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Working From Home: A Survival Guide

August 22, 2016

Few demographics are as widely envied as people who work from home.

Not only do they get to avoid the indignity of wasting several hours a day on a packed subway train that stops and starts as frequently as a YouTube video that’s experiencing buffering issues, they also get to avoid the additional indignities of paying for office space, of having their concentration shattered by annoying colleagues who insist on talking about whatever was on TV the previous night, and of opening the fridge only to discover that their $7 energy drink has been stolen.

But perhaps most blissfully of all: They have the opportunity to nap at any point during the day without anyone around to judge them (thus eliminating the need for purchasing a $7 energy drink in the first place).

That’s not to say that working from home is without its problems. There are, after all, good reasons why going to an office to work has been the standard for so many centuries. Most of these problems stem from the issue of motivation: namely, it’s hard to have any when your bed and TV are just three feet away from your work desk.

Staying motivated is a subject that an endless number of blogs have already tackled and it won’t be addressed here. Instead, this article will focus on some of the more practical problems that arise from working from home.

1. Do Not Underestimate the Importance of Reliable Wi-Fi

via GIPHY

Imagine you have a PDF that your boss insists on seeing within the next five minutes. You attach it to an email, type in your boss’ address, and hit the send button, but instead of hearing the Apple “whoosh” sound, something else happens: a box pops up asking you if you’re sure you want to send the email without filling in the subject heading. You click yes, but once again, the email refuses to send. You think it might be because your roommate is hogging all the bandwidth playing Warcraft, so you pound on his door and ask him to log off. He insists he isn’t online and harshly rebukes you for waking him up, but you aren’t 100% sure he’s telling the truth, so you restart the router just to be safe.

The router restarts, but you’re still having problems connecting. In a panic, you pack up your computer and rush over to the nearest Starbucks. Halfway there, you remember that you can just turn your iPhone into a Hotspot, so you pull out your laptop and look for a place to sit down. The nearest bench is 200 meters away and your boss wanted that PDF three minutes ago. After carefully weighing your options for a minute, you decide that the best course of action is to just sit down on the sidewalk and connect your computer to your phone and send the document.

The document has been sent, but your problems have only just begun. You still need reliable Wi-Fi for the rest of the day, so you continue on to Starbucks. You get there and order a $5 drink that you don’t particularly want but you order it anyway because the Wi-Fi at Starbucks is for paying customers only. As you’re waiting for the barista to drench your drink in foam and caramel, all of the seats fill up. You stand around for another 10 minutes waiting for someone to leave, but everyone remains sitting. Finally, you decide to throw out your $5 drink and pay $3 to ride the bus to the library. When you finally get to the library, dozens of emails slowly load up in your inbox, all with the subject heading “?????”

This scenario happens to people who work from home everyday. The only way to avoid it is to invest in the best Wi-Fi available. If you have a roommate who hogs your bandwidth, you may want to consider getting a separate router (or a new roommate).

2. Experiment With Different Collaborative Apps

via ucinsight

No baseball team has ever won the World Series by sending their players to a variety of locations outside of the stadium where the game was scheduled to take place. Similarly, being in separate locations could cause problems with your team dynamic. Luckily, there are millions of collaborative apps to help remedy the situation. Google Calendar, for instance, allows you see your coworkers’ schedules and for them to see yours, eliminating the need for constantly sending out group emails asking who’s available at 3PM for a quick chat.

There are also many online collaboration applications that allow you to divide a project into smaller tasks that can be completed by different team members and then keep track of who’s doing what in one central location. Many of these applications also provide internal messaging systems for communication back and forth between team members. Constantly updated project information will decrease lag time waiting for replies to emails or returning phone calls. Everybody’s work is there for all to see in real-time.

Two of the most popular collaborative apps, Slack and HipChat, are currently in the midst of a high-profile war. Try out both apps and then pick a side.

