What I want to talk about right at the moment is my solution for working remotely. I got the idea from reading another scientist's blog quite some time ago---I wish I could remember who, but I have no recollection. That mysterious but wise blogger talked about going on sabbatical and staying in touch with their lab through the simple expedient of a computer set up in the middle of the lab, with an open Skype connection. Anybody who wanted to talk to the professor could then just stop by the computer and they'd be right there.
I really liked this idea. I've been a big fan of video Skype for meetings for quite a while: I find that being able to see the people I'm talking to makes a huge difference in my ability to communicate and, especially, to track well on what they're saying. This is especially important when you're talking with multiple people at once---when I'm on a telephone conference, unless I know all the other people's voices really well, I'm likely to get confused as to who exactly is saying what. I'm especially grateful for Skype when talking with European collaborators, who it's difficult and expensive to even call on a conventional phone (yes, I know there are other solutions besides Skype, like Google hangouts, but I'm a creature of habit when it comes to brand loyalty and other relatively unimportant distinctions).
This is another of those "living in the future" moments I get, from time to time. Remember when video phones were a staple of science fiction? Now it's easier for me to use video than not, half the time. And the fact that it's "living in the future" dates me, I'm sure---my seven-month-old daughter already finds her parents' cell phones mystifying because she can't see the person talking to her.
So anyway, when contemplating working remotely, I decided that the best thing to do was to set my (large) desktop monitor in Cambridge up as the "Magic Window" connecting me to my office. On my end, I've got my laptop, which is where I do all my work, and a loaner machine that sits connected to the office whenever I'm working and not off in meetings or whatnot. My Cambridge machine is logged in as a special-purpose Skype user, which automatically boots Skype and sets it up to answer my incoming call automatically. And for meetings, I bought myself an iPad, christened it "Meeting Jake" and got one of those covers that can prop it up on a table.
I figured this idea was worth a shot, and so far, it's working like a charm. With a good ethernet link to a high-bandwidth connection on either side, Skype is crisp and clean and runs for hours with nary a hitch. Except when a police car goes zooming by my Cambridge office and the siren makes me jump. The iPad isn't quite so good, but I had lunch with folks today, and it worked well enough.
My only complaint? It's much harder to go drop in on people. My normal day in the office involves a lot of walking around---not necessarily going to anywhere in particular, but just stretching my legs, checking whether somebody I want to talk to is around, etc. I hear there are telepresence robots that one can get these days, but I also hear they're really not up to the job yet.
So: so far so good, and hopefully it will continue to work well for the next couple of weeks while I continue to be working remotely. Also, so far so good on long drives with infants: as long as there was one parent in the back seat with her, Harriet was fine---in fact, probably happier overall than when her parents are distracted by the cares and requirements of an ordinary day. An so, for your moment of baby zen, what does a seven-month-old infant look like in the middle of a long cross-country drive?
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| Harriet, delightedly playing on her car seat at a rest stop. |
6 comments:
Most of my colleagues are in Mountain View, and I'm almost doing this. We have a daily stand-up meeting, and I dial in via VC.
In theory, I'd like to do the same as you, but my day-to-day involves less idea generation and just more coding.
One technical reason to favor G+ hangouts over Skype is that Skype might try to eat all your bandwidth, outside of your control. Which might not be a problem for the remote site, but you don't want your lab to turn into a Skype supernode.
Interesting... I didn't know there was a potential bandwidth problem with Skype. I figure that if the IT folks start complaining about it, then I'll try changing my habits...
Frankly, I'm just amazed at how good all of the free videoconferencing solutions are. The special-purpose high-cost videoconferencing setups seem to be much worse options, since they require specialty hardware on the other side, and often don't support multi-way conferencing as easily.
This problem actually crops up on one of the problems I'm on. There's a remote team that dials in via some nice videoconferencing hardware; when it's just them dialing in, it's very good. When a second member of the team is out of town and dialing in, it's always a trainwreck.
As I think you know, I've been working remotely for, wow, something like 7 years now. This has been better at Mozilla for a number of reasons[*]. One of those is a solid video conferencing system. I attend several regular meetings per week, and when I have a particularly difficult issue to work through, it's very easy to say "hey meet me in my vidyo room and we'll work this out."
I like the idea of an always-on connection like you suggest, but I don't think it's necessary for us because we're all accustomed to handling our day-to-day social interactions with IRC. IRC has the additional advantage of being useful for "wandering about", either jumping into an interesting conversation, or bumping into someone you'd been meaning to chat with. IRC is so pervasive that folks in the Mozilla offices regularly chat with one another over IRC rather than by voice.
I can see how the always-on presence would be useful as a substitute for being physically present, though. Your co-workers aren't going to magically begin to socialize via IRC while you're gone.
[*] although there are rumors that the Mozilla brass may start requiring new hires to be in offices, which would be a real shame.
Not sure why I'm "unknown", since it made me login to my Google account. --dustin
Yeah, BBN has a very in-person culture. My department is all on one floor (at least that dominant fraction that is in Cambridge), and there's a lot of discussion in the hallways.
When I was at MIT, my social group was all IM (or, to be more precise, Zephyr). A major marker in my gradual precipitation away out of that world was when I stopped being on Zephyr all the time. At first, I did it to decrease my distraction while trying to get research done, but then I stopped missing it as much, and then I started being less in touch with people...
Every healthy group of people has watering holes where folks can just bump into on another. Whatever they may be, if you aren't at the watering holes, it's hard to stay integrated with the group.
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