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Podcast #30: Dan Menard of Macadamian

A discussion with Dan Menard of Macadamian, covering the importance of taking the time to build personal relationships; the advantages of having a team that's split across time zones, the practice of distributed code review, and much more!

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Podcast #29: John Hawkins of 9Seeds LLC

In this episode, an interview with John Hawkins, one of the founders of 9Seeds, a company that specializes in custom Wordpress development. The 9Seeds team is fully dispersed, with every team member working from home. We talked about how 9Seeds came to be a distributed company, and why John intends never to set foot in a brick-and-mortar office again.

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8 Moments of Remote Work Zen

For some remote workers, leaving the office behind is a choice to spend more time with family. For others, it's a move to an environment more conducive to focus, or a way to travel the world while still making a living. Whatever your reason for working remotely, it's good sometimes to reflect on the joys of living and working untethered to a desk.

I asked eight remote workers to tell me about their moments of remote work zen---those perfect moments that make it all worthwhile. Here are their answers.

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Podcast #28: Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter

In this episode I talk to Shane Pearlman of Shane & Peter, a fully dispersed software consultancy. We talked about recruiting the right kinds of people for a distributed team, and how to stay connected as friends as well as coworkers.

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6 Ways Remote Workers Can Communicate Effectively

Remote workers such as telecommuters and freelancers often face the challenge of little- to no-face time with team members. Lack of in-person communication means one loses access and the non-verbal cues of team members, such as facial expression, body language and sometimes tone of voice. As a result, remote workers face challenges such as misinterpretation of information, lack of information due to delay in response, and low team spirit due to limited personal interaction with team members.

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Wide Links #19

The latest and greatest news and resources for remote workers, from all around the web.

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Podcast #27: Susan Tenby & Jessica Dally of TechSoup

This podcast is a departure from the dispersed software development teams I usually cover. I interviewed Susan Tenby and Jessica Dally of TechSoup, a nonprofit focused on providing other nonprofits with the technology they need to better accomplish their missions. One way they assist nonprofits is in helping them to use Second Life, a massive on-line "virtual world", to collaborate and build community online.

I talked to Susan and Jessica about why TechSoup is a distributed organization, and why organizations are using Second Life to meet, network, and do their work. For someone who spends a lot of time doing remote collaboration, it was eye-opening for me to discover this whole new frontier of online interaction. After listening to this interview you may just be inspired to add a virtual world meeting space to your own remote collaboration tool box.

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Encouraging Involvement in Distributed Teams

One of the biggest challenges in remote work is simply making sure everyone has a strong sense of involvement. In this article Steven Baker, a veteran of dispersed agile software development teams, shares his experiences and recommendations for keeping the communication, camaraderie, and personal connections alive in a distributed setting.

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Podcast #26: Sahil Parikh of DeskAway.com

In this episode I talked to Sahil Parikh of DeskAway.com, a web-based collaboration tool for distributed teams. This is another episode recovered from near-disastrous technical malfunction, and as a result all of my audio has been re-dubbed. Thankfully, Sahil's insights into he advantages of a dispersed team have been fully preserved.

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The Well-Equipped Remote Worker

Slides, notes, and links for the talk "The Well-Equipped Remote Worker" delivered on March 5th at the Daycamp 4 Developers 2 virtual conference.