3. Invest in a Proper Headset and Microphone

via GIPHY

Showing up to an important Skype session using just your computer’s built-in microphone is considered by some to be a faux pas on par with showing up in a clown costume. The background ambient noise is too echoey, and you’ll be asked to repeat yourself over and over again. Buying a mid-priced directional mic or headset is an easy way to solve this.

Similarly, it’s important that your background is at least moderately photogenic. If your unmade bed is visible in the corner of the frame, you’re going to create a bad impression. Try to have a bookcase or painting in the background instead.

By following these steps, you should be able to avoid most of the major mistakes that rookie remote workers make. Now if you can just figure out how to resist watching TV in bed all day, you’ll be all set.

Additional Reading

20 Awesome DIY Office Organization Ideas That Boost Efficiency
Home Office Organization Ideas
Tips For Creating Successful Office Spaces At Home

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PowerPoint or Bust?: 6 Alternatives to Microsoft's Behemoth

August 19, 2016

When the climate change documentary An Inconvenient Truth was released in 2006, critics marveled at former vice president Al Gore’s ability to deliver a PowerPoint presentation that enormous crowds of people were willing to pay good money to see. If someone with a reputation for being stiff and uncharismatic could use a program notorious for being dull and generic and produce something riveting with it, anything was possible.

Of course, as it turned out, the critics didn’t do their research. Gore’s presentation was done with Apple Keynote, not PowerPoint. But the confusion was understandable. Like the brand names Windex, Xerox, and Kleenex, the word “PowerPoint” has become a regular noun in the English language. We use it interchangeably with “presentation” regardless of whether or not the presentation in question actually uses Microsoft’s program.

The reason for this is simple: Throughout its 26 years of existence, PowerPoint has held onto a 95% share of the presentation software market. According to one estimate, there are at least 350 PowerPoint presentations being made at any given moment. People use the brand name as a synonym for “presentations” because they don’t know of any other brand names that could potentially fit the bill. As far as the general public is concerned, PowerPoint is the only game in town.

But like the climate that Gore described in his famous Keynote speech, the climate of presentation software is rapidly changing. New presentation programs are beginning to emerge, challenging PowerPoint’s two decades of dominance. Here are 6 of them.

1. Prezi

PowerPoint’s most dynamic competitor uses zooms and pans to transition from slide to slide. The result is a presentation style that is far more lively and cinematic than what PowerPoint’s linear format is capable of delivering. (Perhaps a little too lively and cinematic: Some have complained that the zooming and panning causes motion sickness, a criticism that several Prezi presentations have addressed).

But reports of motion sickness didn’t turn people off the Bourne franchise, and they don’t seem to be turning people off Prezi either. The program currently has 26 million registered users, at least a few dozen of whom have given popular TED talks.

2. Haiku Deck

For those who find Prezi’s zooms and pans distracting, Haiku Deck is the perfect alternative. Its simple, elegant, minimalistic layout is the antithesis of Prezi’s visual overdrive.

The templates aren’t as malleable as in PowerPoint or Keynote, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing if you don’t feel like taking a couple of hours out of your day to learn a new program.

3. Keynote

If you had to explain to Martian who knew nothing about human computing technology why Apple is generally regarded as a cooler, hipper company than Microsoft, showing them the differences between Keynote and PowerPoint wouldn’t be the worst place to start. Like most Apple products, Keynote is more intuitive, user-friendly, and features better design than its Microsoft counterpart.

The only major drawback: Keynote only runs on Apple computers, and although you can convert a Keynote presentation to PowerPoint, the conversion is rarely ever perfect. So if you switch between computers frequently, Keynote may not be the best option.

4. Google Slides

Just as Google Documents has set the standard for collaborative word processing and spreadsheets, so too has it set the standard for collaborative presentations. If you’re giving your presentation as part of a team, Google Slides is probably the way to go.

5. SlideDog

If your presentation relies heavily on a wide array of media in unusual formats that aren’t supported by other presentation software, you may want to look into SlideDog. It prides itself on supporting just about every file format currently in existence. It even supports other presentation files, making it the ideal choice for people looking to recycle content from their old Prezi or PowerPoint presentations.

