Get Reminders to Return to Important Email With Snooze Your Email: Online Collaboration«

We’ve probably all had times when we’ve been so busy we didn’t have time to deal with an important email when we first read it. The danger is that the email ends up being forgotten.Snooze Your Email for Gmailmay be able to help. It’s an extension for Chrome that enables you to hit a“snooze” button on an email to quickly set a reminder about it for a preset time in the future.

Once installed, the extension adds a new“Snooze” button to the Gmail interface, as shown above. Hit the button, and a drop-down menu appears, enabling you to choose a snooze period from five minutes to four hours, or to be reminded about the email on a specific day or at a specific time:

When the snooze period is up, the extension will then play an alert sound and pop up a desktop notification, reminding you about the email and (optionally) marking the email as unread. In the notification, there are handy links to open the email or to snooze it again:

It’s a simple idea and it’s implemented well. However, it only works on Chrome, so if, like me, you also tend to read your emails on mobile devices it may prove less useful. I’d love to see this as a Labs feature in Gmail itself and have it available on multiple platforms. Note that despite its name, Snooze Your Email for Gmail also apparently works for Yahoo Mail, although I haven’t tried it.

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FileShuttle: Simple Drag-and-Drop FTP File Sharing for the Mac: Online Collaboration«

If you have access to a server,FileShuttleis a free app for the Mac that makes sharing files, images and text a snap. Add your server’s FTP details, and uploading files is simply a matter of dragging them onto the FileShuttle icon in the dock. The file is uploaded and a shortened URL is automatically copied to your clipboard, ready to paste into a tweet, IM or email. Drag multiple files to the icon, and FileShuttle will package them up all up into a handy ZIP archive before uploading. You’re kept informed of the progress of any uploads via a progress bar indicator under the app’s icon and Growl notifications.

As well as uploading files, it can also automatically upload screenshots (in a similar manner to theGrabBoxapplication Iwrote about previously) and save snippets of text as text files, making it possible to turn a directory on your server into an easily sharable pasteboard.

A screenshot can’t really show how simple it is to use, so I made a short screencast:

While there are many cloud-based Mac file sharing apps likeCloudAppandDroplr, FileShuttle is incredibly easy to set up and use and allows you to make use of your own server space in order to retain control over the files you share. Highly recommended.

(Via One Thing Well)

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How Much Are Cultural Miscues Costing Your International Team?: Online Collaboration«

Good managers foresee costs and budget for them, but according to one researcher out of George Mason University, there’s a whole class of costs managers of internationally distributed teams may be ignoring: the price of cultural miscues and miscommunication.

Certainly, you’re not going to hire someone who doesn’t speak the language in which your team does business. But management professorCatherine Cramtonsays that simply being satisfied that your man or woman on another continent can speak English may lead you to misssubtle but costly communication problems.

Competence in the lingua franca of a team is not the same thing as total comfort, Cramton explained in an interview.“Speaking comfortably in the workplace is a signal of competence, and when you take that away from someone, it’s very emotional.” People react to this discomfort by making small changes that can have a big impact on your team. In her research, Cramton observed this dynamic in action, splintering teams:

When people feel uncomfortable they will try to find a way to get around that. We saw people rather than going to the person who had the best information to solve their problem, going to someone who spoke the language they wanted to speak. We saw employees avoiding meetings or falling silent at meetings, or trying to set up meetings that only included people who spoke the language they were comfortable with. There were a lot of strategies. Once that gets going it really erodes the commitment to bringing people in alignment around a language.

And cultural miscues can cause just as much trouble as linguistic ones, according to Cramton. These misunderstandings are hard to prevent, because“contextual differences are pretty invisible. It’s hard to know what you need to explain about your local constraints that your remote colleagues would not imagine.” Your Greek colleague may think it goes without saying, for example, that the week of Easter is a holiday where everyone is home with their families.

