The increase in remote working is being driven by a desperate need for businesses to cut costs in the aftermath of the great recession.

Goodman’s article gives a blueprint for teleworking success:

1. Be Creative – launch a pilot program (western union saves 3.2M over 5 years)
2. Develop Criteria – Get a good teleworking policy in place.
3. Technology – Use instant messaging and video chatting for spontaneous conversations.
4. Metrics – measure productivity rather than hours.
5. Communication – create a schedule for regular communications.

“Over the course of a given week, I can probably be talking to 30 or 40 customers,” he says. “Front to back the service has been fantastic.”

Citrix Receiver for the iPad is an application that makes it easy for iPad owners to take their virtual office with them on the go.  As of April 13th, Citrix Receiver for iPad was the #1 business app in the Apple iTunes App Store.

What this demo to see how it works!

Don’t have an iPad yet?  Visit the Apple Store!

• $200 Billion in productivity savings by American Companies!
• $190 Billion in savings from reduced real estate expenses, electiricty bills, absenteeism and employee turnover.
• 100 Hours per person not spem commuting
• 50 Million Tons of greenhouse gas emissions cut
• 276 Million Barrels of oil saved, or roughly 32% of oil imports from the Middle East.
• 1,500 Lives not lost in car accidents
• $700 Billion total estimated savings to American Businesses

These are big numbers and big savings.  The technologies and tools enabling people to productively work from home are getting better and better every day, so these numbers are more than achievable!

Spread the word!

1. Remote Work Myth #1 – Get Up When you Want.  Reality – You will rely on onsite and other Remote workers, that consistent hours will be important for productivity.
2. Remote Work Myth #2 – Work When You Want.  Reality – You company may require you to work specific hours, a Remote Work Agreement should spell out your hours.
3. Remote Work Myth #3 – Work in Your PJs.  Reality – Unless you are doing a lot of video conferencing, you might be able to get away with this, however studies have shown that people who get dressed properly each morning tend to have higher productivity and fell better about themselves.  So do everyone a favor, and get dressed!
4. Remote Work Myth #4 – All Play and No Work, you can play Golf or Computer Games without accounting for your time.  Reality – This is a very risky move that could cost you your job.  It’s hard to be productive and golf at the same time, save the games for your non-work time.
5. Remote Work Myth #5 – You can make Social Calls all day.  Reality -  Tying up your phone with personal calls may cause you to miss important work calls, if it’s a mobile phone you may be responsible for the charges.  Same as Myth #4, you can’t be productive while on the phone with your friends, save it for non-work time.
6. Remote Work Myth #6 – You can spend more time visiting with family and friends – Reality – Using company time to visit with friends and family violates the trust placed in you and should be avoided.  However, the time you save from having to commute could give you more non-work time to spend with family and friends.
7. Remote Work Myth #7 – You will never see the office again – Reality -There will be times that you are needed back in the office, if you like being away enjoy the peace and quite, but don’t broadcast it.
8. Remote Work Myth #8 – You are owed and entitled to all the luxuries that hotels offer while traveling.  Reality – This is untrue, your company may be footing the bill for travel, but you need to use common sense and don’t run up charges unless you are prepared to pay for them yourself.
9. Remote Work Myth #9 – You need all the latest and greatest gadgets.  Reality – You should only use the mobile gear that allows you to accomplish your job and that is absolutely required to do so.  Part of why companies allow employees to work remote is because they can save money, if the bills rack up on gadgets you might be pulled back into the office.
10. Remote Work Myth #10 – Out of Sight, out of Mind. Working Remotly means the end of promotions and raises.   Reality – You haven’t fallen off the promotion track, be sure there are proper evaluation procedures in place and be productive and you should still see promotion opportunities.

If you have any other Myth’s and Realities about your Remote Working  experience, please let us know!

We use Skype from time to time to video chat with employees who are in remote locations.  The one thing that always bugged me was that you could do a multi user call with audio but not with video.

I was looking for a way to “see” all the participants of the call.  There just is no substitute for body language in a meeting.  After searching the web I stumbled on to ooVoo.  I downloaded the client and setup an account.  What was interesting was that the ooVoo site said I could conference with others even if they did NOT have ooVoo installed on their PC.

The setup was a breeze.  Once I setup the software started exploring the options.  There was a tab labeled “Web Video Call”  When I clicked on that tab, I was given a URL to invite others to use.  I sent that link to two colleagues who did not have ooVoo installed.    Within a minute, we were having a 3 way video call.  It recognized all of our cameras and mic setting, the quality of both the video and audio were pretty good.  There are way more features that I haven’t even looked at yet, but the best part was the prices.  The basic level is free.

I’m totally impressed with ooVoo!