6. PowToon

For something different, you can’t go wrong with PowToon. It features a simple, easy to use interface comparable to Haiku Deck, but adds the feature of cartoon animation. So if you want enliven your presentation with some Archer-style comedy, PowToon is your answer.

Regardless of which program you ultimately use, it’s always a good idea to present wirelessly, especially if you’re presenting from your laptop and are unsure of what cables or adapters you’ll need to connect to the TV or projector. Even if you decide to go with Microsoft’s old war horse, you are under no obligation to compliment the outdated software with outdated cables and adapters: A wireless PowerPoint presentation is perfectly feasible with Ubiq’s wireless presentation solution. Click here to request a free demo.

Additional Reading
Best PowerPoint Alternatives
7 Outstanding Example Presentations Using Prezi
PowerPoint vs. Prezi: What’s the Difference?

Ubiq Daily – Wednesday August 17th,2016

August 17, 2016

From the CIO

The average professional wastes 31 hours a month in unproductive meetings. David Humphreys offers 5 ways to reduce that figure.
Groupthink has been responsible for some of the biggest U.S. foreign policy blunders of all time. Could it also be an issue at your workplace?
On the importance of authenticity in IT leadership: “If your employees don’t feel that you’re authentic in what you say and how you act, you run the risk of losing great talent and jeopardizing your company’s long term future,” Lissa Minkin of Addepar tells CIO.com.

Technology News

With all of the recent advancements in A.I. and genome editing, now is the time to seriously start weighing the pros & cons of being a cyborg, says futurist Gerd Leonard.
The idea that apps will one day be replaced by bots is starting to gain mainstream acceptance. Don’t be so sure of it, says Kik founder Ted Livingston.
Google revealed the new security features of the Android Nougat 7.0 today during an hour-long Hangout with media and select IT professionals. New features include an “always-on” VPN, a “work security challenge” which allows IT to lock restriction for specific apps, and a ”work mode” which allows users to disable all work-related apps after business hours.

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7 Tips For Stressed Out IT Managers

August 17, 2016

Like being a stock broker in the year 1929, being an IT manager in 2016 can be a pretty stressful gig: Your backend system is a complicated mixture of old and new applications that have been randomly pieced together from multiple vendors as a result of decades of acquisitions, Russian hackers are constantly trying to infect your system with malware in order to extort precious, precious Bitcoins, and Martha from accounting keeps trying to torrent The Force Awakens even though it’s been available on Netflix for at least two months now.

With so much on your plate, it can be hard to stay organized. Hopefully this 7 item priority list will make your job a little bit easier.

1. Manage Time. If a help desk ticket unexpectedly balloons into a 15-hour-long marathon session, your team should inform you. You may need to find another team member or resource to assist.

2. Balance Human Resources. If your department is understaffed and you have deadlines that desperately need to be met, be careful not to push your team to the point of mental and physical exhaustion. That strategy didn’t work out so well for J.K. Simmonds in the movie Whiplash, and we doubt it will work out well for you. Create a simple spreadsheet that lists your employees and the current and upcoming projects they’re working on. It acts as visual representation to allow you to make the appropriate adjustments.

3. Monitor Usage. Dedicate time for you and your team to review the way technology is being used at your company. If you use Ubiq for wireless presentations, go to the Dashboard and study the usage logs. The information you find there could hold the key to improving meeting room productivity.

4. Security Check. As more and more companies are implementing BYOD policies and opening up their network to external teams, it is critical to make sure your infrastructure is protected from viruses and hacks. If your company has more than 100 employees, it’s safe to say that at least one of them has fallen for the trick popularized by Mr. Robot of leaving a USB stick out in the parking lot and hoping that an employee will plug it in on a company computer. Find out who it is and give them a stern talking to.

