Ed Brill

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1. 1  Carl http://www.iminstant.com | 6/5/2006 2:07:48 PM

   The HP guy does have a point, how do new people learn from others if everyone else is working from home? Real-time applications are very important and serve a great purpose, but they aren't the solution to everything.

   It's an interesting dilemna really. Americans want to keep jobs in this country and not send them abroad, but by becoming more effective at handling telecommuters it makes it easier to move many of those jobs abroad.

   I still believe there is a tipping point where too many people can work from home, the question is, which company is going to be the first to discover it?

1. 2  Christopher Byrne http://www.controlscaddy.com/ | 6/5/2006 3:01:16 PM

   Companies are finding it already. I had a conversation with a realtor yesterday and she said that more and more companies she deals with for relocations are allowing telecommuting.

1. 3  Todd Watson http://www-03.ibm.com/developerworks/blogs/page/Turbo | 6/5/2006 3:27:35 PM

   I think there's plenty of opportunity to share and learn virtually, and while I don't believe real-time applications are a panacea, neither do I think expending expensive energy to drive to a crowded, often unproductive work environment every day is the answer, either.

   While I would absolutely concede to missing some of the face-to-face interaction in a physical office environment, I can also attest to my own experience that offices can be their own contributor to workforce slacking. Think "Office Space" LOL

   I'm with Ed, and not just because I want to help him sell the world Lotus Sametime software...I'm a hundred more times productive without all those office-based interruptions, and while my own teams get together on occasion to help one another remember what we all look like, we do most of our work and collaboration virtually. And from IBM's perspective, I think they're the ones who benefit most. The less time I spend on the stress of highway travel, the more energy I can put into my work.

   As to your question about the tipping point...I think that real-time video collaboration could be it. We're probably a ways away from it, to be sure, but as soon as we can all start to feel more like we're physically connected using real-time video technology -- and not just with IM and voice chat, but more "touchy feely" collaboration which combines the best of our Lotus portfolio with the ability to see and interact our colleagues real-time -- watch out.

   Suddenly, space will REALLY have been removed as a factor, and the only limiting factor will be time zones. Which anyone who has worked in a global enterprise knows is just a reality that comes with the territory.

1. 4  Roberto Boccadoro  | 6/5/2006 4:20:48 PM

   I am with Todd and Ed (no surprise I guess). Just travelling to the office back and forth is 1 - 1.30 hours per day, how do you call it ? Productive time or waste thereof ?. I live in Italy, but Ed can attest I have most of my work interactions with people in the US and in the rest of the world; there is no need to go to the office to do that.

   Want my office space back ? You can have it today. Want my ST client back ? Have to pry it from my cold dead fingers...

   RoB

1. 5  Corey Kimball  | 6/5/2006 5:32:15 PM

   It's an interesting topic. I'm reading "The World is Flat", by Thomas Friedman, which talks a lot about off shoring, out sourcing, and collaboration around the world. Thomas talks a lot about the flattening of the world from a technology perspective, and the fact that alot of major companies in America are (and have been)setting up facilities in India and China. He discusses the collaboration aspect of the flattening, and the fact that people do not need to be in the same place to work co-operatively (or need to be in the same place to be productive).

   Just this morning I saw a news article about IBM setting up another facility in India.

   { Link }

   I also find it interesting that Mr. Friedman quotes Carly Fiorina as saying that "...innovations in companies like HP come more and more often from horizontal collaboration among diferent departments and teams spread all across the globe".

   He also qoutes her as saying "How you collaborate horizontally and manage horizontally requires a totally different set of skills". Maybe they've lost that skill set.

   With the technology that is available today, I really don't see the need for people to be physically located in the same office for work to be productive. As I look around the technology landscape it seems as though people are getting more done working together from around the world, than most people are getting done working together in an office environment.

   I believe that the times just warrent the type of approach where a company needs to hire the best talent that they can find, regardless of whether they live close and can come to the office. It's being proven everyday that major productivity gains are coming from the out-sourced, collaborative environment. Even putting the IBM technology aside, there is so much that can be done technically to facilatate remote workers, it just makes sense to do it.

   There are companies that run 24 hours a day, because someone here in America works on a problem throughout the day, and then someone over in India or China picks up where that person left off. When the person in America comes back in the next morning, the work has progressed substantially. This coulnd't be accomplished if everyone was in one office, (unless you ran 3 shifts around the clock).

