The Gamification of Work: Online Collaboration«

Irecently interviewedDaniel Debow, the co-CEO of enterprise social software companyRypple. During our conversation, we discussed the game-like constructs built into the Rypple software, like the concept of rewarding people with“badges”  for giving recognition and building reputation within a company.

Game design can be applied to much more than just games.“Gamification,” or the use of gaming mechanics in non-game applications, can be applied to business software, too. Any task based on a process could incorporate aspects of gaming to make it more engaging and better align it with the way most people are“hard-wired;” we respond well to games.

While Rypple does incorporate organic badge-making, distributing and displaying mechanism in its software, the gamification of work goes beyond simply thinking“let’s give out badges.” Instead it involves a thoughtful, strategic process to enhance the ways we recognize one another in the workplace and how we showcase that recognition.

Rypple recently published an slideshow explaining Debow’s thoughts on enterprise gamification:

Work Better. Play Together? On Enterprise Gamification.

While the slideshow points out the potential benefits to bringing game-like processes into the workplace, such as increasing team member motivation and performance, it also notes there are risks and the potential for misuse.

Some key takeaways from the presentation are:

• Gamification isn’t about making work fun. It’s more about understanding human nature and strategy, not frivolity.
• Gaming already exists in work settings. The acts of competition and cooperation are inherent in most work environments. Harnessing those interactions strategically can be a part of“gamification.”
• Gamification is not just about badges and points. That is too simplistic a way of thinking about it.

Job Titles Versus Badges?

Debow also pointed me to an interesting gamification-related related question on Quora:What if you earned badges at work instead of job titles?

The ensuing conversation includes these points:

• There is a place for titles within a company, particularly to delineate hierarchy for decision-making purposes. (as noted by Ben Horowitz)
• Badges are not meant to replace titles but can be used as a supplement to one’s profile or reputation (as noted by Daniel Debow, Ben Horowitz and others)

Ultimately, people seek meaningful work: work with a purpose. They want to master something, improve their skills, and get recognition for their efforts. They want to be a part of something— contribute to the greater whole. Wouldn’t you want a worker like that? Properly implemented gamification systems can enhance these positive aspects of human nature in the workplace.

Photocourtesystock.xchng user johnnyberg

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Contingent Workers: Creative Solution or Harmful Crutch? : Online Collaboration«

Business may seem like an objective arena where rationality rules, but the truth is, agreeing on facts doesn’t always lead to agreement on conclusions. Case in point: the rise of contingent workers.

No one is arguing with the reality thatpart-timers and contractors  are making up a larger slice of the total employment pie. There’s not even much disagreement that they save companies money in the short-term, but when it comes to the longer-term effects of greater numbers of contingent workers, consensus is harder to find.

Is the rise of the freelancer also a boon for workers who get flexibility and ownership of their careers? Or is the trend just a way for companies to wriggle out of obligations to their workforce and a practice that will erode morale over time?

The Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) recently stirred this debate with a“he-said, she-said” style newsletter, laying out both sides of the argument. Defending contingent workers as a vital and healthy part of the new economy was John Gibbons, i4cp’s VP of research and development:

If you think that high-performing companies use employees simply as disposable commodities, you’d be wrong. High-performing leaders actually keep contingent employees in their jobs longer than low performers. Why? It’s because they don’t use contingent workers as simply a short-term way of saving some cash. Smart managers know that building a workforce composed of a critical mass of contingent workers is not just a short-term fix to financial tight spots or budget cuts. Instead, contingent workers represent a way of building a smart, up-to-date, yet nimble base of vital talent.

And contingency is not just great for businesses— it’s terrific for employees too… Contingent work arrangements allow skilled employees to not only choose who they work for, but also give them the latitude to actually negotiate their specific work assignments, their work settings… and even their bosses.

Oh please, responded Lorrie Lykins, i4cp’s managing editor, who argues that many companies are using contingent workers as a crutch that allows their full-time employee base to atrophy:

You say that contingent workers are not viewed by companies as disposable commodities, but in using temporary workers or contractors to come in and perform certain functions aren’t we making some fulltime employees feel disposable? Some firms I interviewed… admitted that themorale of their employees has been affected by the presence of contractorswho are brought in to work on challenging or creative projects while the FTEs keep the engine of the organization chugging along. So while your super-creative contractors may come in and produce something really cool, does it balance the sometimes detrimental impact on your core workforce?

And it’s not just ic4p who is debating the issue. TheNew York Timesalso recently ran an article focusing onthe human reality behind the trend, concluding, ambivalently, that contractors must weigh uncertainty and lack of benefits against freedom andthe security of multiple income streams. Meanwhile, lawyers note the U.S. government’s crackdown on the misclassification of contractorsneeds to be factored into the equation when assessing the pros and cons of contingent workers as well.

Do you find the optimists’ or the pessimists’ take on contingency workers more convincing?

Image courtesy Flickr userLeonid Mamchenkov,CC 2.0

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Accellion Offers Secure File Sharing For the Enterprise: Online Collaboration«

DropboxandBox.nethave long been favorites of the team here at WebWorkerDaily, they make sharing large files with others a snap, and also work on a number of mobile devices. Thanks to their ease of use compared with clunky traditional file-sharing systems or FTP, these apps are also growing in popularity within the enterprise, too. But their use can give corporate IT departments headaches, particularly with regards to data security and regulatory compliance. Accellion, a provider of secure file transfer solutions, has announcedAccellion Secure Collaboration, a new product that aims to bring easy Dropbox-style file sharing and collaboration to the enterprise, while also providing IT with the tracking and control to ensure data security and demonstrate compliance withHIPAA,Sarbanes-Oxleyand FDA requirements.

The Accellion Secure Collaboration product should seem very familiar to anyone who has used Box.net or Dropbox. It provides secure workspaces where users can share files with both internal and external parties, complete with the ability to assign access privileges, share comments and track document versions. Files and folders of up to 100Gb can be transferred, and can also optionally be encrypted for added security. Mobile access is catered for, with an iPhone/iPad app (available late April), and BlackBerry and Android apps also in the works. Plug-ins are also available for SharePoint and Outlook.

A range of deployment options is offered, including virtual server, cloud (via EC2), hybrid cloud and on-premise appliance. Cost varies, but for smaller customers is likely to be in the region of $100 per user per year (dropping substantially for larger volumes). The Secure Collaboration product is available as an upgrade for existing Accellion customers. You canrequest a trial or run a demo here.

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How to Hack RSS to Reduce Information Overload: Online Collaboration«

Last week, I held a session atSXSW InteractivetitledHacking RSS: Filtering& Processing Obscene Amounts of Information, where I talked about creative ways to use RSS to manage information overload without using any programming skills.

