My whole team could work from home. Every single one of their duties could be undertaken away from the office, all that's needed is to implement a few technologies and I my team would be a highly effective distributed team working from home being as productive as they are now whilst sitting in the office, but without the commute to look forward to every day.
So, why don't we do it? What is the obsession with getting people to work together in an office? Particularly now when surely companies are looking to reduce fixed costs in a time of recession.
I think the heart of the issue lies in the desire to see people face to face and do business face-to-face. Having the ability to be instantly face-to-face with your team or your colleagues makes communication and preparation for that communication very lazy, if non-existent. So much business is done on the hoof and in corridors that many people believe that to be effective they need the office environment and be able to eyeball their people/colleagues.
I recently experienced this problem for myself, a member of my team was working from home and had joined my meeting by phone. The meeting went fine until we started to work through a document, editing it via a projector as we went along. The team member working from home couldn't see the document, couldn't take part in the heated debates whilst at the end of a telephone line and struggled to get air-time in the meeting room for his points. I got frustrated at the guy on the end of the phone because the meeting wasn't working very well and we weren't achieving what we set out to do and in my irritation I blamed the one person not in the room for the failure, but he wasn't responsible for the failure.
I should have been blaming myself and my lack of appropriate preperation and planning for the meeting. With a little forethought, we could have easily shared the document with the home-worker through any number of web or software based vehicles and joint editing of the document would probably have been more successful for everyone than doing it in a meeting room.
The thing is, if I felt this way and I'm a technologist and fan of new ways of working, how difficult is it going to be to change the way we work in other areas of the business where the culture of office-based working is even more ingrained.
For me it is just a technology issue and because of that, my technology function should be leading the way and showing others how easy it is to utilise the technology. In fact I believe that technology now available could well enhance the experience of what would otherwise be face-to-face meetings even though people are at the end of a data-pipe. I say data-pipe, because I think now we need to be looking at systems that either enable the meeting to take place exactly as it would do in the office (for the comfort of those who cannot change their habits) or to the other extreme where we start to do things in a manner that is so different that it has no relation to the old ways and enables people to go through a step-change that means it's something new rather than a change from old habits. It's things like Second Life that could enable this step-change, even teleconferencing is going through another revolution to give it a better reputation and look/feel of the office meeting.
Either way, surely we need to be changing our office-based culture. The age of the massive office with everyone having to experience some form of horrible commute whether it be by public or private transport must be ending. If we as senior management don't kick such a process off, the masses will do it for us as they rebel against the cost of commuting and the craziness of the office-bound culture that interferes with so many aspects of life. Let's not even think about those kids joining companies over the next few years and their attitude towards work and the office environment, although where the power will lie once the dust has settled on this latest financial upheaval will influence that outcome, but that's another debate entirely!
Wednesday 22 October 2008
Friday 10 October 2008
A pair of Grensons
A few months ago I took delivery of a pair of Grenson's shoes from my Tailor. It's the first time I've had a pair of shoes that I actually look forward to wearing. They are incredibly comfortable, the leather's soft and supple, they needed no wearing in and have never pinched or given me blisters.
I wondered whether I now understood why women like shoes so much now, but no, women will wear shoes they think look great regardless of how painful or impractical they are to walk around in or whatever. My Grenson's look great, but they are just a posh version of an ordinary Oxford shoe style, nothing really new there so it's the comfort and feel that I enjoy just as much as the looks.
It's amzing how different the relationship with shoes is between the sexes. Most men will probably have just a few pairs: a brown pair, a black pair, a few trainers and maybe some deck-shoes. Women, it never ceases to amaze me, they never have sufficient shoes! In addition, when I buy shoes it's for practical reasons and I want them to last - they need to be capable of being repaired, etc. Women will buy a pair of shoes that will only be fashionable this season with no hope of repair that may well cost more than my pair of Grensons.
Not really relevant to technology or management or whatever, just a musing from this morning as I put on my Grenson's.
I wondered whether I now understood why women like shoes so much now, but no, women will wear shoes they think look great regardless of how painful or impractical they are to walk around in or whatever. My Grenson's look great, but they are just a posh version of an ordinary Oxford shoe style, nothing really new there so it's the comfort and feel that I enjoy just as much as the looks.
It's amzing how different the relationship with shoes is between the sexes. Most men will probably have just a few pairs: a brown pair, a black pair, a few trainers and maybe some deck-shoes. Women, it never ceases to amaze me, they never have sufficient shoes! In addition, when I buy shoes it's for practical reasons and I want them to last - they need to be capable of being repaired, etc. Women will buy a pair of shoes that will only be fashionable this season with no hope of repair that may well cost more than my pair of Grensons.
