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green tech improving business

Six ways green tech can benefit your business

  • min read
    • Two-thirds of customers place importance on a brand's sustainable or eco-friendly image. Buoyed by this growing consumer awareness, business investment in becoming more sustainable is at record highs. Staff are concerned too – 97 percent of executives say their company has been negatively affected by climate change. IT and enterprise leaders must get involved in this new age of corporate social responsibility (CSR.) But these new environmentally conscious ways of doing business can benefit your company in other ways. Here are six ways green tech is improving business while reducing its environmental footprint. 1.   Saving on energy bills Oxford Economics says data-driven tools like smart meters, smart plugs and self-regulating energy systems can cut energy costs by up to 5 percent. It may not sound like much, but will add up to billions by 2030, with the biggest savings likely in small-to-medium businesses. These smart solutions are an easy way for businesses to predict better, optimize and conserve energy, meaning cost savings while reducing climate impacts of energy production, which across the world, is still mostly done by burning fossil fuels. 2.   Gaining more organizational insight These smart devices don't just help save energy and resources. They give businesses improved insight into process efficiencies. There's been huge uptake of 'internet of things' (IoT) devices in industry and manufacturing, largely driven by their ability to predict maintenance needs, maximize productivity and reduce factory downtime. Over 55 billion devices will be connected and talking to one another by 2025, according to market researcher IDC. One example is modular house-building factories –robots are better than humans at arranging patterns to get the most cuts from a piece of wood. 3.   Improving employees' working lives According to international consulting firm McKinsey, remote, digital, and hybrid technologies will define the future of work. Many employers are using online tools to book on-demand flexible office space, vehicles and virtual desktops, cutting resource consumption and travel-related greenhouse gas emissions. Employees relish more opportunity to work flexibly, widespread since the pandemic – whether working from home or across hours that better suit family life. Commuting is no small contributor to climate change. In the US, 75 percent use driving as their main means of getting to work. 4.   Saving on carbon costs With many countries operating internal carbon markets, reducing carbon emissions can, on its own, reduce operating expenses. These schemes require companies to buy carbon credits for emissions they produce, while those that create carbon sinks, like forestry, can make money by selling credits. Renewable energy microgrids are one way to cut carbon emissions. Other companies are replacing fossil fuel-powered vehicle fleets with electric and hybrid vehicles. These can also have health benefits for staff through reduced air pollution, vibration and noise. 5.   Reducing eWaste Our growing mountains of electronic waste are not easy or cheap to recycle, but practice is improving. Green tech can also help here, like using cloud-based file storage and backups, where multiple businesses share the same IT infrastructure. (This, in turn, makes strong, automated cloud security indispensable.) Virtual desktops also mean you needn't constantly equip and re-equip staff with dedicated laptops and PCs, meaning less waste to landfill. Choose your data center wisely for minimum environmental impact – they can use much electricity and water, and create a lot of heat. Doing your research will reveal the most low-impact options, like using data centers in countries where most electricity is generated renewably. 6.   Increasing productivity One UCLA study found employees at companies that voluntarily adopt high environmental standards were 16 percent more productive than peers at less eco-friendly organizations. Reasons might include distance learning, telecommuting and real-time collaboration tech. Artificially-intelligent software personalities and automated helpers may also help employees work without needing to travel while taking over repetitive tasks that reduce focus. Green tech for business will mean many operational benefits alongside all-important protection for our resources, climate and atmosphere. Companies should aim to stay ahead of customers' expectations and move more quickly than regulation requires. The coming years will only bring more environmental scrutiny and awareness, so it will pay to invest in greener tech today.
social media hybrid work