There is more information available in the world than any one person could hope to consume (hundreds of exabytes of data), but most of that information is not interesting, out of date, inaccurate, or not relevant for you.  The key to reducing information overload is to more efficiently find the data that you want among the information that you don’t care about. The tools that I talked about in my SXSW session are focused on discarding or de-emphasizing the data you don’t need, while highlighting the data that is relevant for you. I wanted to share some of what I talked about during my presentation.

Individual RSS feeds from blogs, news and other sources are a great starting point for your information overload reduction efforts. Some individual RSS feeds from friend’s blogs or the top people in your field might almost always be relevant and won’t need any other work. But what about the blogs where one in five or one in ten posts are relevant for you? How do you narrow them down to a manageable flow of information that allows you to keep up with at least the most important content?

While there aresome simple ways to make better use of your RSS readerto manage information overload, the real magic is in filtering.My favorite filtering tool is Yahoo Pipes, which lets me filter an RSS feed using various criteria: URL, author, date, content and more. Some examples of filtered feeds in my reader right now include industry analyst blogs filtered to only find posts about online community; searches across social websites where my projects are mentioned; and my some blogs filtered for just the the best posts usingPostRank. The image on the right contains a simple Yahoo Pipes filtering example from my SXSW presentation.

PostRank is a great service that allows you to get the best posts from any feed based on an“engagement” ranking score that incorporates measures like comments, Diggs, sharing on social sites like Twitter, and more. The best thing about PostRank is that you can get an RSS feed of just the best posts from a particular publisher, and that feed then includes the PostRank score, which means that you can do even more hacking on the PostRank RSS feed using Yahoo Pipes. One useful way to use PostRank and Yahoo Pipesis to take several feeds containing only the best posts from a few of your favorite blogs, and filter those top posts to find only the articles mentioning a specific group of keywords using Yahoo Pipes. Because the PostRank feed includes the rank, you can even sort the results so that the highest ranked posts appear at the top of your feed. The image to the right shows an example of how you might do this.

Another technique that helps me to consume information more efficiently is to modify the format of many of my RSS feeds; I bring relevant information into the headlines of the feed to make it easier to quickly scan it to determine which posts are important enough for me to click on them for more details. By bringing more details into the title, I can avoid spending time clicking to get more information. There’s an example of reformatting a Twitter RSS feed in the image to the right.

The final trick is touse Web APIsto gather additional data that can’t be found in an RSS feed. I’ve written aboutusing APIsbefore, so I won’t go into much detail here, but you can see an example of how I’ve used several APIs together with Yahoo Pipes to build an RSS feed of people posting links from Twitter to my blog posts onslides 17– 23 of my presentation.

You canlisten to the audio from my sessionanddownload the slides here.

What are your favorite RSS hacking tools and techniques to manage information overload?

PhotocourtesyFlickr userSparkCBC.

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10 Tips for Learning How to Run a Virtual Team : Online Collaboration«

Working with virtual staff members can take some getting used to. Just like other management skills, it takes practice; working with virtual staff is not a skill set you pick up overnight. But there are some steps you can take to make the process a little easier to manage.

1. Run a test project.When you’re just starting out with a virtual team member, try running a test project. Pick something small that isn’t as potentially overwhelming as the big plans you have on the table. That will let you adjust to the situation on a low-risk project.
2. Be available. It may sound obvious, but if your only contact with a virtual staffer is the occasional email, it can be difficult for them to get a complete picture of what’s required.
3. Set up multiple methods of communications. Even if you plan to communicate exclusively through one channel, have other options available. After all, what happens if the internet goes down in your team member’s area and the only way you can get in touch with her is by email?
4. Add more time to your estimates. Lengthening your estimates is a good idea as you can expect to spend more time communicating back and forth if you aren’t sitting next to each other.
5. Record exactly how you do things. Instead of trying to explain what you do and how you do it, try recording yourself in action. With the wide variety of screencasting software available, you can have a video that shows your process in a matter of moments.
6. Provide instructions in multiple formats. The more methods you can employ in getting the message across, the better. If you’re working with multiple virtual team members, it’s likely that they’ll have different learning and communication styles, making it worthwhile to use different formats.
7. Set clear deadlines and expectations.Especially if most of your communication is through email or other written mediums, there are lots of opportunities for miscommunication, so you need to ensure your expactations are communicated clearly
8. Be flexible abouthowthings get done, notwhatgets done. You can’t afford to be flexible about what gets done: you need certain tasks accomplished. But if your virtual staff has a different process that results in the same end result, don’t let that stress you out.
9. Write an organizational manual.It’s likely that if you’re working with one virtual team member now, you’re going to be working with more in the future. Creating an organizational manual based on your experiences now will make it much easier to handle future projects.
10. Ask your virtual staff for suggestions.Don’t be afraid to give your virtual team members a voice; they may have some helpful hints, especially as if they’re used to working virtually, they may have more experience in the process than you do.

PhotocourtesyFlickr userSarahnaut

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Rypple Brings Out the Social in Teams: Online Collaboration«

When it comes to productivity, you can deploy all the software in the world you want, but it’s people, not tools, that foster productivity, says Daniel Debow, co-CEO ofRypple, a social software application that sets out to help teams work better.

Rypple is focused on four main areas:

1. Recognition
2. Feedback
3. Coaching
4. Setting goals.

According to Debow, these activities help workers to stay motivated, focused and on track. When you first log into Rypple, you immediately see a familiar feed of activity from your team to get a quick overview of who is doing what and how they’re doing within your team. The power of Rypple, however, is what is happening deeper than the feed itself.

Let’s break Rypple down into its four parts:

Recognition

Rypple sets out to make feedback both more real-time and more fun. Yes,fun. Through Rypple, team members and managers alike are encouraged to give people recognition and thanks in a“bottom up” approach. Receiving this thanks can enhance a worker’s reputation, and— in a similar fashion to online games— team members can receive badges for things they’ve done well; those badges then show up on their profile.

Teams using Rypple can make their own badges, either from pre-loaded images or any other images they want to use. The customization of the badges gives them more shared meaning; badges can also be limited in availability to create scarcity.” You can even give badges to people outside your company or team. I’ll explore this“gamification of work” idea more in an upcoming post.

Feedback

Why wait six months to a year to find out how you’re doing? Rypple lets workers and managers ask for private, anonymous feedback on their work, on themselves, on processes or on the team. Questions can include a rating system as well.

Coaching

Great managers provide actionable feedback as well as  coaching, and Rypple gives people the tools to do both, helping them create relationships with workers— even remote workers— for regular mentoring interactions. In Rypple, people can create a private shared space with the person they’d like to connect with, in which they can interact one-on-one. They can set goals, attach actions to goals and share notes.

Setting Goals

In a team, goals should be set together, and using Rypple, you can set up social goals, including metrics so that they are clearly measurable. There is also a“Goal Explorer” feature available to premium Rypple subscribers, which lets a manager peruse goals, see who is working on what, when things are due, and access further details about each goal. By reviewing the Goal Explorer, a manager can get insights as to what the team thinks is important. Goals show up in a worker’s profile once they are completed: yet another reputation enhancer.