Not really relevant to technology or management or whatever, just a musing from this morning as I put on my Grenson's.
Saturday 4 October 2008
ByteNight 2008 = Done
ByteNight 2008's done and dusted. Silicon Comrades (Nic, Graham, Richard & myself) managed to raise more than £5k in the end which was over the target set for teams, a great result. All together ByteNight should be raising around half a million pounds!
I arrived at around 6.30pm having got a little lost on the way there on the V-strom, but fortunately I found bike-parking immediately outside Potters Field. Locking up the bike I staggered off to the E&Y building to register. I met Graham in the queue to register, turns out he's another biker so we hit it off immediately. Once I'd changed and had all my clobber safely stashed in the cloakroom, we headed off for the restaurant where after speeches from Ken Deeks and Jenny Agutter amoungst others we had a quiz. Matthew Lagden from Action for Children joined us on our table, Matthew's an long time friend of mine and one reason why I got involved, so it was good to have him there. Then it was grub time, E&Y had laid on a great meal with a number of different options that would fortify us for the sleep-out to come. Then it was time for the quiz, but after the picture round, things went quickly downhill for us (it must have been the alcohol we were consuming) and all I'm going to say is that we didn't finish in the Top 10! Once the quiz was done with there was an auction of items, the most popular of which was the signed Dr Who script which went for around £2.5k! Nic had started to bid when the price was under £500, but decided to give up as the price flew higher.
Then it was time to gather our belongings and set out for the field where we would be sleeping out and wow, it was cold. Nic said that it was down to 3deg Centigrade and it felt like it. I stayed up for an hour or so drinking and chatting, but at about midnight, I decided to turn in and slid in to my sleeping bag. I was very pleased to have the thermal layers and the decent sleeping bag (thanks Mike!), gloves and woolly hat. My feet stayed warm throughout the night and at no time did I feel really cold. Phew! I think I got about 3 hours kip, not helped by Graham who has a tremendous snore, although Matthew (attempting to sleep between me and Graham) also said I was doing well to compete with Graham!
I was surprised how quickly 6am came round and everyone started to wake up as the smell of bacon wafted through the camp. However I decided to forgo the bacon sarnie because once I was up and about felt the urge to get home, so I packed up and pottered off to find my bike. The others had also decided to take off, but Matthew hung around until I'd changed in to my biker gear and packed everything away. My bike had survived the night - a good chain and disc-lock had seen to that - and after 5minutes getting everything loaded I was underway. Gratefully the streets were deserted and the journey was quick and painless. Just before 8am, I was back home and being climbed on by the kids. What a huge difference in just an hour - cold, damp and tired at 6.30am, warm, dry and being kept awake by the kids at 7.45am!
I guess I'm lucky to be able to do that, find somewhere warm and dry and where I'm loved. Whilst I can't say I know what it's like to sleep on the streets, I think I understand what an ordeal it can be now and to imagine children having to do it really concerns me. I'm glad we were able to do this and raise the funds we did to help Action for Children continue their work with the UK's homeless and under privileged kids.
Will I do it next year? I'll have to think about that one.
I arrived at around 6.30pm having got a little lost on the way there on the V-strom, but fortunately I found bike-parking immediately outside Potters Field. Locking up the bike I staggered off to the E&Y building to register. I met Graham in the queue to register, turns out he's another biker so we hit it off immediately. Once I'd changed and had all my clobber safely stashed in the cloakroom, we headed off for the restaurant where after speeches from Ken Deeks and Jenny Agutter amoungst others we had a quiz. Matthew Lagden from Action for Children joined us on our table, Matthew's an long time friend of mine and one reason why I got involved, so it was good to have him there. Then it was grub time, E&Y had laid on a great meal with a number of different options that would fortify us for the sleep-out to come. Then it was time for the quiz, but after the picture round, things went quickly downhill for us (it must have been the alcohol we were consuming) and all I'm going to say is that we didn't finish in the Top 10! Once the quiz was done with there was an auction of items, the most popular of which was the signed Dr Who script which went for around £2.5k! Nic had started to bid when the price was under £500, but decided to give up as the price flew higher.
