenges. She's appeared on 60 Minutes, Oprah, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and USA Today. She's authored twenty books and co- authored five more.


I wrote my first book, "Professional Selling: Practical Secrets for Successful Sales" on a Toshiba laptop in airports, airplanes and hotel rooms -- in 1988. I've worked from a small island in Indonesia to an Indian city where the electricity went off every day from 1-4 p.m.  I've created seminars, sent client proposals, updated blog postings, and written over 20 books from Brunei beaches to a ship in the mid- Atlantic, to Canadian forests, to an Italian villa.

While "workshifting" may be a new buzz word, some of us have just called it "work," no matter where our bodies happened to be. It's allowed us to integrate our personal and business lives seamlessly, so we put in a load of laundry while we finish that important presentation from our bedroom. Or clear our heads from that gnarly proposal by gardening or taking a bike ride before returning to our work with a new insight.

What I've seen change in the last few years is the enthusiasm for workshifting. Not only have entrepreneurs embraced it, but employers have too. As a result, old paradigms are being busted about how we perform nearly every element of work life.

I've seen dramatic changes in my specialty of helping companies grow their key talent. In my first 25 years in business, nearly all of my services were delivered face-to-face via speaking at managers meetings, conferences, retreats or trainings. However, around 10 years ago I started conducting teleseminars and Webinars to provide my services to clients with remote employees or preferred to save costs by having attendees sit at their desks instead of traveling.

This remote delivery of information and training has rattled the people-development field to their core. Fewer and fewer companies are engaging speakers and trainers to do stand-up training. Some have cancelled all but a few in-person training courses and have gone to nearly all virtual training.

Of course, there are many reasons to still have in-person events. 

There is no substitute for interacting face-to-face. However, the benefits of place-shifting and in many cases time-shifting one's learning has its advantages. Unfortunately, most training providers have no idea how to use this "new" format effectively and most drone on narrating to boring PowerPoint slides, just as they did in person.

Learning to provide stimulating presentations -- whether in person or virtually -- takes rethinking how you can best provide your service. I once had a training with 10 people in the room, 4 people together in another room at a distant location joining us via video conference, and another 6 dialed into a phone-only conference. I had to creatively design how to engage all attendees in dyads and small group exercises. If I'd just lectured the whole time nearly everyone would have zoned out and the interactivity would have been lost

Distance learning is not the wave of the future; it is very much the present. If one has not embraced how to get their own development needs met through virtual presentations, they will be left in the dust.  And if you offer any training, you must learn how to use the technology -- and how to present engagingly through it.

For an in-depth look at Workshifting trends, view Rebecca's recent Citrix Webinar, "Workshifting Trends from a 20-Year Veteran."


What do you think?

Photo Credit: Jace

We have advertised on political talk shows, and with that comes some degree of risk associated with the content.  On occasion, a radio host will make outrageous or inflammatory comments that incite a political group.  Typically the "group" uses the outrageous comments to promote their agenda, and so the mud slinging begins.

Like many companies today, we use social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to listen and engage with customers and the broader community.  Several months back something new happened, our web conferencing product became part of a trending topic on Twitter, but not in a positive way.   

We started seeing tweets about our brand with comments such as "boycott", not something you want to wake up to on a Monday.  Because of the sheer volume of noise around the controversy we decided to suspend our media.  Giving us the opportunity to gather our thoughts and determine next steps.

We decided that instead of using traditional PR tactics to address the controversy, we would release a single tweet from our branded Twitter account, and then listen.  The tweet had no links, and it read something to the effect, "...we have suspended our media and we will re-evaluate...".  As expected, the tweet was picked up quickly.  Over the next few weeks, we fielded some tweets from our personal and branded Twitter accounts, and eventually the controversy subsided.  Even though we carefully crafted our first tweet response, all the subsequent tweets weren't scripted.  Therefore, we didn't come across as cold and unsympathetic.  The communication was genuine and honest, and the community responded positively.

I am not suggesting that using a single tweet to manage adversity is always the best solution.  In some cases, public outreach via a press release with relevant links is needed.  However, in this case we felt the best solution was to speak to the community in the same voice and using the same tool from which it originated.  Speaking for myself, the lesson learned pertained to honesty and transparency, and the power of the tools on the social web. 

So what does this have to do with workshifting?  The method we used to resolve the conflict didn't require us to higher a PR firm, a consultant or use an expensive press release distribution tool.  The free tools are available to workshifters of any size.  The tools are not the exclusive domain of large, well funded companies.

So if you're starting a company founded upon workshifting, you have the ability to use the social media tools with the same level of scale and effectiveness as a large company can, and in many cases even better.

Have you used the tools to manage adversity?  I'd love to hear your stories.

Photo by: Matt Hamm