5. Team Check. As a leader, you need to check in with your team and talk to them about the work environment, their vision, and opportunities to grow the department. Make sure they stay engaged and motivated. If you sense their motivation is lagging, take them out to lunch or buy them coffee and try to boost their spirits.

6. Speak with Vendors. Chances are that your technology is not all “in-house.” Reach out to your vendors to address concerns, get updates on new releases/upgrades, and review performance and optimization. Those conversations should then be shared with your team to prepare for any new tasks or projects.

7. Benchmark Trends. Is it time to upgrade technology or implement something new? Look at the industry landscape for the latest hardware and software. If your company has the money, see if they’ll fly you out to one of this fall’s major tech conferences. You may not be able to make changes right away. However, it gives you an opportunity to create a roadmap with other departments, and set priorities and timelines in the future.

By following the steps on this checklist, it is our hope that your stress levels will go from that of a Great Depression-era stock broker to that of a Newfoundland fisherman circa 1535. But in the off-chance they don’t, there’s always diet and exercise. That almost always does the trick.

Additional Reading
Working In IT is Getting More Stressful
IT Stress: Management, Empathy, and the Kindness of Strangers
Most IT Admins Considering Quitting Due to Stress

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How To Waste Less Time During Business Meetings

August 15, 2016

Ah, business meetings: The only phenomena in the known universe that make line-ups at the DMV look like models of efficiency in comparison. According to one estimate, the average professional loses 31 hours per month in unproductive meetings. To put things in perspective, the uncut Lord of the Rings trilogy is only 12 hours long. Think about that for a second: In the time it takes you and your colleagues to set up the projector and argue over who will record the minutes, Frodo can walk to Mount Doom and back two and a half times.

How do you remedy this? Like reaching absolute zero on the thermometer, there’s no known way to achieve a 100% efficient meeting. There are, however, certain steps you can take to make sure you don’t get horribly outpaced by Frodo productivity-wise.

1. Send Out the Agenda With the Same Frequency That Old Navy Sends Out Junk Mail

“Is there an agenda for today?” is the question that inevitably kicks off every business meeting. This is why it’s important to send out the agenda a week in advance, and then again four days later. Then, just for good measure, send the agenda out once again the day before the meeting.

This way, if anyone asks if there’s an agenda for the meeting, you can respond, “Yes, is your computer not capable of receiving e-mails?”

When compiling the agenda, always make sure that all deliverables are clearly marked and highlighted in bold. You may also want to consider using larger than normal font sizes. Don’t be afraid to go as high as 22pts.

2. Start On Time No Matter Who Shows Up Late (Unless It’s the President of the Organization or the President of the United States)

The most common way business meetings chew up time is when someone shows up five minutes late and says, “Oh hey, sorry I’m late. What did I miss?” The next five minutes are then typically spent getting that person all caught up. Just when it looks like the meeting is finally set to move forward, another straggler inevitably wanders in, and the process repeats itself ad nauseam.

The best way to avoid this: Start on time no matter what and refuse to update any latecomers on what they missed. When someone shows up late for a movie, the projectionist doesn’t stop the show to give the late-comer a verbal synopsis. The same thing should apply to meetings.

3. Go Wireless

In today’s BYOD environment, non-wireless presentations can be tricky. In order to accommodate every laptop, the IT technician will have to bring a huge collection of wires and adapters to the conference room (HDMI, VGA, HDMI to VGA, DVI to HDMI, Thunderbolt to HDMI, Lightning to HDMI).

Figuring out which laptop requires which adapter can take longer than the meeting itself. Better to go wireless.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Play Referee

Soccer games would be absolute chaos without referees, and the same thing applies to business meetings. The second someone goes off topic and mentions how crazy last night’s episode of Game of Thrones was, blow a whistle at them and give them a yellow card.

5. Keep Meetings Under 45 Minutes

“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder,” Alfred Hitchcock famously stated. For business meetings, a slightly different rule applies: Their length should be directly related to the endurance of the bladder of a hamster or hyperactive rodent. Studies show that people begin to check out mentally after 30 minutes. If you go past 45 minutes, whoever is presenting may as well be talking to an empty room.

