Digital Nomad 101: Your Guide to Working Outside the Office

February 22nd, 2012 by Cora Rodenbusch Posted in Cora the Digital Nomad, PGi, Telecommuting, Tips and Tricks

Greetings from Thailand! Over the past two weeks I’ve discovered firsthand why Thailand is the object of so many culture buffs and resort seekers affection. The country’s natural beauty, low cost of living, unbelievable cuisine and welcoming locals make for a soft place to land for any traveler, but what about those in search for speedy internet and strong cell reception?? Thankfully, even the most remote islands in Thailand cater to WiFi addicts like me.

I’m proud to report back that Thailand makes for a wonderful “workation” destination. With its strong infrastructure and VoIP-quality internet, Thailand has been the perfect place to combine work and play.

For those now inspired to relocate their office to a tropical paradise, you may be one step closer. Last month I was fortunate enough to (virtually) work alongside mobile workforce guru, WorkSnug on a Digital Nomad 101: Your Guide to Working Outside the Office series, designed to give teleworker-hopefuls the information they need to set-up a mobile office.

In the three-part series we cover everything from figuring out if you’re a candidate for remote working with a “What’s My Work Style” quiz, pitching your boss on the big idea, packing your Digital Nomad tool belt and making your time away from the office a success.

If you’ve considering working outside the office in 2012 or if your direct reports are requesting a flexible work environment, I encourage you to check out the series. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be enlightened, you might even be inspired to join me in Thailand.

Digital Nomad 101: Your Guide to Working Outside the Office

For more information on what it takes to work outside the office take a look at PGi’s Top 10 Teleworking Articles for the Mobile Workforce and Go Mobile or Go Home for the latest research in mobile working and the rise of the mobile workforce, Is Your Team Teleworker Friendly? for insight on how your team can best accomodate remote colleagues, and finally For the Love of Travel: Top Tech Products for Today’s Road Warrior, a fun read for those who love to shop as much as they love to travel.

Have you ever worked outside the office? What advice would you give to those considering a mobile office?

digital nomad, mobile, mobile meetings, PGi, telecommuting, telework, teleworking, travel, virtual meeting, virtual meetings, Work from anywhere, working from home

Is Your Workspace Set Up for Virtual Meeting Success?

February 21st, 2012 by Todd McCormick Posted in Collaboration, Conferencing, GlobalMeet, iMeet, Meeting Tips, PGi, Telecommuting, Tips and Tricks, Video Conferencing, Virtual Meetings, Web Conferencing

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Your physical working environment sets the tone for virtual meetings. Are you making that first online impression count? In this blog I’ll share 7 ways savvy sales reps can use their physical environment to improve online meeting performance.

Over 70% of industry average organizations don’t maximized their use of video conferencing technology, according to Aberdeen. Want to make sure you’re not one of that group?

face-to-face, face-to-face meetings, online meeting, video conferencing, virtual meeting, webcam

Collaborating Gives Rise to Pioneers like John Glenn – Celebrating a Historic Flight

February 19th, 2012 by Kim Casey Posted in Collaboration, iMeet, PGi, Video Conferencing

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On the morning of February 20^th, 1962, millions of Americans collectively sat on the edge of their seats in anticipation of one man’s exploration into the great unknown. Within a tiny cramped space capsule that was as aesthetically pleasing as a garbage can, astronaut John Glenn embarked on a journey to renew America’s national morale and hope during a time of Cold War when the nation desperately needed a hero. Fifty years later, we embrace this anniversary by remembering Glenn’s amazing feat and by exploring the revolution in technology that has given rise to today’s mobile world.

Back in 1962, the general public first learned of Glenn’s successful mission either through a transistor radio, a telephone tethered to the wall, a newspaper or if you were fortunate enough – a television set with four channels. Forget an alert from the Huffington Post popping up on your mobile phone or a tweet posted by your favorite reporter as you casually stroll through the grocery store. Smart phones were still decades away from invention and the Internet was completely unknown.

