Well, our five participants are locked in.
They’re going to arrive in the house on Sunday and they’ll need all the help they can get! This creative brief to promote working out of the office for all Australians will become the road map for the participant’s project in the house.
We will love to hear your thoughts and ideas about the brief, the project and the way to get the word out as we hope to get the “remote working” community behind us!
Oh and there’s a bonus. At the end of the week, our participants will give away another i-mate to the most helpful contributor. So, here we go - we hope to hear from you soon.
Escapees Brief for the Week
Client name:
The Ultimate Escape
Background:
The Ultimate Escape is a new entity aiming to promote remote working.
We realize that the online/mobile revolution can help people work from anywhere and are interested in promoting that.
The Ultimate Escape is proudly brought to you by i-mate.
Our goal:
To germinate the seed of social change by promoting a smarter, healthier and happier working lifestyle.
We aim to convince employers, employees, knowledge workers, the self-employed and anyone in business, that working out of the office for part of their week – or working remotely full time - is the way of the future. We want to create some media ‘noise’ both on and off line and generate support for our cause.
Our project:
We would like you to come up with the ultimate idea that will promote working out of the office to Australian employees and companies. Just as an example: we can develop a logo that companies can use to show they support remote working. Likewise employees could share their desire to work more remotely via social networks or a special widget. We can promote The Ultimate Escape as a regular event and call companies to send their employees on their own Ultimate experience or we can create an annual “work remotely” day.
Timing:
We have 5 days to push The Ultimate Escape awareness campaign:
• Phase 1: concept locked in – Monday 31 March 14:00
• Phase 2: Roles and responsibilities - Monday 18:00
• Phase 3: Creating a working plan - Monday 21:00
• Phase 4: Marketing/developing – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
• Phase 5: Measurement & future plan – Friday
We’d love to hear your general thoughts:
- How do you currently work remotely? How has working remotely changed your life? How has it changed/impaired/improved your work/life balance?
- Within the limits of your existing technology and capabilities, how would you improve the experience? What are the limitations to working remotely?
- What would be the/your ‘ultimate’ blueprint to working remotely, whether you work for yourself in a home office or small business, or work a 9 to 5 job in a corporate situation? Is there an “Ultimate” blueprint?
7 responses so far ↓
1 Robert Michel // Mar 25, 2008 at 11:50 am
I just stopped by your blog and thought I would say hello. I like your site design. Looking forward to reading more down the road.
Robert Michel
2 John Jarvis // Mar 25, 2008 at 4:11 pm
The hardest thing is to convince your boss that you are going to be working from home and not just laying about. Web cams and constant communication is a must to gain confidence. Your productivity must be greater from home than at work, less detractions, traveling and now you running a percentage of the business remotely your are always available, not just 9-5.
3 admin // Mar 31, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Thanks Robert, happy you liked it. John, Will love to publish your thoughts in a post!
4 David M. Williams // Mar 31, 2008 at 11:32 pm
I am an avid remote worker. Some weeks I won’t spend any time in my office, or at most just one day - and even then simply to pick up parcels (usually phones and other gadgets!)
I spend a lot of time on the road, keeping a large $200m national company’s infrastructure running.
I’d be lost without push e-mail, which I have running both through Microsoft Exchange and Windows Mobile as well as a BlackBerry server to give everyone their preferred flavour.
Years ago I would drive to regional centres like Tamworth and my phone reception would cut in and out as I’d go through small townships. Most of the trip would be out of reception. I’d hit a town and get enough signal for my phone to tell me I had some voice mails. I’d start dialling 101 and before I knew it I was out of the town and lost reception again. As soon as I arrived at my destination I was pretty much hanging out to check my messages and get my laptop plugged in to check e-mail.
The world is much different now. Not only are dropouts less common with NextG but the advent of push mail means when I arrive I’m fully up to speed with everything that goes on. Often when I travel around I don’t even need to unpack my laptop; I do so much on my handheld. I’ve typed out several thousand messages on tiny QWERTY keypads the last couple of years!
One other brilliant innovation has been the ability to use NextG mobiles (or dedicated NextG modems) for data connectivity. With speeds now exceeding most ADSL-based connections, this is a perfect way of getting work done anywhere, anytime. In fact, it certainly leaves for dead the old days of struggling to get a phone line modem working in a hotel room - with a quandry of issues like do you need to dial 0, is the line part of a PABX or is it a straight analogue line, and so on.
We use Telstra’s CIP network (”Connect IP”) for our private data network between branches. NextG has brought with it some brilliant innovations that have helped so much.
Firstly, using the special APN of telstra.corp we can have staff connect their modems directly into our CIP network. There’s no need for them to connect to the Internet, then run a VPN client. They just connect right in and can work as if they were sitting in the office.
Secondly, there’s some terrific cellular routers including models by Maxon and Ericsson which let us get an entire office online via the wireless port in a matter of moments. Gone are the days where I would stress over the minimum two month lead time Telstra needed to design and implement a new office connection via DSL. Instead, we’re up and running quickly, with the DSL connection installed in its own time but without hindering business.
I could go on for many hours. I love my collection of gadgets - but they’re not just gadgets, they’re not just toys, they are indispensible business tools which let me stay in touch, work, make informed decisions, execute strategy and keep the company running - no matter the time, no matter the location, no matter whether I’m in an office, on the road, at home, in an airport, anywhere at all.
I envy you guys trying out the new iMate in sunny Byron Bay - but do keep up the great work!!
5 Peter // Apr 1, 2008 at 11:45 am
I work for a communications company and even they are reluctant to allow us to work remotely.
I know when I work from home I’m able to put in a solid 8 - 9 hours of work between 7am & 9pm with some time off when required to do other things to help out the family. I know my wife appreciates me working from home when she is busy teaching.
Congrats iMate on doing this event and I will look forward to seeing how this week goes and how you can convine others that working remotely is beneficial - both to the individual and their family but also to the organisation.
I love the idea of a logo companies could use to indicate they support working remotely and jut like we had the 60 Earth Hour last weekend, could we start a Remote Working day.
Obviously those working remotely need to show what they have achieved, both to their boss but also their other work mates and unfortunately when they return to work looking so fresh and enthusiastic, it implies they have been resting all day!
6 Peter // Apr 1, 2008 at 11:53 am
Meant to add to my previous email that when I work remotely, I’m currently tied to having a laptop connected to my work via my Broadband cable. Couldn’t imagine trying this usin a dial-up line.
One gripe I have that requires fixing, is that when I’m remote, I can only access the companies intranet and files on my C drive. I’m unable to get hold of all my groups files on our shared G drive. Have asked our LAN administrators how I can do this but all they say is ‘take copies of what you want’ before leaving the office. To really enable me to work remotely, this must be fixed.
Would love to hear if anyone has got this licked.
7 David M. Williams // Apr 3, 2008 at 9:00 pm
How did you go with your brief? With one day to go, I’m keen to be considered helpful
What are you guys up to and what thoughts/ideas/concepts/stories do you need?
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