Author:techreporter
The Machine And The Will
by David Cassel / Dec 31
For three years I worked in an office where everyone was a contractor. Except for a few managers, all the work was done by specialists flown in by the company from cities across America. We were working on an environmental remediation project on a decommissioned military base which brought even more challenges. Most of the buildings were abandoned several decades ago, and even the post office had discontinued service. There was no running water, and some of the streets literally did not have names.
We set up base in a rented trailer, and I learned a lot of tricks about coping with the mobile lifestyle. Rule #1: Everyone carries a cell phone. For redundancy, when people left the trailer, they also carried a short-range two-way radio. The important people even carried pagers. The truth is there’s already plenty of ways to keep in constant communication. What’s needed is a commitment to using them.
A lot of the work was done “in the field,” usually abandoned buildings that dated to World War II. But our mobile workers were expected to maintain daily communication with their offices back home. The IT department kept their laptops up-to-date, making sure they had dial-up lines that were always secure to connect to the corporate network. From there they’d download their email, and important files were often circulated as email attachments but each region also had a file directory on the corporate network, where each worker received a subdirectory. This made it even easier to swap files from one desktop to another. (For bulkier hard copies, we’d still use Federal Express, but with our corporate network, it was easier to copy the file into a remote directory and let them print out their own copy!)
But best of all, when workers logged into the corporate network, the messaging application also detected their presence and updated their online status. People with questions would know when to seize the opportunity for a conversation — and messaging allowed several real-time conversations at the same time. Needless to say, everyone also took their phone lists very seriously, and the secretaries were very diligent in keeping them up-to-date (including a date on the phone list to make sure no one had the old contact information). Email actually became a second choice, when messaging wasn’t an option or a real-time response wasn’t required. Again, it’s a case where the technology exists for everyone to communicate, and what makes it work is a commitment from the workers in the field.
And all our workers were very serious about keeping their batteries charged…
But our on-site manager always tried to maintain a “human” connection, and scheduled a regular conference call every week. (Even if there was nothing to discuss, remote managers would dial-in so that everyone would receive the same status updates.) My next employer took this one step further, with web-based chat rooms. Using “presenter” software, they could share their screen view with everyone else in a conference call. (Messages could also be typed in a chat room below the window, but this was superfluous since we already had a voice connection). This was surprisingly useful, since the meeting “moderator” didn’t need to prepare a full presentation. Since we were working on building web sites, they’d simply lead everyone through a “walkthrough” of the past and current pages while describing the key features that needed to be discussed. One worker even pointed a webcam at himself, creating a cheap and effective one-way teleconference!
The tools exists. All that’s needed is a commitment to using them.
Geeks Better At Connecting Distributed Workers Than Managers
by David Cassel / Oct 20
I worked for two years in a strange “split department.” Due to a corporate restructuring years before, ten employees were left in Northern California, while the remaining 60 were in Southern California. Over the years they’d tried various strategies to keep the two groups connected to each other — and some worked better than others.
The group managers resigned themselves to flying from one office to the other as often as necessary, carrying laptops, cell phones, and pagers. Of course managers and workers were constantly using email and instant messaging, but the department head struggled valiantly to create a friendlier atmosphere. He’d instituted a recurring monthly meeting with both departments on speakerphone. But the logistics were making that harder to coordinate.
The geeks in the department began taking the initiative. One group of workers launched an informal newsletter — which led another group to launch their own competing newsletter. There was even talk about creating a single newsletter for the whole department — but the articles languished for over nine months, because the head of the department never read and approved them. For a while I even started an informal blog, sharing pictures and personal stories about the other people in the office. Out of that, I assembled a “cheat sheet” which had everyone’s name and photograph. (This was especially handy for visitors and new employees.)
When I transferred to the smaller branch, the first thing I did was get a web cam. I figured seeing my face would at least remind my co-workers that I was more than just a voice in a box. But in the end, I resigned myself to a certain amount of fragmentation. About a fifth of our workforce came from out of the country, and more than half of the department didn’t actually work for the department — we were subcontractors. (To make things confusing, there’d be an annual Christmas party for the department, and then a second one for our employment agency.) Even some of our managers were subcontractors — and the turnover rate was surprisingly high.