   Ther are countless stories about collaboration being done effectively by people that have never even met. Think about the Domino blogging community. There is so much information out there, and so much collaboration going on, even by people that don't even work for the same company.

   I currently work from home two days a week, although that will be ending soon. The people that I work for are more concerned about the "perception" that someone is not at their desk, than they are about actual production. Maybe this is HP's issue.

   I simply get more done when I am at home. I don't have people constantly stopping by my office to ask questions that really could be expressed in email or some other form (or that don't need to be asked at all). This wastes so much of my time. At home I can focus on what needs to be done, not the interruptions.

   Well, sorry for the long windedness.

   Keep up the good work!!

1. 6  Mike Lazar  | 6/5/2006 8:25:22 PM

   I think the key is the usage of the "less experienced employess". It goes to show the talent that HP is able to attract right now. If you put a team of experienced performers together, telecommuting is no issue. If you take a bunch of 24 year old recent grads, it's definitely an issue.

1. 7  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 6/5/2006 9:44:48 PM

   @6 Mike: That's a ridiculous statement, and a little bit offensive.

   If you had limited your remark to HP's IT department, I would say you have a bit of a point, but only if you don't limit it to just HP. It can be very hard for any technology companies to keep their most talented technical staff working in internal IT for the simple reason that these people are smart enough to see that there is a better career path in the company for people with their skills. The smartest and most motivated ones are going to take that better path by moving into engineering or customer-facing service jobs.

   Overall, at HP we have around 150,000 employee, with a wide ranges of experience. There are people like myself with more than 20 years in the business but brand new to HP, there are people with more than 20 years in HP/Compaq/Digital, and there are brand new entry-level people. (I have yet to meet one, but they must exist). The employees represent a wide range of talent in a wide range of areas. I'm the technical lead on a Domino-related product for HP, and I work with a lot of people with very little Domino experience. (I imagine, though, that the folks at IBM working on SAP solutions at IBM include quite a few people with very little SAP experience, some of them in key roles.) I'm not the only experienced Lotus guy at HP, though. Despite the fact that HP is not a Domino shop and IBM has not supported Domino on HP/UX for a while, there are still quite a few people in various departments with ten or more years of Lotus experience, and they are spread out across several different areas, including engineering, services, marketing support, and IT.

1. 8  Charles Robinson  | 6/5/2006 10:09:08 PM

   I was recently moved from the "quiet side" of the building, where I had an office with a door, to the "noisy side", about 10 feet from our call center and in a cube. My productivity has absolutely plummeted and my pleas to my boss to let me telecommute even one day a week are being met with tremendous skepticism. I'm the only developer in our company and he is an MBA with no technical background, so he really has no idea what it's like to be in my shoes.

   Must... refrain... from killing... the giggling... girls...

1. 9  Randy Shimizu  | 6/6/2006 2:13:13 AM

   This is most definitely a step backwards for HP. I have always been amazed that the computer industry has not been much more outspoken in promoting telecommuting. I believe that the computer industry is missing a major business opportunity by not marketing telecommuting more. Part of the problem is that so many of us are on the leading edge that we assume everyone understands the benefits of telecommuting.

   Sametime can play a huge role in all of this. As bandwidth grows so will the use of video conferencing. Bandwidth will grow exponentially for the home user in the next few years.

1. 10  Nathan T. Freeman  | 6/6/2006 3:09:14 AM

   You guys are so behind the times... I was working for a virtual office back in '95. It's not Sametime that was empowering for that, it was Notes.

   Anyway, it's a judgment call as to how much leeway on this stuff works. In my experience, it's not so much how effective the communications can be, but in how effective the employee's focus can be. There really are a lot of people for whom telecommuting doesn't work well, because they have a tough time separating their personal activities from professional activities. I'm one of them. Telecommuting generally causes my productivity to move into peaks and valleys, rather than a fairly steady stream that comes from working in an office.

1. 11  Axel  | 6/6/2006 4:29:07 AM

   Maybe. If you work with only highly motivated/disciplined people on a project, telecommuniting does work.

   As I see the real world, I do second Nathan.

