Tonight I’ll be interviewed by Jonny Goldstein on Jonny’s Par-tay.  He’ll have some questions but half the fun is where you take the show in the live chatroom.  If you can’t be there tonight at 9pm EDT, just leave a question in the comments and I’ll be sure to answer on the show, which will be recorded and posted here.

Watch it live here!

What do you want to know…

• How do I find time for all these tools and still do things that aren’t in front of a computer?
• How’d I get into this “productivity business”?
• Where do I make money?
• What TV show am I obsessed with?

Ask away in the comments or bring your questions tonight…

A huge thank you to Jonny Goldstein for inviting me and Scott Stead for filming (doing the real work). They’re both awesome people that we in the DC area are so lucky to have around.

(RSS/email readers, click here to see the design!)

Note: The ‘we’ I’m referring to is my team at SET Consulting.  A big thank you to Keith for the design and David for the development.  While we were inspired by many other blog designs, this theme was created from scratch (i.e., all modifications to the well-structured default WordPress theme).

New Purpose

The first change has nothing to do with the design.  I’ve simplified the purpose of the site to “You want to be happy and productive. With a slant toward technology, I try to help with that here.”  I’ll still occasionally cover DC technology and often discuss social media…but the core focus has been refined.

Organization Of Information

The main purpose of the redesign was to organize our information in a more relevant manner.  We hope you’ll check out the “best of TECHNOTHEORY” and other sidebar elements.  I want to keep you aware of what I’m up to without overwhelming you with too much stuff—we hope this improves your experience.

Consistency Between Websites

Now all three of our websites use a similar color palette, and are tied together with the tabbed bar at the very top of this page.  While there are improvements ahead for all sites, we think this will help you to find a consistent (and maybe someday recognizable) brand.

Quick Thank You’s

While there were many sites we looked to for examples there are a few I want to mention:

• I love WordPress.  It’s amazing what open-source software can do
• Keith suggested making the first paragraph slightly more prominent based on a site he frequents, farfromfearless.  Here’s an example there
• A big fan of Chris Brogan, that’s where I got the idea for the shaded face picture

Surprise: We Designed This In PowerPoint And Word

What you most likely wouldn’t guess is that this entire site was designed in PowerPoint and Word.  We used PowerPoint for all the layout and graphics, especially in the sidebar.  We used Word for the typography in each blog post.  No, we didn’t export any code from Office—that was all done by hand in HTML, CSS, PHP, or SQL.

So you probably think we’re crazy?  Well, we consider ourselves to be some of the best PowerPoint, Word, and Excel designers and developers.  So we wanted to practice what we preach.  After all, our Microsoft Office design business has been on fire lately, with projects for Fannie Mae, NTT America, NIST, and other recognizable brands.

Do you want to know more about this?  Let me know in the comments and maybe I’ll dedicate a post to the topic of Office design…

Any Thoughts, Compatibility Issues, or Suggestions?

We’re very proud of this site but have some changes in store.  If we weren’t so busy with other work we’d fix up the display of posts within categories and I’d add much more to the Lijit search functionality.  But that’s not all that’s on the wish list.

Is there anything you’d like to see?  Are you having any display issues?

But first, to those of you who I got to enjoy this past weekend with at SOBCon: thank you so much for your energy, passion, and discipline–you’re an inspiring bunch. I hope to more than keep in touch with many of you. Here are are my photos from the weekend.

If you’re interested in AwayFind, you can sign up in the upper right corner of AwayFind.com. Don’t worry, there’s no charge for the beta, which will go on for a while. We’re letting in folks daily and would love to hear your feedback.

You can keep track of AwayFind on Twitter by following AwayFind.

It’s long been my dream to create products to help people better enjoy (and escape from) their technology; I’ll be writing about that dream and AwayFind more in the coming months. A big thank you to my team at SET Consulting for making this a reality.

If you have any questions or comments about the product, feel free to voice them below. No need for congratulations, I’ve got a long way to go.

Three quarters of the meetings that “merit a face-to-face” really don’t. It’s not “telecommuting” (that’s so 1997) and it shouldn’t even be called “working remotely”–it’s just WORKING. I’m putting my foot down and removing any distinction. Working from home has greatly improved my business, my sanity, and my life. So I’m opening up the kimono here on my tools. No, you don’t need to come in, you can read this from anywhere in the world.