How social media can build trust and productivity in hybrid teams

  • min read
    • Offices may be re-opening, but professionals aren't racing back to their desks. A recent survey by professional services firm PwC survey found more than half of employees want to keep working remotely for at least three days a week. 37 percent of workers surveyed for Kaspersky's Securing the Future of Work report said they wanted to work mostly from home with regular office time. This part in-office, part at-home workstyle is known as hybrid working. To get all the benefits, employees need ways to stay connected with colleagues while working remotely. Colleague connection is important for job satisfaction, company culture and effective collaboration. I believe social media has a lot to offer in building colleague connections and unlocking greater productivity. Social media can add the crucial 'trust factor' When a research team looked at 52 studies of trust and teamwork, they found trust is even more important for remote-working teams to function well. If organizations work harder to build trust among employees spending most of their time apart, the potential gains are large. Collaboration platforms like Microsoft Teams, Slack and Zoom and project tools to manage tech projects are a valuable part of keeping team members connected. But because they're also where much of your work gets done, employees need other ways to connect too. That's where social media comes in. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and others can be great ways to improve trust and camaraderie in your team, but they can also undermine the relationships you hope to foster. With the right strategy and guidelines for using social media, you can help employees benefit from interactions while reducing risk. Here are some of the keys to social media success I've seen successful workplaces use to good effect. 1.     Reframe leadership views of social media use Many leaders have developed the view that using social media during work hours is time wasted. I've already mentioned how social media can help build the trust that's important to productivity. Research also suggests workplace behavior seen as 'slacking off' could, in fact, boost productivity and creativity. A recent review of studies found both positive and negative impacts from 'cyberloafing,' with researchers concluding "a little cyberloafing is important for healthy communication, innovation and productivity." Trusting employees to manage their focus helps them function at their best. 2.     Openly endorse connecting on social media The best way to get employees connecting on social media is easy: Explicitly encourage them to do just that. There's much to recommend it. When I ran my own social media agency, all our employees (voluntarily) connected on Facebook and Twitter. While it's been ten years since we last worked together, we're in regular social media contact, exchanging recipes, parenting stories and work opportunities. 3.     Have written social media guidelines Ideally, your organization's HR team should develop social media guidelines with advice from your legal and social media teams. If you don't have organization-wide policies, you can still send a thoughtful email to direct reports outlining your perspective. Start by looking at other organizations' smart, effective social media policies. Your policy should make clear that invitations to connect with colleagues are optional and colleagues may have different preferences about connecting online. Take the opportunity to remind people to follow security best practices on networks like Twitter and LinkedIn. 4.     Model friendly connection Your social media habits will cue the rest of your team. Think about how you'd like team members to connect, then model that behavior. If you want them to follow one another on Twitter and amplify or engage with each other's posts, follow your direct reports and put them on a Twitter list you review regularly, so you see all their updates. Once employees see you responding to their and their colleagues' tweets, they'll see this as an extension of workplace relationships and another way to bring interesting ideas or information to your attention. Don't intrude on employees' privacy by commenting on their high school reunion photos or latest parenting rant. If you're hoping they'll start to connect with you more personally, share posts that represent the kind of thing you hope they'll share: Photos from your latest hike, novel recommendations or recipes. If team members comment, reply – it establishes a connection without intruding. 5.     Recognize different boundaries In the same way some people are up for after-work drinks and others like to (or have to) go straight home, some employees like to keep their online interactions strictly professional while others don't mind mixing business and personal. Employees who prefer to keep relationships professional may wish to confine colleague connections to business-first platforms like LinkedIn. Advise employees of features that make it easier to draw a line between work and personal lives. For example, Twitter profiles can be made private so only people you explicitly allow can see posts. On Facebook, they could put colleagues on their 'restricted' list so they only see posts you make public. Kaspersky's privacy checker gives platform-specific tips for protecting your privacy on apps like TikTok and WhatsApp too. 6.     What happens on Facebook stays on Facebook That lesson has stayed with me: Not everyone wants their online life to follow them to the office. While it's appropriate to pick up the thread of a LinkedIn conversation where you and a colleague discussed industry news, it's best to avoid asking your coworker about her new kitchen in the boardroom. 7.     Designate one work-free zone Even if you're encouraging employees to connect on social media, make clear and model that it's ok to keep at least one social media presence work-free. It's healthy to have parts of life private from colleagues, even though employees must understand anything they post online could become public or known to coworkers and clients. Preserving one colleague-free zone means social media enthusiasts have a place to share kid photos or other personal interests without feeling like everything is on the record at the office. 8.     Talk openly about risk Online relationships are fraught with risk. If your coworker posts a picture of their new boat, you may wonder if they got a big raise or feel envious in a way that undermines the work relationship. Colleagues friendly in the office may find themselves suspicious if online interactions reveal political differences. If one employee spots a coworker posting misleading, offensive or ill-judged content, she may find herself caught between respecting her colleague's privacy and compromising her employer's reputation. Avert these risks by encouraging team members to think about the face they show to colleagues – and the world. Posts that would undermine coworker connection are posts that can pose reputation risks for your firm. You're not just helping your team build stronger relationships, you're helping them become more thoughtful, effective social media users. The other kind of risk is online security. Ensure your team knows and practices basic cyber hygiene, including using secure passwords and being aware of the many ways secret information may become exposed at work. A new frontier for colleague connection By avoiding the pitfalls of social media and harnessing its potential for conversation and connection, you can establish a new frontier for building relationships among your workforce. Many have already turned to social media to replace the sociability they've missed from the office: A third of us miss face-to-face interaction more than anything else we miss about our workplace. Including our colleagues in that circle of sociability is a great way to reinforce connections frayed during time apart. Social media can be a valuable part of company culture if used well. The sense of connection it fosters lets colleagues trust each other and work effectively as a team, making them happier in their hybrid working lives.
cities of future