   At home I can imagine a lot of more interesting things to do but work, which definively has its tedious moments.

   As a consultant, I've learnt that the "when I am doing home office, just phone me or send me an email" by internal staff can be lies. This is no good for the project and my motivation. AND I REALLY DO HATE IT.

   I am switching job and the new employer has even more stricter rules regarding physical presence than the employer before. I find this a good thing. I belief it will simplify the process to learn the stuff. Also I really do believe in whiteboard sessions in the design process.

   Heck. My sister is even very succesfull in her marketing/web job by not having a computer at home to keep the home clean of work and work at office more concentrated. Of course, this is to extreme for a person with a real tech job.

1. 12  Mike Lazar  | 6/6/2006 8:18:43 AM

   @7 Richard -- I'm just commenting on a publicly stated position. If HP feels that telecommuting is hindering the productivity and training of their less experienced staff, then it must be a rather pervasive problem to bring it into public light like that. I think the positions you are seeing here show that the opposite is the case at HP competitors. Either they don't have that problem, or they are smart enough to air their deficiencies in a public forum.

1. 13  Arnd Layer  | 6/6/2006 9:32:19 AM

   Isn't this all about control and easy decisions?

   If I only have the office option, the decision is easy: work in the office. If I have the option to work from home, I could decide whether it's more productive to collaborate virtually or in person. Telecommuting shouldn't exclude being in the office if it makes sense.

   At least for my job IBM has succeeded in giving me the chance to meet most of my colleges personally - not only the german ones but also those from EMEA and worldwide. If this is given, I've found it very productive to work from home. Instead of spending 2 hours on the road I can use one hour for work and the other one privately. This is a good incentive to focus on my work in my home office.

   By the way, I've started using our internal deployment of the activity server and it rocks already in this early stage.

1. 14  Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 6/6/2006 9:51:11 AM

   @12 Mike - who says that HP brought it into public light like that? Does the Merc article say that HP made a public announcment of a pervasive problem? No, it doesn't say that HP made a public announcement of anything! It says that for one department consisting of less than 1% of HP's workforce, one senior manager has decided to cut out telecommuting for his employees. If you look carefully at the story, it appears that a reporter got the story from one or more HP employees and called the CIO for comment. Apart from that, HP did not confirm anything more widespread than that.

   I can tell you personally that for a large part of HP -- far larger than the IT department the workforce, distributed teams and telecommuting are very well accepted. I can't compare how well accepted they are versus IBM, but I can tell you that the team I'm on here in Andover consists of five people, several of whom telecommute on occasion. I don't, yet, because I'm so new here and I want to be in the office; but I've got VPN access all the way into my lab if necessary and have every intention of become at least an occasional telecommuter. Furthermore, our team reports in to a group in California that is spread over several locations, works with teams in Europe and Asia, and our teleconferences frequently include telecommuters or people who are calling in from out on the road. So we've got lots of bricks and mortar, yet we're as virtualized on the team level as any organization I've ever been in.

   Also, even if what you were saying about HP was true, we are not seeing proof here that the opposite is the case at HP competitors. All we see here is that telecommuting is pretty widely accepted in a lot of situations. We clearly know that telecommuting is a fact of life for a lot of people at IBM, yet we do not know whether all departments of all divisions of IBM are so supportive. In fact, for all we know, IBM has far more employees whose managers aren't allowing telecommuting than HP does.

1. 15  Alex Wilson  | 6/6/2006 11:17:23 AM

   I am currently in cubicle city and there are some interesting observations I am making... I have been in this position before and nothing has changed.

   1. Cell phones left in cubes while occupants are elsewhere. Nothing more annoying and distracting then a voice mail indicator going off all afternoon, let alone, the horrible ring tones.

   2. People using speaker phones in cubes. I don't need to hear two different conferences going on in both ears, let alone, stereophonic broadcasting when two or more are on the same call.

   3. Listening to one cube occupant near by (in our call center) discussing her family issues loudly with on the phone. I know more about her family then I know about my own. This includes her son, recently busted for possession of pot, etc. Great stuff for the office.

   4. The constant flow of traffic, gabbing as they walk, no cares for those around them. Hard to hear clients on the phone over all of that.

