Cost cutting and doing more with less is in the air. Rarely does a day go by when you don’t face pressures yourself to do more with less or hear something similar from others. At the beginning of the week, WSJ had two articles on how businesses are trying to improve productivity or manage with less (Stores count seconds to… Read more →
I recently had a problem with my MacBook Pro. The graphics chip went bad, which was a known problem with the particular chip I had. While it was shipped off to Apple for repair, I struggled through more than a week of trying to communicate with team members and keep a normal rate of productivity without the laptop I had… Read more →
What: FaceTime study on the Collaborative Internet (see FaceTime’s summary, or a CNET post about the results) Post to which it relates: Fostering Ambient Awareness in Virtual Teams Bottom line: FaceTime does an annual survey looking not only at use of collaborative technologies by workers, but also what kind of cost that has to companies. You might be surprised that the… Read more →
Although many people utilize virtual worlds for purely recreational purposes, there are a lot of companies trying to think of creative business applications for this new technology. I’m particularly intrigued by the potential uses of virtual worlds in the hiring process. Some organizations are now holding job fairs, recruiting sessions, and interviews in virtual worlds (see articles from WSJ and… Read more →
What: Wireless encryption code (WPA) has been recently been cracked by researchers Posts to Which it is Related: Pretty much any article on our site Bottom Line: WPA, a popular wireless encryption protocol widely used today by both home wireless internet users and business wireless internet users, has been compromised. A group of researchers found a way to gain access… Read more →
In Second Life my name is Abi. I am taller than average, wear high-heeled Mary Janes, black pants covered in zippers and a t-shirt with a dragon on it. I have bright pink hair. In real life I am short, never wear high heels, and have light brown hair. The only features my avatar and I have in common are… Read more →
What: New York Times article on Facebook friends not meaning much in real life Posts to which it is related: Fostering Ambient Awareness in Virtual Teams, Building Social Relationships in Virtual Teams Bottom line: A while back Betsy discussed how social networking tools create ambient awareness and strengthen weak ties. I too blogged about how a blogger was able to… Read more →
If you were asked to think of the best leader or supervisor you had ever worked for, or the best team you had ever been a member of, what would be the criteria you would use to make that distinction? How much of your evaluation would be based on the social relationships between you and your boss or your fellow… Read more →
What: IT World article on virtualizing work Posts to which it is related: Leading in Face-to-Face Versus Virtual Teams Bottom line: This is a short article on some of the benefits of virtualizing work, from the perspective that how people do their work is just as important as what people do. The author, Martha Young, suggests this is something that… Read more →
A topic of conversation that has recently become popular is the rapid adoption of video games by casual players. People who never played video games before and are relatively inexperienced gamers are now gaming regularly. We need to look no further than the success of the Nintendo Wii to see how the influx of casual gamers is changing the landscape… Read more →