Why Work Remotely?

Feel free to skip this section if you’re looking for the meat of my article. I could go on all day, but here are a few reasons to work remotely:

• Fewer distractions, more stuff gets done. Things take less time when you’re not being constantly bothered. If working at home would have distractions, consider another location: a coffeehouse, library, study hall at a university, friend’s conference room, etc. The gist is to work somewhere with fewer interruptions
• Commuting, the earth, blah blah. I just spent $65 filling my gas tank. It costs me $12 every time I show up for a two-hour appointment in Baltimore, 35 miles away. This does no good for my wallet, the environment, or my sanity (why the heck drive 30-90 minutes just to show up for a few hours?)
• Health. Instead of driving to work, I run in the morning. I eat my breakfast & lunch at home. This is so much better for me (and my dog)
• Mobility. If I want to travel, the office doesn’t fall apart. I can work wherever I want and get stuff done. Since remote working is the norm, if someone’s out of the office nothing slow things down (as opposed to the usual office dependence on coworkers in the next cubicle)

These next couple are more for the employer, but I’ll throw them in:

• An hour worked is an hour billed. At a typical office people may check in at 9 and out at 5:30, calling it an 8-hour day. However, fewer hours of work actually occur. When people work remotely, things very quickly become about the actual hours worked or the projects completed since they’re willing to own up to distractions caused by their remote environment
• Recruitment / retention. As an employer, I know I’ve gotten really lucky with some of my folks. While I think we take on pretty interesting projects, I know that they love being at home with their kids and don’t miss their earlier years spent commuting. At least at this point, my offering (of very little required time at the office) is a huge selling point…and helps me to find hard-working, independent, and often otherwise unavailable talent

I could go on, but you probably already know the benefits of working remotely, so the first step to making it happen is:

The Key: Say What You Mean

What, you thought I was going to start with a tool? Wrong: the reason most people want to meet in person is because they don’t communicate clearly or concisely (but in person one can stumble through things a bit more easily). So let’s start with a primer on communication:

• Be damn specific. When you want someone to capitalize “capitalize the product name,” tell them “On S:\files\important report.doc, ensure that ABC Company has consistent capitalization (ABC and a capital C) throughout the report…right now about half the instances of Company have a lowercase c”
• Don’t hit Send until you’ve read it through. I got an email yesterday from a software developer who said, “Alright… another round of tweaks in addition to some improvements to the behavior.” Um, WTF? Was that a statement or a question? Was he done or about to start the next round?
• If you’re unsure what to report, try this formula: (a) what you did, (b) what you have left to do, and then (c) what’s you need the recipient to do. The email above should have said, “Jared, I’ve finished all the requirements from your email on Apr 27 (see it below), but I still have to tweak the graphics to match Keith’s images. I believe it’s ready for your testing.”

Okay, now that I’ve got that off my chest, it’s time to spend some money to save money and a lot of travel time…

Screen Sharing

It doesn’t matter whether or not your business is technology, looking at the same document with whomever you’re working is invaluable in many circumstances. Everyone reading this article in an office (or working from home) should have quick access to a screen-sharing utility. On a near daily basis I use screen sharing for the following:

• Brainstorming – why take separate notes when we could edit the same file live while looking at the same window? It’s like having a whiteboard…only this whiteboard can be saved immediately afterwards and emailed to both (or many) of us. Screen sharing is actually easier than manning a whiteboard because you can type faster, see more text at the same time, and everyone gets a perfect view
• Editing – similar to brainstorming but with a focus on improving a single deliverable. This usually takes place with us in the early or very late stages of working on a project, since the majority of our work is done independently
• Demonstrating – whether it be demonstrating a problem or pointing to what one person is seeing, it’s much more useful to see a screen live than to take a screen capture or attempt to describe it
• Technical support – even better than demonstrating, with screen sharing we can actually solve the problems….and this can be much faster than trying to communicate the solution through email (especially given the notes above about communication)
• Keeping a conversation on track – Seeing the agenda right in front of us helps to keep focused on both the items and the clock

I’ve used Citrix GoToMeeting for years, and would recommend it to anyone with a PC as their primary vehicle for communicating. Mac users can view your presentation but cannot share their screen. At $50 per month for up to 15 simultaneous viewers and phone calls, it pays for itself in just a single use at my company.