So what can you do to prevent these sorts of problems from undermining your international team? Cramton has four suggestions:

• Site visits or designated experts.The most expensive but most effective solution is to send team members overseas so they can see for themselves how long commutes are, how unreliable the communication equipment is or how abrupt the national style of conversation. Failing having the budget for that, Cramton recommends ensuring at least a few members of the team are experts in their colleagues’ cultural context, so they can act as a“bridge” and explain challenges to those less well-versed in these issues.
• Explicit explanations of context.Cramton uses this strategy herself.“I work with people all over the world and I try to explain my important constraints so that they can get a better picture of the framework in which I’m working. When I’m in doubt of how my remote colleagues are operating, I’m very careful to ask specific questions about their situation.”
• Curiosity before anger.“You don’t know what the important differences are until somebody doesn’t do what you thought they were going to do,” Cramton says, so“it’s important when those problems surface to be curious and ask questions and to assume that there may be things about your colleague’s situation that you don’t know, and need to know.Curiosity is a great rule of thumb.”
• Foreign language learning… for you.If you’re managing a multi-lingual team, Cramton has a surprising suggestion: Try learning a foreign language yourself. It can open the eyes of mono-lingual American managers to the stresses faced by even proficient English speakers, she says, including“how tiring it is to speak in a second language.” In her research, she found that“people could be comfortable speaking in English in the morning when they were fresh or when the topic was very familiar. But when they were tired, or when they were talking about things that had emotional aspects, then it was tough. People who have not had that experience of struggling to find the right word or to catch the meaning, may not really appreciate how tough it is. When you have a little more compassion or understanding, it can be easier to find solutions.”

Photocourtesyof Flickr userrasdourian

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Trails, a Firefox Add-On to Help With Research: Online Collaboration«

As part of my efforts to improve my productivity, I’ve been looking for tools that can help me during research. One such tool is The Cafe Society’sTrails, a useful Firefox add-on that can collect and edit text snippets and images from the web, and structure them into a clean booklet layout that you can then easily share with others.

Once installed, Trails stores the text and images that you clip onto pages that it calls“spreads.” These are viewable in a sidebar  (via View->Sidebar->Trails or a keyboard shortcut). You can create as many spreads in your booklet as you like, and they can be can be set up as one-, two- or three-column pages.

Adding content to your booklet is done via some new Firefox context menu items: As you’re browsing, highlight some text or select an image and right-click to select to add it to your booklet. Before text is added to the spread, it pops up in a window giving you the opportunity to edit it. Content can be deleted and edited after insertion on the page, too. Trails automatically puts the URL a particular snippet or text or image came from below each piece of content on the page, as well as recording the time and date that it was clipped on.

Once your booklet is complete, it can be printed, exported in PDF format or published to the Trails Public Library online.

As a note-taking tool, Trails is nowhere as powerful and flexible as more full-featured, multi-user solutions likeEvernoteorOneNote.  However, it does fit seamlessly into a Firefox-based workflow, and as the booklets that it creates are nicely-formatted and can be exported as a PDF, it makes for a very easy way to share well-presented research with colleagues or clients.

Trails can bedownloaded from the Mozilla Add-Ons repository.

(via ghacks)

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Podio: A Highly Customizable Enterprise Social Network: Online Collaboration«

Podiois aiming to shake up this enterprise social networking space currently occupied by the likes ofYammer,Presently,SocialWokandSalesforce Chatterby providing a tool that can be customized using a wide range of ready-to-use productivity apps available from its built-in App Store. There are apps available for tasks such as tracking shipments, praising employees, CRM, timesheets, project management and many more (and if a required app isn’t available, it can be built using Podio’sAPI). This makes Podio highly adaptable compared to its competitors, as it allows organizations to create a networking platform to suit their employees.

