Foto Konser ‘My Chemical Romance’ di Jakarta
Oleh egi88 56 Komentar
Kategori: Ada Acara
Tags: band, konser, live, Sing a song..
Wa kecewa gabisa nonton MCR di Jakarta tadi malam (31jan08) tapi buat ilangin rasa kecewa wa dah temuin oleh oleh foto mereka yang sedang beraksi tadi malam…
[foto diabadikan oleh : PM] Click to Enlarge
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My Chemical Romance Live in Jakarta
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Well.. keren banget khan..
Clear Your Acne - Naturally!
Most people who suffer from acne go out and spend good money on common over-the-counter acne treatment products. The truth is, most of these products are full of chemicals that can actually slow down the healing of acne, and irritate your skin, causing farther breakouts.
When an acne product has 20 ingredients listed on it, it can be hard to know if one of those ingredients is actually stopping you from having success. It can be even harder when you can’t pronounce the ingredient, much less know what it is and how it is going to affect your skin. Most mainstream acne treatments are not only much more expensive than common household items, but they also don’t always work as well either. With that in mind, I will list some basic household items that can work wonders on clearing up your skin.
Baking soda ? A very cheap cooking ingredient that most people have in their homes already, baking soda can be used as a great scrub. The purpose of a scrub is to exfoliate the skin, removing dead skin that can eventually clog pores and lead to acne spots. To start off, you’ll want to mix a small amount of baking soda with some water for form a paste. Baking soda is very effective as a scrub, so you want to be sure to be extra careful when applying it to your face. Gently massage the paste into your skin for ten to fifteen seconds. Then rinse the baking soda off, and pat your face dry with a clean towel.
Apple Cider Vinegar ? Though most people that use vinegar to treat acne use the apple cider form of vinegar, you can also use plain old regular vinegar. Regardless of which type you use, vinegar can be very helpful with it comes to clearing up acne. It can kill off acne causing bacteria, balance your skin’s pH, and absorb extra oil on your skin.
Starting with clean, dry skin, apply diluted vinegar (eight parts water to one part vinegar) directly to your skin with a cotton ball, and leave it on. If you want, you can also use a stronger vinegar solution (say, 2 or 3 parts water to 1 part vinegar), and apply it directly to problem areas, rinsing it off after ten minutes.
Lemon or lime juice can also be substituted for vinegar. Both of these juices are rich in citric acid, and can exfoliate your skin very well, halting the growth of acne spots, as well as fading previous, non-active acne quicker.
Egg Whites ? Rich in protein, egg whites can be used as a mask to heal and rebuild your skin. It can also help to absorb excess oil from your skin. To start off, crack an egg, removing the yolk so that just the egg whites are left behind. Beat these egg whites, and apply them directly to your face. Let it sit for fifteen minutes, and then rinse the egg off.
Oatmeal ? As odd as it may seem, oatmeal can absorb unwanted oil and draw out impurities which reside deep in your skin. Cook some plain oatmeal like you would for consumption. Let it cool off, and rub it over your clean skin. Let it sit for a while, like you would a mask, and then rinse off. If you do this on a regular basis, you should begin to start noticing results soon.
Tea Tree Oil ? TTO is a commonly used all-natural household antiseptic, which you can pick up at most drugstores or supermarkets. You can apply TTO directly to acne spots to kill bacteria, or, if you strongly dilute it with another oil (such as jojoba oil), over your entire face. Tea tree gel can be easier to apply than the oil, and many are made for applying over large areas of skin, so they aren’t quite as strong as straight TTO and do not need to be diluted.
Pantothenic Acid (Also known as Vit. B5) ? Pantothenic acid can be taken in large quantities for the benefit of acne reduction. B5 works by helping your body to metabolize fats which would otherwise be later turned into sebum (oil) and excreted through the skin. Small amounts of B5 won’t help though, and it has to be taken several times a day.
To help with acne, you will need to take 2.5 grams of pantothenic acid (the powder form is much easier to take), 4 times per day, for a total of 10 grams per day.
Aloe Vera ? Aloe Vera has been used for many years in kitchens for topical application to burns. Another benefit of aloe is that it can prevent scaring, fade marks and help heal acne spots.
You now have an idea of some basic household items you can use on your skin, that work better than many OTC acne products, and are much cheaper to use. Since we have only really covered basic acne treatments, you can always take this to another level and take all natural, internal acne treatments.
This sums up our basic list of natural alternatives for chemical based acne treatment products. You can take this a step farther by attacking your acne from the inside out. Acne has been shown numerous times to be very closely affected by the digestive system, so keeping your entire digestive system working as smooth as possible can help reduce acne. I will help give you a basic idea of some all natural products you can take to help clear up acne.
Cucumber, lemon and carrot juice, brewer’s yeast, and active charcoal pills are all capable of helping the digestive system function normally. Since the digestive system is closely related with the health of the skin, they should help reduce acne breakouts. Flax seed can also be wonderful for helping your skin heal faster.
Most people who suffer from acne go out and spend good money on common over-the-counter acne treatment products. The truth is, most of these products are full of chemicals that can actually slow down the healing of acne, and irritate your skin, causing farther breakouts.
When an acne product has 20 ingredients listed on it, it can be hard to know if one of those ingredients is actually stopping you from having success. It can be even harder when you can’t pronounce the ingredient, much less know what it is and how it is going to affect your skin. Most mainstream acne treatments are not only much more expensive than common household items, but they also don’t always work as well either. With that in mind, I will list some basic household items that can work wonders on clearing up your skin.
Baking soda ? A very cheap cooking ingredient that most people have in their homes already, baking soda can be used as a great scrub. The purpose of a scrub is to exfoliate the skin, removing dead skin that can eventually clog pores and lead to acne spots. To start off, you’ll want to mix a small amount of baking soda with some water for form a paste. Baking soda is very effective as a scrub, so you want to be sure to be extra careful when applying it to your face. Gently massage the paste into your skin for ten to fifteen seconds. Then rinse the baking soda off, and pat your face dry with a clean towel.
Apple Cider Vinegar ? Though most people that use vinegar to treat acne use the apple cider form of vinegar, you can also use plain old regular vinegar. Regardless of which type you use, vinegar can be very helpful with it comes to clearing up acne. It can kill off acne causing bacteria, balance your skin’s pH, and absorb extra oil on your skin.
Starting with clean, dry skin, apply diluted vinegar (eight parts water to one part vinegar) directly to your skin with a cotton ball, and leave it on. If you want, you can also use a stronger vinegar solution (say, 2 or 3 parts water to 1 part vinegar), and apply it directly to problem areas, rinsing it off after ten minutes.
Lemon or lime juice can also be substituted for vinegar. Both of these juices are rich in citric acid, and can exfoliate your skin very well, halting the growth of acne spots, as well as fading previous, non-active acne quicker.
Egg Whites ? Rich in protein, egg whites can be used as a mask to heal and rebuild your skin. It can also help to absorb excess oil from your skin. To start off, crack an egg, removing the yolk so that just the egg whites are left behind. Beat these egg whites, and apply them directly to your face. Let it sit for fifteen minutes, and then rinse the egg off.
Oatmeal ? As odd as it may seem, oatmeal can absorb unwanted oil and draw out impurities which reside deep in your skin. Cook some plain oatmeal like you would for consumption. Let it cool off, and rub it over your clean skin. Let it sit for a while, like you would a mask, and then rinse off. If you do this on a regular basis, you should begin to start noticing results soon.
Tea Tree Oil ? TTO is a commonly used all-natural household antiseptic, which you can pick up at most drugstores or supermarkets. You can apply TTO directly to acne spots to kill bacteria, or, if you strongly dilute it with another oil (such as jojoba oil), over your entire face. Tea tree gel can be easier to apply than the oil, and many are made for applying over large areas of skin, so they aren’t quite as strong as straight TTO and do not need to be diluted.
Pantothenic Acid (Also known as Vit. B5) ? Pantothenic acid can be taken in large quantities for the benefit of acne reduction. B5 works by helping your body to metabolize fats which would otherwise be later turned into sebum (oil) and excreted through the skin. Small amounts of B5 won’t help though, and it has to be taken several times a day.
To help with acne, you will need to take 2.5 grams of pantothenic acid (the powder form is much easier to take), 4 times per day, for a total of 10 grams per day.
Aloe Vera ? Aloe Vera has been used for many years in kitchens for topical application to burns. Another benefit of aloe is that it can prevent scaring, fade marks and help heal acne spots.
You now have an idea of some basic household items you can use on your skin, that work better than many OTC acne products, and are much cheaper to use. Since we have only really covered basic acne treatments, you can always take this to another level and take all natural, internal acne treatments.
This sums up our basic list of natural alternatives for chemical based acne treatment products. You can take this a step farther by attacking your acne from the inside out. Acne has been shown numerous times to be very closely affected by the digestive system, so keeping your entire digestive system working as smooth as possible can help reduce acne. I will help give you a basic idea of some all natural products you can take to help clear up acne.
Cucumber, lemon and carrot juice, brewer’s yeast, and active charcoal pills are all capable of helping the digestive system function normally. Since the digestive system is closely related with the health of the skin, they should help reduce acne breakouts. Flax seed can also be wonderful for helping your skin heal faster.
my work life
What Will Telework Change and What Kind of Future Will it Bring?
Today and Tomorrow in the Leading Telework Country
(Presented at Fourth International Telework Workshop Tokyo, Japan - September 3, 1999)Once upon a time, life was simpler.
Virtually all "office work" was done where it belonged - in the office, of
course.
Certainly, people took work home in a briefcase from time to time and
commandeered the kitchen table after the dinner dishes were cleared. They
caught up on their mail (translated: went through a manila folder full of
papers), reviewed their upcoming schedule (translated: flipped the pages of
their appointment book), and perhaps reviewed the budget (translated:
spread out a spreadsheet, i.e., a green-tinted, doublewide, multi-column
piece of paper). If they were really ambitious, they drafted a few memos or
a report (translated: filled up a few pages of a legal pad with handwriting
that, with luck, was decipherable by a trusted secretary).
That trusted secretary might have handed our "home worker" his (and it
almost always was a "he") phone messages (translated: a stack of pink
"While You Were Out" slips) before he left for the day, but this was mostly
for curiosity. There was no reason to try to deal with those messages;
nobody was in the office in the evening, and if you tried to return a call,
the phone would just ring, and ring, and ring.
How Soon We Forget...
That little scenario from the Dark Ages actually is not as ancient as we
might think. It was, in fact, a fairly accurate description of the
situation in the early 1980s. "Voice mail" was just barely coming onto the
scene, a few IBM personal computers were starting to appear, and Visicalc
was the spreadsheet software of choice for a select few.
How does this compare with corporate life today?
There are, by various estimates, somewhere between 9 and 15 million
salaried corporate telecommuters in the United States who spend at least
one day per week working at home during normal work hours.
A computer is no longer something that fills a big, air-conditioned,
double-locked room; it is something that most people carry in their
briefcase, if not their pocket.
After decades when parents dutifully relocated to new cities at the drop of
a hat, and missed countless birthday parties or cut short family vacations,
today's workers are renegotiating the "work comes first" rules or rejecting
them entirely.
The concept of a "regular, full-time, permanent employee" is almost
extinct. Instead, the work force is populated with an ever-changing mix of
workers in odd categories such as "flexworkers," "job-sharers," "free
agents," "9/80 compressed week workers," and others.
The word "mail" is almost always preceded by "voice" or "e."
And, anyone who spends most or all of the work week stationed in his or her
office with four floor-to-ceiling walls and has a dedicated secretary
stationed outside is either among a handful of senior executives or utterly
out of touch with the work force and work place of the late 1990s.
In short, we have seen dramatic, unprecedented, and (to some) unsettling
changes in the nature of work, workers and the work place itself. Like it
or not, the "good old days" are long gone.
The good news is that the new workplace has, in most cases, created changes
that are for the better. The less good (but not bad) news is that many of
our work-place systems, policies, and practices have not kept pace with
these changes. This article will refer to some of the trends we're seeing
today, while focusing on one change in particular, and suggest some
implications for compensation and benefits professionals to consider.
Changing Work and Workers vs. Changing Workplaces
The before-and-after contrasts noted above run the spectrum from technology
and office design, to work schedules and HR practices. We have seen, and
continue to see, overwhelming changes in what people do, who those people
are, and where they do their work.
It is this last change in work location itself that seems to me to be the
most profound. It's one thing to change from a paper spreadsheet to an
Excel spreadsheet, or to change from a full-time, predominantly male work
force to a much more diverse one. But, it is significantly different to
consider changes in the "office" part of office work that we have taken for
granted.
In fact, the deconstruction of the term "office work" is at the heart of
many changes we are seeing. This results from the explosion of hardware,
software and telecommunications technologies that are shaking up the
workplace of the last 300 years.
This is the first time in the history of the workplace that we can separate
activity from location. In the Agricultural Age, we had no choice but to
bring all the workers to the workplace; that's where the dirt was. In the
Industrial Age, we had no choice but to bring all the workers to the
workplace; that's where the machinery and assembly lines were. But now that
we're in the Information Age, we do have the option of separating what
people do from where they do it.
As we begin to do this, it is essential to consider some of the obvious
(and less obvious) implications for HR issues in general, and compensation
and benefits concerns in particular.