It was always a little stressful, and part of me was glad when I finally got laid off. And ironically, when I left — they still hadn’t published the first issue of the departmental newsletter.
Don’t Underestimate The Importance Of Ergonomics
by David Cassel / Sep 15
I learned the hard way about power supplies. I was part of a team interviewing the top executives in our various branches for a major overhaul of the company’s budget, and 20 minutes into the first meeting, my laptop’s battery went dead. I scrambled for an outlet and completed a re-boot, but I ended up losing everything after the last time I’d saved my notes. (Fortunately, we’d brought a cheap digital recorder to the meeting — which became the ultimate backup system. One of my co-workers would even listen to our recordings of the meeting during her commute!) After that I created a mental checklist for the future — “network cord, power cord, tape recorder” — but fortunately, the laptop’s carrying case had a separate pouch for each one.
The project required visiting different offices, but they were all equipped for full and secure network access, so connectivity was never the problem. (Vint Cerf once said the internet would become so ubiquitous that it will disappear — and that was certainly true for us.) Ergonomics were a bigger concern, since there was usually only obvious choice — a set of identical chairs clustered around a single meeting table. If we had to work in a remote location, the easiest solution was to ask our hosts if they had a dedicated workstation that was set up for guests. It was usually possible to score a “real” chair in a real cubicle — one where that could be adjusted for a better ergonomic fit.
I work in California, which has strict regulations about workplace ergonomics. But my company had a dedicated health and safety officer who always seemed pleased when someone wanted to make their workstation more ergonomically friendly. The best advice for ergonomic issues is always to take them seriously. For example, I used to use my laptop bag as a second suitcase, using its pockets to carry all the catalogs and brochures that were given to me at conferences. I eventually learned to travel light, since the extra weight goes straight to your shoulder — and it’s never ergonomic to carry a large weight on one side of your body. The shoulder strap always felt uncomfortable, and when I was carrying my sweater, I’d fold it up and tuck it under the strap to make it softer. And I could never get used to the trackpad, so I brought along a full-sized USB mouse that I can plug into the laptop.
Sometimes You Just Can’t Trust A Random Network
by David Cassel / Aug 15
At my last position, we worked with personal information that was protected by federal privacy laws, so there were very strict security policies for mobile devices. It wasn’t even possible to access the corporate network remotely unless the IT department had pre-installed a valid security token on the machine. (They joked that security was too important to leave it up to the individual users.) Personal laptops were forbidden, and the only machines allowed on the network were ones that had been built and issued by the IT department. Now they’re even using a Network Access Control system that scans the machine for the latest Windows patches and anti-virus updates — and blocks access until the machine is in compliance.
And I understand why. At my previous job, an IT worker drove 90 miles to visit our site and patch a security hole in the network. After a few hours reviewing every single machine, they eventually found the source of the problem — a single contractor’s laptop which hadn’t performed the last security upgrade. The lesson learned: if there’s a hole, someone will find it.
I’m working remotely at my current position, and we reached the same conclusion the hard way. We collaborate on an online magazine using a blogging platform that had a major security breach in May. We hadn’t performed the last upgrade, and somebody used the hole remotely to install an admin-level account — and then re-wrote our content with invisible links to bolster the pagerank of a spam site. Before we’d identified the problem, Google had dropped our pagerank a full two full two ranks, which I calculate cost us over 30,000 sites visits. It was embarrassing to realize that in this case we were the users who’d skipped the vital security upgrade.
Concerns about security ultimately led me to a hard and fast rule. Sometimes it’s tempting to log in from a cyber cafe or other businesses offering on-the-road internet access — but I just don’t trust them. A network security breach guarantees hours of headaches and stress, so I’m not taking any chances. I worked for a large national corporation, and I trusted the security of their network, even when accessing it remotely. And even now, collaborating on an online platform, I have faith that my internet service provider is running a secure network. But the local coffee shop up the street? Just because they’re online doesn’t mean they’re secure!
Join the conversation…
Collaborate with some of the leading minds in technology and define what it means to be a digital nomad. The community will collaborate to answer questions about:
- Security challenges of a mobile workforce
- Connectivity and access for nomad employees everywhere
- Ensuring productivity when employees are on the go