Starting a Rypple

Rypple isn’t meant to replace the software teams are already using, such as Basecamp, Salesforce or Yammer, but instead, is meant to provide an additional layer to better understand the people working with those products. If a company wishes to continue with traditional annual performance reviews, the entire record of a person’s participation and accomplishments with a company are archived in their profile, making for a more accurate and less painful process. The strength of Rypple, however, is through helping people improve their performance with the“micro-feedback” they receive on an ongoing basis.

The free version of Rypple comes with the badge tool, unlimited coaching and connections, unlimited questions for feedback, and goals. Premium members get the Goal Explorer, additional setup and integration support, and live phone support.

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Website Note Sharing App Glass Now Open to All: Online Collaboration«

Glass, an app that allows users to share notes about any website, is now out of private beta. Since I wrote aboutinitial launch of the tool, there has been a major redesign and the invite wall has been dropped, making it possible to sign up immediately.

Simplified Sharing

Glass’ major benefit lies in how quickly and easily you can comment on a site and share it. There are plugins available for both Firefox and Chrome, letting you add your own thoughts to a website with a click of a button. Those thoughts can include links, images and video.

The messaging system built into Glass makes collaboration convenient. Not only can you send along your comments to other users, but Glass has built in messaging features. Users receive real-time notifications and can effectively chat about the sites they share.

There are a few pleasant surprises if you signed up for Glass early on in the private beta but haven’t spent a lot of time on it since. There is a mobile version, available for the iPhone, along with plenty of bells and whistles geared towards sharing information. You can create well-designed slides through Glass’ interface, making your comments something truly worth sharing. You can also organize the users you follow and your own information, through the use of interest groups and lists.

The Mechanics

There’s a layer of security built into Glass that can make it a more useful option for teams interested in sharing information that closely ties into what they’re working on. The use of SSL encryption creates a tool that organizations can feel confident in using. Glass also takes care to reassure users that the owners of those sites that you may comment on can’t actually see your comments— unless, of course, you share them.

Glass remains free and appears to have further developments in the pipeline; right after coming out of beta, the site has already announced a new slide theme as a“thank you” to the users who came through beta with the application. 

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11 Must-Have Add-Ons for Firefox 4: Online Collaboration«

One of the best things about Firefox is the huge number of useful add-ons that can be downloaded for it, enabling users to customize the browser to their needs. Some time ago, we put together anofficial WWD add-ons collection for Firefox, gathering together our favorite add-ons at the time. The speedy Firefox 4was released this weekand some of you may be giving it a try, so I thought I’d update the collection. I’ve removed those add-ons from the list that are now redundant or incompatible with Firefox 4, and added a couple of newer favorites:

1. Adblock Plus. Gets rid of annoying adverts and auto-playing videos. You can subscribe to filter subscriptions in dozens of languages which can  automatically configure it for purposes ranging from removing online advertising to blocking all known malware domains.
2. Better Gmail 2. Gina Trapani’s extension adds a bunch of useful extra features to Gmail, like hierarchical labels, an unread message icon on your browser tab, file attachment icons and more.
3. Download Statusbar. View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar, without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.
4. Gmail Manager. A Gmail notifier for multiple accounts; it allows you to receive new mail notifications, along with the ability to view account details.
5. LastPass Password Manager. A free online password manager and form filler that makes your web browsing more secure.
6. Greasemonkey. Allows you to customize the way a web page displays or behaves, by using small bits of JavaScript. You can write your own scripts, or download one from the hundreds available athttp://userscripts.org.
7. Read It Later. Save pages to read later with a click, then  when you have time, access your reading list from any computer or phone, even offline.
8. Shareaholic. This add-on provides an easy way to share interesting links using Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Bit.ly, StumbleUpon, and more.
9. After the Deadline. After the Deadline is an intelligent grammar, style and spell checker. It works with most web sites.
10. Web Developer. Even if you’re not a web developer, this extension offers a raft of useful features: manage cookies, change up styles with CSS, adjust form options and much more.
11. Awesome Screenshot. Diigo’s handy screenshot tool lets you capture the whole web page or any portion, annotate it with rectangles, circles, arrows, lines and text, blur sensitive info, and then share the output.

What are your favorite Firefox add-ons?

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How to Back Up Your Firefox 4 Profile Data: Online Collaboration«

If you’re busy playing with your fresh download of the newFirefox 4, you might not have put much thought into how you’ll back up your profile data, such as history, passwords and bookmarks. But you probably should— we’re all spending much more time working on our browsers and storing more useful data in our profiles. Fortunately, there are a couple of options that make backing up your Firefox 4 profile data really easy.

Firefox Sync

Firefox 4 includes a new, built-in tool calledSyncthat can save (most of) your profile data to a server. Just go to“Set Up Sync” and create an account. Firefox will automatically back up bookmarks, passwords, preferences, history and tabs to the Firefox Sync server. You’ll need to keep a note of the Sync Key, as that’s used to encrypt the data that’s sent to the server and you won’t be able to re-sync/restore the data without it.

MozBackup

MozBackupis a freeware Windows app (it’s unfortunately not available for the Mac) that can back up profile data from Firefox and Thunderbird. It can save and restore a more complete version of your profile than Firefox Sync, including your browser cache, cookies, certificates and extensions. The latest developer version of the app, MozBackup 1.5 beta, is compatible with Firefox 4 (although the developer promised that the final version would be released before Firefox 4, it’s not available yet). It’s very simple to use: close Firefox, start up MozBackup, select the details you’d like to back up from your profile and where you’d like to save it, and (optionally) provide a password to protect the file. Restoring the profile is just as straightforward.

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Going Virtual: Can It Work for Your Business?: Online Collaboration«

As someone who works exclusively via the web, it’s interesting to talk with brick-and-mortar business owners who haven’t yet considered the possibilities of working remotely. The conversation quickly moves to ways to streamline work, increase the talent pool available to the company, and— most fun of all— unique and exciting ways to promote the business online.

Going Virtual With Products

Especially if you’re dealing with a physical product, there will always be a need for manufacturing facilities, but unless you’re creating a custom- or hand-made product for each and every customer, it’s likely your company already outsources, or in some way remotely manages, production.

The key then becomescreating a virtual setupto replace the traditional brick-and-mortar model, such as needing a physical storefront for customer experience or to showcase products and allow browsing. There are many examples, however, that prove it’s perfectly possible to create an amazing customer experience that’s also completely virtual.

Heartbreaker Fashion

This is one site that demonstrates how the virtual experience may even trump the in-person one.Heartbreaker Fashionoffers vintage-inspired clothing, and as with many online clothing retailers, the way it beats the brick-and-mortar shopping experience is by displaying every single outfit on a live model so that customers know, at a glance, whether outfits will work for them or not.

