People Are Still Getting Flu

Now that the CNN-fueled panic has settled down about the H1N1 flu (no more Sanjay Gupta in a mask in Mexico City) you should know: people are getting the H1N1 flu all the time. They're being forced to stay home for seven to ten days, and unless you have some way for them to continue working through what is, for most, a mild disease, you're losing out.

What? You still don't have a business continuity plan for pandemic flu?

You're joking, right? No?

Good lord, get a VPN right now! Stop reading this and go, set it up and get it ready. Fall is coming, and this thing might could get worse when we get into real flu season. Come on people, don't make Sanjay Gupta come to your office with his little mask on.

Creating Connections to Physical Places from Afar

I have been a terrible poster* lately. Stella is not unaware of how she is neglecting her duties, and she apologizes, but every living brain cell has been going toward work work lately. That said, I've soldiered through a number of all-consuming projects (all of which came due at roughly the same moment) and now I'm trying to cast my brain on figuring out how to use the web to produce meaningful connections to a location without having people physically be there. And it seems I have some insight into this because of my own (remote) location.

I work in the fund raising and alumni relations arm of an eastern university. Not east coast. Eastern. In fact, it's in a place with a reputation as a snowy wonderland that is nearly impossible to get to by plane without making at least one connection, a reputation which is not entirely undeserved, honestly. But that said, it's also a wonderful place where people make lifelong connections and where really cutting edge research in a number of important areas is happening. A gem. We're gearing up to get a lot more people engaged and involved in the institution, and we're working to use the web to make it easier for people to be a part of the fun, without losing their luggage.

I'm thinking web video stuff. But what, and how, and what kind of production values do we want? The best, I'm thinking. I've seen the Parkinson's Foundation's use of the webinar, and I think this is a great thing -- a meld of important content, unique expertise, and a clear focus on the audience. But what other great uses are out there? Any ideas?

Seven Deadly Sins of Home Office Security

Seven Deadly Sins of Home Office Security. Well, a deadly sin is a pretty big deal but this article from ComputerWorld has some good tips that are always important to remember. Physical security seems particularly important to me. You hear so often about breaches happening because someone's laptop gets stolen out of a car or a home office, and suddenly your employer has to mail out a million "Sorry about your data go to free credit report dot com and keep an eye on who's stealing your identity" letters.

Don't make them do that. Lock up your dang laptop, okay?

I Suffer from This Condition

Once again, The Onion proves its mettle as the finest news source in the U-S-of-A by nailing my problem. Maybe you have this problem too?

Scheduling Secrets

Honestly, I can't remember if I've said this before, but scheduling empty time in your day is absolutely essential to having time to get stuff done. Even if you just mentally block it out, it's important to have time where you do nothing but go through what you need to do and do it.

Stella is on-site this week, and the whole point of these trips is to meet meet meet meet. And it's fun. I love seeing people, love getting to know them. But I also need to get work done, and so it's hard to balance. But it's okay, because I'll get caught up next week.

But it would be nice to have a little time to kick out the jams this week, too. Ah, well, that's what nights in a hotel are for, right?

Print Less

I know what you're thinking: Give me a break, Stella. I already spend 23 hours a day in my house in last year's slippers, and I haven't filled up my gas tank in two months. Yes, you're already doing a lot to save the environment just by virtue of being a shut-in, but you can conserve resources even more by doing one simple thing:

turn off your printer.

It helps you conserve in a few exciting ways:

• You're using less electricity because it's not hanging out plugged in and vaguely on waiting for you to send a job to it.
• You will have to think before you print, and make a conscious decision to roll over to it, turn it on, and wait for it to warm up. I find that my response to that is, "meh," and I generally just cope with looking at stuff on my screen.
• I have to think that not being constantly stirred up makes the ink last a little longer.

So save some trees, ink, and juice, and turn that printer off.

It's Baaaaack

Yes, that's right. The Telecommuter Tax Fairness Act is back. Yes, the economy is in the crapper, yes we're all lucky to have jobs, but this is important. You should call your congress person and your senator and ask them to help get this thing out of committee or wherever the heck it is right now.

See here's the deal: you may be okay with regard to your tax situation, or you may not. How could you know? It varies state by state, and that's uncool. Stella is lucky, because the Land of Enchantment is (in the sage words of the nice accountant I asked about this whole mess) not aggressive about pursuing income tax revenue. But you may not be so lucky.

So tax fairness is important to all the shut-ins. Look into it.

Adjusting to Summer

Stella has been a lousy poster, and she's deeply sorry, but it's been a hectic couple of few weeks. School here in the 'Burque ends in May, and with it comes a flurry of activity that any parent of children recognizes. Now we're settling into a new routine that involves a thirteen year old girl hanging around the house while I work.