It's the Same - But Different
When an employee starts telecommuting (which in most cases means working at
home one to three days a week), the only thing that changes is the work
location. Pay, benefits, employment status and all other company and
regulatory protections and entitlements are unchanged.
Some employers have tried to use the shift to telecommuting to justify a
shift from employee to independent contractor status for telecommuters
which, in most cases, is done to avoid benefits costs and coverage. The
IRS, not surprisingly, has taken a dim view of this change. Though the
whole issue of employee vs. independent contractor status is under
legislative review, employers should tread carefully when contemplating
this shift from the world of the W-2 to the 1099.
FLSA Doesn't Go Away
There is no reason why a non-exempt employee cannot telecommute, as long as
all existing requirements for work hours, time recording, etc., are met, as
they would be if the person were in the office full-time. Some employers
argue that the work hours and schedule for a telecommuter at home can't be
monitored and verified as they are in the office. That's true, but it's
also true for the thousands, if not millions, of non-exempt workers (e.g.,
installers, service reps, health care aides, and more) who worked away from
the workplace long before the word "telecommuting" came into our
vocabularies.
Are We Paying for Presence or Product?
This is the million-dollar question: are exempt employees paid for the
hours they put in or the work they turn out? And, if they're able to do
what would have taken a full day in the office in less time working at
home, who "owns" those extra hours? The essence of telecommuting is that
the results count much more than the activity that led to the results. It
really doesn't make much difference, for most jobs, when you start and stop
work, or how many lunches you miss.
This thorny issue leads to all kinds of interesting and complex discussions
often bordering on philosophical debates. As with many telecommuting
issues, the attempt to resolve these questions, as they apply away from the
office, inevitably leads to some long-overdue discussions about these same
issues in the office.
Is It Time to Revisit Piece Rates?
One way out of this dilemma is to consider an updated approach to piece
rates, or more broadly, pay-for-performance plans. Even though most
telecommuters don't work in unit-measure jobs that lend themselves to
tracking hourly or even daily output, there are still possibilities for
measuring and rewarding extra effort.
The reason this is relevant to telecommuting more so than in the office, is
that it is generally easier to do office work via telecommuting than in the
office. The old joke is that "the hospital is a terrible place to get
well," and an updated version is that "the office is a terrible place to do
office work." The gains in output, quality and multi-tasking that are
common for telecommuters are almost always due to being in an environment
that is more conducive to concentration, with fewer distractions and
interruptions. If the results are markedly better than what we've come to
expect in the office, might it not be wise to ask whether the compensation
should reflect that change?
How Broad is the "Compensation" Package?
Almost all employers provide almost all the "tools" for telecommuting - the
computer, the phone lines, the software, the office supplies, and so on.
Far fewer provide furniture, but a growing number are offering a one-time
stipend for home-office set-up costs. For example, several of my clients
have written checks for $500 to $1500 (often grossed-up) to cover the costs
of anything from buying a desk and chair to putting a fresh coat of paint
on the spare-bedroom-turned-home-office walls. Ongoing household expenses
(heating, cooling, electricity) and commuting expenses are not covered,
however.
Consider this logical extension of those expense policies: what if the
employer gave telecommuters a catalog of home-office "supplies" in the
broadest sense - everything from furniture and filing cabinets to scanners
and stereo systems? Since we know that telecommuters sometimes have their
own furniture or computers, or have unequal needs for extra phone lines or
new rugs or paint jobs, why not give them dollar-based credits toward
purchases from a wide range of products and services?
This is like incentive and recognition programs in which employees earn
credits that can be used to order from a catalog. Instead of trying to come
up with the single best uniform policy or equipment package that fits
everyone (and thus by definition, probably fits no one perfectly), it may
make more sense to let the employee, not the employer, do the choosing.
Should We Rethink Vacation Pay?
As long as we're opening up the issue of broader compensation packages,
let's go as far as to challenge one of the most sacred tenets of benefits:
service-related vacation allotments. The original intent of paid vacation
was to reward loyal workers for their longevity, and to give them a break
>from what had been the demanding and tiring existence in the factory era.
As more work shifted from the factory to the office, we of course retained
the vacation benefit and even enriched it. Over time, most employers have
begun to grant more vacation time for less service time. But if the
intention of paid vacation is to give workers a respite from the workplace
(in this case, the office), what happens when the worker telecommutes and
might not need to get away from the office in the same way?
Paid vacation is an escape not only from the stresses and strains of the
work itself, but also from the commute to and from work and the pure
aggravation of working in a noisy, interruption-driven work environment.
Telecommuters working at home a few days a week spend less time in (and
getting to and from) that environment, so perhaps they don't need quite as
much time away from it.
This may not be the most popular suggestion. Perhaps the only thing more
sacred than the paid vacation is the number-one rule of benefits
administration: it's almost impossible to take back a benefit that you have
already given. Perhaps the best approach then would not be a unilateral
takeback, but a subtle shift to the cafeteria model that has been adopted
for other benefits, in recognition of the diverse makeup and needs of the
work force. Let's say, for example, that telecommuters were given the
option of trading up to 25 percent of their vacation allotment for cash,
near-cash, or non-cash benefits. Many would probably jump at the
opportunity, and those who did not could still get their three weeks after
five years.
Carbon Paper to Copiers - Offices to "Officing"
In the late 1930s, Chester Carlson began showing his new invention called
"xerography" to business executives. Rudimentary as it was, there was no
doubt he had found a way to make extra copies of an original without
resorting to messy carbon paper. Yet, in many cases he was met with the
response, "Why do we need it? We have carbon paper."
The need to have copies did not go away; Carlson was simply trying to offer
another way to generate those copies. Similarly, not all the technological
wonders of this decade, coupled with the employee-driven shift to a
workplace that better balances work and personal needs, eliminate the need
for the office. It will be a long, long time before our downtowns become
ghost towns because everyone is working at home. In fact, it probably will
never happen. What will happen, however, is a subtler shift; our focus will
change from the office as a place, to "officing" as an activity. We will
worry less about where people do their work and more about how much they
do, and how well they do it.
How much work is done and how well it is done are among the concerns of the
compensation and benefits profession. The changes and possibilities
outlined in this article are only suggestive of the kinds of changes that
will follow as offices are decentralize and, in some cases, have employees
working and living under the same roof.
Gil E. Gordon
Gil Gordon Associates
Monmouth Junction, New Jersey USA
Copyright (C) 1999, Gil Gordon Associates. All Rights Reserved
For more information, visit www.gilgordon.com.
A. INTRODUCTION
It is a great honor for me to be here with you today. As some of you may know, this is my third visit to Tokyo to talk about telework. Each time that I come here, I think how silly it is for me to fly on an airplane for almost fourteen hours so I can talk about "working at a distance."
However, if I did not make that airplane trip, I would have to do this presentation by sitting in a videoconferencing room near my home. It is much more enjoyable to come here in person - you have better beer, nicer people, and prettier flowers everywhere.
Much of our discussion about telework is about technology. As you know, we have made very impressive improvements in the technology for telework - but I hope there will never be a kind of technology that replaces our ability to drink a cold beer, relax with friends, or smell a fragrant flower.
Perhaps those are the only things that we cannot do today, or very soon in the future, with the technology we have. We may not be able to drink beer at a distance, but we can certainly do almost any kind of work at a distance. My presentation today will be about some of these technologies, but more important, about what they mean for how we work, where we live, and how we will move into the next century.
Most of my comments will be about telework in general around the world, but I will also discuss some of the specific situations in the US. Many people believe that the US is the "leading telework country," and in many ways it is. However, in the US we do not have all the answers, we have certainly made our mistakes, and therefore we should be viewed only as ONE model, but not THE ONLY model for the future.
B. THREE MISTAKES WE HAVE MADE IN TELEWORK
It is certainly important to look ahead at the future of telework. Before we do, I think it is just as important to look back at the recent history of telework. A famous US historian once said that if we do not learn from the mistakes of the past, we are condemned to repeat them. There is absolutely no need for us to make the same mistakes again with telework - once was enough.
We have had much success with telework in the US and around the world. But we have also had some problems. Here are the three most serious mistakes we have made, in my opinion:
1. Too Much Emphasis on the Role of Technology:
Many people think that telework is relatively new - that it began sometime around the early 1990's, and that it is a product of the explosive growth of personal computers. This is exactly the same as a teenager thinking that he or she was the first to rebel against their parents - that nobody before them had the same experiences.
Telework in various forms can be traced back to the late 1960's. I have heard stories of companies that had employees working at home doing a job that has been mostly forgotten by today's workforce. They were using IBM keypunch machines to produce those old-fashioned data-entry cards that were used before magnetic tape or diskettes.
In fact, we could even say that a salesman who traveled around the city to visit customers was a teleworker - he did not spend much time in his own office, and he did not have direct supervision by his manager. And we have certainly had salesman doing this work for many years - at least 100 years, in fact.
The reason why many people think that telework is much newer is because they think telework did not, and could not, happen without the personal computer as we know it today. Early personal computers were invented in the middle 1970's, but it was not until the first IBM PC was produced in 1981 that they started to become popular in business. Laptop computers as we know them today were introduced in the middle to late 1980's, and since then we have seen continuing improvements in the features, size, and convenience of laptops.
It is easy to understand, therefore, why people think telework did not happen until these laptops became widely available, and until modem access from home was possible at speeds of 9600 bits per second or faster. This is absolutely incorrect, in my opinion.
The fundamental idea behind telework is to decentralize the office - that is, to move away from the idea that we must bring all the workers to one single location so they can all work together at the same time. That was the way we did it in the agricultural economy, and in the industrial economy. We had no choice because we had to move the workers to the soil of the farm, and to the machines of the factory. However, as we move more into an information-based economy, we no longer need to rely exclusively on this kind of centralized office.
It is very easy to become fascinated with all the excellent and exciting new technologies we have today, and to think about how easy telework can be with hand-held computers, cell phones, ISDN lines, and more. But if we let ourselves think about telework only in terms of technology, we miss the most important point: it is often less expensive, more efficient, and better for both employees and customers if we can decentralize the office.
This does not mean we are going to have everyone working at home or in telework centers, and it does not mean we will make all our office buildings empty. As I will say later in this speech, the key factor in good telework is to use it selectively and appropriately to decentralize the office. The technology is definitely important - without it, we simply could not have as many mobile workers as we do today. But I can tell you that the companies, and the countries, that defined telework in terms of technology alone do not have long-term success. The technology is the tool that helps telework, but it is not the main reason why we have telework today.
2. Not Enough Emphasis on the Role of Corporate Culture:
The second mistake we made is that we did not pay attention to the effects of telework on the entire organization.
The best way to explain this is to think about a car. Imagine that you decided to remove the engine that came with the car, and replace it with a much more powerful engine because you wanted to drive faster. The new engine affects all the other parts of the car: you would need to change the steering and the brakes because of the added weight of the engine, you would have to install a new battery because it would take more electricity to start the engine, and you might even have to adjust the headlights because the heavier new engine would make the front of the car lower and the headlights would now be shining in the wrong place, and so on.
The same thing happens when we install telework in an organization. Any organization - whether it has ten employees or ten thousand employees - is a system with many connected parts, just like the car. Also, an organization has what we call a "culture" - that is, the set of habits and patterns of how people work together and how things get done. Installing a faster engine in the car might make it drive faster, but it might also be harder to steer and harder to stop. Installing telework might make the organization "drive faster" but it also affects the flow of work from department to department, the way people communicate with each other, and much more.
The car with the faster engine might drive faster, but in a short time perhaps the tires will wear out, the springs and shock absorbers will become weaker, the brakes will become unsafe, and other unanticipated changes will occur. The only way to prevent these problems is to have a team of experts work together to analyze the likely effects of the new engine. The engineer might know about the engine's power, but we need a brake specialist to tell us about how the brakes will be affected, a tire specialist to tell us what kind of new tires we need, and so on.
Successful telework requires the same kind of team effort. In many organizations, telework has been planned and implemented by only the Information Technology (IT) staff, or by only the Facilities and Real Estate staff, or by only the Human Resources staff. Each of these, and others, is important - but no one of them can manage telework alone.
In many cases we have failed to recognize this kind of integrated, connected aspect of telework, and we have also failed to recognize that the very culture of an organization changes when we start to change some of its parts. The very best telework programs I have seen are the ones that involve a lot of planning to consider these cultural changes, and also anticipate what else in the organization must change for telework to succeed in the long term.
3. Tendency to Take Tiny Steps Instead of Big Leaps Forward:
The third mistake in telework implementation is the tendency to create programs that are too small to be useful. I said this when I was here before and it is still true today: a very small pilot program with five or ten teleworkers is not very valuable. It is better than doing nothing, but five people in an organization of five thousand, or more, is an insignificant number. Whether those five teleworkers succeed OR fail, it is almost impossible to make any generalizations from the experience.
In my opinion, the only justification for a very small trial is when there is a question about the suitability of technology to support telework. In that case it is certainly advisable to start with only a few people so you can find the correct technical solution, instead of spending a lot of money on technology that might not be sufficient. However, even in these cases I believe we should plan for very rapid expansion once the technical questions have been answered.