What makes Heartbreaker Fashion stand out is in its branding. Their website provides a boutique experience that makes the customer feel special, beautiful and feminine, and like they are getting to treat themselves to something out of the ordinary— all with simple, unified website branding!

Amazon

Amazon is great example of a company that has been a purely virtual business right from the very start. As the website explains, Amazon“strives to {be} Earth’s most customer-centric company,” and in my experience, it’s achieving just that.

While Amazon’s headquarters are physically-based, their products have always been sold exclusively online, and in fact,Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, was named asTimemagazine’s person of the yearfor his“vision of the online retailing universe {that} was so complete, his Amazon.com site so elegant and appealing, that it became from Day One the point of reference for anyone who had anything to sell online.”

Going Virtual With Employees

As even Amazon has seen, setting up remote employees can be the most challenging part of creating a completely virtual business, but for many businesses, it’s highly possible toset up a distributed teamfor managing the work of the company. Here, it’s not so much a matter of examples as of logistics.

Collaboration

Although you may be able to forgo a physical location, it’s still important to have a centralized place (even if virtual) where employees can gather to communicate, collaborate and even socialize. Here are just a few of the options for onlinecommunication and collaborationfor your team:

• Basecamp
• OneHub
• Remindo
• Wiggio
• HyperOffice

Unified Communications

It’s important to maintain a unified front with communications (email addresses, phone numbers, etc.), especially when working with independent contractors and freelancers, who generally have separate business-branded emails and may be dispersed around the world.

Services likeGoogle Apps,Google Voice, andRingCentralcan easily and seamlessly tie communications together for all employees and remote workers, without costing a lot in money or setup time.

Going Virtual with Marketing

Marketing is perhaps the most interesting and fun part of taking a company virtual. The possibilities for creating unique and memorable promotional campaigns online are truly endless and can actually be a great way to interact with customers to strengthen brand loyalty and recognition.

Honda

According toDachis Group, Honda is one company successfully integrating online social media for business. Through their“Friending Honda” efforts, they reportedly “increased fans from 15k to 422k, generating over 3,500 dealer quote requests.”

Blendtec

Blendtecbecame a YouTube sensation with its“Will It Blend?” series, which generated millions of views of Blendtec“lab technicians” blending everything from iPods to glow sticks.

Smaller companies need not be afraid of big name power when it comes to online marketing, since it’s possible for almost any company to create successful strategies and campaigns around their products to help grow their customer base.

These days, with rapidly developing technology that’s available to businesses, as well as the Internet becoming the go-to method for staying connected as individuals, going virtual is not only possible, but in fact, quite necessary.

How much of your company operates virtually?

PhotocourtesyFlickr userMeanest Indian

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Xobni Comes to Gmail. What Took so Long?: Online Collaboration«

Xobni, the maker ofa popular add-on for Microsoft Outlookthat provides details about user contacts and faster search, is finally bringing its tool to Gmail and Google Apps.

Xobni for Gmail, which works via a browser plugin for Chrome and Firefox, adds a sidebar to Gmail to help you search and manage your contacts. Like the Outlook version, you can get at-a-glance information about individual contacts, including their name, picture, job title, company and full social network details.

Xobni for Gmail, however, isn’t merely a clone of its Outlook version. For example, it includes unique relationship history tools, suggestions for related contacts whenever you email an existing contact, and a multimedia module to view social updates from people in your network. What’s more, subscribers to the premium Xobni Pro subscribers, which provides access to additional features in the product,will be able to use the Xobni cloud service to sync contacts across Xobni for Outlook, BlackBerry and Gmail, and also across the upcomingXobni for iPhoneandAndroid(private betas of which will be available shortly).

This all sounds great, but it’s a bit late— to say the least. When Xobnilaunched its sidebar for Outlook back in 2008, it was a novel idea that attracted a significant number of users. Since then, many useful Xobni-like products, such asRapportiveandMailBrowser, have been released for Gmail. We’ll have to see whether Xobni can tempt Gmail users away from the social CRM tools they currently use. My take? Xobni for Gmail looks polished and offers good features, and I really like the ability to sync contacts across multiple email clients on the desktop and mobile devices using Xobni Pro.

Xobni for Gmail isn’t yet broadly available,but you can request access to the private beta atthe Xobni website. We have an invite code for 100 readers to get priority access: Use XOBNI-GO when signing up. The basic Xobni service is free, while Xobni Pro (which provides access to the Xobni cloud service and some additional functionality, such as advanced search and“Spam rescue”) costs $7.99 per month.

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BoxCryptor Gets On-the-Fly AES Encryption: Online Collaboration«

BoxCryptor, an easy on-the-fly encryption tool for Windows thatworks well with cloud sync services like Dropboxhas moved out of alpha into a beta release and received a few updates in the process. The big news is that the product now uses 256-bitAESfor encryption, rather than the weakerRC4. The encryption of BoxCryptor is now compatible withEncFS, a cryptographic filesystem available for Linux and Mac OS X. While BoxCryptor itself is still only available for Windows, directories encrypted with BoxCryptor can now also be mounted with EncFS on Linux and Mac OS X computers.

As well as the new encryption, the product’s also received some bug fixes and other small tweaks.According to the developer’s blog, the product will be moving to a freemium model, with three proposed products:

• BoxCryptor Free supports encrypted directories up to 2 GB in size and may only be used for personal use.
• BoxCryptor Unlimited Personal does not limit the size of encrypted directories but may only be used for personal use.
• BoxCryptor Unlimited Business does not limit the size of encrypted directories and may also be used for commercial use

Only BoxCryptor Free is currently available, and pricing for the other products has not been set.

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Are You Embracing the“New Workstyle?”: Online Collaboration«

I had the opportunity to speak withGistfounder T.A. McCann atSouth by Southwestin Austin, Tx. this past week. Gist was recently acquired byRIM, and McCann is keenly aware of the potential effects the acquisition may have on both companies. However, with a positive outlook, he referenced what he calls the“New Workstyle.” It reflects the culture he has tried to create at Gist; a culture that encourages an entrepreneurial spirit in the individuals who work there, and one that recognizes the need“not to do things as they’ve been done before.”

On his blog, McCanndefines the New Workstylein this way:

The New Workstyle blends the latest technologies and tools with our daily activities allowing us to accomplish more in both personal and professional endeavors, accelerate ideas of our own, and lead more productive lives.

The New Workstyle is as much about theprocessof building what you build, as much as it is about the stuff you actually build. As McCann explains it,“Howwe do is important as much aswhatwe do.”

Some of the things that McCann lists as inherent to the New Workstyle include: mobile connectivity; virtual presence; online social circles that blur the lines between personal and professional; and even off-line connections with others that are facilitated by online tools.

