On 26 July 2014 17:10, Joly MacFie <joly@punkcast.com> wrote:
On Sat, Jul 26, 2014 at 7:04 AM, Rich Kulawiec <rsk@gsp.org> wrote:
Telecommuting should not be a rare exception: it should be the default. And "corporate headquarters" should be as small and inexpensive as possible, staffed (in person) only by a handful of people -- if even that.
Automattic (WordPress) works like that.
There's a book about it. http://www.amazon.com/The-Year-Without-Pants-WordPress-com/dp/1118660633
Yes, and the book title is not at all misleading! However there's a few key differences between Automattic and your regular company. First is that we're flat, so there's no employees to manage (ie: you manage your own workload). Second is that we dont do meetings. Period. Overall, I think remote working can be successful, however you need a few things in place: 1. More efficient information sharing system than meetings (*cough* blogs). 2. Flat to almost flat structure. 3. Senior hires who can manage their own workloads and not be dependant on a "big boss" to dole out work. There's still some issues that need to be worked out (Timezones, the bane of my existence!), however the benefit of being location agnostic HUGELY outweighs petty fights over the office thermostat, office politics and being forced to recruit from a localised talent pool. The downside is that being located in a different region than you're buying your equipment means that you get stiffed on vendor lunches :) /Ruairi
j -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast WWWhatsup NYC - http://wwwhatsup.com http://pinstand.com - http://punkcast.com VP (Admin) - ISOC-NY - http://isoc-ny.org -------------------------------------------------------------- -