The workplace, more and more, is changing, and with this change comes a whole new set of rules.
The traditional office work environment and tools are still around, but at a very rapid pace, they’re being supplanted by newer and better tools, newer and better ways of working. The old rules are being broken, and new ones are emerging.
You could call this the Workplace of the Future, as not all businesses have adopted these models, and it will be a few years before these new rules are the norm. But for many people (myself included), this is the Workplace of Today — there’s no need to wait for new technologies or tools, because they’re already here.
So you could wait a few years, resist the new trends, talk about how great things were back in your day … or you could embrace the new rules, and be a part of the change.
Transitioning from Electric Typewriters
I love my grandfather, a journalist of more than 50 years, but I always remember when the local newspaper (he’s the former managing editor) changed from typewriters to computer terminals and a mainframe. Instead of typing his columns with an electric typewriter, which he’d done for 25 years, my grandfather had to learn to type on a computer … and save it, and pull it up from a directory.
It proved to be a pretty difficult change for him, and while he can still crank out an amazing column with the best of them, the technology of newspapers passed him by.
It can pass you by too, if you let it. That’s why my philosophy has been to embrace change, be a part of it, help direct it, rather than just resist it. If a new technology or way of working is better, let’s go with it. That doesn’t mean we should just adopt things because they’re new and shiny and trendy — sometimes the old is actually better. But if the new ways are better, let’s embrace them.
Google, Wikipedia, Linux, and Freelancers and Bloggers … oh, my!
A number of companies and projects embody the spirit of the New Rules of Working, but my favorites are Google, Wikipedia and Linux. And the rise of freelancers and bloggers is another trend that shows these New Rules.
1. Google: While the company itself seems either cool or scary, depending on your point of view … but the tools that Google is making are not only perfect for the New Rules of Working, but in many ways they are driving these changes. The archive-and-search philosophy of Gmail, the easy collaboration of GDocs, the ease-of-use of Gcal and other online tools, the innovative uses of cloud computing. Google tools embody the new ways of working.
2. Wikipedia: In a few short years, this has become one of the most useful tools ever. It is more useful than regular encyclopedias by an order of magnitude. And it was created by opening things up to the public. Despite massive criticism for this open process, it has worked beautifully. Collaboration works.
3. Linux: Another tool that has been created through an open, collaborative process. While it still has a ways to go, for many it is already better than Windows, which was created using massive funds but a closed system.
4. Freelancers and bloggers: More and more, people are breaking out of the traditional workplaces in favor of more freedom and independence. This means they are working using mobile computing and technology, they are collaborating with others but not in the traditional heirarchical authoritarian structure, and they work where and when they want, as long as they produce good-quality work.
The New Rules of Working
With new tools, new models of collaboration, and new freedom and mobility in working styles, some New Rules of Working are emerging. Not all of these have asserted their dominance yet, and there’s no guarantee that they’ll ever totally supplant more traditional rules and ways of working. But they are emerging, and in my mind, they’re all positive and exciting developments.
1. Online apps and the cloud beat the desktop and hard drive. While the majority of workers use desktop applications such as Microsoft Office, that’s rapidly changing. Today, people like me use apps that are almost all online, such as Gmail, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, Gcal, WordPress, Twitter, Zoho Office, High Rise, Backpack and many others.
The advantages of online apps: you can use them on any computer, and never have to worry about where you saved documents. With desktop apps, you have to save the document to a folder and either email it to yourself or put it on a USB drive if you plan to work from home or on the road. And if you use another computer, you have to make sure you have the necessary desktop app. Mobile workers such as myself want to be able to use their key apps from anywhere, anytime.
Of course, there are disadvantages and limitations to online apps, but the gap is narrowing more and more. Many people also worry about being disconnected from the Internet. Well, that’s becoming less and less of a problem — I can’t remember the last time my Internet was down, and it’s never been a problem in more than a year of using almost exclusively online apps.
Using the cloud instead of your hard drive has similar advantages — and one of the best being that you don’t have to back up your info on your hard drive. In the cloud, the data is already backed up. And again, it’s available everywhere — a very important factor in the emerging mobile workplace.
2. Collaborate on documents, don’t email them. I won’t name names, but recently I had to work with a group of people on a draft of a book. These people are intelligent people, but they are used to their old processes, and one of those is to use the Microsoft Word format for drafts, and to email revisions of the draft back and forth. In one case, they actually printed stuff out, marked up the printout, and FedExed it to me for further revisions.
But that’s outdated! With online apps such as Google Docs, real-time collaboration is so easy these days. You can be working on the same document at the same time, and changes are autosaved. You can see who made what changes, you can go back to previous versions of the draft, and you don’t have to worry about who has emailed the latest version. Best yet, if one of the collaborators is a Mac user (as I am), you don’t have to worry about whether he has a copy of Microsoft Office (which I don’t and never again will).
You can chat while collaborating. You can invite others to collaborate, and give them specific permissions.
There is no reason to email documents anymore when you collaborate, and for goodness sakes, there’s no reason to print and mail them to each other!
3. Collaboration is the new productivity. It used to be that we tried to work our butts off to produce, but mostly individually. Sure, there were meetings, and there were teams, but in the end we mostly did it individually. It’s still that way mostly.
But consider Wikipedia: if each of those articles were written by a single writer, and then went through the traditional editing and publishing process, it would’ve taken forever to publish that many articles. Not to mention the headaches and cost of coordinating such a vast project. But using collaborative technology (wikis), Wikipedia was able to do it at relatively low cost (mostly computers, not many people), and a massive project has been accomplished by collaboration. Groups of people collaborating in a smart way are way more productive than those people could be in the traditional way, individually.
I could name many more examples of open-source technology, from Firefox to Linux to OpenOffice to Gaim and so many more — these are excellent examples of software, done collaboratively. This model can be spread to almost any industry, and it’s vastly more productive.
That said, there will always be a need for individual work. Sometimes the best software is written by one genius, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But to get really massive things accomplished, use collaboration.
“In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” - Charles Darwin
4. People don’t have to be in an office. This is the one I wish most businesses would get, right now, right away. It’s so obvious once you get away from the traditional mindset. Traditionally, people worked in offices (and of course most still do). They go into the office, do their work, go to meeting, process paperwork, chat around the watercooler, clock out and go home.
These days, more and more, that’s not necessary. With mobile computing, the cloud, online apps and collaborative processes, work can be done from anywhere, and often is. More people are telecommuting. More people are working as freelancers or consultants. More businesses are allowing people to work from anywhere — not just telecommuting from home, but literally anywhere in the world. People are forming small businesses who have never met, who live on different continents. People have meetings through Skype or Basecamp group chat. They collaborate through wikis and Google apps.
If you are stuck in the traditional mindset, think hard about what things really need to be done in an office. Sometimes there are legitimate reasons for working in an office, but often those barriers have other solutions you just haven’t explored yet.
The advantages of a decentralized workplace are many. Workers who have more freedom are happier, and often more passionate about their work. They enjoy collaborating with others who are smart and talented, and work is no longer drudgery. Flexible schedules work well for many people’s lifestyles. Mobile computing is actually good for many types of businesses where people need to be on the go. And what really matters isn’t that the worker is present, but that the work is being done.
5. Archive, don’t file. Traditionally, people filed paper documents in folders, labeled the folders, and organized them in cabinets. With more and more documents being stored in computers, this way of organizing carried over to the computer desktop, with folders and files all being organized (or disorganized, if you aren’t careful). This meant that either you spent a lot of time filing and organizing, or you lost things.
Today, many people still work that way, even if it doesn’t make the most sense. What makes more sense, with the power of computers and speed of today’s apps, is the method popularized by Gmail: archive and search. Instead of creating folders for everything, and then diligently filing, you could now just hit “archive” and then use Gmail’s very fast search engine to find what you need. Of course, you could still “tag” things which is almost like folders but more versatile, but even that is optional.
Why is this better? Think about how much time is saved, when you don’t have to file. It’s much easier, less headaches. You don’t have to remember to file and then lose things if you get disorganized. You can just search and find it.
This applies not only to emails, but to everything. Bookmarks are searchable in Delicious, my blog posts are searchable in WordPress, files are searchable on the desktop (on the Mac, Quicksilver and Spotlight both work very well; on the PC, Google Desktop also works well) or in an online server. Nothing needs to be filed — everything is searchable, and finding things is much faster through search than having to browse through files or directories.