I see no reason why organizations cannot begin with a program with at least 25 teleworkers, and 50 is even better. A smaller number does not provide a good test, and a smaller number sends a signal to the organization that "we are really not that serious about telework."
It was probably appropriate to have a pilot program with five or ten teleworkers in 1985, or even in 1990. Any programs that began with a small number like that anytime after 1990 had a very hard time becoming successful. It takes almost as much effort to do the planning for a program of five people as it does for 25 people. We have been much too tentative and much too cautious in our trial programs, in my opinion.
C. MY ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT LIKELY TELEWORK GROWTH
Each of us has some assumptions, or things we believe to be true, about telework. These assumptions affect our predictions about telework, just as our assumptions about any subject affect what we think will happen.
Let me tell you my assumptions about telework growth, because it is important for you to understand what affects my viewpoint:
1. Telework Will Never Be Everywhere:
In the early days of telework, we knew that some employers would adopt it earlier than other employers. This is what happens with any innovation. Many people believed that it would just be a matter of time before every employer started using telework, in the same way that all employers offer paid vacation time, insurance, and other benefits that apply to everyone.
The separation between employers that understand and use telework, and the employers that still fight against it, is becoming bigger. There are many reasons why some employers may never use telework except for just a few people. The main reason is the continued "mental block" that executives and managers have about telework.
I turned 50 years old earlier this year, so now I suppose I am qualified to make statements with great authority and wisdom. One of these statements is that dumb managers and dumb organizations very rarely get smarter unless they are under tremendous pressure to change, and cannot see any other alternative. Our lives are too short for us to worry about improving the situation of dumb employers. They will eventually begin to slow down and eventually fade away into the history books.
Meanwhile, the smart managers and smart employers will do much better. They will struggle with the need to make change - but in the end they WILL make the change they need to survive, including the use of telework. Therefore, I suggest that we should put our efforts into helping the smart employers get smarter and become more successful. Otherwise, we will become old and gray and tired from trying to help people and organizations that refuse to change.
2. We Have Too Much Technology, Not Too Little:
The technology for telework is very good and continues to get better. This does not mean it is perfect, or that it is always the right price. But the best news is that we have plenty of technology - hardware, software, and telecommunications - to allow telework to be effective.
I have seen many of my US clients having a difficult time trying to select from among this big list of technology. There are too many laptops, too many kinds of remote-access solutions, and too many kinds of applications software. What is needed is a way to create packages of tested solutions for various kinds of telework situations.
Let me explain why this is important. Imagine that you are getting ready to go on a vacation or a business trip, and you start to gather everything you want to take. You go into the bathroom and get your toothbrush, your toothpaste, your razor or your cosmetics, and all the other items you need. If you are like me, you almost always forget at least one thing that you need - and you find out about this at 11 o'clock at night when all the stores are closed.
What if you could go into a store and buy a pre-packaged kit that contained exactly enough of each item for the number of days of your trip? For example, you could get a three-day kit for a man, or a five-day kit for a woman, and so on. You would probably be willing to pay a small amount extra for the convenience of having everything together.
This is what we need for telework. The problem is not with the type or amount of technology - the problem is that we rarely have it collected in the right package.
3. Workers Will Stop Thinking About Telework and Will Start Expecting It:
In the early stage of telework in a company, a few people think to themselves, "Wouldn't it be nice if I could telework!" Later, a few more people will ask their managers, "Can I telework two days a week?" Later, a few more people will ask their managers, "Would you prefer that I telework on Tuesday or Thursday this week?" And finally, people applying for jobs will routinely ask during the interview, "You DO allow your employees to telework, don't you?"
I have described a progression from people thinking about it, to cautiously asking about it, to assuming it is available, to expecting it as a condition of employment. We have not reached that end point yet, but I don't think it is far away. Many smart employers will implement telework because it makes good business sense to do so - but many more will implement telework because their current and future employees will simply assume that it is available.
D. SIX EFFECTS OF CONTINUED GROWTH IN TELEWORK
I have been involved in the telework field since 1982, and at least two times a month I am asked to make estimates about the future growth of telework. So, that is 24 times a year for 17 years, or a total of at least 408 estimates I have made about the future number of teleworkers. If I have been lucky, I think that perhaps 10 of those estimates were correct - but I don't know which ones they were.
My consulting business does not include any statistical market research, so when I make these estimates I rely on the research done by people who are in that business. Every time I see their numbers I get more confused. One thing is clear, however: the number of teleworkers has continued to increase by approximately 10% to 15% each year in the US and in many other countries. This means that today in the US we have approximately ten million teleworkers - and this number is much more conservative than some other estimates you might hear.
There are other people at this conference who can probably give you more accurate estimates. I would rather discuss the implications of this growth, because I am convinced that the growth WILL continue. Here is what that means for all of us:
1. Nobody Can Stop It:
Telework is not a temporary fad. We will never return to the time when almost everybody works in the office all the time. We have opened the door to the possibilities of telework, we have clearly shown its benefits, and it would be foolish to try to eliminate it. As I have said many times before, this does not mean that everyone will be a teleworker. It means instead that telework will become normal, expected, and just as routine as seeing a computer in an office or a teenager wearing headphones. We now have enough momentum behind telework that we will never go back to doing all the office work in the office.
2. The World Will Adapt to Telework - Not the Reverse:
When women started to be employed in professional-level jobs in the US in large numbers, the women had to do all the changing and adjusting to a man's world. They wore clothes that looked like a man's business suit, they had to use all the bad language the men did, and they had to tolerate all the stupid business practices and habits the men had tolerated for years. Today, things are different: women can dress like women, not like men. Men who use a lot of bad language around women can be fired, and their employers can receive a lawsuit. And, fortunately, women have been responsible for creating many changes in business practices that were long overdue.
The same things happened with teleworkers. In the beginning, and even today, teleworkers had to be very careful about their work schedule, to be sure they were able to be in the office to attend meetings. Today, most of those meetings are done by audio or video conference calls. In the beginning, teleworkers had to figure out how to carry home a heavy desktop PC. Today, most of them can easily carry a laptop anywhere they go. In the beginning, teleworkers had to struggle with modem connections that were too slow to be of much value. Today, most teleworkers can easily get some kind of broadband, high-speed connection to the home.
These trends will continue - including some of the hidden problems. Even though women are much more accepted today in the business world in the US and elsewhere, there are still many cases where the women feel treated unfairly. And even though telework is more widely accepted today, there are still many cases where teleworkers must listen to the jokes from their co-workers about how the teleworkers stay home and watch television and drink beer. Slowly but surely, all of this will change.
3. The Telecommunications Industry Will Go Crazy:
I just told you that most teleworkers in the US can get some kind of broadband connection to their homes. This is true, but it is the result of more than ten years of slow progress. In the US as in Japan and most other countries, the telephone network was designed for business calls to occur in offices, and for personal calls to occur in homes. It has been virtually impossible for the carriers to change their networks quickly enough to satisfy the demand for high-speed access. In the US, the telecommunications carriers are perceived as following, not leading, the telework trend. This is starting to change as they expand their digital networks, and as competitive carriers become more powerful. Japan is ahead of the US in some ways because of your plans for developing a nationwide digital network - although the cost of using that network here will probably be higher than in the US.
To make things worse, many teleworkers live - or would like to live - in suburban or rural areas where it is even harder to get high-speed service. The carriers cannot afford to invest in digital networks in areas where the population density is low. That is why cable telephony, satellite telephone, and various forms of wireless transmission are becoming so popular.
Teleworkers want bandwidth like a child wants candy: no matter how much they have, they always want more. It will be at least five years in the US before most teleworkers will be able to have the high-speed access they want, where they want it. We may never see the time when every teleworker has all the access they want.
4. Managers Will Adapt or Become Useless:
I told you before that I just turned 50 years old. This means that I am no longer a young person with new ideas - I am now in the category of the old-fashioned people. Managers my age and older continue to have a difficult time adjusting to telework - although I have seen many managers in their 50's and 60's doing very well with teleworkers.
Managers at age 50 and older, as well as many in their 40's, have been trained and expected to be very close supervisors - to watch what their people are doing almost every minute. This does not mean they can't change, or don't want to change. It means that it will be a challenge for them to change because they have had at least 20 years of experience managing the other way.
The bad news is that the pressure to change the style of supervision for telework will be a hard adjustment for many managers. The good news is that they will become better managers if they do. The experience of managing at a distance makes them better managers of people in the office as well. In other words, the manager who can learn how to manage teleworkers will automatically become a better managers of employees who don't telework.
It will be a difficult decision for middle-aged managers, but it is the same kind of decision those managers have to make about using a PC. If they learn, they will succeed; if they don't want to learn or cannot learn, they will no longer be valuable managers.
5. Fewer Workers - More Business Owners:
Japan is just like the rest of the world: every developed country is in the middle of explosive growth in small businesses and entrepreneurs. When I was preparing to graduate from university in 1972, we business school students all fought with each other to obtain job interviews with the very large companies that came to recruit us. The only people who went into their own start-up businesses were the ones not good enough to get a big corporate job. Today, the situation is exactly the opposite: many large US companies are having great difficulty attracting college graduates - they all want to work in a small start-up company, and preferably one with "dot com" in its name.
Telework most often refers to corporate employees working at home or elsewhere away from the office - but that is only one form of telework. The same technology and the same worker values that create interest in corporate telework are creating interest in the "SOHO" (Small Office Home Office) kind of work. Give a smart person a cell phone, a laptop, and a fax machine, and he or she is in business immediately. The growth in these SOHO kinds of work will grow as fast, if not faster, than corporate telework.
6. Very Little Will Change in Transportation Patterns:
I wish I could be more positive about this last prediction, but the facts force me to tell you the truth. As you know, one of the benefits of telework that has always been discussed is the ability to reduce the daily commuting problems and the air pollution that come with them. We know that teleworkers drive their cars less - that is for certain. But we also know that the overall pattern of traffic congestion is so bad in almost every city, that it would take an enormous amount of telework to make a difference.
For the last fifty years, the US, most of Europe, and to a certain extent Japan, have built societies that encourage and reward suburban living. The automobile companies have been very successful in convincing us that we cannot live without having our own car, or cars. One of the newest and most controversial political topics in the US today is "suburban sprawl" and the problems of almost unlimited growth and development.
I am trying to say that the problems that create much of our traffic and pollution go far beyond the daily commuting to work. I still believe that telework definitely can help remove some cars from the road and some pollution from air, but I am not convinced that doing so will have much of an effect overall.
If this is the bad news, I believe there are two other transportation-related effects of telework that could be very good news. The first is about employment for people with disabilities - most of whom are able to do very good work but simply cannot get to the workplace every day. It is a shame to see how few disabled people have actually been employed as teleworkers, but I am hopeful this will change. Part of our new thinking about mobility and transportation must be that we separate mobility from ability - they are not the same. We waste a lot of talent when we fail to find creative ways to employ people with disabilities. Telework is certainly one of those methods.
Second, there has been much talk over the years about the role of telework in regional development, and the revitalization of communities or large areas where unemployment is high. Japan is an excellent example - but not the only example - of a country where too many people are squeezed into too little space. The main reason so many people live in the Tokyo-Osaka-Yokohama region is because of the concentration of jobs here.
As we approach the next century, I think it is finally time that we realize we can bring work and employment to people in other areas, instead of forcing them to move to where the jobs are traditionally located. Many of our problems with transportation and pollution are related to this pattern of squeezing too many people into small areas. Japan, and other countries, should be able to use technology to bring jobs, education, government services, entertainment and much more to areas that need a fresh start in this new century.
E. THE STRANGE FUTURE OF TELEWORK IN THE US
The US is a country where everyone knows what style of underwear our President wears, people living in cities buy huge sport-utility vehicles to drive in congested traffic, and McDonalds had to pay millions of dollars in a lawsuit because their coffee was too hot. In a country like this, you can imagine that the future of telework will be just as strange.
Many people around the world look at the US as the best example of telework in use. This is probably true in many ways, but not in all ways. I have seen excellent examples of various kinds of telework in almost every other country where telework is being used. The advantage we have in the US is the number of employers and number of teleworkers involved, and the amount of noise we make about our own accomplishments. I suggest that you always be skeptical about what you hear from the US about telework; many of the things we do are correct, but we also make our share of mistakes.
Let us examine what the next five years of telework in the US will look like. I have only three predictions to make:
1. Say Goodbye to "Telework":
I hope that we will stop, or reduce very much, the use of the words telework or telecommuting. These are words that have been very useful to describe a change in the workplace, but I hope that the change will be successful enough so we do not need these special words any longer.
There is an excellent book called "The Underground Guide to Telecommuting," and it contains this quotation: "Work is something you do, not someplace you go." I have been using that quotation since the book was published in 1995. It is the best explanation of how we must change our thinking about work and the workplace. The words telework and telecommuting are words of transition - just like the words "horseless carriage" were used to describe the first automobiles. People didn't know what a "car" was, but they could easily understand the idea of a carriage pulled by a horse - but without the horse.
The most important indication of the wide acceptance of telework will be our ability to simply talk about work - no matter where it is done.