Here’s a look at the home page, which can look very different from one organization to another:

Note the familiar“activity stream” on the left, which you’ll find in all of the other enterprise social networking solutions. Podio allows you to add apps from the app store to workspace areas  called“Spaces.”  You can create as many Spaces as you need for your private network, or to share with external users such as clients or partners. The App Store makes it easy to set up specific tools for each of your Spaces. Podio also includes useful core tools such as a calendar, contacts area and a task management system like that you would find in solutions likeBasecamp. These are all good features to include for a social platform in the workplace. Finally, having the ability to add other tools from the App Store gives each company a great deal of options.

Podio on the Go

There’s a free iPhone app for your Podio network, but I wasn’t as impressed with the it as I was with the Podio website. Currently, the iPhone app only provides access to a few core features such as the main activity stream, messaging, contacts, tasks and profiles; you don’t have access to any of the apps added to your Spaces from the App Store. I think it would make sense to include a way to include apps that you want your workforce to use while on the road on their mobile device.

Comparisons

So how does Podio compare to the current crop of corporate social platforms? Well, some have begun to give more options to add more features and customization, but none of them offer Podio’s range of specialty apps; I think its closest competitor could be a newly launched service calledConvofy, which Simonreviewed recently.

Podio offers a free version for up to 10 users and a premium edition for $99/month for up to 25 users, and $4/month per additional user.

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21 Ergonomic Tips for Traveling Web Workers: Online Collaboration«

Those of us who work remotely often do more traveling than the average worker, and working on the road may leave us more susceptible to strains and injuries than our office-bound colleagues. During my recent conversation with licensed massage therapistWimsey Cherringtonabout ways toavoid repetitive strain injuriesat work, she also suggested several tips for avoiding strains while traveling.

Luggage Handling

Many injuries are caused by improper handling of luggage. Of course, wheeled luggage is a must these days, but there are times when you must pick up your bags. You can reduce the possibility of strains by avoiding twisting motions while lifting bags.

• Keep it light.We all know how tempting it can be to want to take the laptop, the tablet, the smartphone, the camera, the MP3 player, and all the paraphernalia that goes with them. But the heavier the bag, the more likely you’ll be to strain yourself while lifting it. (And you’ll pay more to the airlines in luggage fees!)
• Avoid unbalanced bags.Many pieces of luggage have lots of pockets and compartments, which is great for stowing lots of gear, but pack carefully. Top- or front-heavy bags can compound the potential for strain.
• Bend your knees.When you pick up a bag, brace yourself by bending at the knees. Don’t let your back do the work.
• Lift carry-ons carefully.When putting a carry-on bag in the overhead compartment of planes or trains, face the aisle, lift the bag close to your body, then move your whole body through a 90-degree turn to face the overhead compartment, and put the bag in the compartment.
• Avoid twisting while lifting checked bags:Similarly, when putting checked bags on the scales at an airport ticket counter, lift the bag while keeping it close to your body, then turn your entire body and place the bag on the scale.
• Be careful at baggage carousels:It can be crowded at baggage carousels, but don’t rush. Wait to pick up your bag until it is directly in front of you, pulling it off the carousel straight toward you. Hold the bag close, then turn your entire body and put the bag on the ground.

Neck Support

It’s important to support your neck while traveling, since your body responds to even imperceptible bumps by continually keeping your eyes level with the horizon. These involuntary adjustments can cause neck and shoulder strains.

• Wear a pillow.An inflatable, horseshoe-shaped pillowsimilar to this onewill help support your neck. Wear it at all times while traveling, even when using a laptop and while sleeping.

Back Support

Most seats in planes and trains don’t provide lumbar support for your lower back, and the seats aren’t set in the optimal position, which is flat or slightly higher in the back.

• Use a travel seat with lumbar support.Frequent travelers might want to invest in a travel seat,like this one.
• Make your own travel seat.If you want to save money, or if you only travel occasionally, you can make your own lower back support by folding a heavy wool scarf or muffler and placing it behind your lower back and folding your jacket to fill in the seat.