Some people say they have trouble finding stuff sometimes through search. I haven’t had that problem yet, and it’s all I do these days. I think it just takes a bit of a shift in mindset.
6. Small teams are better than large teams. I know I said collaboration is the new productivity, but for many projects where a team is defined (as opposed to collaborative efforts like Wikipedia, where anyone can get involved), a small team works much better. It’s faster, nimbler, smarter, less bureaucratic, more creative.
Think of a large corporation like Microsoft, trying to start up a new enterprise. Microsoft has never been good at that, because of its size. It’s better at taking the innovation of other companies and leveraging existing dominant markets to make its new software or service successful. Or buying smaller companies who do something well and merging it with existing businesses. But when it tries to start something new on its own, the team doing so is well-funded, with the full force of the mega-corporation behind it … and yet has to go through so many bureaucratic steps, it’s like going through the old USSR government. The new product ends up having tons of features (most of which aren’t needed) and takes forever to launch.
New startups of just a handful of people — sometimes just 3-4 people — can create brilliant new products by keeping things small, lean and simple. They don’t included a bloated feature set, don’t have to worry about writing up technical specs and getting approval, don’t have to go through bureaucracy. They just write the code and make it work, as fast as possible, because otherwise they die. Small teams are lean and hungry, with more freedom and creativity.
7. Communication is a stream. This is something I still have trouble with. In the traditional model, paperwork comes into an inbox, and you process things sequentially until you’re done. Phone calls came in and you took them as they came, and took care of each one. Letters and faxes came in, and you dealt with them one at a time.
So when email became the norm, the same top-down, sequential processing applied. Getting Things Done uses this method — start from the top, and work to the bottom until you’re finished. Unfortunately, this is a bit overwhelming to many people these days, because there’s just too much coming in to handle this way.
So the new way of working sees communication as a stream. You go in and bathe in the stream, and then get out. It’s never-ending — think about when emails and IMs and Twitters and RSS feeds and forum posts and other types of things you read ever stopped coming in. It doesn’t happen. And because it’s never-ending, you can’t process from top to bottom, sequentially.
How do you work with the stream? You know it’s never-ending, and you don’t try to process it all. You take what you need, go in every now and then to see what’s going on, and don’t worry that you’re missing things. You’re always missing things — everybody is. No one can fully process this stream — it’s too overwhelming. Who can read all the blog posts out there? Who can respond to every email and Twitter and forum post? Who can read everything on Digg or Delicious or Stumbleupon? No one.
So you find what interests you, search for what you need, and pick and choose the things that matter most to you. Can you answer every email? No — so answer the important ones, and archive the rest. Can you know everything going on in your field or industry? No — so monitor what interests you, and when things really matter you’ll find out from your network of friends or blogs you read.
Don’t process everything — focus on what’s important to you.
8. Fewer tasks are better than many. With the overwhelming amount of information coming at us, there’s also an overwhelming amount of requests and things to do. While the old way of thinking said that we should Get Things Done, that’s just not possible anymore. And it’s not even desirable to do a huge task list — you’re just spinning your wheels.
Instead, focus on the few tasks that make the most difference — to your company, to your career, to your life. Simplify your task list.
9. Meeting (usually) suck. The traditional way of doing business includes company meetings throughout the day, taking an hour or more usually. This can eat up half of your day or more. Add to that individual meetings — at lunch, or having drinks, or just a one-on-one in the office — and you’re meeting more than you’re producing.
If you’ve sat through a lot of meetings, like I have, you know they’re almost always useless. Sure, sometimes they’re good, but most of the time they’re boring, full of chit-chat or useless information, and really can be accomplished through a simple email or phone call. They’re a waste of everyone’s time, and worse yet, most people know it. And nothing changes.
Instead, learn to accomplish the tasks of a meeting through an email, a quick phone call, a quick and focused IM, an online group chat if necessary. Collaborate through online tools, such as those mentioned above. Keep meetings to a bare minimum. Sure, you still need to socialize with people, and have actual conversations, but boring and useless meetings aren’t the best way to do that. If you control your company or division, do yourself and your company a favor by eliminating most of your meetings.
“Meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything.” - John Kenneth Galbraith
10. Open-source is better than closed. This is related to Rule 3, where collaboration is the key to productivity, but it goes a step beyond that: instead of being closed and protectionist, open things to the public. Be accountable, release copyright, allow people to share, and allow others to contribute.
The traditional way was to keep things a secret, and not let others be privy to your inside information. Only those on the inside were allowed to collaborate. If people tried to share without paying, you sued.
The open-source model works much better in many cases. It allows people to contribute, recognizing that not just a select few people have good ideas or talent. It allows people to share, recognizing that an idea grows in value as it becomes more widespread, and an artist grows in worth as he reaches a wider audience, and a program becomes more successful as it becomes more popular.
This model can be applied to many businesses, from publishing to online apps to information workers and more (even blogging!). It can even be applied to governments, if we open the spectrum of ideas a bit wider. Imagine a government where all information is available, making things more accountable. Imagine a government not just “of the people” in words, but action — the people are actually contributing to it and making it work. Imagine a government where everything is distributed, and democratic, and shared. It’s idealistic, but it’s something that can happen if we embrace the open-source model.
11. Rest is as important as work. In the traditional model, people worked long hours to accomplish as much as possible and get ahead in their careers. However, there is a high rate of burnout and job dissatisfaction and employee turnover in this model.
The new model recognizes that we’re people, not machines. That we have lives and interests outside work. That we need a good nap now and then (or even every day). That when we’re well rested, we work better, and we’re happier.
I’m not saying you have to rest just as much as you work, but that you should recognize that not only is nothing wrong with taking a nap, it’s actually a good thing. Work doesn’t have to be monotonous and done in 8-hour shifts — it can be fun, and done in productive bursts. See this article for more.
12. Focus, don’t crank. This is a corollary of Rule 8: instead of cranking through a lot of tasks and multi-tasking, learn to focus on important tasks and single-task.
In recent decades, multi-tasking has been seen as a productive thing — although the more traditional model, dating decades earlier, said that doing one task at a time was a good thing. Today, more and more people are realizing that when you constantly switch between tasks, you get very little done. You actually tend to procrastinate on the important stuff, and use multi-tasking as a way to postpone doing things. You can crank through tasks all day long, GTD style, and not get anything real done.
Instead, simplify, identify the essential, and learn to focus on one task at a time.
A Few Final Words
Not all of these “rules” are accepted by the majority of people today — in fact, most aren’t. But a growing number of people are working this way, and I think a majority of people will work this way in the near future.
Not all of these ways of working will work for you or your company. Some businesses and people are better suited for the traditional models, and that’s OK. Figure out what works for you, and what you do.
However, at least give these points some consideration. In some cases, they’ll be a better way of working, and can be good changes. I think this is exciting stuff, and I hope you’ll embrace these changes as I have.
“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.” - Harold Wilson
Also see: Open Sourcing Your Creativity on LifeDev
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121 brilliant comments
@Leo: You stated, “More and more, people are breaking out of the traditional workplaces in favor of more freedom and independence.”
That’s absolutely 100% what I’m all about!
Great post, I really enjoyed reading this one.
Thanks! I’d like to apologize — this is a pretty long post. I kinda got carried away with the topic. :)
I hope people enjoy it. I anticipate that there will be some disagreement, but that’s OK.
People don’t have to be in an office… but having worked out of a home office for the last 2 years I have to tell you.. there are many times it would be nice to be in an environment with more people and with more water cooler talk.. you’d be amazed at how much stuff actually gets done around that ‘water cooler’. Every call or conversation that’s related to my work right now is with intention, e.g. it is done with a specific purpose in mind, and not to just shot the sh*t type of thing.. this is what I miss about the office environment.. or at least the ability to stop by an office occassionally (this is not possible for me, as my office is 1500 miles away). I see my customers often, but they can’t replace coworkers… So, it’s a good and bad thing.. I am still trying to find a happy middle ground..
I think it’s great that a lot of these new “rules” are emerging and the workplace is transforming rapidly.