2. Office Work Will Become the Strange Activity:
In 1982 when I started my business, there were very few teleworkers. A person who teleworked was seen as something strange or unusual. Going to the office every day was normal and expected, so anyone who did "office work" away from the office was very different and strange. We may not accomplish this in the next five years, but I hope we can have a new definition of what is "strange" - the office worker who goes to the office five days a week will become the unusual one.
Once again, I must emphasize that everyone will not be a teleworker, and even those who do telework won't do it full-time. The change I am discussing here is that the concept of telework will become almost universally understood and accepted as normal in the workplace.
3. Personal and Family Life Will Improve:
It is no secret that we have many problems in our society in the US. When our children are taking guns to school, using drugs, and acting rudely, these are signs of some deep and serious problems. These problems have many causes, but one of them is simply the fact that parents are spending less time with their children. It is difficult to be a parent, and it almost impossible to be a good parent if you don't see your children except for a few minutes each day.
I wish I could tell you that more telework would solve all these problems. That would be wonderful, but it is unrealistic. However, I do believe that if telework allows parents to spend even a little more time with their children of all ages, it MUST be an improvement. I am not suggesting that we return to the 1950's when the father worked and the mother stayed home with the children all the time; that situation had its own problems. I am suggesting instead that if we make it easy for both fathers and mothers to be in the home a few more hours each day, their children will have better lives.
Similarly, we can look for telework to help improve the quality of life for the employees themselves, whether or not they are mothers and fathers. For many people, the worst part of the work day is getting TO work. It is costly, difficult, stressful, and in some cases unsafe. It always makes me very happy to hear teleworkers describe how much their lives have improved even if they commute two less days each week. Smart employers will realize the benefit of this change.
F. THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO MAKE TELEWORK BETTER
We all look for simple solutions to complex problems. You will be hearing a lot at this conference about the complex issues involved in telework. I am going to try to make your life simpler by making three simple suggestions about things you can do to help the growth of telework, starting next week:
1. Do It - Talk About It - Make It Work:
I am always amazed to hear about so many people who are trying to promote telework, but don't do it themselves. This is like a fat person trying to sell a dieting pill - nobody would believe them. Even if your employer doesn't have a formal telework program, find a way to telework one day a week for a month. That is only four days, but it is a good start.
If you are already teleworking or just getting started, find a way to talk about it with your friends, neighbors, and co-workers. You don't have to be like a noisy salesman or a person standing on a street corner in New York City selling imitation Rolex watches. But you should believe in what you do, and be willing to help others understand telework and get excited about it.
Last, if you know of co-workers who have tried telework and have had problems, you can be their consultant. Help them find a solution to the problems and you will create another telework success.
2. Look For Small Cracks - Not Big Doors:
Pretend that you are a small ant trying to get into a house to find some food. You don't need to find the front door; you can just crawl through a small crack and get inside. Many people make the mistake of looking only for the big door into a company to start or expand telework. It is often much more successful to find a little crack, or a small opportunity, to get started. Once you get through that little crack in the wall, you have a chance to make a change.
This does not mean you should give up on your efforts to start a big project. If you have the choice, it is always better to try for that big accomplishment all at once. But sometimes, the reality is that you can only find the small crack - and that is how you must begin.
3. Remind People About Other "Bad Ideas":
Whenever somebody tells you that telework is a bad idea that will never work, remind them about the history of the telephone, the Xerox machine, and the PC. I like to remind people that:
* When the telephone was first offered to businesses, they said, "Why do we need it - we have messenger boys to carry messages."
* When the first photocopy machine was invented, the man who invented it was told, "Why do we need it - we have carbon paper to make copies."
* When the first personal computers were invented, and it was suggested that they would be used in business and at home, Ken Olsen (the founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation) said, "Why would anyone want to have their own computer?"
Telework is not a "bad idea." It is a different idea about working, and it is an idea whose time has arrived. You are all here today because you understand why telework works, and how important it can be. I encourage you to be the leaders in helping others see the benefits of telework, and show how it can help our businesses, our communities, our families, and our workers.
Thank you very much.
Today and Tomorrow in the Leading Telework Country
(Presented at Fourth International Telework Workshop Tokyo, Japan - September 3, 1999)Once upon a time, life was simpler.
Virtually all "office work" was done where it belonged - in the office, of
course.
Certainly, people took work home in a briefcase from time to time and
commandeered the kitchen table after the dinner dishes were cleared. They
caught up on their mail (translated: went through a manila folder full of
papers), reviewed their upcoming schedule (translated: flipped the pages of
their appointment book), and perhaps reviewed the budget (translated:
spread out a spreadsheet, i.e., a green-tinted, doublewide, multi-column
piece of paper). If they were really ambitious, they drafted a few memos or
a report (translated: filled up a few pages of a legal pad with handwriting
that, with luck, was decipherable by a trusted secretary).
That trusted secretary might have handed our "home worker" his (and it
almost always was a "he") phone messages (translated: a stack of pink
"While You Were Out" slips) before he left for the day, but this was mostly
for curiosity. There was no reason to try to deal with those messages;
nobody was in the office in the evening, and if you tried to return a call,
the phone would just ring, and ring, and ring.
How Soon We Forget...
That little scenario from the Dark Ages actually is not as ancient as we
might think. It was, in fact, a fairly accurate description of the
situation in the early 1980s. "Voice mail" was just barely coming onto the
scene, a few IBM personal computers were starting to appear, and Visicalc
was the spreadsheet software of choice for a select few.
How does this compare with corporate life today?
There are, by various estimates, somewhere between 9 and 15 million
salaried corporate telecommuters in the United States who spend at least
one day per week working at home during normal work hours.
A computer is no longer something that fills a big, air-conditioned,
double-locked room; it is something that most people carry in their
briefcase, if not their pocket.
After decades when parents dutifully relocated to new cities at the drop of
a hat, and missed countless birthday parties or cut short family vacations,
today's workers are renegotiating the "work comes first" rules or rejecting
them entirely.
The concept of a "regular, full-time, permanent employee" is almost
extinct. Instead, the work force is populated with an ever-changing mix of
workers in odd categories such as "flexworkers," "job-sharers," "free
agents," "9/80 compressed week workers," and others.
The word "mail" is almost always preceded by "voice" or "e."
And, anyone who spends most or all of the work week stationed in his or her
office with four floor-to-ceiling walls and has a dedicated secretary
stationed outside is either among a handful of senior executives or utterly
out of touch with the work force and work place of the late 1990s.
In short, we have seen dramatic, unprecedented, and (to some) unsettling
changes in the nature of work, workers and the work place itself. Like it
or not, the "good old days" are long gone.
The good news is that the new workplace has, in most cases, created changes
that are for the better. The less good (but not bad) news is that many of
our work-place systems, policies, and practices have not kept pace with
these changes. This article will refer to some of the trends we're seeing
today, while focusing on one change in particular, and suggest some
implications for compensation and benefits professionals to consider.
Changing Work and Workers vs. Changing Workplaces
The before-and-after contrasts noted above run the spectrum from technology
and office design, to work schedules and HR practices. We have seen, and
continue to see, overwhelming changes in what people do, who those people
are, and where they do their work.
It is this last change in work location itself that seems to me to be the
most profound. It's one thing to change from a paper spreadsheet to an
Excel spreadsheet, or to change from a full-time, predominantly male work
force to a much more diverse one. But, it is significantly different to
consider changes in the "office" part of office work that we have taken for
granted.
In fact, the deconstruction of the term "office work" is at the heart of
many changes we are seeing. This results from the explosion of hardware,
software and telecommunications technologies that are shaking up the
workplace of the last 300 years.
This is the first time in the history of the workplace that we can separate
activity from location. In the Agricultural Age, we had no choice but to
bring all the workers to the workplace; that's where the dirt was. In the
Industrial Age, we had no choice but to bring all the workers to the
workplace; that's where the machinery and assembly lines were. But now that
we're in the Information Age, we do have the option of separating what
people do from where they do it.
As we begin to do this, it is essential to consider some of the obvious
(and less obvious) implications for HR issues in general, and compensation
and benefits concerns in particular.
It's the Same - But Different
When an employee starts telecommuting (which in most cases means working at
home one to three days a week), the only thing that changes is the work
location. Pay, benefits, employment status and all other company and
regulatory protections and entitlements are unchanged.
Some employers have tried to use the shift to telecommuting to justify a
shift from employee to independent contractor status for telecommuters
which, in most cases, is done to avoid benefits costs and coverage. The
IRS, not surprisingly, has taken a dim view of this change. Though the
whole issue of employee vs. independent contractor status is under
legislative review, employers should tread carefully when contemplating
this shift from the world of the W-2 to the 1099.
FLSA Doesn't Go Away
There is no reason why a non-exempt employee cannot telecommute, as long as
all existing requirements for work hours, time recording, etc., are met, as
they would be if the person were in the office full-time. Some employers
argue that the work hours and schedule for a telecommuter at home can't be
monitored and verified as they are in the office. That's true, but it's
also true for the thousands, if not millions, of non-exempt workers (e.g.,
installers, service reps, health care aides, and more) who worked away from
the workplace long before the word "telecommuting" came into our
vocabularies.
Are We Paying for Presence or Product?
This is the million-dollar question: are exempt employees paid for the
hours they put in or the work they turn out? And, if they're able to do
what would have taken a full day in the office in less time working at
home, who "owns" those extra hours? The essence of telecommuting is that
the results count much more than the activity that led to the results. It
really doesn't make much difference, for most jobs, when you start and stop
work, or how many lunches you miss.
This thorny issue leads to all kinds of interesting and complex discussions
often bordering on philosophical debates. As with many telecommuting
issues, the attempt to resolve these questions, as they apply away from the
office, inevitably leads to some long-overdue discussions about these same
issues in the office.
Is It Time to Revisit Piece Rates?
One way out of this dilemma is to consider an updated approach to piece
rates, or more broadly, pay-for-performance plans. Even though most
telecommuters don't work in unit-measure jobs that lend themselves to
tracking hourly or even daily output, there are still possibilities for
measuring and rewarding extra effort.
The reason this is relevant to telecommuting more so than in the office, is
that it is generally easier to do office work via telecommuting than in the
office. The old joke is that "the hospital is a terrible place to get
well," and an updated version is that "the office is a terrible place to do
office work." The gains in output, quality and multi-tasking that are
common for telecommuters are almost always due to being in an environment
that is more conducive to concentration, with fewer distractions and
interruptions. If the results are markedly better than what we've come to
expect in the office, might it not be wise to ask whether the compensation
should reflect that change?
How Broad is the "Compensation" Package?
Almost all employers provide almost all the "tools" for telecommuting - the
computer, the phone lines, the software, the office supplies, and so on.
Far fewer provide furniture, but a growing number are offering a one-time
stipend for home-office set-up costs. For example, several of my clients
have written checks for $500 to $1500 (often grossed-up) to cover the costs
of anything from buying a desk and chair to putting a fresh coat of paint
on the spare-bedroom-turned-home-office walls. Ongoing household expenses
(heating, cooling, electricity) and commuting expenses are not covered,
however.
Consider this logical extension of those expense policies: what if the
employer gave telecommuters a catalog of home-office "supplies" in the
broadest sense - everything from furniture and filing cabinets to scanners
and stereo systems? Since we know that telecommuters sometimes have their
own furniture or computers, or have unequal needs for extra phone lines or
new rugs or paint jobs, why not give them dollar-based credits toward
purchases from a wide range of products and services?
This is like incentive and recognition programs in which employees earn
credits that can be used to order from a catalog. Instead of trying to come
up with the single best uniform policy or equipment package that fits
everyone (and thus by definition, probably fits no one perfectly), it may
make more sense to let the employee, not the employer, do the choosing.
Should We Rethink Vacation Pay?
As long as we're opening up the issue of broader compensation packages,
let's go as far as to challenge one of the most sacred tenets of benefits:
service-related vacation allotments. The original intent of paid vacation
was to reward loyal workers for their longevity, and to give them a break
>from what had been the demanding and tiring existence in the factory era.
As more work shifted from the factory to the office, we of course retained
the vacation benefit and even enriched it. Over time, most employers have
begun to grant more vacation time for less service time. But if the
intention of paid vacation is to give workers a respite from the workplace
(in this case, the office), what happens when the worker telecommutes and
might not need to get away from the office in the same way?
Paid vacation is an escape not only from the stresses and strains of the
work itself, but also from the commute to and from work and the pure
aggravation of working in a noisy, interruption-driven work environment.
Telecommuters working at home a few days a week spend less time in (and
getting to and from) that environment, so perhaps they don't need quite as
much time away from it.
This may not be the most popular suggestion. Perhaps the only thing more
sacred than the paid vacation is the number-one rule of benefits
administration: it's almost impossible to take back a benefit that you have
already given. Perhaps the best approach then would not be a unilateral
takeback, but a subtle shift to the cafeteria model that has been adopted
for other benefits, in recognition of the diverse makeup and needs of the
work force. Let's say, for example, that telecommuters were given the
option of trading up to 25 percent of their vacation allotment for cash,
near-cash, or non-cash benefits. Many would probably jump at the
opportunity, and those who did not could still get their three weeks after
five years.
Carbon Paper to Copiers - Offices to "Officing"
In the late 1930s, Chester Carlson began showing his new invention called
"xerography" to business executives. Rudimentary as it was, there was no
doubt he had found a way to make extra copies of an original without
resorting to messy carbon paper. Yet, in many cases he was met with the
response, "Why do we need it? We have carbon paper."
