Communicate about telecommuting

August 1, 2008 by mireya
Filed under: Conversations 

Are you currently involved in any sort of telecommuting work scenario? If so, would you mind sharing how it works for you (or doesn’t work)?

Photo by Teak Sato

Some interesting points that you could help me with:

  • Just curious how do you tend to collaborate with your “co-workers”?
  • What tools are you using when working with others?
  • How do you communicate? IM, email, skype, phone, smoke signal, something else?
  • Do you miss the physical proximity?
  • How well do your collaborators work with you? Do they return IM messages, or answer all the questions you ask in an email?
  • Any interesting stories about telecommuting that we can share with or friends?

You may ask why I care about this? I’ve recently started some more serious online collaboration and am curious if some of my experiences are shared, or if I’m just an island floating adrift. Like many of my friends, I’ve worked remotely on gigs and had to communicate from time to time, but now I’m having to do it much more often.

Looking forward to hearing from you and about your experiences outside of the cubicle!

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  • Google has been my primary tool - using both GMail and GTalk-in-Gmail to maintain everything from quick conversations to project management issues. I try to avoid the phone for project management conversation, and when I do get on the phone, do my best to keep it concise and on-topic, so not to occupy time and attention without good reason.

    My Area of Opportunity is embracing social networking more - Twitter, blog commenting, forums, etc. For those who do, it's shown to work. Social networking is just a challenging habit to develop for some (or maybe just me).
  • Maybe just you? No, I cannot imagine that ;)
  • I use skype in the office.. and I have to say, it´s very effective for intra-office communication. People do tend to reply to the IMs because we all use it.. it´s used for work questions, problems, suggestions and is respected for that. There is a certain lack of physical contact there... even going so far as to say there is a lot less conversation made in a day. Email inboxes are always open as well... so that´s a good way to commuinicate too. I prefer skype though. Hope this helps a little. Karlin
  • I'd much prefer if the people in the company I worked for used some sort of IM or Skype chat vs. sending email after email after email to tell me "Thanks", "Sure", "You got it!". Argh!! I've started ending my emails out with something along the lines of, "That should do it. Please reply if there are any questions or concerns..." But I've just started this technique, so I'll see if that reduces the email volume.
  • I've been through this in terms of a marketing company I worked with previously. Back then it was tough, now it's easier with IM, Google docs, etc.
  • Well I primarily use email, MSN Messenger, and Box.net for collaborating.
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