How working from home is changing the future of cities

  • min read
    • The switch to working from home that accompanied the pandemic is accelerating underlying trends in urban living and improving quality of life in cities. The pandemic isn't over, and no one knows what's next, but trend-spotters in marketing, research and other disciplines are noting change in how we live. I agree with them: Our environment is changing thanks to the influence of remote work, new technology and interacting physical and virtual worlds. Here are some of the big shifts to watch out for. How homes will change Never before have people around the world found themselves living in such similar ways at the same time. For the second year running, we're seeing remote working en masse. The change has boosted some sectors. E-commerce has thrived as visiting bricks-and-mortar stores became more complicated. We've seen higher shipping parcel volumes and evidence of expansion in delivery services. People are getting used to spending more time at home, so in commerce 'dark stores' (local stores being converted into fulfilment houses for online orders,) food delivery and digitalization will keep growing. Contactless payments will be the norm. COVID-19 has accelerated intelligent buildings and smart home technologies already being implemented. Keyless entry, voice-activated elevators and digital room service have become more valuable as consumers embrace hands-off technology at home. For smart homes, essential security includes correctly configuring Wi-Fi networks and protecting devices and control panels with strong, unique passwords. But consumers have a way to come to adopt good security practices widely. Kaspersky's recent research found only 48 percent protect their Wi-Fi network with a password, and just 58 percent use security software beyond what their devices have as standard with their operating system. There's encouraging news in emerging 'cyber immune' technologies bringing greater security by design to the new fusion of digital and physical worlds. How the office will change Millions of employees working from home have felt the need for a virtual office. The hybrid work model is coming to the fore for many businesses, which means heading to the office just two or three days a week. This 'pop-up' workspace paradigm means virtual work will become more widely available. The need to organize IT support adds a burden for employees. Simple advice: Always use a virtual private network (VPN) at home or on public Wi-Fi – it will protect your data, hide your IP address and ensure no one intercepts your online communications. How urban living will change Demographers and sociologists have trotted out the 'death of the suburbs' narrative many times over the years. COVID-19 caused a return to suburban and country life: Millions changed out downtown apartments for green places with less human contact. "First there were boom towns. Now there are Zoom towns," said Lilly Smith in Fast Company, describing vacation destinations turning into real estate hot spots. My study of economic sociology tells me people will find a middle ground between Zoom towns and big cities. The pandemic has blurred the boundaries between suburban living and metropolitan life. Improved rural infrastructure means country living is an option for people who have never considered it before. More than ever, people can choose their lifestyle, mixing and matching living arrangements according to family and seasons. I think Zoom towns are here to stay, but the way people use them will evolve. But another thing the pandemic has taught us is, we want to meet face to face. It's human nature to communicate and live together. People want to go to bars and restaurants, and they need eye contact in meetings and to feel connected to teammates to be productive. All this is why we'll always want to live in cities. Urban trends triggered in 2020 include 15-minute cities, where citizens can get daily needs within a short walk or fresh air while teleworking. Malls have made way for local grocery stores, and we're favoring getting around on bicycles rather than driving or by public transport. In Fast Forward audio series episode Cities of the Future, filmmaker and vice-chair of Women in Architecture Sarah Akigbogun predicts the flight from downtown to suburbia may be good for tackling inequality. It might empower talented people in marginalized communities recently shut out by inner-city gentrification. These may be long-lasting urban tendencies. Post-pandemic habits will shape the look of future neighborhoods, providing a more family-friendly environment for those who enjoy city living. When planning a living environment, developers must create opportunities for communication and leisure, enhance sense of community and prioritize health. Technologies that sanitize public spaces, allow contactless entry or enable stay-at-home virtual and augmented reality tourism will bring us closer to a future of smart and secure homes and cities. In the past, cities grew through planning decisions and municipal visions of the future, but we're entering a time when technology is giving many the flexibility to choose where and how they live and work. As global challenges like pandemics and climate change demand fast, decisive change, this growing flexibility in our lives could be a valuable asset.
Plumia digital nation

