On Being Virtual
- Posted July 14th, 2010
- Filed under: How We Do It
Typically when people travel for business it means packing up and heading out to destinations away from their office. Whether it is for client meetings or trade shows, folks take some time and work virtually, apart from their colleagues and the conveniences of their offices. They rely on communication and collaboration tools like Skype, email, and mobile phones to stay connected to their home base while physically away from the office.
A little while back I made my first business trip for BatchBlue, but it was a different sort of business trip because, unlike most business trips, for me it was my chance to abandon my virtual ways and physically be in the office with my coworkers.
I started working at BatchBlue back in February of this year but the team here and I go way back. I was a very early beta (alpha?) user, a regular in the forums, a reviewer of their product, a winner of their contests, an SBBUZZ guest and host, and now an employee. Through this all though, I hadn’t ever met any of my coworkers. We’ve talked on the phone, video chatted over Skype, emailed, tweeted, facebooked, but for people that I’ve “known” for nearly 2 1/2 years I had never seen, or met, any of them in person.
For me virtual is the norm, not the exception. I must rely on the communication and collaboration tools that we’ve chosen to stay integrated in to the workflow and to keep myself active. I attend a weekly team meeting via Skype and we use cutting edge technology to make sure that I’m visible to everyone.