McCann says the value of“social” in the workplace includes the contextualizing of information and the building of relationships in a scalable manner. We are now managing thousands of relationships, and we’re always moving amongst many different circles. A company’s work culture must acknowledge this new way of communicating, networking, and exchanging information between and amongst employees, clients, vendors and the public at large. The interconnections of relationships a can bring about new efficiencies with a positive impact on productivity, but perhaps even more importantly, can bring about a positive impact on people.

Are you fostering the New Workstyle at your company?

Photocourtesystick.xchng user alicja_sto

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Noteleaf: Quick Info on Meeting Participants, Delivered by SMS: Online Collaboration«

Envision this: You’re running late for a meeting, so you haven’t had time to look into the people you’ll be talking with. But a few minutes before the scheduled meeting time, you get an SMS on your phone containing a link to a mobile-optimized web page with photos of the participants, together with data from their LinkedIn profiles, their last few tweets, and links to your most recent emails with them.

That’s theideabehindNoteleaf. The service has just been in operation for a couple of months, having received funding fromY Combinator, but Noteleaf is already adding features. As of today, its SMS notifications will include some new data:

• Participants’ last three tweets, plus links to their Twitter feeds. Twitter handles are retrieved from LinkedIn profiles, but the actual tweets are pulled directly from Twitter.
• A list of connections you share with each participant.

Some of Noteleaf’s features will sound familiar to Gist users, whichwe’ve written aboutseveral times. But Noteleaf’s co-founder Jake Klamka assures me that the company isn’t interested in competing with Gist orPlaxo; rather, he and his colleagues want to maintain a service that’s extremely simple to use, and requires no special apps or changes of behavior. Indeed, it’s likely that once users sign up for the service, they’ll hardly ever need to visit Noteleaf’s website again.

The signup process is very simple indeed. Authenticate your Gmail or Google Apps account through OAuth, do the same with your LinkedIn account, and (optionally) provide your cellphone number for delivery of text messages, and that’s it. If you don’t have a U.S. or Canadian cellphone, Noteleaf will insert the information about meeting participants into your calendar’s notes.

At the moment, Noteleaf’s notifications only work for meetings scheduled through the web interface of Google Calendar or Google Apps Calendar (only the primary calendars are recognized). And it helps if you’ve had Gmail or Google Apps email exchanges with the participants before the meeting. But Noteleaf plans to expand the services with which it’s compatible.

Meanwhile, though, Noteleaf’s extreme simplicity should appeal to teams that coordinate meetings using Google Calendar. The service is currently free while it’s in beta; the developers are considering a freemium model in the future.

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Plaxo’s Personal Assistant Keeps Your Address Book Up-to-Date: Online Collaboration«

Plaxowas one of the first companies to offer a unified online address book that connected to and synchronized with all the different address books people use to store contact info: email clients, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. More recently, however, many innovative“social CRM” competitors have moved into the address book space, likeGist,ConnectedandSoocial, while Plaxotinkered with a social networking product called Pulse. The company has announced that it’s refocusing on its address book product, and has released thePlaxo Personal Assistant, a new service that intelligently makes automatic updates to the Plaxo address book to keep contact information relevant and current.

The Personal Assistant is an add-on service that can:

• Intelligently update inaccurate info.It recognizes outdated contact info, intelligently sources updates, and recommends changes.
• Complete missing details.It can assist in identifying partial entries and proactively locating current information to fill any gaps.
• Cleans duplicate entries.It merges contact info between corresponding entries and removes duplicates to help organize your address book.

The product also includes access to change tracking and 24/7 support.

That all sounds pretty useful, but the new service is not particularly cheap: it costs an additional $79.95 per year (the basic Plaxo service itself is free). You should also note that in order for the Personal Assistant to work its magic, it will need process your contact data, which may make some folks uncomfortable; you can view Plaxo’sdata usage policyhere.

PhotocourtesyFlickr userHeyRocker

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Google Apps Gets Scheduled Rollout of New Features: Online Collaboration«

To make its products more appealing to larger enterprise customers, Google is introducing a Scheduled Release option to Google Apps, which will add a delay to new feature releases that allows time for administrators to use a test domain to explore changes, educate support staff and communicate new info to their users.

One of the great things about web apps is that developers can deliver the latest updates to a product as soon as they are ready; unlike with traditional desktop software, users don’t have to wait for the next version of an app to get their hands on new features. However, these rapid release cycles can mean the product can change with little or no warning, which can be hard to manage in larger organizations, where complex systems or processes may be significantly affected by small, individual changes. Scheduled releases in Google Apps should allow organizations to plan for feature rollouts with more certainty.

Scheduled release will be used for all new features for Gmail, Contacts, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites in the future. With the new system, admins can choose between two options in the Google Apps control panel:

• Rapid Release: Customers on the Rapid Release track have access to new features as soon as the features have completed testing and quality assurance,
• Scheduled Release: Customers on the Scheduled Release track gain access to new features on a regular, weekly release schedule following the initial release of those features. New features will be released on the Scheduled Release track each Tuesday, with at least one week’s notice following the initial feature launch.

Customers who previously had“pre-release features” enabled in the Google Apps control panel will be placed on the Rapid Release track, and all others will be placed on the Scheduled Release track. Google expects many SMBs to choose the Rapid Release track, while the Scheduled Release option will appeal to its larger customers with more complex IT environments.

To support the new scheduled release process, Google has also launched a“What’s New?” portal, which will contain information about recent and upcoming releases, as well as training information.

PhotocourtesyFlickr userJoe Shlabotnik

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11 Ergonomic Tips for Avoiding RSI: Online Collaboration«

We’ve previously covered ways to improve productivity and comfort while working, including Thursday’s recent post onhow to keep your wrists healthy, and Georgina’sDIY suggestions for improving ergonomics. But for those of us who work remotely, at home or on the road, creating a healthy, ergonomic environment can be a challenge.