How digital nations like Plumia are giving digital nomads wings

  • min read
    • The growing phenomenon of the digital nomad – people who live and work where they want to, even in other countries from their employer – offers businesses a chance to secure the world's best talent and retain experienced staff longer. People earning good money are starting to bring their spending and energy to rural areas, small towns and places with lower living costs. Several countries have seen the potential and are working to attract digital nomads, but the barriers of negotiating work visas, tax and local employment laws remain high. What if digital nomads could become citizens of a 'digital nation' that saw its role as advocating for, protecting and smoothing the ride for its citizens? Plumia is one such nation starting to do just that. Digital nomadism is growing fast People have taken their work on the road for centuries, but it was tech legend Tsugio Makimoto who in 1997 predicted advances in tech would encourage people "to live, work and exist on the move." He coined the term 'digital nomad' in the title of his book. COVID-19 has seen digital nomadism grow faster than ever before. Statista says in 2020, nearly half the US workforce worked from home full-time. 'Deep jobs' platform MBO Partners report Google searches for 'digital nomad' have been increasing for years but soared in August 2020. When the world went into lockdown, millions of remote workers abandoned US and European cities for suburbs, the countryside and other countries, creating 'Zoom towns.' Today, 35 million digital nomads worldwide spend around 787 billion US dollars a year. Location-independent workers now rival Canada in population with the global annual spending power of Saudi Arabia. Large numbers of digital nomads in tech MBO Partners research also found tech has the most digital nomads: 12 percent of the total digital nomad workforce. "COVID-19 prompted an acceleration of technology adoption and digital transformation," says Lauren Razavi, digital nomad and author of Global Natives: The New Frontiers of Work, Travel and Innovation. "Companies are redesigning their organizations from the inside out, and workers across all industries are demanding more flexibility." World Economic Forum projects worldwide numbers of permanent remote workers will double from the start of the pandemic to the end of 2021, reaching 34.4 percent. Facebook, GitLab and other international tech companies are leading the way. Economic value of digital nomads Continued travel restrictions aside, anywhere with good internet is fair game for digital nomads. Several industries have noticed this new consumer base. After large revenue loss during the pandemic, hospitality and travel companies began catering to remote and location-independent workers with long-term stay discounts and alternative offices. Cities dependent on tourism found creative ways to take advantage of the new remote tech worker diaspora with relocation cash incentives. Countries devastated by lack of tourism are offering visas for remote workers. After Estonia started offering a digital nomad visa in 2020, Georgia, Bermuda and dozens of others followed. Portugal's temporary stay permit and Germany's freelance visa predate the pandemic. Razavi says there's still a lot to do. Many organizations still try to limit workers' travel, creating blanket policies about where their employees can work, to comply with local employment regulations. Remote tech companies and entrepreneurs struggle to find global health insurance and offer retirement plans, often choosing to scale abroad without employee safety nets. Individual country border, visa and tax regulations make staying in one place for more than a few months hard. A comb through the list of digital nomad visas reveals high fees and income requirements that may restrict millions. What do we need to do to make sure tech workers and other digital nomads are free to roam? The answer may lie in a unique online movement called Plumia. What digital nations could offer remote workers Digital nations or internet countries like Plumia turn the idea of a country on its head. These projects map their