A Month on the Road

We both spent time away from home over the last couple of months, so in this episode we share some of our experiences, including principles to help you plan your own business trips.

Listen to the episode here:

Download the MP3 file here

Buy the book here (available at a reduced price for a limited time).

Resources:

• The Complete Business Traveller Gadget Checklist

Online Meetings Etiquette Guide

Online meetings are important for many Out of Office workers, but most people don’t know how to behave in them - neither efficiently nor effectively. In this episode, we give you 10 guidelines for online meeting etiquette, so you make the most of your next online meeting.

Listen to the episode here:

Download the MP3 file here

Buy the book here (available at a reduced price for a limited time).

Here are the ten guidelines:

1. Find a quiet environment with good call quality.
2. Be on time.
3. Stay silent while waiting for the call to start.
4. Identify yourself and address people by name.
5. Be polite.
6. Use mute when not speaking.
7. Avoid distractions.
8. Avoid multi-tasking.
9. Stay on track and ensure private matters are solved outside the call.
10. Respect people’s valuable time.

Reference: This list is from Gihan's book Best Practice Conference Calls. The main credit for this list goes to his co-author Brandon Munro, who initially created this list. We also have this list available as a free one-page download from the Web site, so you can distribute it to colleagues and clients as well.

Get Focussed

As Out of Office workers, we sometimes need to shut out the world in order to get stuff done. In this episode, we'll look at how you can choose the right environment, plan your work, and then do the work efficiently and productively.

Listen to the episode here:

Download the MP3 file here.

Buy the book here.

References

• If you need to brainstorm, head to Starbucks
• The Pomodoro Technique
• Regular short breaks are good for your health
• GoodToDo.com

The Out of Office Work Style – What’s New

A lot has changed in the last 6-12 months for Out of Office workers. In this episode, we review some of the changes, enhancements and new services available to make it even easier to use the Internet for greater freedom in your work life.

Listen to the episode here:

Download the MP3 file here

Buy the book here.

References

• Online retail has grown by around 29 percent, roughly ten times the rate that traditional bricks-and-mortar retail is growing.
• Local retailers striking deals with overseas distributors to refuse Australian customers - but this might be illegal
• Australia Post still in the Dark Ages when it comes to delivery and pick-up - newsagents might start offering an alternative
• Collaboration is a $1 billion industry, due to grow to $3.5B by 2016
• Scam losses reported to the ACCC totalled more than $85.6 million, a 35 per cent increase from 2010 (from the ACCC’s 2011 Targeting Scams Report)
• Online scams cost $US485m in US in 2011
• Singapore sees spike in online scams
• For help, check scamwatch.gov.au
• Malware writers targeting Macs
• Mobile wireless access is growing faster than other broadband
• Criminals are getting smarter about exploiting hotel WiFi users

Online Collaboration - Principles and Tools

On-line collaboration has some things in common with face-to-face collaboration, but it also has some important differences. If you and your team are working this way for the first time, you might not be aware of the potential pitfalls. In this episode, we share our six principles of on-line collaboration, and then work through a case study.

Listen to the podcast here:

Download the MP3 file here.

Buy the book here.

Better, Faster, Stronger: Productivity Using the Cloud

We're bombarded with more information than ever before. We’ve always had to manage the flow of information through our “pipeline”, by (a) filtering what comes in, (b) processing it more efficiently and (c) doing more with it. The Cloud can play an important part now, in two key ways: If information is not already in the Cloud we can store it there before processing it; and if we publish information to the Cloud as soon as possible (without hoarding it on our hard disks), we free up the overload and make it usable by others sooner.

In this podcast, we discuss a number of the tools we use for managing our personal productivity using the Cloud - including Gmail, Google Docs, Dropbox, Evernote, Kindle, Ubuntu1, YouTube, and Read It Later.

Listen to the podcast here:



Download the MP3 file here.

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Buy the book here.