   I am a firm believer that I am more productive when I can work from home. I think I was more inclined to work longer hours too. I used to start working around 7am and wrapped up around 5:30 or 6:00. In the office, I am not inclined to stick around beyond my 8 hours.

   It is a quality of life issue as well. When in the office, we often seek diversion with water cooler chats. At home, I seek diversion by starting a load of laundry, starting dinner, etc. It does not detract from my day because I am "in the office" for 12-13 hours instead of only 8. I also don't waste vacation days on sitting around the house waiting for the cable guy or an appliance to be delivered. I can use vacation for vacation - a chance to refresh my mind, not waste time on a rainy day when I can't do much else.

   Telecommuting is not for everyone. It can't be a day care substitute. You need to be motivated. You need to be flexible too. My last employer was great - hours did not matter as long as clients were taken care of. This worked great being a volunteer EMT/Fire Fighter. I could take day calls (when we were staffed the lowest) and adjust my hours.

1. 16  Carl http://www.iminstant.com | 6/6/2006 11:28:42 AM

   "we often seek diversion with water cooler chats"

   Some great info is exchanged in water cooler chats, and great ideas often come up from there.

   Xerox (I beleive it was Xerox) had a great example where engineers who repaired copy machines would repair a few machines at different locations and come back and meet up for coffee and donuts with other repair engineers and also to fill in a problem report at the same time.

   A new manager came in looked at this whole process and decided the employees were just wasting time with this whole coffee and donut experience, and had the employees fill in the report remotely.

   What they discovered after a few months was that the average time to repair the machines was increasing, the engineers was out on the street more, but addressing less customers than they used to, how could this be, it doesn't make sense?

   Well it turns out that coffee and donuts was a key part of information exchange between engineers, not only would they discuss last nights game, but they'd also discuss the issues they had seen at the customers, so when one engineer had seen a strange issue at a customer site the others were hearing about it, when they saw the same issue themselves they would remember the issue, or who to call that had seen it before, thereby recducing the time they would have to spend researchign the problem as if it was new.

   I believe in certain scenarios cubicles have their place too (support call centers, a lot of knowledge sharing takings place over hearing other peoples calls), in others situations cubicles are not good for productivity.

   I do not dismiss the idea of telecommuting, but it isn't for everyone and every role. I am just saying I beleive there comes a point where too many people can be working from home.

1. 17  Bob http://www.bobcongdon.com/blog | 6/6/2006 12:25:17 PM

   @16: Absolutely agree that "telecommuting" isn't for everyone and isn't appropriate for every role.

   In my experience at IBM, telecommuting was only part of the story -- most development teams were distributed. Often the choice between working in the office or at home was moot. Some of your peers may be thousands of miles away. Your manager may not be in the same timezone much less the same office building. In fact, when offices were allocated, being located near your peers was viewed as "convenience" not a necessity. You have to learn to work effectively and efficiently as a distributed team which has its own challenges. It can be challenging to build a sense of group culture and camaraderie. And the sort of information exchange that Carl mentions doesn't happen as much.

   I think another factor is what Charles brings up in @8, the quality of your work environment. Iris Associates in Westford was all private and shared offices -- a rarity for IBM. The newer IBM Westford building is a sea of cubicles. Some people would rather work from home than the noisier environment of a cube farm.

1. 18  Brian Benz http://www.softwaresoapbox.com | 6/6/2006 6:37:16 PM

   My thoughts here..

   { Link }

1. 19  Randy Shimizu  | 6/7/2006 1:43:56 AM

   I think employee face to face interaction is a important issue, but is not a insurmountable one. One can always have get togethers such as weekly meetings as well as social events like parties etc...

   Awhile back I remember that one of major consulting firms preserved intellectual knowledge by developing a multimedia video data base of various employees knowledge on a given topic.

1. 20  Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 6/13/2006 8:54:28 AM

   Add me to the anti-cubicle brigade. Conference calls are a nightmare in open-plan environments, as is all the deep thinking I try to do (cough). Cubicles are pretty poor for developers -- indeed, any worker who needs sustained periods of concentration.

   Add to all this an uninspiring office environment (i.e. grey stuff), awful coffee, dreadful furniture and ineffective air-con., and you have a nightmarish working environment.

   (Says he typing from his HOME desk: decent music, minimal distractions, a sunny view out, great coffee, etc. :o) )