borders around missions rather than physical spaces, redefining citizenship and nationality. Started by Norwegian nomad health insurance company SafetyWing in 2020, Plumia is a group of digital nomads and remote workers "aiming to build a country's infrastructure on the internet," says Razavi – one of the project's founding board members. Plumia wants to connect workers on the move, create a worldwide community and offer services like any nation-state, such as social benefits, global identification and legal protection. "Rather than complaining about what exists, we want to rethink the systems and show there are better, borderless ways for the world to work," Razavi says. When I heard about Plumia I was fascinated, and later joined as a founding member. While I'm not yet a digital nomad, owning a location-independent business in an expensive US city helps me see the benefits of borderless support. Future of work writer and entrepreneur Nicci Talbot has been watching Plumia with interest. She sees Plumia as a "contact point, an opportunity to connect with like-minded people and a springboard to develop ideas. Their activities and ambassadors are making the space more competitive, highlighting the growth of remote working and giving digital citizens a global mindset," she says. Plumia has an active and growing community of over 1,000 members who gather on community and messaging platform Discord to network, discuss infrastructure and draft services. They're working on identifying the best structure to support millions of remote workers worldwide and launching a member-driven set of services for nomads. Plumia board members have launched an ongoing public speaker series, inviting future of work and legal experts from around the world to share knowledge and advise the project. Borderless travel starts online Plumia isn't the only digital nation devoted to making movement easier for global citizens. The world's first internet country was Wirtland, founded in 2008 as a "democratic and peaceful alternative... for people's self-identification," according to its Statute. Wirtland has a newspaper, 8,000 citizens ('witizens') and a currency. Wirtland tried to gain recognition by acquiring lands in 2019. Digital Nomad Nation has a similar mission to Plumia. It has 140,000 members worldwide and aims to advocate for digital nomad rights and taxes, and eventually offer virtual residency. Bridging the remote work gaps To take full advantage of the work-from-anywhere movement, tech companies and entrepreneurs need digital solutions to analog workforce and travel problems. Digital nation projects like Plumia are easing remote worker bottlenecks and becoming a go-between for countries, companies and nomads. Razavi, as a digital nomad since 2013, has ideas about the best approach. "The starting point is to serve remote workers and digital nomads with useful products and services that bridge old and new," she says. "A digital platform, something I call the Global Citizen Record, could help remote workers and digital nomads navigate different countries' visa systems easily." Global Citizen Records (GCR) would, in theory, include stored identification data, proof of residency, income and education, and background checks. It could hold vaccination records, acting as a virtual passport during the pandemic. Talbot, a fan of Razavi's concept, agrees. "GCR would help streamline things and potentially solve some problems with remote work and travel." Plumia and other digital nations can also offer location-specific services, connecting nomads with on-the-ground communities, housing and coworking spaces. They can meld virtual accessibility with social safety net offers like international health insurance and retirement plans or become providers for remote companies wanting to offer global employee benefits. Digital nomadism is growing fast. These remote workers and consumers have moved beyond Instagram laptop beach shots to the forefront of a new global way of life. Internet nation projects like Plumia highlight how eager digital nomads are to help enrich and sustain this shift, and empower others to choose how and where they work.
what happens internet stops