Here's an overview of the principles we discuss:

Broadly, we’ll talk about these things:

1. Choose what comes in:
   What? (Fill Depth): Choose whether to get overview, detailed or somewhere in between
   How? (Switch Channel): Choose between reading, watching, listening
   
2. Choose how you process it:
   When? (Shift Time): File in the Cloud for consuming later
   Where? (Keep Space): File in the Cloud for consuming anywhere
   
3. Choose where you publish: Use the Internet as your filing system - e.g. blog, tweet
   

Outsourcing Using Talent Markets

Talent markets are Web sites that connect customers with freelance providers. In this podcast, we look at how you as a business owner can get best use from using these talent markets.

Listen to the podcast here:



Download the MP3 file here.

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Buy the book here.

Web sites we mentioned:

• These are the “traditional” ones, which have been around for ages: Elance.com, Guru.com, vWorker.com, Freelancer.com
• This one is newer, and favours hourly rates rather than fixed price: oDesk.com
• This one is fixed price, but one fixed price!: Fiverr.com
  
• This is good for small, repetitive tasks: Amazon Mechanical Turk
  
• This one is quite different from the others, because it’s based on crowdsourcing rather than outsourcing: 99 designs
  
• See a detailed comparison at Assembla.com

Predictions for 2012

This is our annual predictions episode, where we look at what's coming up in the year ahead, this time with a focus on what it means for Out of Office work.

Listen to the podcast here:



Download the MP3 file here.

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Buy the book here.

These are our eight predictions for 2012 ...

1. Growth of mobile will facilitate increased telecommuting

The advent of powerful mobile computing devices such as smart phones and tablets has lead to an increasingly mobile workforce. Cloud Computing has become an important technology in support this mobility. Although Cloud Computing is often touted as a way of lowering the cost of IT infrastructure, it's also important in supporting a mobile workforce. As more companies make use of these technologies to enable mobile workers, so too they are enabling their employees to work Out Of Office.

2. More Wi-Fi connectivity out and about

As we become increasingly mobile, there'll be a greater demand for cheap or free wireless Internet access wherever you are - including parks (Brisbane City Council is doing it), city centres (the Perth Lord Mayor promoted it as one of her main election promises) and in the air (Emirates is doing it, Qantas is planning it, many American carriers are doing it).

3. Growth in Mobile Devices

E-book readers will drop below $100 in Australia, high-quality Android tablets will be available for under $300, and smart phones will overtake feature phones.

4. Better support for on-line meetings from tablets and phones

Tablets and smartphones provide many of the features of laptop computers, but there's still some way to go before tablets replace laptops. One of the areas yet to mature is the use of on-line meetings tools, such as GoToMeeting. We predict the vendors of these tools will provide much better support for use on tablets, so Out of Office workers can (realistically and reliably) use a tablet instead of a laptop for on-line meetings.

5. Outsourcing will keep increasing (changing the nature of “jobs”)

It’s the age of the free agent: one in three Americans is a free-lancer, not because they’re finding it difficult to get work but because they want to be. Outsourcing is growing, particularly through the “talent markets” (such as elance.com, guru.com and odesk.com), and this trend will continue in 2012.

6. Google+ will reach 200 million users

Google+, currently at 65 million users, is growing steadily, and we predict it will reach 200 million this year. That number alone doesn't particularly matter for Out of Office work, but it does mean Google has finally created a social network that works, so they are likely to keep investing in it. The Google Hangouts feature in particular could be the video-conferencing solution that we've all been waiting for.

7. A large Cloud-based service will fail (temporarily), causing mass disruption

This is inevitable, not because Cloud Computing is inherently unreliable but rather because it’s becoming more prevalent. More Cloud services are being offered and more people and businesses are using them (as we mentioned earlier, the growth in the number of mobile workers is the main driver behind the adoption of Cloud Computing).

8. E-mail is (still) not dead

Despite various dire predictions to the contrary, e-mail is still going strong, with 3.1 billion users in 2011, and no sign of it slowing down. On the other hand, the volume of spam is decreasing, which means e-mail is becoming even more valuable.