Then it was time to gather our belongings and set out for the field where we would be sleeping out and wow, it was cold. Nic said that it was down to 3deg Centigrade and it felt like it. I stayed up for an hour or so drinking and chatting, but at about midnight, I decided to turn in and slid in to my sleeping bag. I was very pleased to have the thermal layers and the decent sleeping bag (thanks Mike!), gloves and woolly hat. My feet stayed warm throughout the night and at no time did I feel really cold. Phew! I think I got about 3 hours kip, not helped by Graham who has a tremendous snore, although Matthew (attempting to sleep between me and Graham) also said I was doing well to compete with Graham!
I was surprised how quickly 6am came round and everyone started to wake up as the smell of bacon wafted through the camp. However I decided to forgo the bacon sarnie because once I was up and about felt the urge to get home, so I packed up and pottered off to find my bike. The others had also decided to take off, but Matthew hung around until I'd changed in to my biker gear and packed everything away. My bike had survived the night - a good chain and disc-lock had seen to that - and after 5minutes getting everything loaded I was underway. Gratefully the streets were deserted and the journey was quick and painless. Just before 8am, I was back home and being climbed on by the kids. What a huge difference in just an hour - cold, damp and tired at 6.30am, warm, dry and being kept awake by the kids at 7.45am!
I guess I'm lucky to be able to do that, find somewhere warm and dry and where I'm loved. Whilst I can't say I know what it's like to sleep on the streets, I think I understand what an ordeal it can be now and to imagine children having to do it really concerns me. I'm glad we were able to do this and raise the funds we did to help Action for Children continue their work with the UK's homeless and under privileged kids.
Will I do it next year? I'll have to think about that one.
Thursday 2 October 2008
Byte Night Sleep Out
Tomorrow night, (Friday 3rd October) I sleep out in London to help raise money for Action for Children (ne National Childrens Home - NCH). It's the 10 year anniversary of ByteNight, an opportunity for senior IT professionals to sleep out in London to raise money. I'm part of a team put together by silicon.com, we're called The Silicon Comrades. There are 4 of us and as a team we've been charged with raising £5k. At the moment. not including the tax we'll get back, we've raised about £3.3k online with justgiving. I've got at least another £500 to add to that from office donations and even my Mum has been collecting on my behalf.
It's a great cause and for one night's discomfort on my behalf it's a great way to raise money. I've had the mickey taken out of me at work because I've had the temerity to use a sleeping bag and a mat so I'm not exactly emulating life on the street, but then I don't think that's absolutely necessary to make the point and raise the money.
I'm a bit nervous about it though, sleeping out in the middle of London, albeit with 300 other people is going to be interesting. We're sure to attract an audience even if it's just revellers falling out of the pubs and clubs at whatever time they do that now. What must it be like when you're on your own, you're sleeping in a doorway with nothing more than a cardboard box for insulation against the cold and drunk passers-by or worse. I dread to think.
This fund-raising concentrates on kids who are homeless. I look at my two kids sleeping peacefully in their beds at least twice during the evening, I just can't help myself and the thought of those two ending up on the streets scares the living crap out of me. A society that has any children teenagers or younger out on the streets without a home needs to examine itself and decide what its priorities really are. Money seems to be easily spent on saving financial institutions of late, or the 2012 Olympics, but not apparently so easily on homeless children.
So, if by chance you're reading this blog, please visit the justgiving webpage and add your few pounds to the pot, any amount however large or small will be gratefully received.
It's a great cause and for one night's discomfort on my behalf it's a great way to raise money. I've had the mickey taken out of me at work because I've had the temerity to use a sleeping bag and a mat so I'm not exactly emulating life on the street, but then I don't think that's absolutely necessary to make the point and raise the money.
I'm a bit nervous about it though, sleeping out in the middle of London, albeit with 300 other people is going to be interesting. We're sure to attract an audience even if it's just revellers falling out of the pubs and clubs at whatever time they do that now. What must it be like when you're on your own, you're sleeping in a doorway with nothing more than a cardboard box for insulation against the cold and drunk passers-by or worse. I dread to think.
This fund-raising concentrates on kids who are homeless. I look at my two kids sleeping peacefully in their beds at least twice during the evening, I just can't help myself and the thought of those two ending up on the streets scares the living crap out of me. A society that has any children teenagers or younger out on the streets without a home needs to examine itself and decide what its priorities really are. Money seems to be easily spent on saving financial institutions of late, or the 2012 Olympics, but not apparently so easily on homeless children.
So, if by chance you're reading this blog, please visit the justgiving webpage and add your few pounds to the pot, any amount however large or small will be gratefully received.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)