It's distracting.

It's not like she's demanding peanut butter sandwiches all day or anything. She's working on some writing projects of her own, sleeping until eleven every day, going over to her auntie's house to swim, and generally entertaining herself.

It's just that I'm used to being here by myself. No noises in the house except the dogs warding off daily attacks from the US Postal Service, an occasional door-bell ring, and the like. So I'm adjusting, slowly but surely. More headphone use, more doorlocking, and also being tolerant of more interruption. After all, I can't completely ignore these children -- I do like them and all!

But adjusting to having more people around your quiet home office space is, well, and adjustment.

A Work At Home Opportunity for the Apple Enthusiast

Love your iPhone? Want to work at home on the phone? Maybe this job is for you. Stella won't speculate about what it means for what happens next with ye olde iPhone. But whatever.

Climate Control for the Home Office

It's getting to be the summertime in most places. I understand from speaking with my colleagues in the Real Office that there was frost in their neck of the woods a couple of nights ago, but here in Stella-Land it's pretty glorious. And that means one thing:

My office is hot.

I know, how can I possibly complain about six windows and a skylight. And glorious sunshine every day. But really, it gets warm as soon as the angle of the sun reaches a certain point in the sky. And I worry about the health and well-being of my laptop, of my conferencing box, of my printer, everything. I don't want to cook their little computer brains, you know?

So I cool my office independently from the rest of the house. I have a unit in there that does a good job, and I also aim a small fan at the computers themselves to help them circulate air. What do you do to keep things cool when you're working in non-office settings?

Thank God I Work At Home

Stella had a humdinger of a weekend. She spent Friday night dealing with a very vomitrocious child, and then spent her own Saturday night mewling in her bathroom with exactly the same terrible virus. I was still a wreck on Sunday, and I'm not yet one hundred percent.

Thankfully I work a few steps from my bed. And so rather than try to put on a happy face this morning, I'm able to get some stuff done and not risk infecting those around me. Because trust me, you don't want what I had.

Not even a little bit.

Laptops Are Too Hot for Your Lap Anyway

Stella has had a lot of work to do lately, and in order to get it all done, her workday has sometimes intruded into her evenings. Alas.

For a while, I was de-coupling my laptop from my office desk and dragging it into the house so that I could work and at least be in the physical presence of my family, but since I added a ginormous new monitor to my rig in the office, I'm hard-pressed to come up with a reason why I would want to burn my legs and use a tiny screen rather than bask in the glow of all those delightful pixels.

Mmmmm, pixel-y.

Between the screen real estate and the full-size keyboard and mouse, it seems my interest in wandering the earth with my laptop is waning. I am a bit more isolated when I'm working a lot, but really it's not that bad. I am frankly glad to still have a job, and beyond grateful that when I have to go in on the weekends and in the evening, I don't have to go further than my back porch.

Feeling More Philosophical About Swine Flu

Now that Stella is out of the airports and away from places that had suspected cases of H1N1 flu (is this a virus I can get from R2D2's firmware or something? Jeeze.) she is feeling a bit more sanguine about the whole pandemic thing. I'm safe in my little home office again, and as long as no one chases me in here and sneezes on my slippers, I should be okay.

But what about the rest of my Real Office colleagues? They're still coming into close contact with each other. What if there really is a real outbreak of something that is dangerous and needs containment? Well I'm here to tell them that everyone with a laptop and the VPN installed can pretty much do whatever they need to do from wherever they may be quarantined. Even if they don't know it yet, it really can work.

PC World notes that telecommuting can be a good way to avoid getting sick. And generally speaking this is definitely true. So keep it in mind if things get sneezier out there. Mkay?

Paltry Posting

Stella is apologizing in advance for slow posts this week. Okay, actually it's Tuesday already, so it's not really in advance, but you get the idea. I'm onsite this week, and by the time I get home to the hotel I'm kind of more than a little zombified.

Mmmm, I wonder if they'll have brains tomorrow at the hot breakfast bar downstairs?

Telecommuting and Pandemic Flu

Here's something Stella really hates: getting off an airplane on a layover and seeing Janet Napolitano's face on CNN over a "Breaking News" graphic. It's probably partially a function of it being a slow news day, but people getting this wound up about swine flu is troubling.

The good news is that a robust telecommuting program can help save your business in the event of a widespread health scare. In Mexico City, the streets are deserted, and tomorrow should be interesting too. Companies who enable their workers to work from wherever they are (including making the phones ring where people are, VPN and other secure access, and so on and so on) will be in much better shape than those businesses where people have to show up to log in.

The same is true here in the US. So dust off those disaster preparedness plans, friends, and make sure that people know what they should do to connect in case there are restrictions on travel, going to offices, and the like.