Today, an occasion as momentous enough to make the history books would be viral worldwide in a matter of seconds. With mobile phones now being more numerous than the world’s population, it’s almost unheard of these days to not be connected. Digital Nomads are becoming increasingly popular and it’s not so far-fetched to think that one day we might be plugging away on our laptops while we board a spaceship of our very own. Just saying – you never know.

50th Anniversary, Cold War, collaboration, Digital Nomads, Evernote, GPS, Huffington Post, iMeet, innovation, ipad, iphone, John Glenn, Kim Hill, mobile, mobility, Online Banking, PGi, rocket ships, Smartphones, Streaming Video, video conferencing, wi-fi

PGi Awarded Frost & Sullivan’s 2011 Product Line Strategy Award

February 15th, 2012 by Kim Casey Posted in Collaboration, GlobalMeet, iMeet, PGi, Video Conferencing, Virtual Meetings, Web Conferencing

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We are proud to announce that Frost & Sullivan, a global leader in research and analysis, has recognized PGi as their 2011 Product Line Strategy Award winners. This prestigious award recognizes PGi’s accomplishments in delivering industry-leading products and solutions that advance videoconferencing software as a service.

iMeet and GlobalMeet were designed with the user in mind and above all, to provide a service that brings simple, personal and mobile video meetings to anyone, anywhere. As Frost & Sullivan Principal Analyst, Ronald Gruia, states, “PGi is perfectly positioned to be the provider of choice in an already growing segment of the videoconferencing hosted services market: desktop videoconferencing.” Coming from a highly regarded firm who uses our products every day, we couldn’t be more thrilled.

Please take a minute to celebrate with us and view this video from Frost & Sullivan’s Vice President, Rufus Connell:

2011 Product Strategy Award, award, desktop videoconferencing, Frost & Sullivan, globalmeet, iMeet, online meetings, PGi, Product Strategy, videoconferencing

Give Yourself a Gift for Valentine’s Day: Love Your Office, Wherever it is

February 14th, 2012 by Blakely Thomas-Aguilar Posted in Favorite Things, PGi, Telecommuting, Tips and Tricks

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The Work from Anywhere revolution is upon us, with an estimated one-in-five workers telecommuting across the world. With cloud technology, mobile devices and virtual business applications, workers and employers are seeing the benefits of flexible work arrangements, including reduced costs, improved worklife balance and a healthier planet. Today’s new business environment has digital nomads traipsing across the globe, teleworkers in pajamas and cubicle dwellers. The best business Gift for Valentines Day is making your office — coffee shop or boardroom — your home away from home.

Here are some tips from the PGi Learning Space article “Love Your Office, Wherever it is” on creating an office that’s heart, soul and anywhere you happen to be.

Cubicle Nation

Make your cubicle personal. The three walls of your office cubby are your home away from home 2,000-plus hours every year. But it doesn’t have to be all dust and brown walls. Decorate your cubicle to improve your morale and spark fun conversations with customers. Here are some tips to decorate your cube.
Turn on your webcam. Today’s employee communities are spread all over the world and traditional office workers miss out on personal, face-to-face interactions with customers, colleagues and vendors. But by just turning on your webcam in a video conference solution like iMeet, cubicle workers can make better personal connections, improve productivity and become virtually mobile — all from the cube.
Take a break — digitally. Cubicle work is tricky. It’s incredibly simple to lapse into a cubicle comma, waking up from computer-staring to realize you missed lunch. Office success and happiness comes from taking a break – and cyberloafing is the new productivity boost. Ask your boss and IT department to let you jump on Facebook or hit up that online shoe sale — after all, social media is the new (healthier) smoke break.