The need to have copies did not go away; Carlson was simply trying to offer
another way to generate those copies. Similarly, not all the technological
wonders of this decade, coupled with the employee-driven shift to a
workplace that better balances work and personal needs, eliminate the need
for the office. It will be a long, long time before our downtowns become
ghost towns because everyone is working at home. In fact, it probably will
never happen. What will happen, however, is a subtler shift; our focus will
change from the office as a place, to "officing" as an activity. We will
worry less about where people do their work and more about how much they
do, and how well they do it.
How much work is done and how well it is done are among the concerns of the
compensation and benefits profession. The changes and possibilities
outlined in this article are only suggestive of the kinds of changes that
will follow as offices are decentralize and, in some cases, have employees
working and living under the same roof.
Gil E. Gordon
Gil Gordon Associates
Monmouth Junction, New Jersey USA
Copyright (C) 1999, Gil Gordon Associates. All Rights Reserved
For more information, visit www.gilgordon.com.
A. INTRODUCTION
It is a great honor for me to be here with you today. As some of you may know, this is my third visit to Tokyo to talk about telework. Each time that I come here, I think how silly it is for me to fly on an airplane for almost fourteen hours so I can talk about "working at a distance."
However, if I did not make that airplane trip, I would have to do this presentation by sitting in a videoconferencing room near my home. It is much more enjoyable to come here in person - you have better beer, nicer people, and prettier flowers everywhere.
Much of our discussion about telework is about technology. As you know, we have made very impressive improvements in the technology for telework - but I hope there will never be a kind of technology that replaces our ability to drink a cold beer, relax with friends, or smell a fragrant flower.
Perhaps those are the only things that we cannot do today, or very soon in the future, with the technology we have. We may not be able to drink beer at a distance, but we can certainly do almost any kind of work at a distance. My presentation today will be about some of these technologies, but more important, about what they mean for how we work, where we live, and how we will move into the next century.
Most of my comments will be about telework in general around the world, but I will also discuss some of the specific situations in the US. Many people believe that the US is the "leading telework country," and in many ways it is. However, in the US we do not have all the answers, we have certainly made our mistakes, and therefore we should be viewed only as ONE model, but not THE ONLY model for the future.
B. THREE MISTAKES WE HAVE MADE IN TELEWORK
It is certainly important to look ahead at the future of telework. Before we do, I think it is just as important to look back at the recent history of telework. A famous US historian once said that if we do not learn from the mistakes of the past, we are condemned to repeat them. There is absolutely no need for us to make the same mistakes again with telework - once was enough.
We have had much success with telework in the US and around the world. But we have also had some problems. Here are the three most serious mistakes we have made, in my opinion:
1. Too Much Emphasis on the Role of Technology:
Many people think that telework is relatively new - that it began sometime around the early 1990's, and that it is a product of the explosive growth of personal computers. This is exactly the same as a teenager thinking that he or she was the first to rebel against their parents - that nobody before them had the same experiences.
Telework in various forms can be traced back to the late 1960's. I have heard stories of companies that had employees working at home doing a job that has been mostly forgotten by today's workforce. They were using IBM keypunch machines to produce those old-fashioned data-entry cards that were used before magnetic tape or diskettes.
In fact, we could even say that a salesman who traveled around the city to visit customers was a teleworker - he did not spend much time in his own office, and he did not have direct supervision by his manager. And we have certainly had salesman doing this work for many years - at least 100 years, in fact.
The reason why many people think that telework is much newer is because they think telework did not, and could not, happen without the personal computer as we know it today. Early personal computers were invented in the middle 1970's, but it was not until the first IBM PC was produced in 1981 that they started to become popular in business. Laptop computers as we know them today were introduced in the middle to late 1980's, and since then we have seen continuing improvements in the features, size, and convenience of laptops.
It is easy to understand, therefore, why people think telework did not happen until these laptops became widely available, and until modem access from home was possible at speeds of 9600 bits per second or faster. This is absolutely incorrect, in my opinion.
The fundamental idea behind telework is to decentralize the office - that is, to move away from the idea that we must bring all the workers to one single location so they can all work together at the same time. That was the way we did it in the agricultural economy, and in the industrial economy. We had no choice because we had to move the workers to the soil of the farm, and to the machines of the factory. However, as we move more into an information-based economy, we no longer need to rely exclusively on this kind of centralized office.
It is very easy to become fascinated with all the excellent and exciting new technologies we have today, and to think about how easy telework can be with hand-held computers, cell phones, ISDN lines, and more. But if we let ourselves think about telework only in terms of technology, we miss the most important point: it is often less expensive, more efficient, and better for both employees and customers if we can decentralize the office.
This does not mean we are going to have everyone working at home or in telework centers, and it does not mean we will make all our office buildings empty. As I will say later in this speech, the key factor in good telework is to use it selectively and appropriately to decentralize the office. The technology is definitely important - without it, we simply could not have as many mobile workers as we do today. But I can tell you that the companies, and the countries, that defined telework in terms of technology alone do not have long-term success. The technology is the tool that helps telework, but it is not the main reason why we have telework today.
2. Not Enough Emphasis on the Role of Corporate Culture:
The second mistake we made is that we did not pay attention to the effects of telework on the entire organization.
The best way to explain this is to think about a car. Imagine that you decided to remove the engine that came with the car, and replace it with a much more powerful engine because you wanted to drive faster. The new engine affects all the other parts of the car: you would need to change the steering and the brakes because of the added weight of the engine, you would have to install a new battery because it would take more electricity to start the engine, and you might even have to adjust the headlights because the heavier new engine would make the front of the car lower and the headlights would now be shining in the wrong place, and so on.
The same thing happens when we install telework in an organization. Any organization - whether it has ten employees or ten thousand employees - is a system with many connected parts, just like the car. Also, an organization has what we call a "culture" - that is, the set of habits and patterns of how people work together and how things get done. Installing a faster engine in the car might make it drive faster, but it might also be harder to steer and harder to stop. Installing telework might make the organization "drive faster" but it also affects the flow of work from department to department, the way people communicate with each other, and much more.
The car with the faster engine might drive faster, but in a short time perhaps the tires will wear out, the springs and shock absorbers will become weaker, the brakes will become unsafe, and other unanticipated changes will occur. The only way to prevent these problems is to have a team of experts work together to analyze the likely effects of the new engine. The engineer might know about the engine's power, but we need a brake specialist to tell us about how the brakes will be affected, a tire specialist to tell us what kind of new tires we need, and so on.
Successful telework requires the same kind of team effort. In many organizations, telework has been planned and implemented by only the Information Technology (IT) staff, or by only the Facilities and Real Estate staff, or by only the Human Resources staff. Each of these, and others, is important - but no one of them can manage telework alone.
In many cases we have failed to recognize this kind of integrated, connected aspect of telework, and we have also failed to recognize that the very culture of an organization changes when we start to change some of its parts. The very best telework programs I have seen are the ones that involve a lot of planning to consider these cultural changes, and also anticipate what else in the organization must change for telework to succeed in the long term.
3. Tendency to Take Tiny Steps Instead of Big Leaps Forward:
The third mistake in telework implementation is the tendency to create programs that are too small to be useful. I said this when I was here before and it is still true today: a very small pilot program with five or ten teleworkers is not very valuable. It is better than doing nothing, but five people in an organization of five thousand, or more, is an insignificant number. Whether those five teleworkers succeed OR fail, it is almost impossible to make any generalizations from the experience.
In my opinion, the only justification for a very small trial is when there is a question about the suitability of technology to support telework. In that case it is certainly advisable to start with only a few people so you can find the correct technical solution, instead of spending a lot of money on technology that might not be sufficient. However, even in these cases I believe we should plan for very rapid expansion once the technical questions have been answered.
I see no reason why organizations cannot begin with a program with at least 25 teleworkers, and 50 is even better. A smaller number does not provide a good test, and a smaller number sends a signal to the organization that "we are really not that serious about telework."
It was probably appropriate to have a pilot program with five or ten teleworkers in 1985, or even in 1990. Any programs that began with a small number like that anytime after 1990 had a very hard time becoming successful. It takes almost as much effort to do the planning for a program of five people as it does for 25 people. We have been much too tentative and much too cautious in our trial programs, in my opinion.
C. MY ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT LIKELY TELEWORK GROWTH
Each of us has some assumptions, or things we believe to be true, about telework. These assumptions affect our predictions about telework, just as our assumptions about any subject affect what we think will happen.
Let me tell you my assumptions about telework growth, because it is important for you to understand what affects my viewpoint:
1. Telework Will Never Be Everywhere:
In the early days of telework, we knew that some employers would adopt it earlier than other employers. This is what happens with any innovation. Many people believed that it would just be a matter of time before every employer started using telework, in the same way that all employers offer paid vacation time, insurance, and other benefits that apply to everyone.
The separation between employers that understand and use telework, and the employers that still fight against it, is becoming bigger. There are many reasons why some employers may never use telework except for just a few people. The main reason is the continued "mental block" that executives and managers have about telework.
I turned 50 years old earlier this year, so now I suppose I am qualified to make statements with great authority and wisdom. One of these statements is that dumb managers and dumb organizations very rarely get smarter unless they are under tremendous pressure to change, and cannot see any other alternative. Our lives are too short for us to worry about improving the situation of dumb employers. They will eventually begin to slow down and eventually fade away into the history books.
Meanwhile, the smart managers and smart employers will do much better. They will struggle with the need to make change - but in the end they WILL make the change they need to survive, including the use of telework. Therefore, I suggest that we should put our efforts into helping the smart employers get smarter and become more successful. Otherwise, we will become old and gray and tired from trying to help people and organizations that refuse to change.
2. We Have Too Much Technology, Not Too Little:
The technology for telework is very good and continues to get better. This does not mean it is perfect, or that it is always the right price. But the best news is that we have plenty of technology - hardware, software, and telecommunications - to allow telework to be effective.
I have seen many of my US clients having a difficult time trying to select from among this big list of technology. There are too many laptops, too many kinds of remote-access solutions, and too many kinds of applications software. What is needed is a way to create packages of tested solutions for various kinds of telework situations.
Let me explain why this is important. Imagine that you are getting ready to go on a vacation or a business trip, and you start to gather everything you want to take. You go into the bathroom and get your toothbrush, your toothpaste, your razor or your cosmetics, and all the other items you need. If you are like me, you almost always forget at least one thing that you need - and you find out about this at 11 o'clock at night when all the stores are closed.
What if you could go into a store and buy a pre-packaged kit that contained exactly enough of each item for the number of days of your trip? For example, you could get a three-day kit for a man, or a five-day kit for a woman, and so on. You would probably be willing to pay a small amount extra for the convenience of having everything together.
This is what we need for telework. The problem is not with the type or amount of technology - the problem is that we rarely have it collected in the right package.
3. Workers Will Stop Thinking About Telework and Will Start Expecting It:
In the early stage of telework in a company, a few people think to themselves, "Wouldn't it be nice if I could telework!" Later, a few more people will ask their managers, "Can I telework two days a week?" Later, a few more people will ask their managers, "Would you prefer that I telework on Tuesday or Thursday this week?" And finally, people applying for jobs will routinely ask during the interview, "You DO allow your employees to telework, don't you?"
I have described a progression from people thinking about it, to cautiously asking about it, to assuming it is available, to expecting it as a condition of employment. We have not reached that end point yet, but I don't think it is far away. Many smart employers will implement telework because it makes good business sense to do so - but many more will implement telework because their current and future employees will simply assume that it is available.
D. SIX EFFECTS OF CONTINUED GROWTH IN TELEWORK
I have been involved in the telework field since 1982, and at least two times a month I am asked to make estimates about the future growth of telework. So, that is 24 times a year for 17 years, or a total of at least 408 estimates I have made about the future number of teleworkers. If I have been lucky, I think that perhaps 10 of those estimates were correct - but I don't know which ones they were.
My consulting business does not include any statistical market research, so when I make these estimates I rely on the research done by people who are in that business. Every time I see their numbers I get more confused. One thing is clear, however: the number of teleworkers has continued to increase by approximately 10% to 15% each year in the US and in many other countries. This means that today in the US we have approximately ten million teleworkers - and this number is much more conservative than some other estimates you might hear.
There are other people at this conference who can probably give you more accurate estimates. I would rather discuss the implications of this growth, because I am convinced that the growth WILL continue. Here is what that means for all of us:
1. Nobody Can Stop It:
Telework is not a temporary fad. We will never return to the time when almost everybody works in the office all the time. We have opened the door to the possibilities of telework, we have clearly shown its benefits, and it would be foolish to try to eliminate it. As I have said many times before, this does not mean that everyone will be a teleworker. It means instead that telework will become normal, expected, and just as routine as seeing a computer in an office or a teenager wearing headphones. We now have enough momentum behind telework that we will never go back to doing all the office work in the office.
2. The World Will Adapt to Telework - Not the Reverse:
When women started to be employed in professional-level jobs in the US in large numbers, the women had to do all the changing and adjusting to a man's world. They wore clothes that looked like a man's business suit, they had to use all the bad language the men did, and they had to tolerate all the stupid business practices and habits the men had tolerated for years. Today, things are different: women can dress like women, not like men. Men who use a lot of bad language around women can be fired, and their employers can receive a lawsuit. And, fortunately, women have been responsible for creating many changes in business practices that were long overdue.