The Year in Review

In this episode, we look back at the predictions we made at the start of 2011.



Download the MP3 file here.

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Buy the book here.

References

1. The Resurgence of Reading: There’s no doubt video has been the hot on-line medium for the past few years, but we think 2011 will see a resurgence of (gasp!) the written word.
   - Amazon's recently announced fourth quarter results - Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than paperback books.
   - The Association of American Publishers reported in February 2011 eBook sales have overtaken those of both paperback and hardback books, and enjoyed triple-digit growth compared with 2010 sales.
   - Amazon’s top-100 lists for print and eBooks were very different suggesting different behaviours for buyers of books vs. eBooks
2. Email is Dead (NOT!): Rumours of email's death have been greatly exaggerated. Business communication is not really being conducted to any significant degree via social networks or SMS.
   - Email may not be dying but spam volume is decreasing
   - Thierry Breton @ Atos wants to get rid of email for internal communication
   - What is needed is for people to use email properly - they now have multiple electronic communications tools; choose the correct tool for the job. Email is for deferred, non-urgent communication.
3. The Power (if not the Wisdom) of Crowds: Deal-of-the-day Web sites like Groupon.com turn the disintermediation model on its head. They sit between the customer and the supplier, but in a highly value-added way.
   - Groupon’s IPO was the second-biggest in tech history ($700 million, behind Google’s $1.7 billion), but recently share price dropped from $20 to $17.
   - One of the issues Groupon faces is that it’s easily imitated - dozens of deal-of-the-day sites have sprung up (a friend of Chris has created one “Cryki”)
4. Facebook is "the" Social Network: Facebook will continue to be the dominant social network during 2011, and other networks will have to settle for catering to niche demographics. However, there is much room for innovation in social networking so the door remains open.
   - Google+ came out of nowhere - but is it running out of steam?
   - A survey of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers found that Facebook is cited in one in five divorces in the United States.
   - Facebook amongst US’ “most hated” company
5. More Out of Office Workers: More and more organisations will start embracing different Out of Office workstyles for their people - it's feasible, desirable and inevitable.
   - Telecommuters save time and money
   - Half of Australian IT workers said they would consider taking a pay cut in exchange for more flexible working hours
6. Enterprise Cloud Computing: We’ll start to see more private, packaged cloud services aimed at enterprise customers.
   - Amazon has just released its Elastic Beanstalk service
   - Rackspace has extended its Cloud services to European data-centres
   - Microsoft will release its Windows Intune service - a cloud-based PC management service for businesses.
   - Amazon EC, one of the largest provider of Cloud/Utility Computing services to business customers, suffered a major outage in April
7. The Year of the Tablet: Kudos to Apple for breaking new ground with the iPad in 2010. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is hot on its heels, and both will face stiff competition from other manufacturers.
   - The recommendation that all staff and students at Trinity College, University of Melbourne be given iPads
   - Microsoft's global chief research and strategy officer Craig Mundie is unsure of whether tablet computers have much of a future
8. Mobile Trends: Android will dominate; smartphones will become even smarter; and smartphones will become the default for mobile phones.
   - Android has become the top-selling operating system on mobile phones
   - Smartphone ownership rose 60% in the US last year, according to figures released by comScore
   - Nokia and Microsoft have announced an alliance whereby Nokia mobile phones will run Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system
9. Online Sales: E-commerce has been rising steadily over the last decade, but we have reached a tipping point, where on-line selling has gone mainstream.
   - Aussie retailers facing stiff competition from on-line retailers
   - Amazon crowned the most reputable company in the US
10. Politics: A Tangled Web: The Internet will increasingly become a political battlefield: governments around the world will attempt to censor, regulate and control the Internet; while political activists will create and use Internet tools as a platform from which to attract support for their respective causes.
    - Egyptians have used Facebook and other Web 2.0 technologies to rally protests against their government
    - How will this play out in Algeria?
    - Another popular uprising is met with an Internet blackout - this time in Libya
    - It’s not just authoritarian governments that are considering censoring the Internet

Get More Freedom in Your Work Life

More and more people are tapping into the power of the Internet for greater freedom in their work life. We call this the Out of Office environment - and in this podcast we describe the three main scenarios.