Like you, Leo, I am most excited about the collaborative possibilities the trend in technology is heading towards. It just keeps getting more and more exciting.
http://illuminatedmind.net - The less boring side of personal development
Leo, you really struck a cord with me on this post! Every point you’ve made is one that I’ve been trying to get across to my technology consulting clients for the last couple of years. From cloud computing to “no office” work environments, things are rapidly changing for the better. But from my perspective with hundreds of clients that prefer “the old ways”, we are a few years (I would guess at least 2 or 3) before a lot of this becomes REALLY main stream. For now, those with a little more than average tech understanding are utilizing these new resources. This has been a huge advantage for some of the smaller more flexible companies as compared to the bigger corporations.
By the way, I really like that you are an Open Source proponent! Keep getting the word out!
Embracing new trends is great if your company rewards it or even allows it. If not, it’s best to go with the flow in your own environment. If you want to stand out in any corporate environment — especially if you tend to be too nice, hardworking, or not self-promoting, see “Success in the Corporate World” at http://shanelyang.com/2008/02/13/success-in-the-corporate-world-self-test/
I worked in law firms for more than 10 years and most of those were not open to new ideas even though they all said they were. Don’t believe everything you hear! ; )
@Jonathan: It’s good to see you on zenhabits. By the way, I took your advise and got a guest posting opportunity at dumblittleman.com/ I appreciate your email and your willingness to help a new blogger!
@Shanel Yang: You’re right — I am speaking more to the level of people who are able to control their working environment — freelancers, consultants, bloggers, entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, etc. I’m hoping more companies will embrace these changes, but in the end I think most will eventually — some sooner than later.
@funkright: I completely agree! It’s nice to be able to connect with people in a human way. I think you should try to work that into your working style — meetings from time to time are good, as long as they don’t take up most of your day.
This is something I can relate to. I myself work from home, recently I hired a writer for my tech blog who not only works from home but also always on the move, he is a globe trotter. :) Every few months he moves from one country to another, he is somewhere in south-east asia at the moment. But I think he is originally from England.
It would be nice if I could work like that :).
I think Collis (freelanceswitch), also on the move to different countries. Not because of work, but because that’s what he and his wife always wanted to do.
I think it’s interesting that you mentioned your grandfather’s transition from type writer to computer.
Recently I almost bought a macbook, hoping to be able to write blogs during my long commute ride. It’s an expensive investment to consider. After much thought I realized a fancy tool won’t make me a better writer. So I sticked with the good old pen ‘n notepad. I actually enjoy writing in this old fashioned way a lot better. It feels a lot more intimate, and a nice way to get away with computers.
@funkright: My consulting business has been a great way to keep a healthy balance of human interaction and independent living. I’m able to meet with clients for short spurts throughout the week and still have a flexible schedule and plenty of time to work on my blogs. I do plan on pushing for a more full time blogging situation (Leo, you inspired me in this area) but I hope to keep some of my clients if even just for some of that “out of the home office” experience. So I think that it’s very possible to have the best of both worlds.
Flexible working arrangements are definitely becoming the norm, Leo.
This suits both the individual and the organization- or, indeed, the freelancer.
The days of the traditional 9 - 5 office environment are gone.
However, with these new ways of working comes an even greater danger of our work / life balance becoming out of kilter.
Finding a healthy balance is now more crucial than ever.
Do you find that you have to work harder to achieve this balance in your own life since you’ve followed these 12 rules, Leo?
Maybe all the emerging technology will make it easier for young guys like myself to survive in this new environment. I often hear others talking about how difficult it’s going to be for the younger generation to find work, but somehow it seems like it’s only those who are stuck in the past who can’t find anything to do (I mean no disrespect here).
As always, it’s the creative who survive, whether young or old.
Great post….Number 4 is so true….I wish more companies and employers would embrace the idea of actually working off-site. Especially with the stress that is sometimes associated with being in a “traditional work environment” as well as the cost of gas it takes to transport yourself to and from work- I think it would save a lot of money and undue stress in the end. After all, how can an employer lose if their employees are happy? After all, happier employees tend to perform better!
@Scott: That’s definitely a challenge when you can work anywhere and anytime — that you will work everywhere and all the time!
But I find a balance through:
* taking frequent breaks to spend time with my family, who are at home with me usually these days.
* setting work limits
* not taking work with me when I go places.
But it’s a good point!
@Leo: I’ve always wanted to ask you (and since it seems appropriate in this particular post) have you found full time blogging/writing to be as satisfying and rewarding as you thought it would be when you were first starting out? Are there anythings that you didn’t expect that you don’t like or have to work hard to adjust to? I appreciate you taking the time to answer our questions. Eric.
I think one of the few remaining things keeping us office slaves slaving away is the issue of benefits. This is a particularly tough problem for one-income marriages because the working spouse doesn’t have the option of coming home and transferring the responsibility of carrying benefits to the other spouse.
I’d like to see an expansion of eligible group benefits for freelancers and bloggers. Then even more of us could escape the rat race!
@Motivate Thyself: Great question. Short answer: I love being a full-time blogger.
It’s my passion now, and I’m extremely grateful that I’m able to do it. I love the flexibility, love writing for an audience, love being able to control what I do.
Are there things I didn’t expect? Sure. The non-writing stuff ends up taking more of my time than I expected. Now that I have more time I find myself working on new projects, and sometimes spreading myself too thin.
But overall, I’m enjoying my life! Thanks for asking.
Leo, do you find yourself still being able to write whatever you want, like when you started out. or do you feel like you’re obligated to write things, or more conscious about the quality of writing to please a much larger audience now? Does writing a blog full time ever feel like a job?
Thanks
@Jin: I still feel like I can write whatever I want, but with such a large audience I am definitely conscious of the quality — I feel that I have to produce the best content I can to meet the expectations of so many.
However, I think this is a good thing. I enjoy a challenge, and when my writing isn’t up to snuff, my readers let me know. :)
@Frugal Dad: I agree — a benefits package for bloggers and freelancers is a great idea. There are many other benefits to blogging, but yes, financial stability would be a good addition to those benefits.
My wife and I live together, yet we still communicate through email and online docs. It’s just more efficient.
If properly managed meetings are an invaluable tool to properly collaborating. A face to face meeting is much easier to manage than a group chat session and provides a level of personal feedback that is non-existent in the online world. There is a very human side to running a successful business (I know because I have been running one for years) and the current trend of working from home, quick emails, and less employee interaction worries me.
Technology can be a great productivity driver but if it is used just for the sake of using it then it will destroy your business faster than anything else. People need to interact with one another in person simply because of the lack of body language feedback in digital communication. Try negotiating on the phone versus negotiating in person and you will quickly see what I mean.
While I agree that times are changing business people must be very careful that the changes they are making are creating long term value for their corporations. Many of these “new rules” are untested and the few that seem to work should be looked at skeptically until they are proven. So far they seem very specific to a niche industry and definitely not applicable to a wide range of businesses, at least not in their current state.
@Writer Dad: Lol! So do my wife and I — we chat via Gmail, 20 feet from each other. It’s fun to flirt with your wife like that too. ;)
Good post, but we can’t use google docs to collaborate sadly. There is some concern about privacy for confidential drafts. That being said, why can’t we have something in-house..
Totally! And what’s funny is that ever since I started Writer Dad last month, it’s become my new nickname. I’m totally in love with how she says it. Even when I’m not in the room, but I here her calling “Writer Dad,” from across the house, I can FEEL her smile. When she calls me Writer Dad in an email, it’s exactly the same thing.
Yes, online apps are valuable, but even better is tools that let you work offline and sync them with an online version. I agree that worry about your home connection going down is not much of a problem, but what do you do when you’re on the road and have no connection? As you said, the workplace is becoming more mobile, and I can do work pretty much anywhere with just my laptop, but Internet access is not always accessible when I’m in the park, on public transit, or on a plane.
Google Gears is starting to make this possible for web-apps, but it’s not supported by all sites, and Safari support is not as far along as the others.
Now that I can access GMail via IMAP and Google Calendar via CalDAV in iCal I have good online/offline support for those. And as a coder tools like Git and Mercurial make offline work easier for software projects.
@Theo: I hear what you’re saying, and you’re right. As I said, meetings *usually* suck … but if done well, they can be a good tool. Unfortunately they’re usually overdone, and management doesn’t realize this most of the time. Meetings should be kept to a minimum so that actual work can get done. A good balance can be found, however.