The same things happened with teleworkers. In the beginning, and even today, teleworkers had to be very careful about their work schedule, to be sure they were able to be in the office to attend meetings. Today, most of those meetings are done by audio or video conference calls. In the beginning, teleworkers had to figure out how to carry home a heavy desktop PC. Today, most of them can easily carry a laptop anywhere they go. In the beginning, teleworkers had to struggle with modem connections that were too slow to be of much value. Today, most teleworkers can easily get some kind of broadband, high-speed connection to the home.
These trends will continue - including some of the hidden problems. Even though women are much more accepted today in the business world in the US and elsewhere, there are still many cases where the women feel treated unfairly. And even though telework is more widely accepted today, there are still many cases where teleworkers must listen to the jokes from their co-workers about how the teleworkers stay home and watch television and drink beer. Slowly but surely, all of this will change.
3. The Telecommunications Industry Will Go Crazy:
I just told you that most teleworkers in the US can get some kind of broadband connection to their homes. This is true, but it is the result of more than ten years of slow progress. In the US as in Japan and most other countries, the telephone network was designed for business calls to occur in offices, and for personal calls to occur in homes. It has been virtually impossible for the carriers to change their networks quickly enough to satisfy the demand for high-speed access. In the US, the telecommunications carriers are perceived as following, not leading, the telework trend. This is starting to change as they expand their digital networks, and as competitive carriers become more powerful. Japan is ahead of the US in some ways because of your plans for developing a nationwide digital network - although the cost of using that network here will probably be higher than in the US.
To make things worse, many teleworkers live - or would like to live - in suburban or rural areas where it is even harder to get high-speed service. The carriers cannot afford to invest in digital networks in areas where the population density is low. That is why cable telephony, satellite telephone, and various forms of wireless transmission are becoming so popular.
Teleworkers want bandwidth like a child wants candy: no matter how much they have, they always want more. It will be at least five years in the US before most teleworkers will be able to have the high-speed access they want, where they want it. We may never see the time when every teleworker has all the access they want.
4. Managers Will Adapt or Become Useless:
I told you before that I just turned 50 years old. This means that I am no longer a young person with new ideas - I am now in the category of the old-fashioned people. Managers my age and older continue to have a difficult time adjusting to telework - although I have seen many managers in their 50's and 60's doing very well with teleworkers.
Managers at age 50 and older, as well as many in their 40's, have been trained and expected to be very close supervisors - to watch what their people are doing almost every minute. This does not mean they can't change, or don't want to change. It means that it will be a challenge for them to change because they have had at least 20 years of experience managing the other way.
The bad news is that the pressure to change the style of supervision for telework will be a hard adjustment for many managers. The good news is that they will become better managers if they do. The experience of managing at a distance makes them better managers of people in the office as well. In other words, the manager who can learn how to manage teleworkers will automatically become a better managers of employees who don't telework.
It will be a difficult decision for middle-aged managers, but it is the same kind of decision those managers have to make about using a PC. If they learn, they will succeed; if they don't want to learn or cannot learn, they will no longer be valuable managers.
5. Fewer Workers - More Business Owners:
Japan is just like the rest of the world: every developed country is in the middle of explosive growth in small businesses and entrepreneurs. When I was preparing to graduate from university in 1972, we business school students all fought with each other to obtain job interviews with the very large companies that came to recruit us. The only people who went into their own start-up businesses were the ones not good enough to get a big corporate job. Today, the situation is exactly the opposite: many large US companies are having great difficulty attracting college graduates - they all want to work in a small start-up company, and preferably one with "dot com" in its name.
Telework most often refers to corporate employees working at home or elsewhere away from the office - but that is only one form of telework. The same technology and the same worker values that create interest in corporate telework are creating interest in the "SOHO" (Small Office Home Office) kind of work. Give a smart person a cell phone, a laptop, and a fax machine, and he or she is in business immediately. The growth in these SOHO kinds of work will grow as fast, if not faster, than corporate telework.
6. Very Little Will Change in Transportation Patterns:
I wish I could be more positive about this last prediction, but the facts force me to tell you the truth. As you know, one of the benefits of telework that has always been discussed is the ability to reduce the daily commuting problems and the air pollution that come with them. We know that teleworkers drive their cars less - that is for certain. But we also know that the overall pattern of traffic congestion is so bad in almost every city, that it would take an enormous amount of telework to make a difference.
For the last fifty years, the US, most of Europe, and to a certain extent Japan, have built societies that encourage and reward suburban living. The automobile companies have been very successful in convincing us that we cannot live without having our own car, or cars. One of the newest and most controversial political topics in the US today is "suburban sprawl" and the problems of almost unlimited growth and development.
I am trying to say that the problems that create much of our traffic and pollution go far beyond the daily commuting to work. I still believe that telework definitely can help remove some cars from the road and some pollution from air, but I am not convinced that doing so will have much of an effect overall.
If this is the bad news, I believe there are two other transportation-related effects of telework that could be very good news. The first is about employment for people with disabilities - most of whom are able to do very good work but simply cannot get to the workplace every day. It is a shame to see how few disabled people have actually been employed as teleworkers, but I am hopeful this will change. Part of our new thinking about mobility and transportation must be that we separate mobility from ability - they are not the same. We waste a lot of talent when we fail to find creative ways to employ people with disabilities. Telework is certainly one of those methods.
Second, there has been much talk over the years about the role of telework in regional development, and the revitalization of communities or large areas where unemployment is high. Japan is an excellent example - but not the only example - of a country where too many people are squeezed into too little space. The main reason so many people live in the Tokyo-Osaka-Yokohama region is because of the concentration of jobs here.
As we approach the next century, I think it is finally time that we realize we can bring work and employment to people in other areas, instead of forcing them to move to where the jobs are traditionally located. Many of our problems with transportation and pollution are related to this pattern of squeezing too many people into small areas. Japan, and other countries, should be able to use technology to bring jobs, education, government services, entertainment and much more to areas that need a fresh start in this new century.
E. THE STRANGE FUTURE OF TELEWORK IN THE US
The US is a country where everyone knows what style of underwear our President wears, people living in cities buy huge sport-utility vehicles to drive in congested traffic, and McDonalds had to pay millions of dollars in a lawsuit because their coffee was too hot. In a country like this, you can imagine that the future of telework will be just as strange.
Many people around the world look at the US as the best example of telework in use. This is probably true in many ways, but not in all ways. I have seen excellent examples of various kinds of telework in almost every other country where telework is being used. The advantage we have in the US is the number of employers and number of teleworkers involved, and the amount of noise we make about our own accomplishments. I suggest that you always be skeptical about what you hear from the US about telework; many of the things we do are correct, but we also make our share of mistakes.
Let us examine what the next five years of telework in the US will look like. I have only three predictions to make:
1. Say Goodbye to "Telework":
I hope that we will stop, or reduce very much, the use of the words telework or telecommuting. These are words that have been very useful to describe a change in the workplace, but I hope that the change will be successful enough so we do not need these special words any longer.
There is an excellent book called "The Underground Guide to Telecommuting," and it contains this quotation: "Work is something you do, not someplace you go." I have been using that quotation since the book was published in 1995. It is the best explanation of how we must change our thinking about work and the workplace. The words telework and telecommuting are words of transition - just like the words "horseless carriage" were used to describe the first automobiles. People didn't know what a "car" was, but they could easily understand the idea of a carriage pulled by a horse - but without the horse.
The most important indication of the wide acceptance of telework will be our ability to simply talk about work - no matter where it is done.
2. Office Work Will Become the Strange Activity:
In 1982 when I started my business, there were very few teleworkers. A person who teleworked was seen as something strange or unusual. Going to the office every day was normal and expected, so anyone who did "office work" away from the office was very different and strange. We may not accomplish this in the next five years, but I hope we can have a new definition of what is "strange" - the office worker who goes to the office five days a week will become the unusual one.
Once again, I must emphasize that everyone will not be a teleworker, and even those who do telework won't do it full-time. The change I am discussing here is that the concept of telework will become almost universally understood and accepted as normal in the workplace.
3. Personal and Family Life Will Improve:
It is no secret that we have many problems in our society in the US. When our children are taking guns to school, using drugs, and acting rudely, these are signs of some deep and serious problems. These problems have many causes, but one of them is simply the fact that parents are spending less time with their children. It is difficult to be a parent, and it almost impossible to be a good parent if you don't see your children except for a few minutes each day.
I wish I could tell you that more telework would solve all these problems. That would be wonderful, but it is unrealistic. However, I do believe that if telework allows parents to spend even a little more time with their children of all ages, it MUST be an improvement. I am not suggesting that we return to the 1950's when the father worked and the mother stayed home with the children all the time; that situation had its own problems. I am suggesting instead that if we make it easy for both fathers and mothers to be in the home a few more hours each day, their children will have better lives.
Similarly, we can look for telework to help improve the quality of life for the employees themselves, whether or not they are mothers and fathers. For many people, the worst part of the work day is getting TO work. It is costly, difficult, stressful, and in some cases unsafe. It always makes me very happy to hear teleworkers describe how much their lives have improved even if they commute two less days each week. Smart employers will realize the benefit of this change.
F. THREE THINGS YOU CAN DO TO MAKE TELEWORK BETTER
We all look for simple solutions to complex problems. You will be hearing a lot at this conference about the complex issues involved in telework. I am going to try to make your life simpler by making three simple suggestions about things you can do to help the growth of telework, starting next week:
1. Do It - Talk About It - Make It Work:
I am always amazed to hear about so many people who are trying to promote telework, but don't do it themselves. This is like a fat person trying to sell a dieting pill - nobody would believe them. Even if your employer doesn't have a formal telework program, find a way to telework one day a week for a month. That is only four days, but it is a good start.
If you are already teleworking or just getting started, find a way to talk about it with your friends, neighbors, and co-workers. You don't have to be like a noisy salesman or a person standing on a street corner in New York City selling imitation Rolex watches. But you should believe in what you do, and be willing to help others understand telework and get excited about it.
Last, if you know of co-workers who have tried telework and have had problems, you can be their consultant. Help them find a solution to the problems and you will create another telework success.
2. Look For Small Cracks - Not Big Doors:
Pretend that you are a small ant trying to get into a house to find some food. You don't need to find the front door; you can just crawl through a small crack and get inside. Many people make the mistake of looking only for the big door into a company to start or expand telework. It is often much more successful to find a little crack, or a small opportunity, to get started. Once you get through that little crack in the wall, you have a chance to make a change.
This does not mean you should give up on your efforts to start a big project. If you have the choice, it is always better to try for that big accomplishment all at once. But sometimes, the reality is that you can only find the small crack - and that is how you must begin.
3. Remind People About Other "Bad Ideas":
Whenever somebody tells you that telework is a bad idea that will never work, remind them about the history of the telephone, the Xerox machine, and the PC. I like to remind people that:
* When the telephone was first offered to businesses, they said, "Why do we need it - we have messenger boys to carry messages."
* When the first photocopy machine was invented, the man who invented it was told, "Why do we need it - we have carbon paper to make copies."
* When the first personal computers were invented, and it was suggested that they would be used in business and at home, Ken Olsen (the founder and president of Digital Equipment Corporation) said, "Why would anyone want to have their own computer?"
Telework is not a "bad idea." It is a different idea about working, and it is an idea whose time has arrived. You are all here today because you understand why telework works, and how important it can be. I encourage you to be the leaders in helping others see the benefits of telework, and show how it can help our businesses, our communities, our families, and our workers.