Other tools to consider for screen sharing include VNC, Apple’s iChat Screen Sharing, Microsoft’s Live Meeting, and WebEx (they now also have a product that competes with GoToMeeting called MeetMeNow).

Skype Video

Still want a face-to-face meeting? Make it happen via video. Everyone will soon get more comfortable with video conferencing, so jump ahead of the curve. I like the quality and audio controls with Skype‘s video. Free isn’t a bad thing, either. I use a Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 with my desktop (or the built-in camera on my laptop). To improve the voice quality I also use the Logitech DSP 500 headset, which has been replaced by the ClearChat Pro USB.

I’ve used the video capabilities from my home office to have near perfect video quality with folks all over the US, as well as Iceland, Australia, Malta, England, Pakistan, India, etc.

A few quick tips for using video:

1. Use a headset to get much higher audio quality – speakerphones rarely sound good on a land-line, and the situation hasn’t changed with a digital one — so use a headset
2. Place the other person’s video window right below your video camera. - this will make you appear to make eye contact. Request this of your other party if you can–it’ll make for a much more personal connection
3. Know what you have behind you and zoom appropriately - look behind you to remove anything embarrassing. If it helps, adjust the zoom on your camera to see more of you and less of your surroundings. If your bed is behind you and you have a client call, consider relocating to a room with a more staid background
4. Practice with a friend before your first business use – in addition to the fact that you’ll probably have technical issues to resolve, it takes adjusting to get used to video conferencing. Get comfortable before you have an important need. You don’t want to scramble and then feel nervous. Remember, video conferencing is a way to bring people closer, not just cool technology…but you have to be comfortable with it or it won’t be helpful

Infrastructure Tools

I could talk all day about the merits of remote file servers, mail server setup, and project management tools…but I know that many of you reading this don’t have the luxury of changing the way your company carries out its business. I will however point out a few of the tools that help my team to work remotely:

• 37signals’ Basecamp – this runs our business. From project management to file management as well as wikis (“writeboards”) and time tracking–we rely on Basecamp to stay on top of each other’s responsibilities when working remotely
• Subversion (SVN) – we’re geeks so we use SVN for the version tracking of more involved software projects…as well as our flagship product, AwayFind
• Hosted Microsoft Exchange – we use NTT America’s Hosted Exchange product, which helps us share calendars, use ActiveSync and BlackBerry devices, and archive all our email with VERITAS Enterprise Vault (disclosure: NTTA is a client)
• Google Apps for your Domain – while I don’t use it for SET Consulting, I do use Google Apps with my personal accounts and find its filter and search capabilities to be nothing short of amazing. (more about Google Apps for your Domain)
• GotVoice, virtual receptionist, or a VOIP-based phone system – we use GotVoice to transcribe all our voicemails and then email them to the appropriate employee. Other organizations that are more intensive (my company mostly relies on IM or Basecamp rather than the phone), would likely be interested in a VOIP solution to help direct phone calls. Another option would be many of the virtual receptionist offerings out there. Locally I know many people who use Intelligent Office, but there are many other versions of outsourcing a receptionist that offer varying degrees of service and quality

Returning to Communication

You may have noticed a theme –most of what I’ve mentioned has related to simplifying communication from afar, making it more like face-to-face conversation. These tools plus a little more conciseness in email & IM will lead to better communication. And by better communication, it can very well be better than in-person dialogue (less chit chat, more documentation, and all the reasons expressed above).

Hopefully this’ll set you down the right path to working away from the office. Any tips or products you’d recommend?

Flickr photo credits: DDFic and basykes

We’re never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy

-Walter Anderson

However much you trust the people that work for you–trust them more.  If no one reports to you, trust that someone could…and find them.  The greatest barrier to getting other people to do your work is you.

Trust at SET Consulting

I run a small business.  Let me give you a tiny background by explaining a portion of a few people’s jobs:

• Keith designs all of the Excel, Word, and PowerPoint templates
• David develops most of the Word automation/macros (VBA, .NET)
• Kevin takes care of the finances

For a while I stood between each of them and the outside world. 

I’d write the specifications, handle client interactions, test the macros, send out the invoices, etc.  All those rules suited me well and offered the security of keeping close tabs on things before they went to the client.  It took so much time!