I also agree about human interaction — and I think that some degree of human interaction can be worked into a decentralized workplace (where people are working from different locations). It’s all about finding the mix that works for you and your workplace. I think the problem is that most employers aren’t open to looking at these issues — they assume the way they’re doing it is the best (or only) way, and don’t realize that there are many, many other options.
I’ve worked in many different positions and I’ve never been to a meeting that everybody didn’t just want to “get through”. Not exactly the pinnacle of productivity.
Paul Zane Pilzer–a brilliant economist–explains in his book “The Next Millionaires” that big companies were created because they were more efficient: the “transaction costs” of individuals doing business together who weren’t under one roof were so high—with transportation costs, communication expenses, delays, and so on—that costs would exceed their economic output.
However, today, with technological advancements such as the ones you describe in this post, Leo, it is becoming more cost-effective for corporations to decentralize and dismantle themselves, giving way to an environment of independent contractors. So he predicts that the future belongs to home-businesses.
@Matt Good: I completely agree — Google Gears is a big step forward for online apps. I tend to use TextEdit to write offline when I need to, then paste the text into an online app when I go back online. These kinds of things will smooth out in the next couple years I think.
This post is just about perfect. I’m snagging it to use as the starting point of my operations plan where I describe “how we do things here.”
It’s such a good summary of what I’ve been noodling with lately I think you might want to consider creating a wiki for others to colaborate and create a complete “new rules of work.”
I am going to be experimenting with a new way to use a filing cabinet. Instead of having folders by category, etc., I’m going to stamp items with a serial number and use a simple filemaker database to categorize it. Stuff everything in the filing cabinet ordered by SN - find it with search.
Archive your physical documents just like you suggest in #5.
Should I? Hmmmm…. :)
I have to say I disagree with 5. (Archive, don’t file)
While I absolutely love Gmail’s system, I use many labels in it that allow me to see a list of things that are related. Search can’t do that if there isn’t a common keyword.
This applies even more to local files: if I want to see a big list of all of the files that go to a certain project I’ve worked on, I can’t properly do that with search unless I name them all something like project001_FILENAME.EXT, in which case I might as well put them in a folder.
I also don’t really like the cloud because files get separated. Think about projects again: If I’m working on something, I don’t want to have documentation on Google Docs, pictures on Flickr, and other stuff elsewhere. How would I copy it quickly to give to somebody? I could give them sharing rights, but I’d have to do that for each individual web-app. I can’t just zip it then email it or put it on a USB drive.
If you had something like icloud.com (private beta right now I think) then (and only then) might you be talking.
But i agree wholeheartedly on collaboration: I just don’t like the current cloud system for my personal files. I don’t think I’ll use it until we have ubiquitous internet (sateillite or something)
@Shawn Petriw: Interesting idea — I’d love to hear how it works out. Another approach would be to see if you can reduce or eliminate the need for paper altogether. I know it’s not possible for some offices, but I personally don’t use paper at all anymore. It’s worth a look.
@Malcolm: You make a couple of good points. To respond:
1. Sometimes labels or tags are useful, like when you are doing a project and want to keep things together. Even then, adding a tag is much easier than filing in the appropriate folder, and in most cases a file or email doesn’t need a tag — only some of the time. Either way, search is still usually more useful than having to find what folder you put something in.
2. I haven’t run into these types of problems with the cloud, but I can see where you’re coming from. I think we’re still in the early stages of this stuff, and problems like you mentioned will be solved in the next couple of years. Things are becoming more and more integrated. Google is among the leaders here — Gmail, Gcal, Reader, Notebook, Picasa and other services are integrating better and better, one step at a time.
Cloud computing = Collectivist Dependency. So sorry: wrong on #1. Collaborate, don’t email? Too general and ambiguous to be seriously taken. Wrong on #2. Collaboration = Productivity? Are you living on another planet? I guess you never really worked with committees. Just more collectivist nonsense. So, wrong on #3. The rest are fluff and filler (or just “duh”). Better to be Independent and have your own, than to give in to the new Gulag hype, which this blog is obviously a part of…
@Christo: I use these kinds of online apps on a regular basis and they are by no means hype. They just make sense. I know that some people have a little trouble getting used to the different way things are done in the cloud and then I could see it as unproductive but what you are saying just makes no sense to me. Maybe you’ve experienced something different than I have.
Leo - part of the reason it would work for me is there isn’t that much paper in my case. I will have to see if the cost of indexing is worth it.
My goal is to be able to travel around the world. Working on my laptop gives me the ability to do that.
I LOVE TECHNOLOGY, and I you are right LEO, the workplace is changing.
As I blog at the beach, I meet savvy business entrepreneurs who work from the laptops.
Take care Leo, drink lots of water!
@Leo: One of my tech consulting colleagues were playing with Puppy Linux awhile back (a 100mb version of linux that is super simple to tweak) and turned it into a browser only OS. I then made a simple web page (this isn’t a blog or anything) tccville.com that is just made up of icons linked to some online apps. It was basically a prototype setup for what peoples computer experience might be in a couple of years. It’s the idea of having a computer with nothing more than a browser with a home page that is the main hub to all the users online apps. Since then (that was about a year ago) they’ve been coming up with more and more simple (usually Linux based) mostly browser OS’s. The advantage here is not only the things you already stated but the fact that the users local OS and apps are so minimal that there’s less to break and it’s less complicated to troubleshoot when it does. And coming from someone who works on thousands of Windows based computers every year you can see why this excites me.: )
Sorry for the long comment.
Leo, fresh insights here! I’m thrilled you blogged about these new rules of working, as I can personally relate to most of them, having had extensive personal experience. A few observations which I hope fellow Zen Habits readers will find useful:
* While it’s true Wikipedia has succeeded largely due to collaboration, it often takes a single person to overcome the initial obstacle — start the bulk of a page and encourage others to refine it in subsequent passes. The original “seeder” may come back later to tend to what is now their “group baby”, but it’s easier to build on someone else’s work than beginning from blank, which psychologically seems like a bigger hurdle. I’ve seen this on other wikis too: people will *wish* for a page on a given topic to be started, but it doesn’t happen until a rare individual (since wiki writers are still far outnumbered by readers) boots it up and rallies others.
* A benefit due to the “new rules of working” happens to be “green meetings”. This is especially true in virtual worlds, like the leading one called Second Life (I work for Linden Lab). Not only do we not have to drive (ugh, gas is $$$!), we’re spatialized via avatars and inworld voice chat, giving us an environmental context which is more effective than, say, being on Skype alone. We can collaborate by using virtual presentation devices, and walk around and give guided tours — great for, say, educators prototyping a new academic facility. Definitely aligned with #4, and other movements I’ve heard of like ROWE.
* “Small teams” tie into the mythical man-month and how throwing more people at a problem, even if they’re brilliant, won’t necessarily get the job done faster. Furthermore, vision gets diluted when there are many: design by committee steps in and poisons the clarity and elegance of unencumbered ideas. Lightweight, agile — words like “guerrilla” also come to mind.
* It’s definitely a lot easier to focus when you’re working remotely/telecommuting than if you’re being buzzed in an office. I love this.
Alvin and Heidi Toffler saw many of these years ago, and while antiquated thinking continues to fog our progress into the future, the more companies and the key people in them adopt this, the better along we’ll be.
@Motivate Thyself: Very cool! I like the concept a lot, and the page is pretty nice.
@Christo: It might be better if you elaborated a bit more on your reasoning. Labeling something as “collectivist” doesn’t really prove it wrong. It would be more useful if you expanded and gave examples maybe.
Leo and Malcolm:
I LOVE Gmail and almost always find things just by searching. I do still tag things, though, for the reasons Malcolm mentioned, although it’s only occasionally that I have to use the tags to find something.
But I still tend to put files in folders, also for the same reasons Malcolm mentioned. Leo, I agree that tagging would be much nicer than a hierarchical folder structure. But how to actually do it and browse your tags? I would love to find a program that operates kind of like itunes - except instead of songs it’s all your files in your mydocs folder or something - then you could search, tag, etc. Anyone know of anything like this?