By implementing some of these steps, we are confident that you can reduce wasted meeting room time from 31 hours per month to 10 hours per month, which should leave you with just enough free time to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy twice or endure a line-up at the DMV.

Additional Reading

Top Tips On Organising Great Meetings at Work
Raise Productivity by Enabling Your Most Important Asset: Your Employees
This Conference Room Equipment Checklist Will Keep Your Meetings On Track
Increasing Efficiency In the Conference Room

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Avoiding Groupthink: How to Make Sure Your Business Doesn’t Devolve Into a Cult

August 12, 2016

In his groundbreaking 1972 book Victims of Groupthink, research psychologist Irving Janis examines three case studies: the United States’ failure to anticipate the Pearl Harbour attacks, the Vietnam War, and the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion. Had he written his book a few decades later, Janis may have been tempted to include a few examples from the corporate world, such as Xerox voluntarily giving away its graphical user interface to Apple in exchange for some shares of Apple stock, Kodak suppressing the digital camera that it had invented in order to focus on selling soon-to-be-obsolete celluloid, and Excite turning down a $750,000 offer to buy a little known start-up called Google.
What each of these examples has in common is that they all involve large groups of very smart people making inexplicably poor decisions. Xerox, for instance, is a company that employs over 100,000 people. Surely at least one of them recognized the potential of the GUI to spawn the trillion dollar business we now know as the computer industry?
As it happens, more than a few employees did. In his biography of Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson describes how one enterprising Xerox employee, in a scene that plays like something out of a sitcom, cleverly tried to hide the GUI from Jobs and his Apple associates while giving them a tour of the Xerox premises. Unfortunately for Xerox, these efforts were thwarted by upper management, who remained dead set on giving their game-changing technology away. The company was confident in the belief that it would forever hold a monopoly on the photocopying market, ignored the dissenting voices in its ranks, and as a result you’re probably reading this on an iMac, iPad, or MacBook, and not on the non-existent iXerox.
If poor decision-making of this calibre is possible at the highest levels of the corporate world, it’s possible anywhere. So how do you protect yourself against it? Luckily, Janis outlined 3 warning signs.
1. Overestimation of the Group, Underestimation of Competition

via MovieReviewTheBlog

One of the big lessons that Kennedy learned in the wake of the Bay of Pigs invasion was that he shouldn’t have taken the CIA’s report on Castro’s military ineptitude at face value. As it turned out, Castro’s 20,000 soldiers were more than capable of warding off an invasion of just 1,400 poorly equipped exiles with no ground support.
A report that advocates for a brazen assault against an opponent that’s 20 times larger would, in most circumstances, be greeted with incredulity. “Surely a hilariously inappropriate typo has been made here?” the average person would no doubt wonder. But Kennedy trusted that the CIA knew what they were doing and kept silent.
The Kennedy administration also radically overestimated their ability to keep the invasion plan a secret. When the invasion plan inevitably leaked, the administration bizarrely decided that the leak wasn’t a big deal: Should Castro decide that a foreign invasion was something that he wanted to defend against, the invading force could just flee to the mountains. Once they were in the mountains, it was assumed that they would be assisted by Cuban farmers and peasants desperate to overthrow the Castro regime. These assumptions, it was soon discovered, had zero foundation in reality.
2. Close-mindedness

via Sherm-Law

The other big lesson that Kennedy learned was that he shouldn’t have ignored the handful of advisors who warned him that the plan was a terrible idea. “At one stroke you would dissipate all the extraordinary good will which has been rising toward the new Administration through the world. It would fix a malevolent image of the new Administration in the minds of millions,” one of Kennedy’s advisors, historian Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., wrote in a memo (which Kennedy later admitted “will look pretty good when he gets around to writing his book on my administration.”)
Senator J. William Fulbright also voiced these concerns during a presentation to Kennedy’s cabinet. But rather than invite his cabinet to address Fulbright’s points, Kennedy decided instead to move on to the next order of business and pretend that Fulbright’s presentation never happened.
3. Pressure Toward Uniformity