I still double check on people’s work–but I check their specifications, I review later versions of projects, I get CC’d on emails they send to the client (though I still closely examine the finals).  It saves me time, and they do much better on their portion since I’m not playing as active a role.

Lessons about Trust

The barrier to my doing this before was trust.  I didn’t think they could do as good a job as I could.  They have.  They’ve done better.

Consider saying this out loud: “Other people can do just as well as I can at everything.”  It’s not that you aren’t valuable, but there are only a few things that you’re really good at–most of the other stuff could be done by someone else.

But this isn’t a post about delegating or outsourcing–I’m going to take for granted the value in that.  What often holds people back is that they forget just how many things they could let go of…and instead rely on others.

Here are some lessons learned, for you to consider:

• People are not out to steal your clients/projects – if you treat people well, the last thing they’ll do is go behind your back
• Clients are totally cool with getting messages from the people who do the work – just be honest about who’s doing the work and the client won’t mind when you step out of the way
• Others may not write as well as you, but they do just fine -  you can train people to write more thoroughly or businesslike (that’s what we initially struggled with).  Only with noticeably nonnative speakers will you need a middleman
• Screw ups aren’t that bad – be open and respectful with people and everyone will be interested in working things out

So go on, pass that task to someone else

Don’t think that you have to do everything yourself.  Consider what tasks you have that could be delegated or outsourced.  Is there anything you’ve been considering asking of someone else at your office but been hesitant?  Give them a chance to impress you.

Have you had any luck with passing on tasks that you were previously hesitant about?  If you were burned, do you have any suggestions for preventing that in the future?

Example: my blogging. Two years ago when I started this blog I had little reason to write entries like this–most of the business I sought related to Microsoft Office productivity…and, to be frank, I no longer get a thrill out of explaining most Microsoft Office end user issues online. But I like writing about bigger issues and offering advice. Now that I’m working on a productivity application and have become more involved in certain circles, it makes business sense to write about this stuff. What I enjoy is aligned with where I derive value.

Counterexample: software development. I really enjoy solving technology problems…and getting my hands dirty with the code (when I’m familiar with the language). But it’s not a good use of my time because I can’t make much progress on a programming challenge when I have a dozen other projects to manage. Instead I now focus more on the architecture or user experience of technology problems, which gives me a similar buzz without the same timesuck.

I’d encourage you’d to make a list of all your responsibilities and figure out why you’re doing them, and what you get out of them. Consider using elance.com or hiring an intern to outsource the less useful or less enjoyable activities. Consider finding ways to get more value (even if it means spending more time on) the things you like. Decide what your perfect world would look like in terms of responsibiltiies–what would you have to do to get there?

My perfect world, at least as of today, would be full of this sort of writing, solving technology challenges at a high level, deciding what to pursue for my business, and collaborating with bright people (both new and old ones).

I don’t offer this advice just to make you productive–it’s because of two things that I/we often forget:

• what we enjoyed when we started our business/job isn’t necessarily what we enjoy most now (and we’re not necessarily doing what we expected to be doing)
• making money is only part of the equation. If we’re not doing what we enjoy (which, to me, has a lot to do with how much of an impact I’m making and on how many people I’m reaching), then seriously consider altering course

While we regularly work with talented web designers and developers, this was a completely home-brewed effort. No, we’re not planning to offer web design or development as a service to our clients…but we have realized two things:

• (When you have the talent,) a “do-it-yourself” effort for something so important to the company feels incredibly rewarding
• Occasional challenges with coding are worth overcoming when both our work on AwayFind and Office projects often have web components

Deep thank yous go especially to Keith (the design), David (the code), and Kate (the tireless proofreading — here’s her blog) for bringing this to fruition. And, of course, thank you to the wonderful clients who allowed us to create case studies for our portfolio:

• American Bank
• Chevy Chase Bank
• CMD Outsourcing Solutions
• e.magination
• Employee One
• Jacoby
• Miles & Stockbridge P.C.
• NTT America
• NIST
• SAE International
• American Association for Justice (not yet online)
• First Potomac Realty Trust (not yet online)
• Shapiro Sher Guinot & Sandler (not yet online)
• Young & Thompson (not yet online)

Soon I’ll return to the regular scheduled productivity tips…but I wanted to share something that’s been so important to me and my team. We hope you enjoy the design and information…and thanks for reading this announcement : ).