@Leo: Thanks. The web page was more of a concept than anything else but it’s actually turned out to be pretty useful. My wife and I mainly use the WebTV page for easy access to all of our online viewing sites. We have a computer hooked up to our LCD TV and I just locked the Web TV page into the desktop of XP. We’ve found online viewing to be a great alternative to cable or satellite. I guess this is just another example of the cloud filling another need that used to be on a per-client basis.
Why do all you people’s blogs look identical?
This is such a great post, Leo. I follow your blog religiously.
I do have some differences to what you are stating here, but the important thing is that you’ve gone the step of rethinking what we see as regular work life. I like that a lot.
Thanks for posting this. Keep it up.
Daryl
Thanks for the info on online apps like Google Docs, which I didn’t know much about and which will save time when I’m doing collaborative work on my blog.
You are so absolutly right. Its excactly the way I try to organize my work now as a freelancer with a laptop and wifi places. “yes, I can come to your office, but we can also just chat about this topic”, I try to explain, and after the third level of email conversation I usually stop and say “Where is all this information stored later?”. Its a hard way, but I think people (especially CEOs) must be a bit educated about how things are goin on these days.
Great post! Thanks, all of you, for providing an enlightening evening’s reading!
In my current situation, if there weren’t endless meetings, the mid-level managers wouldn’t have anything to do!!
Cheers!
I liked this article, and point #9 reminded me of one of my favorite sayings:
It takes a really great meeting to be better than no meeting at all.
Keep up the good work!
Huge post there Leo! The good thing about having such a long post there shows a huge interest in this topic, and got me to wanna read it all slower. Cos it’s great!
Thanks Leo :D
Now if we can just get the entire American Educational system to actually adopt these new ways of doing business, traditional schools might be able to serve all our students more efficiently and effectively.
Interestingly, our school just moved to using Google Apps and Docs for teacher lesson plans, parent communication logs and so on and so forth.
The key to embracing “new ways of doing business” is also the willingness of the management to bring in “new perspectives.” If the same tired people are running the shop, then change will not occur.
Love your blog Leo! :) As always, plenty of good and interesting advice. As an (ex) IT guy who still follows technology with a keen eye … the following statement needs to be considered very carefully:
“Using the cloud instead of your hard drive has similar advantages — and one of the best being that you don’t have to back up your info on your hard drive. In the cloud, the data is already backed up. And again, it’s available everywhere — a very important factor in the emerging mobile workplace.”
You ALWAYS have to back up your data. It’s boring, it’s a pain, it takes time … but there are now and will be in the future stories of how lost their entire digital / online life because happened … and who knows what that might be …
Services like those provided by companies such as Google, who have super-redundant-redundant arrays of their entire system, seem now to be like a panacea to all of our woes … but … two things spring to mind …
First, “If it is too good to be true, it probably is”
Second, I don’t offer a neat solution … just a cautious word to the wise … “never put all your eggs in one basket” :)
Peace!
Andy.
p.s. sorry if all I did was express my own fears ;)
Working from home could also help save the planet. How much CO2 is being produced by people driving to the office and back?
What we need is better telepresence tools. Every home worker should have a big screen on the wall, where you’d see your co-workers sitting right there. And you could talk with them like the screen was just a window to another room.
Not some chunky webcam video, but hi-def with decent framerate. The technology is here, but it’s still expensive. Don’t know how our networks could handle all that hi-def stream though…
Excellent Post. I slightly disagree with the cloud thing though. I think it is a good idea for collaborative computing, but what I would like is something that just syncs my stuff automatically. I still prefer most desktop apps over cloud apps though. With the exception of Google Apps, most cloud apps feel clunky and slow.
I also don’t really have to much trouble keeping track of my documents. (Spotlight and Windows Search are very nice helpers though) Again, what I would really like when it comes to file management is something that syncs multiple versions of files across different computers simply and easy.
The archive and search method is awesome though. I love Gmail for things like this. Even though I can’t seem to stop myself from organizing my files, I still love the ability to search and find things more quickly than clicking through a folder tree.
Like the bit about ‘change’. Always reminds me of Douglas Adams’ definition of adapting to change:
1. Anything that is new in the world between your age of 0 an 18 is just a natural part of everything.
2. Anything new in the world between the ages of 18 and 35 is new and exciting and revolutionary.
3. Anything new in the world after you are 35 is just not natural and is plain wrong.
@ Leo - There are two things I would like to know your opinion on, or for that matter the opinion of your readers.
1) after reading about the future of work being open-source, online apps based in the cloud what is your opinion on “netbooks”. A previous article had you discussing your preference for an iMac because of its minimalist design however if you use mostly online apps wouldn’t a compact device with a small SSD instead of a capacious hard drive suit your “principles” better?
2) While you and many of your readers are themselves bloggers I would be interested to hear about how using online apps such as Google calendar and Google docs works in other professions. My one example is based around your principle of archive and search - if you maintain client files how can the same level of organisation be used through archive and search?
Thanks for an excellent article.
Regards,
Alexander
I love these perspectives, everyone! A couple responses:
@Concerned Citizen: You’re probably right — we should still back up. I do know that data in the cloud is already backed up, but you’re probably still right. Overall, the cloud is still better than desktop imo.
@Alexander: 1. Yes, “netbooks” would suit my principles better. I like the big screen of my iMac though (even if I don’t use very much of my hard drive). I’d like to get something that combines netbooks with the iMac.
2. Many businesses are adopting Google Apps (among other such online apps) as their main office suit — businesses of all kinds. I don’t know how they deal with client file organization — I suspect people are still feeling their way around this issue, and no one method has emerged.
I’m a skeptic of “working at my online-office”, because my customers are providing me confidential information. So I maybe get into trouble if I store these information online.
A very good alternative is to use portable apps [www.portableapps.com] instead. You can use application like openoffice, right from your usb storage. And you can encrypt critical documents by using TrueCrypt. So you’ve a secure office at your usb storage.
Remember at the online office:
For google, everything is only a sql query away…..
Great post, I completely agree with the “be part of the change” thinking, it can be not easy, but we don’t have to move with the masses trying to accept the changes, we have to be part of the changing itself…
Excellent article, enjoyed it a lot and there is a LOT of truth in the stuff you are writing! Hear hear.
Great article.
I work in an office with a file server for sharing, but my colleagues *still* insist on emailing word documents to each other when collaborating, and store 20+ files on their desktops.
Unfortunately trying to change working practices is nigh on impossible as they “don’t understand computers”.
This was so refreshing to read. So many workplace think they are being modern and ‘flexible’ when they allow a few women to work part time. You article is a good way to start stretching thinking about what is possible in a modern workplace.
Amazing post Leo, was long but crammed full of great info. I have pretty much all my stuff to a cloud, I still keep a small moleskine for writing my days to do list and random jots. Thanks for sharing the info!!
Great article Leo!
I especially like the insights about working remotely/flexibly. Just a couple of thoughts:
1 - perhaps some organisations like the maintain a more traditional office environment because this way they feel they have control over employee productivity, I don’t personally agree with this view but I’ve sensed it in places I’ve worked (where working remotely or from home is kind of a last resort option, e.g. if your snowed in, have childcare problems, broken car etc.).
2 - Flexible / remote working obviously works better in some fields than in others e.g. I’m a PA and while much of my role could indeed be carried out remotely, it’s just kind of expected that I’ll always be in the office ready to deal with the random emergency of the day or be around for the boss to bounce ideas off (of course, if you don’t even have an office, there is no daily emergency, and the boss could theoretically use video conferencing for the whole “idea bouncing” thing! :D).
Personally I would love to have a 50/50 split between working from home and having a central office to come to :)
“Personally I would love to have a 50/50 split between working from home and having a central office to come to :)”
me too. I love working from home now, but it definitely would help to have a central office as well.
BTW, great post and great ideas.
http://yinvsyang.com/
Totally agree about meetings. I don’t see any way of moving up in my present career that wouldn’t involve going to meetings all day, since that’s what all the people who outrank me seem to do. It’s a big disincentive to career development.
Shanel - I’ve visited your blog and you have an enormous amount of content, but very little in terms of reader interaction (ie comments). Might I suggest your linking to your posts in your comments on various blogs makes people less likely to read your blog and more likely to dismiss you as a spammer (as I do). Just something to think about…
Hey Leo,
I’m not sure I agree that cloud apps like Google docs are better than office/openoffice/abiword, but I agree that collaboration by email is not ideal. Could apps are not the only way to collaborate efficiently.