Exercises

Even in the close confines of an airplane or train seat, there are several exercises you can do to keep yourself relaxed. These are also good for long meetings and conferences:

• Ankle circles.Point your toes out, raise one foot and rotate your foot in a circular motion for 30 seconds. Repeat with the other foot.
• Foot pumps.Point toes of both feet out, then back— repeat for 30 seconds or until muscles or tired, whichever happens first.
• Foot lifts.Keep your heels on the floor and lift the front of your feet as high as you can. Return feet to relaxed position on the floor. Repeat for 30 seconds.
• Heel lifts.Keep the balls of your feet on the floor and lift your heels as high as you can. Return feet to relaxed position on the floor. Repeat for 30 seconds.
• Leg“march.”While staying in your seat, contract your thigh muscles and move your legs as though marching in place for 30 seconds.
• Leg raises.While staying in your seat, with your hands on the armrests, slowly lift both legs, keeping your knees bent. Hold for 3-5 seconds. Repeat 8-10 times.
• Torso/back arch.Slowly move your shoulders forward while arching your upper body backward. Reverse the movement, slowly moving your shoulders backward while arching your upper body forward. Repeat a few times.
• Shoulder circles.Gently bring your shoulders up and around, as though drawing a circle with yourscapulae(shoulder blades), also known as“angel wings.” At the end of the circle, let your shoulders drop. Repeat 4-5 times.
• Relax your back.Once you’re off the plane, you can relax stiff and tight muscles with a device like theBacknobber, which is easy to use, light and comes apart for storage in your luggage.

Final Thoughts

• Try not to work all the time.Just because it’s possible to get internet connections in airplanes and trains doesn’t mean that you have to use them! Working while traveling should be a last resort. Use plane or train time to catch up on sleep if you can!
• Reset your body clock.When you get to your destination, and when you get home, you may need to adjust your body’s rhythms.Celine has some great suggestionson how to get back on schedule.
• See a professional when you get home.If you know that you’ll be unable to avoid stressing yourself on a trip, make an appointment with a health professional before you leave. I find that a good massage therapy session can really help ease the stress of business travel.

How do you avoid strains while traveling?

ImagecourtesyFlickr userNoël Zia Lee

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Is Email’s Reign Coming to an End?: Online Collaboration«

Two years ago, I wrote an article for GigaOM Pro entitledEmail: The Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated(subscription required), in which I explained why email is such a useful tool and why I thought it was unlikely to be replaced as the primary business communications medium any time soon. In the time since then, however, we’ve seen a wave of newer cloud-based communications and collaboration products taking the enterprise by storm. Could email be overtaken by these?

While it’s been widely reported thatteens no longer use email, it seems that attitudes to email are changing in workplace, too. According to a new GigaOM Pro report,The Future of Workplaces(subscription required), which surveyed 1,000 decision makers and end-users about the ways that workplaces are changing, workers don’t necessarily believe email will continue to be such a critical tool in the future:

Key Technologies: Future Use

The report’s authors highlight the fact that, while the respondents believed they would newer technologies like VoIP and videoconferencing increasingly in the future, the more traditional tools like email and the office landline showed a noticeable downward trend.

These findings shouldn’t be surprising; having a greater range of useful (and relatively inexpensive) communications tools at our disposal means we can pick the best tools for a given job, which should make our communications more effective. The availability of tools likeDropboxandbox.net, for example, has greatly simplified the process of sharing files with others, and should mean fewer people trying to send large files as email attachments. And for internal office communications, social business tools likeYammerandChattermake for easier conversation than can be had over email distribution lists. However, even though we now have a greater range of useful tools to call upon, I think email will continue to play a vital role in our business communications for the foreseeable future. It has advantages— such as being simple, asynchronous and virtually universal — that aren’t all shared by its newer competitors. Don’t expect to see it going the way of the dodo just yet.

For more insight on the way that our workplaces are changing, check out thefull report over on GigaOM Pro(subscription required).

Image Source:GigaOM Pro

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