Thank you very much.
code for hacker
Code:
Code:
filetype:htpasswd htpasswd
intitle:"Index of” “.htpasswd” -intitle:"dist” -apache -htpasswd.c
index.of.private (algo privado)
intitle:index.of master.passwd
inurl:passlist.txt (para encontrar listas de passwords)
intitle:"Index of..etc” passwd
intitle:admin intitle:login
“Incorrect syntax near” (SQL script error)
intitle:"the page cannot be found” inetmgr (debilidad en IIS4)
intitle:index.of ws_ftp.ini
“Supplied arguments is not a valid PostgreSQL result” (possible
debilidad SQL)
_vti_pvt password intitle:index.of (Frontpage)
inurl:backup intitle:index.of inurl:admin
“Index of /backup”
index.of.password
index.of.winnt
inurl:"auth_user_file.txt”
“Index of /admin”
“Index of /password”
“Index of /mail”
“Index of /” +passwd
Index of /” +.htaccess
Index of ftp +.mdb allinurl:/cgi-bin/ +mailto
allintitle: “index of/admin”
allintitle: “index of/root”
allintitle: sensitive filetype:doc
allintitle: restricted filetype :mail
allintitle: restricted filetype:doc site:gov
administrator.pwd.index
authors.pwd.index
service.pwd.index
filetype:config web
gobal.asax index
inurl:passwd filetype:txt
inurl:admin filetype:db
inurl:iisadmin
inurl:"auth_user_file.txt”
inurl:"wwwroot/*.”
allinurl: winnt/system32/ (get cmd.exe)
allinurl:/bash_history
intitle:"Index of” .sh_history
intitle:"Index of” .bash_history
intitle:"Index of” passwd
intitle:"Index of” people.1st
intitle:"Index of” pwd.db
intitle:"Index of” etc/shadow
intitle:"Index of” spwd
intitle:"Index of” master.passwd
intitle:"Index of” htpasswd
intitle:"Index of” members OR accounts
intitle:"Index of” user_carts OR user _cart
by.ricky lila
Code:
filetype:htpasswd htpasswd
intitle:"Index of” “.htpasswd” -intitle:"dist” -apache -htpasswd.c
index.of.private (algo privado)
intitle:index.of master.passwd
inurl:passlist.txt (para encontrar listas de passwords)
intitle:"Index of..etc” passwd
intitle:admin intitle:login
“Incorrect syntax near” (SQL script error)
intitle:"the page cannot be found” inetmgr (debilidad en IIS4)
intitle:index.of ws_ftp.ini
“Supplied arguments is not a valid PostgreSQL result” (possible
debilidad SQL)
_vti_pvt password intitle:index.of (Frontpage)
inurl:backup intitle:index.of inurl:admin
“Index of /backup”
index.of.password
index.of.winnt
inurl:"auth_user_file.txt”
“Index of /admin”
“Index of /password”
“Index of /mail”
“Index of /” +passwd
Index of /” +.htaccess
Index of ftp +.mdb allinurl:/cgi-bin/ +mailto
allintitle: “index of/admin”
allintitle: “index of/root”
allintitle: sensitive filetype:doc
allintitle: restricted filetype :mail
allintitle: restricted filetype:doc site:gov
administrator.pwd.index
authors.pwd.index
service.pwd.index
filetype:config web
gobal.asax index
inurl:passwd filetype:txt
inurl:admin filetype:db
inurl:iisadmin
inurl:"auth_user_file.txt”
inurl:"wwwroot/*.”
allinurl: winnt/system32/ (get cmd.exe)
allinurl:/bash_history
intitle:"Index of” .sh_history
intitle:"Index of” .bash_history
intitle:"Index of” passwd
intitle:"Index of” people.1st
intitle:"Index of” pwd.db
intitle:"Index of” etc/shadow
intitle:"Index of” spwd
intitle:"Index of” master.passwd
intitle:"Index of” htpasswd
intitle:"Index of” members OR accounts
intitle:"Index of” user_carts OR user _cart
by.ricky lila
REMOTE WORKERS WHO ARE HIGHLY DEDICATED - IN MANY WAYS
When demand exceeds supply, there is room for inventive solutions - and one
of the best examples might be what is happening with data entry and
programming work being done by members of monastic orders around the U.S
and in Europe. This isn't going to solve your staffing problems, but it
might give you some ideas about alternative recruiting strategies and new
approaches to outsourcing.
The first approach is the Electronic Scriptorium, a Leesburg, VA-based firm
that acts as an intermediary with various religious orders. From the
company's Web site:
The professional staff at the Scriptorium is supplemented by a business
association with several monastic orders. In the monastic tradition, which
dates from the eleventh century, monks have supported themselves through
some form of manual labor. The tradition of copying and illuminating
manuscripts was a primary factor that allowed the redefinition of monastic
manual labor to include computer oriented tasks. The monastic community is
composed of mature, well educated men and women who are meticulous with
detail and dedicated to excellence.
The wide breadth of knowledge combined with the many foreign language
abilities found within the monasteries provide a rich resource. The
monastic tradition of silence offers a unique atmosphere in which to
perform quality work. Scriptorium works with monasteries located
throughout the United States and Europe.
This is not entirely different in concept from what has been happening with
"offshore office work" done throughout the Caribbean and Asia for the last
ten years or more. The first application was high-volume data entry work,
typically to convert from paper source documents to electronic form. Today
these global outsourcers handle more sophisticated data entry work as well
as programming tasks.
The difference, however, is a philosophical one: outsourcing this work to a
monastic order helps support the spiritual studies and lifestyle of members
of these orders who otherwise might struggle for funding. As the
Scriptorium's description notes, many members of these orders have
foreign-language and other skills that are at least equal to and probably
higher than those available from other outsourcing providers.
I spoke with company president Ed Leonard who explained how he got started
and how the process works. Leonard had been commuting into Washington DC
from what was then a relatively rural section of northern Virginia, and was
working for a government contractor doing computer consulting. In the late
1980's and early 1990's he was very interested in environmental and land
use planning issues, and was trying to prevent or contain development and
sprawl in his area. One of his successes was preventing a developer from
putting in a landfill in what community members felt was an inappropriate
area.
"This got my name into the papers," he explained, "and I got a call soon
after from a brother at a nearby Trappist monastery who told me a developer
wanted to build a golf course and country club next to the monastery, and
he wanted my help to fight it." It took them three years but they
succeeded in keeping the development away from the monastery.
When this process ended, Leonard happened to be talking with one of the
brother with whom he'd become friendly and mentioned that he was getting
tired of the long commute into Washington every day and was looking to do
something else. The brother said that the monastery had just received
several computers donated by a benefactor to help the brothers automate the
administrative side of their holiday-season fruitcake baking business. He
was to come there for six months, at a minimal salary, and help them get
set the computer systems set up; when he finished, they asked him what else
they could do. "They only did the baking for a few months in the fall
before the holidays, and wanted to see if there was a way to find other
uses for the equipment," said Leonard.
He asked around and found some data entry work for the brothers to do, and
very shortly had found more work to be done than the brothers in this
monastery could handle. "So, I found another monastery to do the overflow
work, and things just took off from there," he explained. "We now work
with about a dozen monasteries around the country, and there are upwards of
sixty brothers and sisters working on our projects at any one time."
Leonard has a small administrative staff in his office, including project
managers and technical experts whose job is to work with customers to
understand project requirements and then set up the projects so they can be
handed off to one of the monasteries. "We learned early on that it really
wasn't efficient to just dump the work on the brothers and have them try
to figure it out," Leonard said, "so our project managers work everything
out in advance. This helps insure we can meet the customer's expectations
for quality and timeliness."
Leonard says that the fees his company charges are competitive for the kind
of work and quality they provide. "We can't compete with the high-volume
data entry or conversion projects that normally go to the offshore
suppliers - and while we'll take on those projects we make it clear to our
customers that they can probably get it done cheaper elsewhere."
The advantage offered by the Electronic Scriptorium is the quality of the
work and the dedication of the workers. "Our customers love it - the
brothers and sisters are doing this work to support the lifestyle they have
chosen, and they have a very strong desire to do top-quality work," said
Leonard. He added that the unique nature of his workers means that
customer delivery schedules and quality aren't affected by turnover, drug
problems, absenteeism, and other workforce problems commonly seen
elsewhere. "It's really a win-win situation - the monasteries get a
much-needed source of income, and the customers get reliable work with top
quality at a good price."
Leonard plans to continue with this outsourcing model, but also will be
branching out to develop and market products on the Internet. "We want to
start building a line of products in addition to continuing with the
service business."
The second example is actually a new venture that is part of a
"scriptorium" that has been operating for several years. The Monastery of
Christ in the Desert in Abiquiu, NM had previously
advertised Web site design as a service it provided to outside customers;
its site also includes an interesting essay titled "A Brief History of
Scriptoria".
More recently, the monastery established nextScribe,
described as follows:
nextScribe corporation is a non-profit digital media research, publication
and consulting organization operated in cooperation with the Monastery of
Christ in the Desert.
nextScribe corporation was born from the scriptorium@christdesert at the
Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico, USA. It was established to
serve the Holy Father and the Church in the digital media by performing
high-end research, design and consulting services. These services are
critical to the survival of God's Word in the third millennium, but their
performance requires more active forms of labor than the contemplative
monks of Christ in the Desert would want to undertake, lest their
contemplative vocation be too disturbed. Hence the necessity of forming
nextScribe.
In order to fulfill the mission of nextScribe, we need extraordinary gifts
of love and talent. We have no place for ordinary gifts: we need creative,
technical and professional talent of such sublimity that it can be only
from God; and we require that this talent be wrapped in such Faith, Hope
and Love of God and neighbor that words are emptied. If you think that you
may be one of these chosen souls, we need you.
nextScribe corporation is a world-class, highly expert organization,
consecrated to the Holy Spirit in the service of the Chair of St. Peter,
and dedicated to developing the broad and deep expertise necessary to speak
God's Word to persons long into the third millennium.
Publishing on the web is an extremely complex undertaking, far more complex
than any other medium of communication. It requires widely
multidisciplinary technical, creative and professional expertise. More
significantly, it demands that broadly multidisciplinary teams operate in
concert. Successful use of the networked digital media requires a
visionary, high technology, creatively disciplined organization to master
the technology of the medium, the demographics of the audience, and the
design of the content.
If the Church does not have such an organization at its disposal, the Word
of God risks being silenced in the third millennium.
This cannot be.
When you visit nextScribe's site, you will see a highly sophisticated and
detailed explanation of the kind of work they will do and the skills they
are trying to attract. This is not the work of a few people with idle time
on their hands; this is a serious, dedicated group with a well-defined
mission and strategy.
There may be other scriptoria associated with individual monasteries or
other religious institutions. There are many other opportunities for
similar not-for-profit enterprises affiliated with other religious, ethnic,
disabled or cultural enclaves where there are more skills than there is
local work available. These include Native Americans, Hasidic Jews, the
hearing-impaired, and - don't laugh - post-Woodstock-era communes - to name
a few. In other words, anywhere that talent, technology and
telecommunications can be brought to bear on the long list of corporate
tasks that remain undone.by.ricky lila
CONTACT: Ed Leonard (703)779-0376
(703)779-0378 fax
Ed@ElectronicScriptorium.com
www.ElectronicScriptorium.com
When demand exceeds supply, there is room for inventive solutions - and one
of the best examples might be what is happening with data entry and
programming work being done by members of monastic orders around the U.S
and in Europe. This isn't going to solve your staffing problems, but it
might give you some ideas about alternative recruiting strategies and new
approaches to outsourcing.
The first approach is the Electronic Scriptorium, a Leesburg, VA-based firm
that acts as an intermediary with various religious orders. From the
company's Web site:
The professional staff at the Scriptorium is supplemented by a business
association with several monastic orders. In the monastic tradition, which
dates from the eleventh century, monks have supported themselves through
some form of manual labor. The tradition of copying and illuminating
manuscripts was a primary factor that allowed the redefinition of monastic
manual labor to include computer oriented tasks. The monastic community is
composed of mature, well educated men and women who are meticulous with
detail and dedicated to excellence.
The wide breadth of knowledge combined with the many foreign language
abilities found within the monasteries provide a rich resource. The
monastic tradition of silence offers a unique atmosphere in which to
perform quality work. Scriptorium works with monasteries located
throughout the United States and Europe.
This is not entirely different in concept from what has been happening with
"offshore office work" done throughout the Caribbean and Asia for the last
ten years or more. The first application was high-volume data entry work,
typically to convert from paper source documents to electronic form. Today
these global outsourcers handle more sophisticated data entry work as well
as programming tasks.
The difference, however, is a philosophical one: outsourcing this work to a
monastic order helps support the spiritual studies and lifestyle of members
of these orders who otherwise might struggle for funding. As the
Scriptorium's description notes, many members of these orders have
foreign-language and other skills that are at least equal to and probably
higher than those available from other outsourcing providers.
I spoke with company president Ed Leonard who explained how he got started
and how the process works. Leonard had been commuting into Washington DC
from what was then a relatively rural section of northern Virginia, and was
working for a government contractor doing computer consulting. In the late
1980's and early 1990's he was very interested in environmental and land
use planning issues, and was trying to prevent or contain development and
sprawl in his area. One of his successes was preventing a developer from
putting in a landfill in what community members felt was an inappropriate
area.
"This got my name into the papers," he explained, "and I got a call soon
after from a brother at a nearby Trappist monastery who told me a developer
wanted to build a golf course and country club next to the monastery, and
he wanted my help to fight it." It took them three years but they
succeeded in keeping the development away from the monastery.
When this process ended, Leonard happened to be talking with one of the
brother with whom he'd become friendly and mentioned that he was getting
tired of the long commute into Washington every day and was looking to do
something else. The brother said that the monastery had just received
several computers donated by a benefactor to help the brothers automate the
administrative side of their holiday-season fruitcake baking business. He
was to come there for six months, at a minimal salary, and help them get
set the computer systems set up; when he finished, they asked him what else
they could do. "They only did the baking for a few months in the fall
before the holidays, and wanted to see if there was a way to find other
uses for the equipment," said Leonard.
He asked around and found some data entry work for the brothers to do, and
very shortly had found more work to be done than the brothers in this
monastery could handle. "So, I found another monastery to do the overflow
work, and things just took off from there," he explained. "We now work
with about a dozen monasteries around the country, and there are upwards of
sixty brothers and sisters working on our projects at any one time."
Leonard has a small administrative staff in his office, including project
managers and technical experts whose job is to work with customers to
understand project requirements and then set up the projects so they can be
handed off to one of the monasteries. "We learned early on that it really
wasn't efficient to just dump the work on the brothers and have them try
to figure it out," Leonard said, "so our project managers work everything
out in advance. This helps insure we can meet the customer's expectations
for quality and timeliness."