Replacing Office with Google docs is just replacing one tool you dislike with a tool you like. If Office is what everyone else is using (and not everyone is using it just because it is Microsoft, it really works better for me than google docs), you can integrate office apps with other tools to get groups collaboration features well beyond what google docs provides. Tools like Sharepoint or its open source equivalents using webdav or sharepoint protocols, collaborative editors like gobby, wikis that support document revisions, source code versioning systems, or many more.
What matters is agreeing on the tools that work for all parties. Teleworkers will almost always use the tools their company provides, but I can almost see some freelancers moving towards groups (virtual guilds for lack of a better term) based on the tools they agree to use for collaboration.
On a side note, have you looked at the firefox add on called itsalltext? It’s certainly not a gears replacement, but it allows you to edit text in website text boxes in the editor of your choice. I’ve used it to work on things while unplugged on the train and then saved back to the website when I was connected again.
Anyway, thanks for a great article.
I’ve just entered the world of work this year, and am finding the “new” way of doing things natural and logical. I grew up with a mother who freelanced - so can’t really get my head around any other way of doing it.
(Having seen her often work late into the night I have to say that business hours have their benefits though.)
I think this article is totally applicable for those of us not working yet too. I’m still in school but I find that I learn best when i follow links on wikipedia or clouds found in various websites.
mobility: article ideas, essay ideas and answers to math problems can hit you at anytime so a laptop or at least a notepad\pen’s nice to have on you at all times.
focus\not overwork: I find that for schoolwork, two to three problems of various types are infinitely better than 20 problems of similar type.
clouds: i suggest having a word doc that captures what you learnt in school or on the blogosphere on a particular day and dating it so that you can link it to something else you learnt on another day.
opensourcing: working with a group to solve maths questions is very similar to working on a highly complex multi-author book or business plan. small groups bring a surprisingly high number of diverse ideas and that solves problems very fast.
:}
Sorry thought this post was banal and obvious. No offense but I think people know this already.
Another great post Leo! You summed up a lot of my questions about online technologies and their usefulness. I can see all of the great benefits from the way you described them.
As for single-tasking at work, I have been practicing it more and more and have found that my stress levels have dropped significantly.
I have to disagree with the “Archive, Don’t File” idea.
While being able to search through an archive for what one’s looking for is a nice feature itself, it does not allow one to break down the information/documents into smaller categories.
If I were using G-mail, set up an archive and used it well, and thought that I wanted to look up the entirety of emails under “Internet Purchases,” I would be out of luck. Sure, I could search for one specific email, but what if I wanted to take a look at what I’ve been spending my money on for the sake of budgeting?
That’s where internet e-mail filing comes in. The first step is a pain: one must delete the inbox entirely. After that, folders are created for each type of email (I have “Class-Related,” “Friends,” and “Purchased” for example). Now, it’s just a matter of reading any email that comes up. If the email requires immediate action, I take care of that and then file it away. An organized inbox leads to an organized life.
I also have a physical filing system, which takes more to keep together, but if it’s simple enough for a busy college student, it’s simple enough for anyone.
@Renee,
I wish I did :) Some of us suffer from being techie newbies and depend on the kindness of others who take the time to write informative posts like this one.
Leo..well..at least I have gotten as far as getting Gmail account and switching over most of my endless AOL mail. That has made life a lot easier. And I know what google docs are now and have been experimenting with that. But clouds????? Huh? You lost me there.
Thanks for taking so much time with this.
Hi Leo,
The only downfall I can see with most corporations regarding the filing of files bit is that they need to follow the Sarbanes-Oxley policy. This basically states that you have to have a paper copy of your electronic files, just in case it gets wiped out.
Better to have more than one copy, since you never know what could happen.
Thanks,
Richard Rinyai
http://www.theprofessionalassistant.net
As someone relatively new to blogging, I find it difficult to keep up with some of the terminology. I keep wishing for a blog that explains the best of the basics. I like this article today because you talk about how the different programs can interface, what works where, etc. I don’t know what “the cloud’ is though, (wikipedia talks about it being in Europe). I enjoy your blog immensely and have gotten some really great ideas here–AND I’m hoping for a course in the best of the basics at some point–much along the lines of this one. I feel overwhelmed sometimes just trying to get up to speed with what I should be working in or know about. I wonder what the absolute essentials are?
Thanks yet again, Leo, for a great and useful post–and I don’t think it’s too long!
While I am slowly working toward a freelance life, I still work full time outside of home. At a warehouse. Being in distribution makes the whole “work anywhere” concept a bit difficult. Someone has to physically be there to pick and ship orders. However, my boss is very keen on moving with technology and we already make use of many Google apps. He is very open to new ideas and I can see telecommute in my future (I’m admin).
Still, I do like the social interaction, so I would go in at least once a week. Before I can telecommute, though, I want to be salary instead of hourly. No timekeeping needed that way. :-)
Once again, some great advice!
Sorry Leo, I have to strongly disagree with your “Working Rules #1 (online apps)”:
While online apps are getting better these days with regards to usability, I just fail to see the benefit in a business setting: I find it rather dangerous to put confidential documents somewhere on an internet server, especially when the companies main business is to make money by analyzing content (Google). As much as I like Google for reaching and advertising, so little I have trust in them preserving confidentiality on confidential documents.
Additionally, working as a consultant for years, it was quite often just restricted by the contract to put any information outside your own domain.
I wouldn’t put also private calendar information or contact details about customers on a web server: It just dangerous, I I would not like to explain a client what happened to his data…
Great post on a blog-worthy topic. I especially like:
– #7, communication is a stream;
– and #8, fewer tasks are better than many.
We need to give ourselves permission to be out of the loop sometimes, and to focus on doing a job well, producing a smaller amount of high-quality work, rather than high quantities of mediocre output.
Most companies naturally gravitate toward the latter approach, pressuring employees to crank out more, more, more; faster, faster, faster. That’s the competitive way of the world, after all.
But there is real value in taking the time to be the best in your world at whatever you do. The freelance life may be more conducive to that approach, as not many corporations (at least the ones I’ve encountered) really get it.
Too many companies still see their people as a resource cost that must be contained, and therefore maximized (overworked). And that’s not how to become the best in the world at anything.
Leo, sorry to have to post this here, but I couldn’t find another place to contact you.
I accidentally opted to be emailed on this post’s comments. I have tried to activate the link at the bottom of this post “Manage your subscriptions” but I get a message “You may not access this page without a valid key.”
Help.
The first bullet point, about cloud and online applications, is missing the key point that is holding this technology up.
Very few corporations are comfortable with the idea of uploading company specific sensitive information to the internet, where, in THEORY, anyone can hack into it. At least if it’s on a local hard drive (or internal server), the company is in charge of security. Whereas, if you use any online app, THAT company is in charge of security.
Do you really expect any of the larger companies to give the OKAY for employees to do their work online?
Not any that I’ve worked for.
This change to online/cloud computing may take off lightning fast for small companies who really would have a bottom line impact from not purchasing MS Office (or it’s competitors). But for the giants corporations out there, I don’t believe this is a change that will EVER happen.
Pipe dreams!
Linux is a bottomless pit for maintenance on the desktop.
It’s bush league at best.
Windows is crap but it’s standard crap.
You also have to watch the online apps you employ and your non disclosure requirements. Taking this advice in the company I work for would be grounds for immediate termination without warning.
Some interesting points being made here.
I hear the point about putting confidential data on the Internet, but I believe this will change over time as people realize it’s not really an issue. People used to be afraid to connect to the Internet for fear that they would open a connection where hackers could get confidential data, but that’s changed. Today, lots of people put private data on the web, and privacy violations haven’t been an issue … but I guess we’ll have to see how it plays out.
@Chaunce: I deleted your comment subscription as well as the comment requesting the deletion. :)
Leo - What a long article. I couldn’t finish it. I’ll read the rest later. Very good though.
Leo,
Could some of your points be driven as much by your personal distaste for Microsoft & products as by actual reality?
@Righteous Marketing: I won’t conceal my distaste for Microsoft and its products … but the truth is, for collaboration and mobility, MS Office doesn’t come close to Google Docs or the like.