Download the MP3 File here.

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Buy the book here.

Ownership 2.0

The Web has made it easier to facilitate sharing, swapping, renting, leasing, bartering, recycling and other kinds of ownership, for both electronic and physical goods.


Download the MP3 file here

This episode was inspired by Rachel Botsman's TED Talk: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption:



Other Web sites we mentioned:

• GoGet
• In August 2011, Waverley Council (in Sydney) announced it wants to charge GoGet for the use of their parking spaces
• Neighbourgoods
• Landshare.net
• DriveMyCar
• Swap.com
• Freecycle.org
• eBay.com
• Amazon has a 14-day lending feature for e-books
• making its Kindle e-books available free to public libraries

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Writing a Book Together

Our book Out of Office is almost ready for publishing. In this episode, we share our experiences of how we wrote this book, using many of the on-line collaboration tools we've discussed in the book itself.

MP3 File

Tools We Used

• Microsoft Word: for most of the writing
• Google Docs: for the project plan and review comments
• Elance: for transcribing audio, ghost writing and book cover design
• Dropbox: for sharing files
• Skype: for discussions about the content
• iStockphoto: for the cover graphics
• CreateBarCodes.com: for the bar code on the back cover
• A QR code generator: for the QR codes
• WordPress: for the Web site and blog
• MailChimp: for the e-mail newsletter

Working from a Home Office

More and more workers have the option to work from a home office, either part-time or full-time. In this episode, Chris shares what he has learned in over 10 years of being a full-time telecommuter.


MP3 File

E-Mail Productivity

E-mail is 40 years old this year (here's a nice infographic showing its history). Many people still grapple with it, but that doesn't have to be the case. So we're sharing our e-mail productivity ideas here.

Listen to the podcast episode here:



Download the MP3 File here.

Subscribe to future episodes here.

Dan Tynen (7 Days in Email Hell) needs our help!

Incoming e-mail is not necessarily a bad thing! The problem is not with e-mail, it’s with the kind of e-mail you get, the way we perceive e-mail, and the way we manage e-mail.

Here are our three key e-mail productivity principles:

1. Your in-box represents other people’s priorities, not yours - So stop being their slave, and take control of your life
2. E-mail is for deferred, not immediate, communication - So stop reacting and start responding
3. E-mail is just one communication channel (of many) - So just stop using e-mail for everything

Start by eliminating the bad e-mail:

• Unnecessary (e.g. E-zines we never read, Facebook notifications): Cancel the subscriptions, turn off notifications
• Unwanted (Spam): Delete them automatically
• Inappropriate/Misdirected (E-mail that can be handled by other channels - such as RSS, phone, face-to-face): Switch channels
• Unproductive (Jokes and time-wasters, chain letters, staff checking in because you haven’t delegated well, irrelevant cc’s): Ask them to stop
• Unimportant (e.g. useful e-zines, some notifications): Filter them automatically

Learn to process e-mail more effectively:

• Separate checking from processing
• Check e-mail less frequently
• Turn off automatic notifications of new mail
• When checking your in-box, just move items to other folders rather than processing anything
• After processing, ask yourself: How can I prevent another e-mail like this?

Help other people be more productive by sending better e-mail:

• Use a relevant subject line
• Use a signature with phone number and other contact info
• Write one topic per message (split multi-topic messages into multiple e-mails)
• Don’t ask obvious questions that Google could answer (e.g. checking time zones)
• Spell check & re-read before hitting send
• Don’t send “out of context” messages that force others to search old e-mails for information
• Quote sparingly; enough to provide context but no more
• Establish some conventions and shorthand within your team
• Think carefully about each and every recipient you include in the To: & Cc: lines
• End each e-mail with a clear idea of what you want next

Protect Your On-line Reputation

If you're not careful, it's easy to do silly things that harm your on-line reputation. In this podcast episode, we discuss some simple things you can do here to prevent that from happening!

