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Methods for Remote Communication

So let's talk a little bit about technicalities and some tactical approaches to integrating into a team and making sure that your heard even remotely so methods for remote communication thie tool you see over here on the side of slack this is a relatively new tool and it's singlehandedly driving the remote theme into the business work place it is by far the most amazing technological tools software tool that I've seen in ten years in terms of remote working and here's the reason it allows you your entire team either remote or in the office whatever to join the same channel and then you can create channels within there where each team is able to talk about whatever they need to talk about so in this example we have a general channel a media press channel in a random channel and the random channel is great because if you're in an office and somebody sees something really hilarious on the television and you're going to get around the water cooler and talk about it it's a vital part of bei...

ng a part of a team well you can do that here two people can share funny gifts or funny videos or the the newest cat video whatever it maybe it doesn't have to be strictly work you could have a random channel you like you know what? I just need a mental break I'm going to go into the random channel so this is the digital equivalent of getting up from your desk, going over to the coffee machine and seeing if anybody has anything funny to say so it has done a great job of bringing the office construct into a digital place where you can keep track with your friends, friends and colleagues. The thing that's most impressive about this is that it archives everything, so as I was mentioning earlier, you can show up to your shift scroll back through everything that your team said and you won't miss a beat you'll be able to see everything that they said all the links that they shared and you don't have to have five hundred e mails to look through to get there. You're able to scroll through its search for the things that are important just find what matters to you and then you're on your own point, it's like you didn't miss anything at all. Of course there's face tom link, skype thie options or numerous a lot of corporations use microsoft link that has a video component and a chat component. Skype and facetime have made it easy to show your face even if you don't work in the office every day, take advantage of that stuff. But this stuff, of course, is bam with heavy this is why a great internet connection at home is very important because if you're going to be there from home you want to make sure you aren't dropping in and out of face time calls, uh, that's, not the greatest look so here's, just a tip to keep with you never wonder what's expected of you. Instead, ask what you can do to help while making your band with an availability in the office. You don't really have to consider this, because if someone needs you to do something, they know where you said they'll come ask you to do it, it's very little friction involved in making that happen. If you're outside of the office, people may assume, well, what if? What if he's taken an early lunch? What if you're taking a late lunch? I don't really know where he's at am I ok asking him to do this? Make sure you get on the same terms with all of your colleagues, if they if they have an office and make sure they know when you're available and that you're ready to help, I'll leave you with this on this segment, take advantage of every opportunity for face time, so we spent a lot of time talking about how you can pull your face away from the office. You don't want to be there, but on the same token, you really should take every opportunity for face time, so if that's engaging with clients or your colleagues through face time or skype or leak, let him see your face it's good to see their face to it keeps you from being super isolated. He keeps you engaged if you have the opportunity to travel to ah home office, I take it you know travel is exhausting, it's brutal but it's worth doing at least most of the time you're able to work on your own turf, it is worth shaking hands every now and then. Nascar self how do you keep in touch with friends that live far away? So if you've got people that leave live internationally, probably skyping from time to time you connect with him on twitter, you connect with a more facebook, you know, it's not so different for colleagues, hopefully you're in a situation where your colleagues are at least friendly they might not be your best friends, but you know we can get there it's not so different and so the same items that everyone uses to communicate with people that live far away. Everyone has a general understanding of what that iss and so if you're terrified of saying, I'm going to be the on ly remote worker in my office, don't be because everybody there knows how to use skype that knows how to know how to use linkedin and lake and all of that so any other questions from the web? You guys have any questions? Well, I have two assistants who live in iowa look unless another person who helps me who lives down the street but I don't see him very much and a fourth person who lives in southern california and I'm realizing, oh, this is I'm the leader of this team I need to be established so more culture around it more expectations more make sure there's more ongoing touch points and to make it easier for me yeah, I realize I am overwhelmed by email, so maybe like slack, isn't it? An answer for me? Slack has been amazing. Answer the email I know some folks that working in teams where in the end the team might not obviously the whole company, but in the team they've decided no more email amongst teams we're just going to use black because it's just something about email it's like, you know, just seeing it an inbox count just rack up into the thousands is incredibly overwhelming and something like slag just doesn't overwhelm us much it feels more like an ongoing conversation where is email is very stopping start the new message it's a start to a new thing it fully consumes you where is a tool I slacker instant message it's just it's more of an ongoing chan it's, easier to digest so yeah, if you're having struggles with with email and managing a distributed teams like is a great tool yeah, I just finished working on a project with google, so it was very interesting to see how that culture works and of course it's all based on google products but simple things like even having a meeting agenda somebody's taking notes and you can see it at the same time. So with the end of the meeting, everybody has agreed on next steps and it's a shared document also the way they use