“What tools do you find most useful for joining up a distributed workforce…?”
…asked a friend, and I thought it would be better to share my thoughts here than stick it in an e-mail.
Portable computing
- No desktops: laptops with docking stations
- Hyper portable laptop: solid state disks and light means you can take it anywhere
- Full disk encryption
- Polarizing screen filter: so you can work on the train or in a café without having to worry too much about people peering over you shoulders
- OpenVPN and Tunnelblick: access infrastructure securely
- 1Password: generate strong passwords and share them across devices
- Portable noise cancelling headset with mike: absolutely essential
- Smartphone: so, toss the Blackberry
Smartphone apps
- Train Times – next train home
- Google Authenticatior – two factor authentication to our Google Apps for Business
- MobileAgent – to allow remote access to FreeAgent – to upload expenses, receipts
- Skype – because it’s the VOIP solution we currently use
- Hailo – hailing a cab in London
- BarclaysBikes – to find docking stations with bikes nearby and suggested journeys
- The Trainline – to pay for train tickets in advance
- RingGo – pay for station car parking
- EchoSign – sign contracts etc. electronically on the go
- Zinio – so you can read Harvard Business Review on the Go
- CardMunch – from LinkedIn – so you don’t have to keep business cards
SAAS Web Apps
- MediaWiki – the place where everything starts…
- Echosign – no more sending signed paper
- WordPress – our internal blogging platform and our external CMS and blogging platform
- Google Apps for business – for e-mail and calendars, mostly
- CapsuleCRM – Manage contacts, customers, sales pipeline etc. integrates with GoogleApps (we didn’t choose SalesForce because it was too big)
- FreeAgent – almost everything financial, payroll has been creaking a bit recently with bigger workforce. Didn’t use Sage as the online offering was poor
- Target Process – agile software management tool online. We looked at loads and this one fit the bill best
- Jira – for managing issues, features, releases etc.
- Corkboard.me – the nearest thing we have to a remote whiteboard
Legacy platforms
Platforms we still use but have plans in place to move off…
- Box – encrypted, cloud simple document management system.
- Yammer – a proprietary SAAS microblogging platform
- Skype: already partly moved to Google hangouts. Plan to move to Asterisk VOIP infrastructure and some Video conferencing. Already using XMPP for chat and presence.
