(List updated: Feb 2024) The following is a list of around 60+ technology tools that you can use to manage your virtual team. To keep things simple, I've categorized the tools into 10 different functional categories. However, keep in mind that those categories are loosely defined, and one tool can technically belong to more than one category (because of overlapping features and frequent tool updates). Note: None of the links below are affiliate links, so feel free to click away :) 1. ... Read More
Work Together Anywhere – Q&A with Lisette Sutherland
Lisette Sutherland is the director of Collaboration Superpowers, a company that helps people work together from anywhere through online and in-person workshops. She also produces a regular podcast featuring interviews with remote working experts highlighting the challenges and successes of working with virtual teams. In this Q&A interview, we discuss her latest book, "Work Together Anywhere" and how it could help you work in a virtual team. Q: Why did you write "Work Together ... Read More
Why the Future of Work is Virtual [Video]
I believe the future of work is virtual. I work from home, and this is the story of how I got my current job at Cisco Systems. The talk is about "The Future of Work," which I gave at the NewCon conference in South Africa to explain the trend of both working and learning from home. I couldn't present at the conference live due to the timezone difference between Boston & South Africa (I was scheduled to talk at 2:30am my time - which would have been a disaster!), so I pre-recorded the ... Read More
Virtual Teams Pros and Cons: All You Need to Know
I have been blogging and writing about virtual teams for several years now, yet I haven’t really put together a concise article about the main virtual teams pros and cons. I must say upfront that I’m biased because I’m a huge advocate of working remotely (I work a full-time management job from my home office in Boston), but I do admit there are several advantages that you miss out on in a virtual team environment. In this post, I’ll outline the different advantages and disadvantages of having ... Read More
9 Trust Building Activities for Virtual Teams
One of the primary prerequisites for any successful virtual team is to establish trust among your team members. This post will give you simple and easy to implement trust building activities that will help you build a solid level of trust within your team. Let's start with what trust actually means. What is trust? Here’s one definition: Trust is the assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. (from Merriam-Webster) Although this is a ... Read More
Webinar Replay: Building Trust in Your Virtual Team
I had a great conversation with a team of experts about building and increasing trust in your virtual team. Here is the webinar replay if you missed it (click play on the YouTube video below to watch it). I highly recommend you watch it, especially if you work as part of a virtual team or manage a remote workforce. Dr. Howard B. Esbin of PlayPrelude, and Lisette Sutherland, of Collaboration Superpowers hosted the webinar on Google Hangouts. The panel also included Alexey ... Read More
I’m Writing a Book (and I need your help :-) )
I finally decided to write a book about virtual teams (Update 7/14: The book is now published on Amazon Kindle) I've been playing around with the idea for a while now, especially after publishing my latest course, but I kept delaying it. Why? Because writing a book is hard. I know how much work it takes because I've done it before. For my first book (published back in 2006), I remember spending every single weekend for a FULL YEAR at a local Starbucks in Michigan typing away on my laptop while ... Read More
How 1 Word Influences Your Virtual Team to Get Things Done
There's a famous experiment called the Xerox Study which was conducted back in the late 1970's. The idea was to understand how easy it would be to cut in front of someone who was waiting in line to use a photocopy machine. Three requests were used (with different people at different times): "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine, because I'm in a rush?" "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?" "Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use ... Read More
6 Uncommon Tips for Running a Virtual Meeting
I recently wrote an article for the premier edition of SOLVE Magazine, a new publication created by Time Warner Cable Business Class. The article discusses 6 unconventional tips about how to run virtual meetings. The title is “Remote Meetings That Get Results: Keep your employees on the same page, even when they’re not in the same city,” and is a relatively short read (1 page). I’ll think you’ll find some of those tips quite helpful, especially the “Don’t bother with meeting minutes” ... Read More
6 Tips for Virtual Team Managers from “REMOTE: Office Not Required”
I just finished reading Jason Fried’s and David Heinemeier Hansson's latest book “REMOTE: Office Not Required” and thought it was a great primer about working remotely. The book focuses mainly on why companies should consider shifting to a remote workforce if they haven’t already. So if you are not already sold on the idea that having a virtual team is better for you, your employees, your company’s profits and the environment, then this is a must read. The book also discusses how Jason and David ... Read More