Occupy Home Office

digital nomad, office decor, office politics, telecommuting, telework, work from home, worklife balance

Digital Nomad Tip #27 – Go Mobile or Go Home

February 13th, 2012 by Cora Rodenbusch Posted in Cora the Digital Nomad, Meeting Tips, PGi, Telecommuting

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2011 Was a good year for the mobile phone. Coldwell Banker went so far as to name 2011, “the year of mobile” in their recent whitepaper, The State of Mobile, Last year, the compact little guys made their way into the hearts (and pockets) of nearly three quarters of the world’s population leading to a tipping point in mobility and forever changing the role of the mobile phone, far surpassing its humble beginnings as simply a means of making phone call.

On the move, headed to my office for the day

Mobile phones are cheaper than ever, 3G is easy to come by and you can now do just about everything with them thanks to information in the cloud and an abundance of mobile apps. Your grandma, your neighbor, even your grandma’s neighbor has a mobile phone and they’re not the most recent converts – Having just traveled through some of the most rural and developing parts of India and Thailand, I can confirm the widespread use of mobile phones from texting and talking to streaming music. Forget most modern must-haves, it looks like the world wants life untethered and while we’re at it, a cool ring tone to go with it.

But going mobile doesn’t stop at owning a phone. Nearly every aspect of the office went mobile in 2011 and it looks like the trend will continue in 2012 and beyond.

In iPass’ 2011 Mobile Workforce Report, 24% of mobile workers surveyed said they plan to use their laptop less in 2012, while more than half said they plan on using their tablet and smartphone more. iPass also predicts that by 2014 more people will connect to the internet via the mobile web than on PC.

As a striving Digital Nomad, this is an exciting shift. Forget the fancy teleworker title, whether it’s joining a conference call on the fly or editing a last minute presentation, it looks like everyone will take some aspect of their business out of the office in 2012. The fact that I won’t be the only person sniffing out 3G or asking my hotel to restart the router, will certainly make my mobile office easier to come by. But aside from my personal situation, the rise in mobility means that business – from corner-shop retail to Fortune 500 – must shift to accommodate the mobile world.

blackberry, ipad, iphone, mobile, mobile workers, mobiles, mobility, smartphone, tablet, telecommuting, telecomute

GlobalMeet Web Conferencing Makes Online Meetings Simple

February 10th, 2012 by Blakely Thomas-Aguilar Posted in Conferencing, GlobalMeet, PGi

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Web conferencing is so much easier with GlobalMeet web meetings. Check out PGi‘s new video, showing how GlobalMeet innovates web conference call technology with:

Effortless screen share
Seamless audio integration
Amazing mobile app
No guest downloads
Webcam video and more!

Audio Conferencing, conference call, conferencing, globalmeet, online meetings, PGi, video, web conferencing

The Power of Collaborative Mobile Notes

February 9th, 2012 by Kim Casey Posted in Collaboration, iMeet, PGi, Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing

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Have you ever accidentally spaced out during a meeting and missed hearing an important decision or action item? Or returned to your desk only to find that the notes that you took really don’t make a lot of sense? If so, you are not alone. Most of us have sat through a meeting either thinking about the next meeting, daydreaming, doodling, or furiously writing down everything only to find out later that we’ve missed essential information.

Meetings are meant to be collaborative discussions that often result in takeaways for most parties involved. Instead of having 15 different sets of individual notes, why can’t note-taking be collaborative? With iMeet, it is. Recently integrated, iMeet now comes standard with Evernote. Now, notes can be taken simultaneously by everyone directly in the meeting. No more shouting over the cube wall asking Gary if he remembers what that due date was. With iMeet, everyone’s ideas, questions, assignments, and decisions are captured all at once.

Plus, instead of shuffling through your briefcase searching for that one piece of crucial project information at a client site, iMeet’s meeting minutes go wherever you go. They can be accessed anywhere, by any device.

Collaborative Notes, crunchies, Evernote, iMeet, Improved Memory, mobile, note taking, Professor Walter Paulk, video conferencing, web conferencing