Listen to the podcast here:



Download the MP3 File here

Subscribe to future episodes here.

We suggest four principles:

1. Bite your tongue - assume everything is public and permanent
2. Lock up - protect your passwords
3. Don’t talk to strangers - be careful when you’re out and about
4. Listen up - monitor what others are saying about you

Web sites we mentioned:

• the Failbook blog
• Wikipedia - Use strong passwords
• Recent Sony hacks
• The top 500 worst passwords of all time
• Recent MacDefender malware on Apple Macs
• Recent Gmail “hack” (which was actually phishing)
• Use the EFF HTTPS Everywhere Plug-In
• Google Alerts
• Social Mention.com

Get Smart!

Mainstream media coverage is often sensationalised and biased. The Internet gives us unprecedented abilities to dig deeper, but only if we take that opportunity. We'll show you how ...

Listen to the podcast here:



Download the MP3 File here

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Web sites we mentioned:

• The Onion: Actual Expert Too Boring For TV
• When Journalists do Primary Research (Ben Goldacre)
• Wikipedia
• Google Scholar
• Scirus
• CiteSeerX (IT and technology)
• PubMed (Health & Medicine)
• The fake academic journal set up by Merck
• The Union of Concerned Scientists
• The Cochrane Collaboration (Medical Meta Studies)
• Subscribe to blogs: New Scientist, Scientific American, The Conversation
• Listen to podcasts (find them in iTunes): Skeptoid, SciAm (60 Second Science & Weekly podcast), IEEE Spectrum Radio, ABC RN Science Show, Radiolab
  
• Follow Tweeple: Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh, Brian Dunning, Dr Karl, Tim Minchin
  

Books in the 21st Century

The Internet has changed the way we buy and read books. If anything, there's been a resurgence in reading, because of increased availability to printed books, and new formats like e-books and audio books.

So let's talk about how the Internet has changed reading, in three ways:

• How to buy books on-line
• The rise in popularity of e-books
• The rise in popularity of audio books

Listen to the podcast here:


Download the MP3 File here

Additional Resources:

• Amazon.com
• Dymocks.com.au - but only really a token effort
• Purely on-line retailers are much better, e.g. Fishpond.com.au or Booktopia.com.au
• The Book Depository - which offers free shipping
• Marketplaces for second-hand bookshops worldwide: Alibris and AbeBooks.com
• eBay (for both buying and selling)
• Social media tools like Shelfari and Visual Bookshelf (Facebook application)

Focal Point - Wikis

A wiki is a Web site anybody can edit. Although this might sound dangerous, wikis have many benefits for organisations large and small. They are more collaborative, more compact and more changeable than typical Web sites, blogs or forums; and they can build camaraderie, engagement, unity and equity in the organisation.

In this podcast episode, we talk about the benefits of wikis and how to create one for your own organisation.

Listen here:



Download the MP3 file here

Resources:

• Mediawiki: The free wiki software that powers Wikipedia
• WikkaWiki: used by Chris’ employer
• Wikihosts.org: Free hosted wikis (ad-supported)
• Wikispaces.com: Free and low-cost hosted wikis (i.e. nothing to install)
• Clearwiki.com: Free and low-cost private hosted wikis (what Gihan uses for First Step)
• Wikimatrix.org: Compare them all!

The Top 10 On-Line Trends for 2011

Join us for our annual report on the top on-line trends for the next 12 months.