What if the internet stops?

  • min read
    • We've all fired up our laptop and been stopped in our tracks by an irritating 'no internet connection' message. We've fiddled with the router, called our provider or just waited, and all was well. But what if the internet didn't come back? How would we manage, as people, businesses and nations? Internet outages happen. On June 8, 2021, thousands of websites, including the BBC, New York Times and even the UK government, were offline for up to an hour. Millions experienced disruption because of technical issues at US-based internet infrastructure provider Fastly, who blamed a configuration error. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed our unpreparedness for a global 'black swan event:' An unforeseen event with extreme consequences. With everyday life revolving around an internet connection, are we failing to consider and plan for the end of the internet? Reliance on the online world "We now rely on the internet for everyday tasks, from banking to communicating," said Matt Shanahan, founder and CEO of independent internet service provider Stream Networks. "Businesses and society rely financially on the internet." During the pandemic, billions were forced to rely on internet connectivity to work. Attitudes to working from home changed overnight. Many now question the need for commuting to physical workplaces, with large employers like Amazon, PayPal and Twitter now adopting permanent work from home arrangements. While the information connection offers have transformed society, has it dulled the resourcefulness we'd need to get along without it? "There are many more ways to access the information we need," says Dr. Paul Sant, Head of School of Computer Science and Technology at University of Bedfordshire. "I think we've become tuned to using the internet first and so have lost some information-finding skills." Back to before the internet? The internet's date of birth is said to be March 12, 1989. It's roughly when computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee proposed a 'web' of hypertext documents, viewed with a 'browser.' Rustic as it was, this was the first working internet. The next three decades saw an information revolution. If we didn't have the internet, would we go back to a pre-March 1989 technological world? Bingham continues, "We'll likely see the greatest impact in commerce. Most of our economy uses the internet to transact business. We may have serious problems making or receiving payments, online or in-person. That can have severe economic ramifications." David Savage is Group Executive Chairman at Excelerate Technology, a firm that provides resiliency support for businesses and emergency services if an internet blackout happens. "What matters for our clients is to have internet, or 'always on' connectivity, where coverage is low or non-existent. "Emergency services vehicles must use multiple networks for a reliable internet connection, known as hybrid connectivity. Hybrid connectivity lets the user and on-board devices connect to the internet over cellular, satellite WIFI or any other way." Planning for internet blackouts Fastly's June 2021 blackout was, by the company's admission, a basic mistake. But many nations' defense systems now integrated with internet connectivity could be a focus for cyber warfare. An armed force could use an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) to knock out its enemy's power, preventing them logging on. An 'internet kill switch' has become a topic of discussion for many governments. "Whether it's an EMP blast, a fire or a terrorist attack on infrastructure, the risks go beyond just that of internet connectivity. It could cut off society," says Savage. "Fire caused this scenario in a small town in Australia: People couldn't communicate, withdraw cash or fill up with fuel because payment systems were down." Clive Evans, Chair of the Professional and Technical Forum for merchant navy union Nautilus International, wrote: "There doesn't seem to be any fall back for ships at sea, in the event of no satellites and any warlike operations ... The [UK] government seems to let this slip. If they don't do something about this, there could be communications blackouts with ships." It's an area where Savage and his team provide additional support. His firm provides internet resilience for coastguards and other emergency services along the Dorset coast in Southeast England as part of a UK government-funded project. "It involves 'smart buoys' that can monitor sea and surf conditions, digital signage giving real-time safety information to the public and a network for first responders, lifeboats and Coast Guard in areas that would normally be without connectivity," explains Savage. AI keeping businesses online Cybersecurity has become a big part of business risk management. Protecting a business online means more than restricting unauthorized access: Keeping a business operational. Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a way to keep businesses working. "The major innovation in internet infrastructure is using AI to detect and protect networks from long-term outages. It's an exciting area of development," said Stream Networks' Shanahan. Shanahan explains how Stream is using AI to give business users a more reliable service. "AI can automatically re-route application traffic along back-up paths if a primary path is unresponsive. The potential is huge in pre-empting, detecting and fixing everything from human error to cyberattacks to faults in core infrastructure." Invisible until it stops Dr. Emmanouil Tranos, Reader in quantitative human geography at University of Bristol, has studied the impact the internet has on society. He points out how infrastructure is invisible until it stops working. "We could have had the same discussion years ago about aviation. It was taken as a given that aviation was working – then an Icelandic volcano erupted in 2010, grounding all flights in Europe." If the internet stops, life goes on. There are communities and whole cities around the world with little to no internet connectivity. Just 19 percent of people in Ethiopia have internet access. But generations who grew up with this technology may not know a life without it and could be vulnerable. Dr. Sant argues, "We need to improve awareness and reduce reliance on one way of accessing and finding information. We should be teaching youngsters to be fault-tolerant: There is more than one way of finding information, so teaching to look for alternative sources, so they're not subject to a single-point-of-failure, would be beneficial." A world without the internet may sound novel or even bizarre, but it's worth considering. And it's worth considering before such a 'black swan' blackout happens – when we cannot Google the answer.
successful collaborative working