Well written article, and I think you do an excellent job getting your point across. I will disagree with your theme, in that not every new way is better. I think that bringing new ways in, like editing a book, as you mention, make sense, meeting someone face to face can not be replaced. Would you rather have your complaint handled by a live human, or do you want to email or record a voice mail, and hope it gets the proper attention? I think that integrating old and new brings everyone into the mix, and lets everyone collaborate. Old schoolers can learn something new, and the up and coming might learn some wisdom with out the hard lessons, all the while building community. Just doing something new because most 20 somethings do it, does not make it better, it just makes it popular.
I am a massive geek. Massive. I think geek (and was pleasantly suprised when I learned that machines think the ‘right’ way).
That being said, I have one point:
” The open-source model works much better in many cases”
Name one. Seriously. Since my first Comp Sci 101 course, I have been hearing how Linux will be taking over the world in a week. Been waiting for Open Office long?
I have people around me that seem to adopt this same philosophy: if it is open source, it is good.
Have any of you people tried to use some open source apps!!??! Or get support for one???? Would be my first question, but beyond that, this is a very, very silly thought process. I can make some really nasty code and call it open source, and I can start a company and make the next killer app.
For once, I want to get beyond the jihadi ‘open’ versus ‘closed’ stupidity and move to a more meaningful conversation: what does MS do well. (other than bring about the fall of civization as we know it, all the while munching on virgin kittens while they order the destruction of orphanages world wide) and where does open source fail (and fail it does, but that is like saying the US has problems at a GOP convention). This is the true discussion. And when we have it, we will start moving forward.
But I am just so, so tired of…
“Why are we using this?”
“Its open source!!”
…wow, so I can go through the code and 100% guarantee it sucks! Whoopie!!
Or, I can have another genious point out that we could fix it. Right. You just saved a whole bunch of money to pay me twice as much to make the darn thing that you should have bought.
There is some great open source out there and I have had the honor of contributing on some really great projects. However, there are also a score of open source memories that I wish I could just wipe from my memory.
You people saying “go open”!!! without any qualifications, or…I guess “reason” is a good word…is just as silly as companies not getting that they could *save* money by not making me come into this office.
@ “Motivate Thyself”: Instead of just staring at the enso, and contemplating navels, I say; look deeper, see who is holding and controlling the once free space (both online and off). Are things free really so? Sure, sure, convenience is great, except when it is the Judas goat. If you really go Zen, than do your Zazen on this. Mediatate on what freedom and liberty (to realize your full potential) really IS. [Or was.] See what and who is controlling what and who. Otherwise you are either the minion or the pawn, but not free. It starts with the seemingly innocent fences around your world. It ends with the roundup. Then you’ll be doing your meditations (if you actually practice) inside a cell, or on the prison train car. But rearranging the digital deck chairs is less stressful than facing the Titanic reality.
[sighs] I like future trends, but this just seems a bit unrealistic for today. Or I’m just not with the times.
/begin rant
1. I’m familiar with all of the apps mentioned. None offer me much value add over traditional tools. Eventually they will, but not now.
Google Docs = still terribly slow, feels buggy, limited functionality, mostly unusable
No need for any of the others yet. Backpack, Basecamp, etc. tend to overly complicate small projects; helpful for larger.
2. Yes, this will be glorious when Google Docs works well.
3. Yay Wikipedia!
4. Yay going mind-numbingly batshit crazy by working next to your bed (kids, refrigerator, books, etc.) 365 days a year. And no, don’t tell me coffee shops are efficient workspaces. Anywhere I have to use a tiny laptop will keep me inefficient.
Coworking spaces are the wave of the future here. Startups or freelance companies could rent the space one day a week to maintain some consistent face-time. Even better if we could rent nice, 30-40″ monitors, too. Maybe 50″? Dare I say, even 60″? [salivates]
5. Filing takes me less time and energy in the long run than having to search through my 110K personal files. I have a poor memory, so it’s not always possible for me to remember what I’m looking for. In those cases, the files are difficult to find.
Just archiving and searching = more difficult to zip up the folders and send to colleagues, more difficult to gauge the size of specific projects, more difficult to revise all the individual files associated with specific projects (e.g., add new logo).
Tagging = filing. It is better, but there is very little functional difference. Now if the tags automatically produced an associated folder hierarchy and linked every file to every related folder/tag, that’d be great.
Smart, automatic filing is the future. Our computers should file for us and let us choose how to view our files: dig through a folder hierarchy or search.
6. Small teams (companies) fail at an incredibly high rate. Big teams (companies) build in structure to survive. Success = scaling. There are trade-offs yes, but how many billion dollar companies are run by small teams? Why not?
The problem is with poorly designed structure. Smart teams (companies) build in quick adaptability. One of the core components of boostrapping/innovating is working within constraints. Build in smart constraints.
7. I like the analogy and will use it myself. But some of the conclusions are kind of ridiculous. Missing critical communication = unprofessional. I’m sorry folks, but when you miss deadlines because you couldn’t keep up with your email, it has consequences. It hurts the team. Hurts sales. Annoys people. [FYI: I miss things occasionally. And it sucks.]
The better answer here is: be concise when communicating and prioritize your inflow. Blogs, Twitter, forums, etc. = not the best choice of your time, generally. [Working on this myself.]
8. Simplify and prioritize, yes. But don’t give up your huge projects list! That’s tantamount to killing your ambition. Sorry, I’m keeping my 80+ personal projects.
9. I’ve been in hundreds or thousands of meetings. Most were poorly run. But only a few were useless. It’s usually the uninvolved/uninspired person that says that, in my experience. If a meeting is going poorly, fix it!
The problem is with running a good meeting, not the essence of the meeting itself. First step, limit their frequency and duration. The ratio of meeting to producing time should be tracked and held consistent for each team member.
10. Yep, open-source is awesome. Doesn’t work yet for designing robotic arms or printing paper or creating pharmaceutical drugs.
11. Yep, but this isn’t exactly news. Still, today the average worker puts in more hours than ever before, if the last study I saw on it is valid.
The smart, forward-thinking companies treat their employees like kings. They milk every ounce of productivity out of them, while keeping them happy (cheap/nutritious food, breaks, napping rooms, on-site massage, etc.).
12. Yep, except what does you mean by not “getting anything real done”? Laundry is real. Finding local events to attend is real. Reading is real. Paying your bills is real. Processing through personal notes is real.
I don’t know if this was your intent, but why do people so often claim that only tightly focused goals are considered productive? Work = exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something. You work more often than you realize.
/end rant
@gh0st, who challenged me to “Name one. Seriously.” … I could name *many* open-source software that are better than closed-source competitors, but my favorite is definitely Firefox. Hands down best browser, way better than IE. Safari is good but not quite as good.
@James: I could respond to all of your points, but I’ll just focus on one:
“I don’t know if this was your intent, but why do people so often claim that only tightly focused goals are considered productive? Work = exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something. You work more often than you realize.”
Yes, but I make a distinction between “work” and getting important things done. You can work all day on email and small tasks, but at the end of the day, did you accomplish anything important? Anything with long-lasting meaning or impact?
My entire philosophy is based around this idea: don’t try to just do “work” … figure out what’s essential, and focus on that. Figure out what will have the most impact on your career and life, and focus on that. Otherwise, you’re spinning your wheels and not getting anywhere.
Cool article ++
http://ipsnitch.net/
that dude with the tatoos and the laptop looks cool!
RD
http://www.decrypt.net.tc
After 20 years in the financial sector…meetings are a waste if they are not completed in 30 minutes and everyone leaves with an action list to tackle.
Sick and tired of getting to the conference room only to have people jumping up, getting water or coffee or telling us how drunk they got the night before. Than the meeting will decay into its usual topics of how to increase revenue and who should be fired or who is an idiot.
Most people waste time at work. Smoke breaks are a huge loss of productivity and so is surfing the web.
Unless you are in a business that needs constant face to face hand holding, a nice office is a waste.
Most people I know work best and very early hours of the morning and odd hours into the night. The day has turned into zombie time. Most creativity and execution is occurring at times other than 9-5.
When I was a pup, my pops was a workaholic and made a lot of money. Sure we had nice toys but he died at an early age due to stress. No dollar amount could ever replace the opportunity to spend more time with him.