via Cineapse

The reason Schlesinger voiced his concerns in a memo rather than during a cabinet meeting was the same reason that many teenagers cite for smoking cigarettes: peer pressure. Kennedy had cultivated an atmosphere in which group consensus was highly valued and Schlesinger didn’t want to be the one to spoil things. ”I can only explain my failure to do more than raise a few timid questions by reporting that one’s impulse to blow the whistle on this nonsense was simply undone by the circumstances of the discussion,” he later wrote. “Our meetings took place in a curious atmosphere of assumed consensus.”
One year later, Kennedy applied some of the lessons he learned from the Bay of Pigs to the Cuban Missile Crisis. He no longer underestimated Castro, listened to his advisors, and deliberately went out of his way to make sure that all dissenting voices were heard. In so doing, he successfully managed to prevent nuclear armageddon, thus allowing Xerox, Kodak, and Excite to make their terrible business decisions in an environment not teeming with deadly nuclear radiation.
Since the publication of Janis’ book, other psychologists and researchers have called some of his claims into question. But even so, it’s probably safe to say that if the most common sentences spoken during your business meetings are, “We’re invincible” and “Apple won’t know what hit them” and “I agree” and “Let’s not hire a consultant,” you may want to take a closer look in the mirror.
Additional Reading
Is Your Business Being Held Back By Groupthink?
6 Steps For Avoiding Groupthink on Your Team
Don’t Let Groupthink Take Down Your Company

Ubiq Daily – Wednesday August 10th, 2016

August 10, 2016

From the CIO

Thanks to the influence of Google and Facebook, open office environments have become the new norm in the tech world. But do they help or hinder productivity? Multiple studies suggest that Google and Facebook may have led us astray.
The Wall Street Journal takes a closer look at the Delta power outage that cancelled 451 flights and asks if today’s carriers are too reliant on systems dating back to the 1990s.
Millennials are the most stressed out demographic in the workforce. The cure, according to CIO.com: Flexible schedules and working remotely.

Technology News

In today’s BYOD environment, amassing an enormous collection of expensive cables and adapters (HDMI, VGA, HDMI to VGA, DVI to HDMI, Thunderbolt, Thunderbolt to HDMI, Lightning to HDMI, etc) is the only viable alternative to having a wireless conference room. It’s not much of an alternative, writes David Humphreys.
Patrick Gray of TechRepublic goes over six cybersecurity and emergency situations every IT department needs to prepare for.
Apple has patented its first vehicle, and it’s probably not what you were expecting. Brace yourself for the iTank.

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The Case Against Collaborative Spaces: Why Some People Find Them Unhelpful

August 10, 2016

One morning in May of 1905, an obscure Swiss patent clerk came downstairs in his dressing-gown, took a seat at the breakfast table, and announced to his wife, “Darling, I have a wonderful idea.” After drinking his coffee, he walked over to the piano and started playing a few notes. Every now and then, he would pause and exclaim, “I’ve got a wonderful idea, a marvelous idea!”

Pressed by his wife to elaborate, the man simply said, “It’s difficult, I still have to work it out.” He then locked himself in his study and remained there for the next two weeks. “Each day I sent him up his meals,” his wife would later recount to the silent film star Charlie Chaplin. “And in the evening he would walk for a little exercise, then return to his work again.”

Eventually, the man emerged from his study looking extremely pale. He put a few sheets of paper down on the kitchen table and said, “That’s it.” Contained within those sheets of paper was the single greatest contribution to science since 1666, the year that Isaac Newton fled to his mother’s house in rural Woolsthorpe—the plague was difficult to avoid that year—and developed calculus, an analysis of the light spectrum, and the laws of gravity. (Famously, Newton didn’t bother to tell anyone about his findings until several years later).