What 20 years of remote collaborating has taught me

  • min read
    • The future of work is partly or fully remote, especially for tech-led professions. According to McKinsey and Company, more than half of employees want more flexibility from their employers and want to work remotely more than from the office. The pace of attitude change has been fast, even if your usual way of working stayed the same. Effective collaboration is an ongoing challenge for many remote teams. Businesses of all sizes have been known to reach for the next new collaborative tool on the shelf, expecting it to bring minds together for a lightbulb moment continually. Thinking back over my career in cybersecurity, I believe it's not the tools that make or break collaboration. But I have a few ideas on what the critical cruxes of collaboration might be. Let your empathy drive how you work I first worked with others remotely at the beginning of the 2000s. The tech was basic back then: A mobile phone, laptop and dial-up internet. I was giving on-call technical support for an internet service provider's security team. Waking up in the middle of the night to giving out-of-hours support was an abrupt introduction to working with others online. Most people would wake me and launch into a description of an incident ticket, immediately asking questions while I juggled my mobile phone, laptop and coffee cup. But there was one person who'd thought about the person on the other end of the phone. They would call to wake me up, say they'd ring back in five minutes and hang up. It meant I was set up and awake when we started working on the problem together. It made a big difference to my ability to think about an issue in the right frame of mind and not make it worse by being half asleep. Shift the barriers to deep focus For over a decade, I worked as a penetration tester in different teams and companies, either onsite or remotely. I would mimic a cybercriminal and try to compromise a software implementation or do general technical audits, aiming to find as many issues as possible. Often this would be as part of a team. Some organizations I worked for insisted everyone work from the same location, while for others, everyone worked remotely. Penetration testing benefits from seeing someone else's screen and easily sharing ideas around a group. A chance comment by a colleague might give you a clue on your target. But it also benefits from long periods of concentration, learning on the fly and going down rabbit holes without being asked what you're doing. I usually preferred the work-from-home teams. It was easier to talk to a colleague over the phone and email screenshots remotely than to focus intently in a busy office. But for others, having team members close at hand and the feelings of camaraderie were most important. Wherever your team is and what type of people make it up, management must play a crucial role in making sure everyone has a chance for deep focus. University of California's Professor Gloria Mark is one academic asking the price of an interruption. Her paper, The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress, concludes that distracting someone from their work doesn't slow them down, but means they produce poorer quality work and feel more frustration and stress. Use face-to-face time for what it's best for My last full-time job showed me how the remote work approach is more important than tools or factors like how often staff meet. I was giving technical expertise for cybersecurity product sales. Our collaboration tools weren't great. There was the usual nightmare of email and calendar software, partly integrated with more software for phone calls and text chat. Collaboration was mainly over conference call rather than video. I usually worked remotely, but some of the team used offices shared with colleagues or the wider company full- or part-time (known as hybrid working.) Management also drove the team feeling by continually staying in touch and freely giving both praise and suggested improvements. Physical meetings were infrequent but scheduled. They were both practical and social, giving a chance to get to know colleagues outside text or phone interactions. Colleagues and associated teams made the most of face-to-face meetings. The sales team always made sure they spent time together before and after visits to customers and potential customers. Consider team skill mix and have a driving purpose Recently, I worked with a small team to organize the first game-based cybersecurity conference, Play Secure. It was hard establishing a new conference around a novel theme. And with the conference being entirely online, we needed to ensure it didn't feel like just another set of webinars. For fully remote working with a new team, it went especially well. I think the team's success secret was the right combination of interpersonal skills and a shared sense of mission. We didn't get so burnt out through increased online interaction and were motivated enough by purpose to overcome the limitations of the tools. Use your tools on a strong foundation Lockdowns led to my becoming a fully remote worker, which fits the needs of my customers spread across different time zones. My work is usually intensive with short periods of decision support for customers, then intervals for research and consideration. Projects can have different delivery speeds. You need to adapt to others' work demands and availability and establish rapport over a simple video call. In this case, I think tools make a difference. It's hard to find a positive aspect to the pandemic, but the mass adoption of video conferencing has helped my work. It lets me give timely advice to customers without being limited by travel time and cost. When deciding to go remote-first If you or your team want to go remote-first, think through what has worked for you and what hasn't. Take staff preferences into account. Meeting in person once a week, once a month, or once a quarter can greatly affect team wellbeing and cohesion. It's easier for a distributed team to come together than for an in-office team to work apart and avoid interruptions successfully. With the savings on the costs of office space and time spent commuting, opportunities abound for thoughtful organizations to enjoy the benefits of remote work by forging their own 'new normal.'
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About Secure Futures

Secure Futures magazine is your go-to business guide for opinions, trends and insight into the world of technology and cybersecurity. We help your business to bring on the future. Brought to you by Kaspersky, the global cybersecurity experts.

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