Technology enables me to get out of the office and spend a lot of time with my family. If people cannot respect that than I do not want to work with them.
Lead people…don’t manage them.
ID
Any recommendations for a free online “checkbook register” I currently do all my banking online through our local bank, but I still use Quicken/Quickbooks on my home computer to balance checkbook, etc… I would love to be able to access this from any computer. I know that quickbooks has an online version for about $10/month, but are there any reliable, free sites that you recommend. I use most of the google applications: Gmail; docs; Gcal; Picasa for just about everything else.
Funniest thing I’ve read today. You really have a flair for comedy — keep it up!
the basic rule - stay away from management and head office as much as possible
Great ways to get my sites thriving with articles and authors.
Leo: Thanks for your reply! Didn’t expect you to hit all of them. ;)
I agree with you on prioritizing: 80:20 rule, first things first, four quadrant time analysis, etc. But it just seems unrealistic to claim that you didn’t accomplish anything important if you spent all day on email and small tasks. When neglecting those things comes and burns you in a couple days/weeks, then you see how important they really are. I guess I find fault in people who claim that you can semi-magically get rid of things like laundry or reviewing expenses.
But you’re right, if the tasks are simply not important, you should be limiting them anyway. [Is this really anyone's major problem? Definitely not mine.] Best solution here: track your time and see how much of your attention goes to unimportant things. Leisure, etc. is still important, so this is a bit nuanced.
RescueTime + Excel is all I need to know where I’m spending my time, by the way. I’d highly recommend both for enhancing personal productivity.
Very nice post. My personal favorite is “People don’t have to be in an office”. I wish my “old school” company would embrace this.
Rule #1 and Rule #10 contradict each other. Rule 1 says you should use online apps. But online apps are not open, not in the least (no, not even Google’s).
Really, Rule #1 is the one I disagree with the most. The problem solved by online apps isn’t ubiquity of applications, but ubiquity of document access. Using your OS’s built in abilities to provide traditional-style file access to an online file store solves this problem without the need for lock-in to a proprietary online app. Instead, use free, open source software that you can cheaply deploy on all your workstations and throw on a thumbdrive when elsewhere, and an online file store.
What a bunch of solipsistic, new-age myths!!!!
1. Online apps and the cloud beat the desktop and hard drive??? You still need a computer to access the cloud, and you can’t borrow computers that are being used by others. So you still have to have your own computer.
2. Collaborate on documents, don’t email them???
This assumes that the document is the deliverable result. It’s not; the ideas in the document are the deliverable result. True collaboration is better done in person. Collaboration is a LESS productive means of creating a single document
3. Collaboration is the new productivity??? The cost of communication is proportional to the *factorial* of the number of nodes that must communicate. Collaboration is a LESS productive means of creating a single document.
4. People don’t have to be in an office??? People enjoy collaborating with talented people, whether in the office or out.
5. Archive, don’t file??? Archiving works for individuals; when saving data for teams (i.e. collaboration), a common organizing principal is required, such as a taxonomy or hierarchical folders, so that others without the local archive can find things.
6. Small teams are better than large teams??? Yes, but small teams are maximally productive when working together in-person, not remotely.
7. Communication is a stream??? No, communication is a collection of hierarchical threads, such as in online message boards forums.
8. Fewer tasks are better than many??? Avoided tasks that are unimportant to you may be important to somebody else, like you manager, customer, client, supplier, team-member.
9. Meeting (usually) suck??? In-person meetings are best for democratic decision making by a deliberative body and for collaboration, and worst for mere one-way communications.
10. Open-source is better than closed??? Not when you are trying to create and sustain competitive advantage. Some people create in order to make a living, others create for the love of creation. A government under which everything is distributed, and democratic, and shared is called Communism.
11. Rest is as important as work??? But not during times when others need you to work
12. Focus, don’t crank??? You can’t focus on one thing for a long time when you have many things to get done during that time.
point #6 about small teams is illustrated well in the 37 signals book “getting real”. i think it makes a lot of sense and the times when i have developed my best app have been in very small teams.
A very interesting article. But I disagree with much of it…
Take the “anti-meeting” stance taken by most posters here. If you feel meetings are waste of time, learn to run better meetings. Have an agenda and leave with a set of action points. “93% of communication is non-verbal” may be an urban myth but it’s impossible to communicate truly effectively through a wiki or similar. And email is an incredibly ineffecient way of communicating.
I am also unhappy about the thought of work not ending when I leave work. It should do!
And having corporate documents on someone else’s server seems a very unwise move.
Still, good to have some ideas of where the “forward thinking” crowd is heading.
Another original piece. It really made me think about my own life. We need to stay connected in virtual world. There are so many great techniques to keep work relationships strong.
Skype with video, Flickr (share images), Facebook, IM and so many more.
We have to keep our personal touches frequent and pleasant because we don’t want to get too lost in our own worlds.
Liked your thought process and flexibility a lot which is displayed from this blog.
Can see these ideas working now.
This will make world a better place to leave in the make people more independent and creative.
How can you put this style in place where the team is small and it does not have it’s own mobile infrastructure which is so required to give up the boundaries of the work place or an office. Also where if it is not affordable for the organization to spend on such mobile infrastructure for the employees as of now ?
Your arguments make sense only if your data has no intrinsic value for you (and admittedly most data people create and/or consume does not). However, if it does, you better keep a personal copy rather than putting all your faith in the cloud. You have no idea how things will shape up tomorrow. For anything that has value, I’d rather put on my own computer (both application and data).
Privacy is also a concern even though the new internet generation is not fully aware of it yet. It is true that there is less and less privacy these days, but I don’t believe in making things worse by aggregating all sorts of personal information in the cloud under various large services (google, youtube, facebook, …) because in aggregate form, it makes an easy target and you can never know how others will “interpret” it! What may seem benign to you could potentially be used against you.
We’ll see how these aspects of the move to the cloud will play out in the near future as more and more people make the jump.
High quality article, very well done.
I couldn’t agree with you more. People have got to change with the times and these are just some of the many ways we all need to be think of changingl
Thanks for a thought provoking article.
Andrea
“I can’t remember the last time my Internet was down, and it’s never been a problem in more than a year of using almost exclusively online apps.:”
You must have a backup generator. My internet, which is DSL because no other technology is available where I live, goes down every time we have a major thunderstorm.
Hello there. Very nice post, Leo. i’m one of those who read it everyday but I comment very little. I was just wondering, where do you get all these quotes from. Do you have a database, or something like that? Do you just recall most, how is this?
Cheers from Brazil.
Another great post. I agree with nearly every point. But i would like to share some insight on #4: “People don’t have to be in an office.”
I work on a virtual team and what I have come to realize is that something is lost on teams like mine; Comradery.
Sure we get a lot done. But my colleagues and I can’t go out to lunch or happy hour, they can’t see me when I spill coffee all over myself and laugh. And some might view that as a good thing. But from my perspective having a team that physically works together builds a team environment that a virtual team cannot.
I agree with you.
Great post Leo, an original article from you, which appears to be very popular.
From reading through the comments, it seems a few Closed and Open source purists have picked up on your page, which has provided for really interesting discussion.
I think its important to note that many of the online apps are able to be used in offline mode (I’m thinking Google).
@anon: It is also important to note that open source and ownership of ones own information (privacy) can be mutually exclusive beliefs. One could in fact support a Free, libre or open source software (FLOSS) project where the organisation held users’ information.
@James point 6:
Smaller, open teams tend to be more adept at scaling than large organisations and teams. If you would like, I can provide some literature detailing how this is the case.
I lovee the picture. Nice post. Thanks.
this is great!
the only problem i have with using google docs, etc is identity theft — what if somebody hacks into your account and you can’t get back in? that’s my only qualm. but i’ll probably get over it!
Yeah for never having to have or use Microsoft Word again! That alone makes my life so much better.
Great article, very in-depth.
I’m just stumbling on this article thanks to your best of ‘08 post.
With your above logic, what is the ideal attachment for resumes in 2009? In the next few months, I’m going to be on a crazed job search and in my profession, it’s a huge numbers game. Do I keep with my Microsoft Word attachments (can save as a PDF) or can I utilize Google Docs somehow? Any feedback is appreciated….
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