Remote workers need to be especially vigilant about avoidingRepetitive Stain Injury(RSI). We may be more susceptible to it because coffee shops, airline tray tables, andkitchen tablesaren’t designed as computer workstations. I asked licensed massage therapistWimsey Cherrington, who specializes in treating patients with repetitive strain injuries, to share some low-cost techniques:

1. Take frequent breaks.Don’t work at your computer for long stretches at a time. Take breaks frequently, preferably every 45 minutes. Wewrote aboutsome of the apps that encourage taking breaks a few years ago; there are now more options for desktops, laptops, tablets and phones.
2. Relax.Cherrington reminded me that“the shoulders should hang effortlessly from the body,” but workers tend to hunch up, leading to shoulder and neck stress. She says that when not actually typing, such as when we’re reading or talking on the phone, we should try to relax our shoulders. And of course, everyone should use a headset when talking on the phone.
3. Exercise.During breaks, do arm and shoulder exercises. Cherrington recommendedexercises similar to these, as they will help reduce stress on the upper body. I find number 7,“releasing the neck,” and number 14,“shaking out tension,” to be particularly useful.
4. Keep your feet comfortable.Many of us spend most of our day sitting down, but we shouldn’t forget our lower extremities. If you’re in a corporate environment and must wear dress shoes, put them on when you get to work, but wear something comfortable for the commute. And always wear shoes with back straps— no flip-flops! And if you have the freedom to not wear shoes at your workstation, there are a number ofsimple exercises you can do, like“ankle circles.” Some exercises use a foot roller, which is sort of like a miniature rolling-pin that you can use to reduce stress.
5. Position yourself for comfort.Set your keyboard low and your chair high. Your elbow should be at a 90 degree angle, and your forearm asclose to horizontal as possible.
6. Lose the back pocket.Don’t keep wallets and other thick items in back pockets to prevent sciatica and related conditions.
7. Find the right keyboard and mouse.Get akeyboardand mouse that are comfortable for you. Even on the road, if you’re planning to do a lot of work, consider taking an external keyboard and mouse, since laptops’ ergonomics are limited. But no matter what hardware you use, Cherrington agrees with many of those who commented on Thursday’s recent post that it is important to change positions frequently. There are alsospecialty ergonomic mice like theVerticalMouseand theSmartfish Whirl Laser Mouse, which can tilt forward, back and from to side to side while you move it. Smartfish sent me one to try, and while it took some getting used to, I’ve become a regular user. The Whirl Laser Mouse retails for $49.95 from theSmartfish website.
8. Use a stand for your laptop or tablet.If you’re using a laptop, an iPad or other tablet, get a case that can be set up as a stand using different angles. I like theZooGue Case Geniusfor my original iPad; a version for the iPad 2 will be available soon.
9. Check your eyeglass prescription.Cherrington says that a surprising number of cases of neck strain can be traced to people who are leaning forward because their eyeglass prescriptions are out-of-date. If you need to lean forward to see your screen, it might be time to get your eyes checked.
10. Look for ergonomic hotel space.Itcan be difficultto find ergonomic places to work while on the road, although some business hotels are now offering better desks and chairs. But Cherrington suggests to look for hotels with exercise opportunities. Even if a hotel doesn’t have a gym or exercise room, they may be able to provide yoga mats and small exercise equipment in your room.
11. Get regular tune-ups.We’re used to getting the oil changed in our cars regularly, but we’re sometimes not as good at maintaining ourselves. Cherringtom suggests you should consult a health professional once a quarter, and don’t wait until you experience pain, tightness or discomfort. But if you get a flare-up, don’t try to“work through” pain— stop what you’re doing and get help.

What do you do to improve ergonomics and avoid RSI?

Photo courtesy sxc.hu userljleavell

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Establishing Remote Working Guidelines: Online Collaboration«

If you’re just starting to consider the option ofworking remotely, whether through flexible work arrangements with your current employees or by hiring new team members who will work remotely from the start, you’ll want to establish some guidelines to keep your team productive and happy. Here are a few to consider. 

Viability

Before beginning any remote-work arrangement, you’ll need to ensure that it’s a feasible option for your situation and company. Although there are many cases where employees can get just as much work done (if not more) working virtually as they can in-house, there are certain situations where it might not be a realistic option, such as if yourcompany requires a large amount of direct, in-person contact with customers and colleagues.

Viability of remote working not only applies to the circumstances surrounding the company, but also to the individual employees considering the possibility. You must determine on a case-by-case basis if a person has the discipline and motivation to maintain his or her responsibilities without direct supervision.

Finally, is it viable from a logistical standpoint? Are the resources, tools, and technology available to support this kind of work arrangement? Establish a checklist of all required items for creating a successful remote work situation, such as:

• Computer and equipment needs,
• Internet connectivity needs,
• Software needs,
• Security needs, and
• Communication needs (phone, voice mail, email, fax, IM, etc.).

Performance Expectations

How will a remote working arrangement affect performance expectations? Will it impact how performance is measured, how assignments are distributed, or how deadlines are established and monitored?

Scheduling and Availability

Especially in the early stages of remote working, getting used to new norms of availability and scheduling can be a challenge. Business owners and managers might expect employees to be available during set times, while employees would rather work during times when they’re most productive, which is why it’s important to communicate these expectations clearly from the beginning. Questions to consider include:

• Will employees be expected to come to the office a certain amount of time each week?
• What will be the terms regarding overtime?
• Will the employee be required to track hours worked each day or week?
• Will the employee have vacation and sick time?
• Will employees be required to maintain set“office hours,” where they are available by phone, IM, or email?
• Will employees have a standard response time for communications?
• Will employees be required to attend certain company functions, meetings, or events?

One important consideration is that it’s not always in the best interest of productivity to increase the number of meetings between employees and management staff simply because of a remote working arrangement. Having meetings for the sake of it wastes time that could be spent more productively.

Designated Work Space and Time

Another big consideration with remote working is that the lines between personal time and space and company time and space can quickly blur, so it’s important to establish guidelines before beginning the arrangement:

• Will the employee be permitted to work whenever he or she chooses? For example, is it acceptable for an employee to break work into blocks of time over the course of a week that may not be in line with more traditional work schedules?
• Will the person be expected to have a designated workspace that is separate from the rest of his/her home?
• Will the person be required to have child/dependent care during certain hours?

Expenses

In addition to personal versus company space and time, you also must establish clear lines between personal and company expenses:.

• Who will be responsible for purchasing and maintaining equipment, software and supplies?
• Will the company reimburse the employee for utilities or other expenses associated with conducting business activity at home?

Also, don’t forget to consider taxes and insurance. Both the employer and employee should meet with qualified professionals to understand the implications of a remote working arrangement.

Evaluation and Review

With any remote working situation, it’s a good idea to start with a trial period to see how well the arrangement works for both parties. Also, be sure to set regular performance review to be sure that work continues to be performed at or above expectation.

In the end, a good majority of businesses can support the option of working remotely, but whatever your business, the first step is setting up solid guidelines that keep you and your team on the same page so that you’re productive and profitable.

What guidelines does your company have in place for remote working?

PhotocourtesyFlickr userDominic

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Solvate CEO: Universal Healthcare is Good for Web Workers& the Economy: Online Collaboration«

In the world of U.S. web workers,health insurance is an often covered topic, with plenty of media outlets and government figures piping in to discussthe difficulty of getting coverageand the possible benefits of a universal care from the perspective of the individual mobile worker. When it comes to employers, however, the most often heard opinions are those of organizations like theU.S. Chamber of Commerce, which fought hard against healthcare reformlast year.

The public at large could be forgiven for assuming that most CEOs are against greater government involvement in healthcare, but at least one chief executive is speaking up for web workers and addressing the problem of obtaining health coverage. Mike Paolucci, CEO and founder ofSolvate, a platform to connect freelance talent and employers that has been covered in the past on WebWorkerDaily, boldly predicted that universal healthcare is“coming down the pike for sure.”