What these two discoveries have in common is that they were both done in almost complete isolation. Neither scientist had to deal with the hassle of sitting at a communal table full of chatty colleagues who insist on playing ping pong every half hour, can’t stop laughing at the latest funny cat video, and drone on endlessly about how the HBO series Game of Thrones is really starting to diverge from the George R.R. Martin books.

All of this stands in stark contrast to the prevailing wisdom, which states that the best way to come up an innovative idea is to cram as many people as possible around a giant table inside of a giant building that has just enough walls to prevent it from collapsing. The philosophy behind this is that the open space will encourage “creative collisions,” a popular buzz phrase which is basically interchangeable with “conversations.” Employees who talk to each other, the thinking goes, are in a better position to pool their knowledge, and are therefore in a better to position to apply that knowledge to whatever problem is at hand.

This style of office layout was first introduced by a team from Hamburg, Germany, in the 1950s, then it migrated across the Atlantic, where it was enthusiastically embraced by Google, Yahoo, eBay, Goldman Sachs, and American Express. Facebook became the ultimate practitioner of the concept when Mark Zuckerberg hired Frank Gehry to design an open floor plan that could house 3,000 engineers, the largest office space of its kind in the world.

After taking over the corporate world (or at least 70% of the corporate world, according to one estimate), the Hamburg model is now poised to take over college campuses as well. A recent New York Times article notes that just about every college campus on the continent has a Gehry-esque Facebook-type building in development.

While this style of office layout has been shown to save on furniture costs, it has not been shown to improve productivity. After reviewing more than a hundred studies about office environments, organizational psychologist Matthew Davis found that open offices had a negative impact on workers’ attention spans, productivity, creative thinking, and satisfaction. Likewise, a survey of 38,000 workers conducted by David Craig found that the open environment led to decreased productivity, particularly among more senior employees. Nearly half of the workers surveyed in a 2013 study, meanwhile, complained that noise issues stemming from the open environment were hampering their ability to get work done.

Of course, none of this is to say that collaboration itself is unproductive. Indeed, Einstein credits a conversation he had with Michele Besso, one of his colleagues at the patent office, with helping him unravel one of the most difficult problems of relativity. The key to take away from this, however, is that the conversation happened on the street while the two men were walking to work, not at a communal desk 20 feet away from a ping pong table. In this particular case, having conversations in a place where conversations are supposed to happen and doing work in a place where work is supposed to be done seems to have worked out pretty well.

Some will argue that the open office environment can produce results that are simply impossible to produce in a partitioned space, and this is certainly true. For brain-storming sessions, team-building exercises, and maintaining a general sense of mission, the open office environment can’t be beat. But for tasks which require intense concentration and imagination, surrounding yourself with potential distractions may not be the best way to go.

Additional Reading
Will an Open Office Work Environment Help Your Employees Succeed
Is an Open Office Environment Beneficial or Detrimental to Your Team?
Office Rules Apply: Dealing With an Open Office Environment

Ubiq Daily – Thursday August 4th, 2016

August 4, 2016

From the CIO

Kim Stevenson of Intel discusses how her experience as CIO prepared her for her new role as COO.

The Harvard Business Review argues that the tech world could stand to learn a thing or two from the Amish (about team-building and collaboration, not about technology, because that would be absurd).

Minimally partitioned buildings designed to encourage “creative collisions” have been the standard in Silicon Valley for awhile now, and soon they’ll be the standard on campuses too. Alexandra Lange of the New York Times examines the emerging trend.

Technology News

Andy Patrizio of CIO.com dismantles the myth that old people are baffled and bewildered by new technology. According to the results of a new survey, IT professionals over the age of 55 find adapting to new technology less stressful than their millennial counterparts.

Google’s new search engine algorithm is a closely guarded secret, but experts say that content relevance and inbound links are still the most important factors.

The push for data localization in the wake of the Snowden leaks has been remarkably ineffective in Western Europe, where four American firms have a 40% market share in cloud services, the Wall Street Journal reports.

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Technology News

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