I’ve been working in distributed teams, as well as talking, presenting, coaching and blogging about “remoties”‚ in one form or another for 8?9? years now. So, I’m excited to announce that I recently signed a contract with O’Reilly to write a book about how to successfully work in, and manage in, a geo-distributed world. Yes, I’m writing a “we are all remoties” book. If you’ve been in one of my ever-evolving “we are all remoties” sessions, you have an idea of what will be included.

If you’ve ever talked with me about the pros (and cons!) of working as a remote employee or of working in a distributed team, you already know how passionate I am about this topic. I care deeply about people being able to work well together, and having meaningful careers, while being physically or somehow otherwise remote from each other. Done incorrectly, this situation can be frustrating and risky to your career, as well as risky to employers. Done correctly, however, this could be a global change for good, raising the financial, technical and economic standards across all sorts of far flung places around the globe. Heady game-changing stuff indeed.

There are many “advocacy books” out there, explaining why working remote is a good / reasonable thing to do – typically written from the perspective of the solo person who is already remote. There are also many different tools becoming available to help people working in distributed teams – exciting to see. However, I found very few books, or blogposts, talking about the practical mechanics of *how* to use a combination of these tools and some human habits to allow humans to work together effectively in distributed teams, especially at any scale or over a sustained amount of time. Hence, my presentations, and now, this upcoming book.

Meanwhile,

• if you are physically geo-distributed from the people you work with, I’d like to hear what does or doesn’t work for you. If you know someone who is in this situation, please share this post with them.
• If you have experience working in distributed teams, is there something that you wish was already explained in a book? Something that you had to learn the hard way, but which you wish was clearly signposted to make it easier for others following to start working in distributed teams? Do you have any ideas that did / didn’t work for you?
• If you have published something on the internet about remoties, please be tolerant of any questions I might ask. If you saw any of my “we are all remoties” presentations, is there anything that you would like to see covered in more/less detail? Anything that you wish was written up in a book to help make the “remote” path easier for those following behind?

…you can reach me on twitter (“@joduinn”) or on email (john at my-domain-name – and be sure to include “remoties” in the subject, to get past spam filters.)

Now, time to brew some coffee and get back to typing.

John.
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(updated 31jul2015 to add twitter + email address.)

http://oduinn.com/blog/2015/07/30/the-we-are-all-remoties-book/