Far-flung Team Communication

February 11, 2010 WordPress Calendar Project

The first task of every new distributed team is learning how to communicate with each other. Some teams plan out their communication ahead of time while others let it grow organically. The editorial calendar project is a little of each.
Email
Our communication starts with initial planning emails. They’re full of are [...]

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Every Demo Is An Emotional Journey

February 9, 2010 Good Communication

Every presentation is an emotional journey.
Nancy Duarte said that during an interview and it stuck with me. Every successful presentation takes the audience from one emotion to another. Ignorance about you to excitement or apathy to interest, it’s all about emotional changes. Nancy’s simple statement changed the way I communicate.
I’m a software [...]

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Cast of Characters

February 4, 2010 WordPress Calendar Project

Now that I’ve opened up the project and warned you that I’m reporting from the middle it’s time to meet the editorial calendar plugin for WordPress team.
I’ve worked with some of the people on this team before, but most of them have worked together without me. We span two countries and a [...]

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Show Your Work With Your Professional Blog

February 2, 2010 Blogging

I don’t just write about teleworking, I also live it. I’ve been a telecommuting engineer for Novell since 2001. I write mission critical code and design products that get sold for millions of dollars. It sounds impressive, but I can’t really show anyone my work.
Graphic designers have portfolios, authors have [...]

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Reporting From The Middle

January 28, 2010 WordPress Calendar Project

Before I tell you more about the editorial calendar plugin for WordPress team, I have a little warning.
I’ve profiled many teams for The One Minute and from my vantage point as a third party I can provide an unbiased view of those groups. My reporting on the editorial calendar project is nothing but biased. [...]

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Shoptalk: A New Tool That Helps You Stay Close With Your Team

January 26, 2010 Guest Post

Today we have a guest post from David Shoemaker. He’s here to tell us about his company’s new tool ShopTalk. Basically it’s like a group instance message in your browser, only better. We also have 100 free passes to give away. I’ll let David explain it.

My daily commute involves the freeway. [...]

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Tidying Up The Project and Getting Ready for Company

January 21, 2010 WordPress Calendar Project

The editorial calendar plugin for WordPress started as a family weekend project and it remained the stuff of evenings, weekends, and other stolen moments for a few weeks after that. But eventually it was stable enough to invite other people and we needed to take a set of random ideas, documents, and code and [...]

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Every Teleworker Should Have a Professional Blog

January 19, 2010 Blogging

If you’re going to job interviews with just your resume then you’re way behind the times. Your resume is an important tool for getting a job interview, but it will never never get you the job because it doesn’t show prospective employers what it is really like to work with you.
Most of the time [...]

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I’m Starting A New Far-flung Team

January 14, 2010 WordPress Calendar Project

Every new project is full of potential and risk. Extending something that already exists is always the safer move, but the blank page holds a wonderful allure. It’s a chance to create a new world; even if it’s just a small one.
I’ve started a new programming project to an editorial calendar plugin for [...]

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Are You A Bad Apple?

January 12, 2010 Good Communication

You’ve heard that one bad apple can spoil the bunch, but Will Felps at the Rotterdam School of Management proved it. Dr. Felps conducted experiments looking at what he called three “bad apple” behaviors:

Being pessimistic
Slacking off
Being a jerk

He created groups and assigned them simple tasks. The groups were paid more based on their [...]

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