project tracker just that integration of tools because that's about a workflow united workflow and I was working it was a nonprofit project for homeless organizations here, but the team was literally all over the world, and I think sometimes you have to be willing if you're the team leader or you wantto take advantage of this to be the person to say, ok, you know, I'm gonna have to stay up a little later I'm going to need to get up a little early and I think that's really the answer you know, that's where the extra time comes in, but workflow just to think about work flow and slack and a lot of the other tools I think that's what I found best yeah, and the point about meeting notes is so essential I've been in situations where I've been unavailable to make a one hour conference call where some pretty big decisions we're going to be made, maybe I was I was in a plane traveling somewhere, it was just not going to be possible, but that wouldn't be an issue if someone were taking notes something as simple as taking minutes on a note so that the people that aren't there in the moment, you can have that distributed back to them, it's just but that does it requires cultural change you have to think about like, is the organization going to be okay with let's? Have somebody take notes and then send it to the people that couldn't make it instead of just being really upset that people couldn't make it or let's try to reschedule it for the twentieth time, you know there's there's better ways to go about it. I don't think I'm telling tales out of school, but if it's useful, this is how google does it, you know, very simple, just just that that they actually take notes, there's immediate meeting agenda, but that is how they as a very successful corporation, that's one thing that they do so if that's useful for people to need to introduce that idea, to say no, I love that what that is is a hangover from the start of days. Yeah, people don't remember the google used to be very, very small, and so when you're a small start up and you only have a few people when they're working here, there and everywhere that's the kinds of things you do to keep family, which is essentially what the startup is in touch with one another so even its scale, thousands of employees, it still goes a long way. It's nice to be able to get off of a plane and say, all great, this call happened, and someone gave me the notes. Now, fully up to speed, ready to engage. So do you keep that same schedule every day or you able to kind of, like, fluctuate and be flexible with it? What works best for you? Yeah, so similar tio student here it fluctuates daily some days twelve to four it's just impossible for me to get away, and I'm gonna have to focus on working from twelve to four. So sometimes I have to teo go to the gym or had the trail's really early. Sometimes I have to do it really late, but the point is, every day can be different. It doesn't have to be nine to five every day, and when you're in a position to decide that it's just an incredibly freeing feeling if you have a friend that's in town for the first time in years and they can on ly have coffee from one to two tomorrow you could make that happen if you're on your own terms you could make that happen maybe you work an extra hour in the evening to make up for it but at least you could do it and it's that kind of freedom that really makes you appreciate not having to go into an office and be stuck there for those predetermined hours yeah how do you keep ball quiz uh actually finishing your work and then of the day because for me it just scan you know run until I I'm I'm ready to go to bed and it's it's what I struggle the most is that I don't have time with my partner and change we're going to touch on some of the specifics in the next segment but I will say uh keeping a running to do list and being on top of yourself because there's no one else around to do it um is crucial and you just have to be really honest with yourself I keep a to pain to do list with things that have to be done before I go to bed and then things that are need to be done within the week and by separating those out it really helps me because if I can see that something that needed to be done by the end of the day it's not going to happen thankfully I can put it here and not completely stress out it could be like can it wait till tomorrow? What on this list can wait until tomorrow and if I can find that one thing it's a huge relief and so if you if people usually have one to do list and that's dangerous because there's no prioritization in that whatsoever and so if you have fifteen things on your to do list and you're the type of person that likes to clear that out before the end of the day, you're going to be pretty sour at night so the two pain thing is is a good way to start relieving some of that stress also another question maybe uh you will have I did in the next session but ah, I've bean ah din digital normal lifestyle for like two previous years before relocated here and you you don't have a luxury all setting up your desk there do you have any? I don't know tips how tio make because the like desk is puts you in the zone in something anyway, right like they have the steps of like putting yourself in his own when you zone like can change on a monthly basis I do when I worked in engadget, we had to get news articles up at all hours of the day, I rarely had the luxury to come back to this nice desk. Uh, I've published incredibly important reports from the back of a taxi cab. I mean, just the craziest places, you know, slinging me around it's like everything's flying everywhere. What it really boils down to is finding one or two elements that make you feel at home, like here you have many elements to make you feel at home, but maybe it's a certain album, make it's a certain playlist like, no matter how crazy the taxi ride is, if you've got this in something feels like home there's, some element of peace, familiarity with that, and so for me, it was music and my software laid out on my laptop, so have a very rigid way that I like to lay things out, the applications that I use on my screen, and if they're they're mentally always know what's going on and there's a calm that comes with that, that even if things were crazy and you have to do this in a very odd place, what you're looking directly at is very familiar, and that feels like home, and it does take time to tone out the rest of the world, but if you can id, say with music and making sure that your computer set up if that's where you're doing most of your work is the same, regardless of location, you could take a deep breath and say, you know, this isn't so different. And a lot of it's just tricking your mind into believing that all the chaos isn't happening.