Rizzo explains that setting up remote access from a Mac to another Mac is fairly easy with the built in tools in  OS X, but setting it up between a Mac and a PC takes a little more work and some 3rd party software.  The biggest problem is that he hasn’t found a free way to enable Macs to share screens with PCs running Windows 7 Home Premium edition.

To connect from a PC to a MAC he suggests TightVNC.

To connect from a Mac to a PC he suggests Microsoft’s Free Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac.

You can read more detailed instructions on how to set these up in the article  here.

According to the FinancialPost.com report, The challenge for organizations lies in ensuring we can do it properly, deliver on our goals and avoid losing control of employees.

“Mobile work is here to stay. It goes hand in hand with the revolution in information technology,” says Robert Fortier, president of the Canadian Telework Association. “Until someone destroys all things digital, it will continue to grow”.

Koul reviews 3 applications for web-based collaboration:

Cisco WebEx – WebEx Meeting Center allows you to hold unlimited online meetings from your desktop or laptop with the ability to share presentations, documents, web cam, and demo applications.  According to Koul, Cisco’s MediaTone network provides the service with great reliability.

Adobe Acrobat Connect Pro – Adobe’s webconferencing program requires a web browser with adobe flash player installed.  Connect Pro allows you to share your screen, use the same URL for persistent meeting rooms that are always available and integrate with audio conferencing.  Connect Pro also offers suites for eLearning for online training, and a Web Seminars suite for presenting with up to 80,000 attendees at one time.

Citrix GoToMeeting – GotoMeeting helps employees of an organization perform more efficiently while on the move.  Not only can users can collaborate, demonstrate and present, they can also make VoIP calls with GotoMeeting’s integrated phone conferencing capabilities.  Citrix also has a GotoWebinar application enabling you to present, train and demonstrate to large audiences online.  GotoWebinar also generates invitations, branded registration pages, and audience polls and surveys.

During an online event, GoToWebinar provides easy interactive tools like hand raising and Q & A and enables presenters to monitor audience participation with ease.

For remote access, Citrix provides two suites GoToMyPC and GoToAssist.  GoToMyPC allows you to access your Mac or PC from any web browser  in real time, while GoToAssist helps companies to let their support team manage customer’s computers (with their permission) to resolve support issues via GoToMyPC style remote desktop access and comuter sharing.

All of Citrix solutions utilize secue SSL and 128-bit AES encryption to protect your confidential information.

For more details of the review visit Sandeep Koul’s article  on PCQuest.com

Introducing remote working across an organization can be complex, with significant input needed from the HR department to ensure that both employees and employers will see the benefits. However, it also demands the right technology.

Laptops and PDAs are now a familiar part of our landscape. But if remote working is to be as efficient as possible, and really deliver productivity gains, it is essential that these are supplemented with the latest communications developments so that remote users have real-time access to all the data and systems they would have if they were in the office.

If real-time data exchange is relatively straightforward, it is harder, but absolutely crucial, to ensure that only authorized users can access that data. In other words, security is a key consideration – particularly as remote working opens up a new range of potential hazards and security risks.

A sales person out visiting clients, for example, may decide to keep a copy of the customer database on his laptop, along with price lists, confidential internal business documents, contract details and financial information for his clients. It all helps him to be as effective as possible when doing his job. However, as soon as this kind of information is removed from the office the company is vulnerable if that equipment is lost or stolen.

Even companies that think their information isn’t really that sensitive should consider what would happen if their biggest competitors obtained price lists or R&D information from a lost device. So valuable is data in the information age that it is often the information stored on the laptop rather than the equipment itself which makes it attractive to thieves.

The solution, therefore, is for remote workers to access office-based PCs from mobile equipment, rather than storing any information on the device itself. Remote administration or remote control technology that system administrators use to manage and monitor 1000s of networked PCs, has become massively popular among remote workers who need access to corporate systems. The number of programs providing access to remote computing is rather broad today, for example Radmin (http://www.radmin.com).

When this kind of remote access technology is used, the company is no longer vulnerable to industrial espionage, brand diminishment or expensive law suits should the device fall into the wrong hands.

Not only does this protect data if the device is misplaced, it also means that only one port needs to be opened up in the corporate firewall. This means all traffic is going through the one, secure port, making the company less vulnerable. Add in advanced encryption and detailed permission levels for access to data, and remote control software becomes an attractive option for remote working.

Where the “grabbing” of screen data in traditional remote control software
means there is latency between command and action, the newest versions effectively clone it. As a result, remote workers get the information they need easily and quickly.

Flexible working, working from home, business trips – these are all driving the demand for access to corporate systems while users are out of the office. It is now just down to the organization to ensure they are working in the most effective and secure way.

Author: Anton Levchuk – Anton Levchuk is the marketing director of Famatech, which is one of the world-leading companies developing remote access software.