Noting that“health care leads to a more mobile society,” Paolucci said the issue was “one of the things that hasn’t been talked about” and went on to outline the benefits of being an independent worker and the role universal health care could play in promoting a more flexible workforce:

It will let people go forward and choose what they want to do and I think that’s a tremendous advantage. When you have a full-time job, you’re not entirely free. You have to go into work. You have to play within that political structure and sometimes you have to do things that might compromise your values, but you do it because you’re forced to play the political game. When people have 10 or 20 clients, it’s very empowering. It’s basically saying, I am in control of my own destiny. I’m no longer at risk to the same degree from things like an economic downturn where I could all of a sudden lose all of my work.

Perhaps more importantly, Paolucci goes on to argue that a more flexible workforce, promoted by universal health care, is good for both individual companies and the economy in general as well:

I feel like it would lead to a richer, more flexible economy because instead of a one-to-one employment relationship, the economy would have a many-to-many relationship for both companies and freelancers. If you look at the economic impact of a layoff, not only does it take all of that productivity and it goes to zero, but in a lot of cases that employee is going on unemployment, so they actually become a drag on the economy. In a situation where instead of cutting back from all to nothing, you cut back a lot of freelancers, you’re effectively reining in your costs to meet flexibly whatever demand you have. At the same time, you’re not losing all of that training and knowledge, so there’s not that waste of saying,“I’ve had this guy involved in my business for a year and now I have to let him go,” and then when the economy comes back he’s probably moved on to something else. There’s waste involved in that.

Of course, the idea that a system of universal health care would be a boon for the economy is more than a little controversial.

Do you agree with Paolucci that universal healthcare would be good not just for individual workers but for the economy in general as well?

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Eureka Streams: Open-Source Enterprise Social Networking: Online Collaboration«

One of the issues with many of the popular enterprise social networking apps we’ve written about previously is the loss of control. Commercially-sensitive or valuable company information being stored on someone else’s servers tends to make corporate IT nervous. The apps aren’t behind the company firewall, so you’re relying on someone else to keep that data secure. Additionally, the provider of the tool could potentially decide to change it or withdraw service with little or no warning.

How about a self-hosted, open-source solution instead? Lockheed Martin’s Eureka Streamsmay be worth a look.

If you’d like to give it a try, there’s anonline demo available here; you can sign in as a few different users. It’s a polished product, with a fairly intuitive interface. Similar to other enterprise social networking tools (which all borrow heavily from consumer apps like Facebook and Twitter), most of the action centers around the familiar concept of activity streams. Users post updates and share links on their streams, and you can“follow” the streams of users you’re interested in and comment on their updates. (You can find those users by searching their profiles for relevant interests or job responsibilities.) Following updates from everyone in a large company would be bewildering, so Eureka Streams also enables users to create and join groups.

In addition to the activity streams and profiles, Eureka Streams can also act as somewhat of an intranet dashboard. The home page can be configured to show a variety of different information via apps, and widgets that can be added and repositioned on the page as required. Apps can include activity streams of individuals and groups, bookmarks and RSS feeds, and you can set up multiple“Start Pages” on different tabs.

Eureka Streams is missing one major piece of functionality: You can’t share files, which means it’s much more limited as a collaboration tool than many of its commercial competitors. It’s a surprising omission, as many work-based discussions are based on documents, although I suppose you could just post links to documents hosted elsewhere.

While it doesn’t have all the polish and features of a tool likeYammerorSocialtext, the additional control and security may prove attractive to some organizations. And an open-source tool like this has other advantages, too. If you need to tweak some of the functionality or customize the tool — integrating that missing file sharing functionality, possibly via a third-party app, for example— it can be done. And having full access to the data produced by the use of the app could be useful for organizational analysis.

Eureka Streams can be downloaded fromGithub. There are instructions onbuilding and running the app here, and there’s aGoogle Group for discussing the product and getting support.

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Zcope: Collaboration and Project Management Combined: Online Collaboration«

Zcope may have a slightly silly name (apparently it’s pronounced“Scope”), but it’s a collaboration and project management tool with plenty of potential and some useful features.

Like competing project management web apps in this space, such asBasecampandproducteev, Zcope provides the ability to manage tasks and offers an online space to share documents with your team. It’s nicely designed, but what makes Zcope stand out is that it has more complex and useful project management features than is found in many competing apps. Rather than just being able to assign tasks and due dates, for example, you can assign costs to users and track time using the app, so you can see whether your projects are proceeding to budget.

You set up Zcope so that it’s accessed via a specific subdomain, so you can set up yourcompany.zcope-engine.com to share with anyone you need to access your project management platform. Adding other users to the app is straightforward so you can share project data with all the stakeholders who might be interested. Usefully, it has privacy controls: confidential tasks and milestones can be set as“for internal use only,” which means they won’t be seen by customers or others.

One interesting feature is the ability to create project blog posts. It’s not a particularly fancy CMS, but blog posts can be linked to tasks and/or milestones, which could make for a useful collaboration tool to help keep everyone informed of progress on specific tasks and issues.

Zcope does have a few quirks. It’s a German app that’s been translated into English; some of the copy on the site reads a little strangely, and it uses commas instead of periods for the decimal mark. That quirkiness, coupled with the fact it has some  more complex project management features, could be somewhat off-putting and make the app a little tricky to figure out. However, despite this, I found it pretty easy to use (it also has a useful FAQ and documentation page). If you’re looking for a solid collaboration tool with features like costs and budget management, it’s worth checking out.Various plansare available depending on the number of users and amount of storage space required; a 30-day free trial is available.

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Don’t Forget to Thank Remote Team Members: Online Collaboration«

Too often, out of sight can mean out of mind when you have team members spread out in various offices around the world. Even those of us with the best intentions sometimes forget to thank people or recognize them for doing great work. It’s easy to forget when we get busy, but it’s too important to neglect, especially when you’re talking about your remote employees.  It only takes a minute to say“thank you” or“well done,” and here are some ideas for how you can fit recognition into your regular work routines.