Listen to the podcast here:



MP3 File

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Notes

Here are our 10 predictions:

1. The Resurgence of Reading: There’s no doubt video has been the hot on-line medium for the past few years, but we think 2011 will see a resurgence of (gasp!) the written word.
2. Email is Dead (NOT!): Rumours of email's death have been greatly exaggerated. Business communication is not really being conducted to any significant degree via social networks or SMS.
3. The Power (if not the Wisdom) of Crowds: Deal-of-the-day Web sites like Groupon.com turn the disintermediation model on its head. They sit between the customer and the supplier, but in a highly value-added way.
4. Facebook is "the" Social Network: Facebook will continue to be the dominant social network during 2011, and other networks will have to settle for catering to niche demographics. However, there is much room for innovation in social networking so the door remains open.
5. More Out of Office Workers: More and more organisations will start embracing different Out of Office workstyles for their people - it's feasible, desirable and inevitable.
6. Enterprise Cloud Computing: We’ll start to see more private, packaged cloud services aimed at enterprise customers.
7. The Year of the Tablet: Kudos to Apple for breaking new ground with the iPad in 2010. The Samsung Galaxy Tab is hot on its heels, and both will face stiff competition from other manufacturers.
8. Mobile Trends: Android will dominate; smartphones will become even smarter; and smartphones will become the default for mobile phones.
9. Online Sales: E-commerce has been rising steadily over the last decade, but we have reached a tipping point, where on-line selling has
   gone mainstream.
10. Politics: A Tangled Web: The Internet will increasingly become a political battlefield: governments around the world will
    attempt to censor, regulate and control the Internet; while political activists will create and use Internet tools as a platform from which to attract support for their respective causes.

2010 - The Year in Review

In January we made 10 predictions about how the Internet would change our lives in 2010. In this episode, we look back at the year and report on our predictions.

Listen to the podcast here:



Download the MP3 File here.

Subscribe to the podcast here.

Notes

Here were our 10 predictions, with brief comments:

1. (Chris) Internet Politics - The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: We'll witness an increasingly political dimension to The Internet as governments grapple with regulation and censorship of the Net. Additionally, we'll see governments and political parties and activists using the Internet for service delivery, campaigning and activism.
   Report: Yes, this all happened; as well as the unexpected huge Wikileaks scandal this month.
2. (Gihan) There'll be an increase in electronic meetings - e.g. teleseminars, webinars, conference calls, on-line conferences - and this will correspond to a significant drop in face-to-face meetings.
   Report: Difficult to say, because the reports are from biased sources. Certainly more on-line meetings now, and more use of on-line technology in face-to-face meetings.
3. (Chris) Less Privacy / Greater Openness: While sites like Facebook and Google are improving the privacy controls they provide to their users, people seem to be increasingly comfortable with sharing information about themselves including embarrassing, even dangerous information.
   Report: No; in fact, it was the opposite, as people discovered just how invasive some of these technologies were.
4. (Gihan) Because we have more Internet-connected phones, we'll see a significant increase in localisation and context-specific content - e.g. a restaurant sending you SMS ads when you walk by.
   Report: No (surprisingly). The technology is available and in use, but just hasn't been adopted widely.
5. (Chris) We'll have more mobile applications.
   Report: Yes, clearly.
6. (Gihan) The growth of Google-based phones will exceed growth of iPhones.
   Report: Yes, Android's growth has been astonishing, and has exceeded iPhone's growth, even in the year of iPhone 4.
7. (Chris) After an annus horribilus in 2009, we'll see the start of a recovery for on-line news media.
   Report: No, news media still haven't figured out a viable on-line business model.
8. (Gihan) Smart businesses will figure out Twitter and Facebook.
   Report: Yes and no. There have been a few outstanding examples (like the Old Spice Guy), but not that many.
9. (Chris) The Pervasive Internet: There'll be an increasing number of clever gadgets being launched that "passively" access the Internet as part of their operation.
   Report: No, although we're seeing more devices use the Cloud for storage.
10. (Gihan) Content syndication - both automatic and manual - will really take off.
    Report: Yes, and it's likely to be increasing even more, as content publishers want to make their stuff available on lots of devices.