2007 brought many changes to my life. One of the biggest was that I changed jobs & joined ACDSee as their Community Manager. Working from home offices is becoming more commonplace & web tools are making it easier.
The following interview questions were sent to me by Angie Pedersen. She’s an information maven in the scrapbooking industry & author of some excellent books!
How does working virtually/remotely work for you and your team?
I divide my work into segments. My team is the company as a whole & I communicate with specific people depending on what tasks/projects I’m working on.
- Customer Service/Tech Support – answering questions in forums & email
- Email – I try to address as much as I can immediately & label the rest
- Project Work – documents & connecting with people
What tasks do you and your team complete virtually/via email?
The majority of my work is done virtually. My sister & I have been working together for a year now on our website & over that time we experiment with many collaborative tools & found many things that work well. Much of my work with customers is done virtually in the product forums & via email. For internal use, we have an intranet, ftp dropboxes, and I access the network by VPN each day.
What forms of communication do you use? i.e. email, fax, conference call
The primary method is email, but there are also many conference calls. My company has a satellite in Miami, FL, so conference calls are logical. Some people prefer calls to IM or email. This is a BIG change from my previous job where I managed 7 sites. My telephone there was located furthest from me & used the least. But now, I have many scheduled phone calls.
I use Meebo for aggregating my chat clients which works well for me. The preferred IM at my company is MSN & many use Facebook, which staff can access at work.
Do you have regular/scheduled “meetings” via phone or chat? Please explain/describe.
My manager & I have a weekly phone call which lasts about an hour. It’s a time where we both discuss concerns, ideas, etc. I use it for a time to learn procedures & ask questions.
Weekly phone call with company that manages the affiliate program. The affiliate program is part of my responsibilities. We talk weekly.
ACDSee has a bi-monthly community meeting where many dept’s provide updates on their projects. Marketing leads it, but all departments that impact customers are represented. It’s an incredibly great idea because everyone gets insight into what others are doing. It reinforces the team concept & lowers the silos I believe.
For all other meetings, I use Outlook to arrange them. I’ve come to appreciate Outlook’s functionality! And I block time off where I’m not available. So it truly is an excellent tool.
Do you ever arrange face-to-face meetings?
The face to face meetings are imperative. If someone were to ask my advice of what the most important thing is after being hired, I would say – go meet everyone. For my first trip to the home offices, I schedule over 20 meetings & met with every department. It was a time to put faces with names & connect in person. Granted they all knew what I looked like from my web presence, it was important for me to make the same connection.
On my second trip, my husband accompanied me & I think this gave him a better sense of the reality of the job after seeing the building & meeting many of the people. My meetings ranged from project overview meetings to connecting with managers on more specific topics.
What kinds of tasks/discussions benefit from “face time”? Please explain/describe.
Brainstorming in person is more fun. 
I find that when I’m talking with people in person, things occur to me. When I’m at home Twitter provides my space to ‘talk things out’ or IM depending on the subject matter.
Training for large groups is better in person I think. And if the project/task needs my enthusiasm then it’s best imparted in person if possible, by phone is second choice.
What are some challenges you face because you don’t work in the same office?
Sometimes I don’t feel that I’m included in all of the meetings that I would maybe be if I were on-site. Although the upside of this is that I have less time spent in meetings & more time to work on projects & with my community.
Can you describe your home office set-up (if applicable)?
I purchased a 3-in-1 printer & a flat panel monitor to go with the laptop the company provided. Sometimes I need to print hard copies of doc’s while I’m working on them. And the extra real estate on the flat panel is always appreciated! It makes multitasking that much easier. A couple of days ago I gave a tour of my office ’space’.
Can you share some “Best Practices” or tips you’ve learned on how to manage working virtually/off-site/at home?
motivation – you need to be a self-starter (although I got mired at my other job too – the key is to be able to know when it happens & switch tasks. Come back when you’ll be productive)
make lists – that was something that was important in my other job too – it forces me to organize & prioritize
phone – because my husband’s office is also at home, most people calling in expect him to answer. So I had a second number installed & don’t answer his work calls.
routine – as with anything that took awhile, but it’s getting better
travel to home office – this still interrupts my routine, but that’s probably a good thing! It adds variety to the mix.
For those of you that work from home, what do you find that you enjoy the most? and what challenges do you encounter?