• Immediate recognition.Try to get in the habit of immediately recognizing people when they do good work or provide you with some extra help (Georgina suggested someways to show recognition and praise here). A quick reply with genuine appreciation for doing a great job is a good place to start, and you can do this over email, instant messaging, phone or with a handwritten note. Be as specific as possible when you thank someone, and include something about why you appreciated their work. Just replying with“Thank you” is nice, but it isn’t very personal and can sometimes seem insincere.
• Set reminders.I know this sounds over the top, but it can help to set a reminder on your calendar every day or once a week to spend just five minutes thinking about your team and their work. This gives you time to reflect on how people are doing and remind you to recognize good work. On the flip side, it also gives you time to think about how you can provide helpful feedback for employees who might not quite be on the right track with a project.
• Staff meetings.I once had a manager who built time into her staff meetings where team members were encouraged to thank other members who had done something particularly awesome that week. This is a good way to make sure recognition isn’t just coming from the manager. Staff meetings are also a great place to provide public recognition or awards for employees, so don’t forget to think about recognition when putting together staff agendas.
• Rewards.Don’t forget to go beyond a simple verbal“thank you” when someone does something truly outstanding. A gift certificate or small bonus in addition to some public recognition are great ways to reward a team or individual for a job well done. For remote employees, make sure that you think carefully about rewards, since even gift certificates for major online retailers, likeAmazon.com, can’t always be used in every country. This is where getting to know your team members’ preferences can really help, and giving a gift certificate to a favorite restaurant can be a really personal way to recognize someone.
• Celebrations.Most teams try to get everyone together in person at least occasionally. If you can time those meetings to occur shortly after some big milestone for the team (a big release or deliverable), you can use this valuable in person time to celebrate both team accomplishments and provide individual recognition in person. However, recognition is best when made as close as possible to the work being completed, so don’t withhold recognition until you meet in person.

What are your tips for recognizing remote employees?

Photo by Steven Depoloused under the Creative CommonsAttribution 2.0 Genericlicense.

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What Do Telecommuters Look for in Employers?: Online Collaboration«

There are plenty of workers these days who only look for telecommuting positions, and those who’ve worked on a virtual basis before often have some very specific ideas about what they want to see in an employer.

Knowing what those expectations are and how to manage them can be very useful for an organization interested in working with a distributed staff.

An Employee, Like Any Other

Most telecommuters have an expectation that you’ll treat them like other employees in your business. They want to have access to the same benefits you offer to people working in the office, such as health insurance. There may be benefits that simply aren’t applicable (such as reimbursement for any public transportation used to get to work) that you may not need to find an equivalent for your telecommuters. It’s arguable, after all, that telecommuting itself may be a benefit.

Additionally, many telecommuters want to be considered employees, rather than contractors. That means you remain responsible for payroll taxes, insurance and the other bits and pieces of a compensation package.

Managing Unusual Technical Requirements

While the average telecommuting employee probably has a computer and an Internet connection already set up at home, their equipment simply may not be up to the requirements of your organization. It’s not unusual for such employees to expect employers to pay for any technology above and beyond what they would normally provide for themselves. If, for instance, there’s a specific piece of software that your employees absolutely have to have, you’ll be expected to pay for the license for your telecommuters’ computers. Similarly, the cost of a high-speed Internet connection may come out of your pocket, rather than your employees’.

There are some organizations that expect their telecommuting employees to work on their own hardware, but it can actually be a better choice for the employer to provide computers and other equipment for all telecommuting employees. It’s not an unexpected expense— after all, you would be paying for computers for your employees if they were based in the office — and it’s easier to retain control and ensure that key software packages will run smoothly if you know what everyone is working on. Furthermore, a telecommuter may consider haggling over relatively small expenses like a new computer with an employer to be a bad sign.

Extremely Clear Communication

Throughout the application and hiring process, a good telecommuter will be paying attention to how you and your organization communicate. If there’s information that doesn’t get passed along or miscommunications because people aren’t talking face-to-face, it’s not out of the question for a telecommuter to go back to job hunting. Since such employees aren’t in your office, it’s especially important for communications to be clear. Evidence that isn’t the case can make a telecommuting employee think twice about just how easy it will be to work with your company.

PhotocourtesyFlickr userJessamyn West

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ClipUpload: Easily Share Your Clipboard: Online Collaboration«

Ever thought how neat it would be if you could quickly upload whatever was on your clipboard to a server somewhere, either to share with your team or to save for later use? That’s exactly whatClipUploaddoes. It’s an open-source Windows utility that makes sharing the contents of your clipboard a snap. It’s designed to upload your clippings to an FTP server, but if you don’t have easy access to one, or you don’t want to use FTP, it can also upload toImgur(for images) andPastebin(for text and code snippets).

ClipUpload sits in your system tray. You  configure it by clicking on the icon, which brings up a window that enables you enter your FTP settings (if you wish to use FTP); you can also set Pastebin and Imgur upload options here and see a log of uploaded files. To upload the contents of your clipboard, just right-click on the icon, whichpresents you with a context menu giving you upload options: FTP and either Imgur or Pastebin, as appropriate. Once uploaded, ClipUpload places a link to the uploaded file in your clipboard, which then makes it easy to share the file with your colleagues.

I can imagine ClipUpload being very useful for members of distributed teams, particularly for research tasks. By uploading clippings to a shared FTP directory or to a specific Pastebin subdomain (which can be specified in ClipUpload’s settings), team members can quickly and easily share snippets of text, URLs and images from a central repository. Additionally, you could combine ClipUpload with a clipboard management app likeDitto(see my review here) to have a clipboard that can store multiple items and then upload any of them to a sever in just a couple of clicks.

ClipUpload can bedownloaded from Sourceforge. It’s a portable app, so it doesn’t need to be installed.

Disclosure: True Ventures is an investor in Ditto, as well as in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.

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How I Back Up My Gmail Account: Online Collaboration«

In the wake of Googleaccidentally deleting some people’s Gmail accounts over the weekend, I thought I’d share my Gmail backup method. While Google hasapparently nearly restored all of those missing accounts, now’s a good time to review your own backup plans— how would you feel if you suddenly lost access to your email?

I mentioned inmy post earlier this weekthat its a good idea to have a local backup of any critical data that resides on cloud services. The app I use for Gmail backup is calledMailStore Home, a free Windows email archiving tool thatKevin wrote about a few years ago. It makes storing a local copy of Gmail emails a snap, and it doesn’t just work with Gmail, either. Out of the box, MailStore can archive email from a range of desktop and web-based email applications, including Windows Mail, Exchange, Thunderbird, Gmail and Hotmail. It also supports POP and IMAP, so should be able to store email from accounts you have pretty much anywhere.

Setting it up to work with Gmail is just a matter of giving it your email address and password. By default, it will archive all of your mail, except for spam and trash, but you can also decide to include or exclude email with particular labels or emails from certain a date range.

Once MailStore has archived all the email from the account (a process that will likely take quite a while the first time it runs, depending on the volume of mail there is to archive), you can use the MailStore app to browse the archive and search for email. If your Gmail account disappears, you can then use the archive to restore your email.

The email is actually stored in local database, which could easily be wiped out by a hard drive failure, so to make doubly sure my emails are safe, I also occasionally make a backup of the archive. MailStore makes this pretty easy: there are home page options to back up to an external hard drive or DVD.

Fortunately, I’ve never had to restore my emails from my archive. But I feel much more comfortable knowing I have a local copy.

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