Leonard says that the fees his company charges are competitive for the kind
of work and quality they provide. "We can't compete with the high-volume
data entry or conversion projects that normally go to the offshore
suppliers - and while we'll take on those projects we make it clear to our
customers that they can probably get it done cheaper elsewhere."
The advantage offered by the Electronic Scriptorium is the quality of the
work and the dedication of the workers. "Our customers love it - the
brothers and sisters are doing this work to support the lifestyle they have
chosen, and they have a very strong desire to do top-quality work," said
Leonard. He added that the unique nature of his workers means that
customer delivery schedules and quality aren't affected by turnover, drug
problems, absenteeism, and other workforce problems commonly seen
elsewhere. "It's really a win-win situation - the monasteries get a
much-needed source of income, and the customers get reliable work with top
quality at a good price."
Leonard plans to continue with this outsourcing model, but also will be
branching out to develop and market products on the Internet. "We want to
start building a line of products in addition to continuing with the
service business."
The second example is actually a new venture that is part of a
"scriptorium" that has been operating for several years. The Monastery of
Christ in the Desert
advertised Web site design as a service it provided to outside customers;
its site also includes an interesting essay titled "A Brief History of
Scriptoria"
More recently, the monastery established nextScribe
described as follows:
nextScribe corporation is a non-profit digital media research, publication
and consulting organization operated in cooperation with the Monastery of
Christ in the Desert.
nextScribe corporation was born from the scriptorium@christdesert at the
Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico, USA. It was established to
serve the Holy Father and the Church in the digital media by performing
high-end research, design and consulting services. These services are
critical to the survival of God's Word in the third millennium, but their
performance requires more active forms of labor than the contemplative
monks of Christ in the Desert would want to undertake, lest their
contemplative vocation be too disturbed. Hence the necessity of forming
nextScribe.
In order to fulfill the mission of nextScribe, we need extraordinary gifts
of love and talent. We have no place for ordinary gifts: we need creative,
technical and professional talent of such sublimity that it can be only
from God; and we require that this talent be wrapped in such Faith, Hope
and Love of God and neighbor that words are emptied. If you think that you
may be one of these chosen souls, we need you.
nextScribe corporation is a world-class, highly expert organization,
consecrated to the Holy Spirit in the service of the Chair of St. Peter,
and dedicated to developing the broad and deep expertise necessary to speak
God's Word to persons long into the third millennium.
Publishing on the web is an extremely complex undertaking, far more complex
than any other medium of communication. It requires widely
multidisciplinary technical, creative and professional expertise. More
significantly, it demands that broadly multidisciplinary teams operate in
concert. Successful use of the networked digital media requires a
visionary, high technology, creatively disciplined organization to master
the technology of the medium, the demographics of the audience, and the
design of the content.
If the Church does not have such an organization at its disposal, the Word
of God risks being silenced in the third millennium.
This cannot be.
When you visit nextScribe's site, you will see a highly sophisticated and
detailed explanation of the kind of work they will do and the skills they
are trying to attract. This is not the work of a few people with idle time
on their hands; this is a serious, dedicated group with a well-defined
mission and strategy.
There may be other scriptoria associated with individual monasteries or
other religious institutions. There are many other opportunities for
similar not-for-profit enterprises affiliated with other religious, ethnic,
disabled or cultural enclaves where there are more skills than there is
local work available. These include Native Americans, Hasidic Jews, the
hearing-impaired, and - don't laugh - post-Woodstock-era communes - to name
a few. In other words, anywhere that talent, technology and
telecommunications can be brought to bear on the long list of corporate
tasks that remain undone.by.ricky lila
CONTACT: Ed Leonard (703)779-0376
(703)779-0378 fax
Ed@ElectronicScriptorium.com
www.ElectronicScriptorium.com
God loves You
1. God Loves You!
The Bible says, "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life"
The problem is that
2. All of us have done, said or thought things that are wrong. This is called sin, and our sins have separated us from God.
The Bible says “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” God is perfect and holy, and our sins separate us from God forever. The Bible says “The wages of sin is death.”
The good news is that, about 2,000 years ago,
3. God sent His only Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins.
Jesus is the Son of God. He lived a sinless life and then died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. “God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
Jesus rose from the dead and now He lives in heaven with God His Father. He offers us the gift of eternal life -- of living forever with Him in heaven if we accept Him as our Lord and Savior. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me."
God reaches out in love to you and wants you to be His child. "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe on His name." You can choose to ask Jesus Christ to forgive your sins and come in to your life as your Lord and Savior.
4. If you want to accept Christ as Savior and turn from your sins, you can ask Him to be your Savior and Lord by praying a prayer like this:
"Lord Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. Please forgive my sins and give me the gift of eternal life. I ask you in to my life and heart to be my Lord and Savior. I want to serve you always."
Did you pray this prayer?
* YES
* I Still Have Questions
* --> NO
E-mail this Add Social Bookmark Add Widget to Blogger Add Widget to TypePad Add Widget to WordPress Add Widget to Blogger Post Add Widget to iGoogle Add Widget to Netvibes Add Widget to PageFlakes Add Widget to Piczo Add Widget to Orkut (OpenSocial) Add Widget to Hi5 (OpenSocial) Add Widget to Ning (OpenSocial) Add Other (Get Widget Code)
We are Global Media Outreach, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, one of the largest Christian outreach organizations in the world.
If you would like more information on our ministry, visit us at www.globalmediaoutreach.com.
Copyright © 1995-2007 Campus Crusade for Christ International
by.Ricky LILa
The Bible says, "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life"
The problem is that
2. All of us have done, said or thought things that are wrong. This is called sin, and our sins have separated us from God.
The Bible says “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” God is perfect and holy, and our sins separate us from God forever. The Bible says “The wages of sin is death.”
The good news is that, about 2,000 years ago,
3. God sent His only Son Jesus Christ to die for our sins.
Jesus is the Son of God. He lived a sinless life and then died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. “God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.”
Jesus rose from the dead and now He lives in heaven with God His Father. He offers us the gift of eternal life -- of living forever with Him in heaven if we accept Him as our Lord and Savior. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by Me."
God reaches out in love to you and wants you to be His child. "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe on His name." You can choose to ask Jesus Christ to forgive your sins and come in to your life as your Lord and Savior.
4. If you want to accept Christ as Savior and turn from your sins, you can ask Him to be your Savior and Lord by praying a prayer like this:
"Lord Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God. Thank you for dying on the cross for my sins. Please forgive my sins and give me the gift of eternal life. I ask you in to my life and heart to be my Lord and Savior. I want to serve you always."
Did you pray this prayer?
* YES
* I Still Have Questions
* --> NO
E-mail this Add Social Bookmark Add Widget to Blogger Add Widget to TypePad Add Widget to WordPress Add Widget to Blogger Post Add Widget to iGoogle Add Widget to Netvibes Add Widget to PageFlakes Add Widget to Piczo Add Widget to Orkut (OpenSocial) Add Widget to Hi5 (OpenSocial) Add Widget to Ning (OpenSocial) Add Other (Get Widget Code)
We are Global Media Outreach, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, one of the largest Christian outreach organizations in the world.
If you would like more information on our ministry, visit us at www.globalmediaoutreach.com.
Copyright © 1995-2007 Campus Crusade for Christ International
by.Ricky LILa
Girl Kiss - Girl Kissing Is Exciting. Are You Ready?
First girl kiss is a dream for many boys. The media fuels this dream when they portray love as woman kissing man. Are you ready for your first kiss?
There is no doubt about it.
Kissing is an exciting experience. Even images of man kissing woman is enough to arouse sexual emotions in certain people. If pictures accomplish that, what would the real thing do?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Make no mistake about this. Your first girl kiss will challenge the way you
feel about sex and the question of morality.
Suppose you were raised in a Christian home with emphasis on good morals. You probably have been taught that premarital sex is against God's law and that God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Right up till now you have taken that seriously and have remained a virgin.
Then you get really close with a friend. For some reason you find yourself in a private place. You do something commendable and he gives you a hug. No big deal.
However, if his hugs become more regular, watch out. Why should you?
Simple.
Hugs graduate to super hugs . . . hugs that involve holding the other person hard against yourself. Super hug becomes long-term hug . . . hug that involve staying in each other's arms longer than is necessary. Then long-term hugs graduate into kissing and necking.
Girl Kissing is particularly tricky.
Once you have gone past the long-term hug stage to the kissing stage, your self-control may stop you short of kissing. You may only agree to a perk on your chick. The hug and perk combination will send a sensation up and down your spine.
You will begin to like the feeling. Soon you will begin to yearn for it.
The next time he tries to kiss you, you may not feel too bad about it. So you get your first girl kiss. You will discover it's a lot more amusing and exciting than you thought.
If you are a well-brought-up kid, you may begin to feel a little uneasiness. An alarm signal may begin to sound in your head. But then you remember
the unique sensation you experienced while kissing and you dismiss the alarm signal as excessive caution.
You find yourself desiring more and more of it. Next time it's going to go beyond a girl kissing a boy. His hands will begin to fret you. And more and more you will begin to love it because you have never felt this way before.
You're taking a huge risk.
Irrespective of what the media says, irrespective of what popular magazines and movies tell you, girl kiss is not for everyone.
In romance movies and novels, you watch or read of how a perfect prince charming fell in love with a beautiful princess. In less than fifteen minutes they are kissing passionately and making love. And they live happily ever after.
Interesting story, right?
Well, this is a huge distortion of reality.
In real life, when you jump to girl kissing and thereafter jump into a bed with a man, he labels you as loose . . . a spoilt kid good enough for a one night stand. He won't tell you now. Wait until you have a quarrel then he will let his tongue loose on you.
Forget the media hype.
Here is relevant reality.
When you give yourself cheaply to a man you throw away your dignity and self-respect. Eventually you throw away your virginity and your pride.
What is virginity worth?
Everything a well-cultured girl represents. Everything worthwhile. Everything dignified, everything honorable.
Anxious about having your first girl kiss? Daydreaming about girl kissing?
Stop. Wait for your time.
If your man is so anxious for a kiss, let him commit to a relationship. Let him do what responsible men do. Let him take you to the altar and prove that he is mature for a girl kiss from you by signing above the dotted line.
Girl Kissing comes with responsibility.
If your man is not mature enough for those responsibilities, then he's indeed just a boy. Let him wait until he is a man.
If a man tells you, "kiss me if you really love me", he's simply blackmailing you to submission.
You can be absolutely sure he won't stop at just kissing you. Sooner or later he will want more.
So . . .
Don't throw away your dignity to cheap blackmail from any man.
You're perfectly normal even if you've not had your first kiss at age thirty.
So, are you ready for your first kiss?
You're ready when you're married. Kiss only your husband.
Your first girl kiss is on your wedding day. Anything short of that is courting trouble. It's like putting fiery coals on your dress. You will get burnt.
Wait for the right time. Be patient.
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footer for girl kiss page
First girl kiss is a dream for many boys. The media fuels this dream when they portray love as woman kissing man. Are you ready for your first kiss?
There is no doubt about it.
Kissing is an exciting experience. Even images of man kissing woman is enough to arouse sexual emotions in certain people. If pictures accomplish that, what would the real thing do?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Make no mistake about this. Your first girl kiss will challenge the way you
feel about sex and the question of morality.
Suppose you were raised in a Christian home with emphasis on good morals. You probably have been taught that premarital sex is against God's law and that God will judge fornicators and adulterers. Right up till now you have taken that seriously and have remained a virgin.
Then you get really close with a friend. For some reason you find yourself in a private place. You do something commendable and he gives you a hug. No big deal.
However, if his hugs become more regular, watch out. Why should you?
Simple.
Hugs graduate to super hugs . . . hugs that involve holding the other person hard against yourself. Super hug becomes long-term hug . . . hug that involve staying in each other's arms longer than is necessary. Then long-term hugs graduate into kissing and necking.
Girl Kissing is particularly tricky.
Once you have gone past the long-term hug stage to the kissing stage, your self-control may stop you short of kissing. You may only agree to a perk on your chick. The hug and perk combination will send a sensation up and down your spine.
You will begin to like the feeling. Soon you will begin to yearn for it.
The next time he tries to kiss you, you may not feel too bad about it. So you get your first girl kiss. You will discover it's a lot more amusing and exciting than you thought.
If you are a well-brought-up kid, you may begin to feel a little uneasiness. An alarm signal may begin to sound in your head. But then you remember
the unique sensation you experienced while kissing and you dismiss the alarm signal as excessive caution.
You find yourself desiring more and more of it. Next time it's going to go beyond a girl kissing a boy. His hands will begin to fret you. And more and more you will begin to love it because you have never felt this way before.
You're taking a huge risk.
Irrespective of what the media says, irrespective of what popular magazines and movies tell you, girl kiss is not for everyone.
In romance movies and novels, you watch or read of how a perfect prince charming fell in love with a beautiful princess. In less than fifteen minutes they are kissing passionately and making love. And they live happily ever after.
Interesting story, right?
Well, this is a huge distortion of reality.
In real life, when you jump to girl kissing and thereafter jump into a bed with a man, he labels you as loose . . . a spoilt kid good enough for a one night stand. He won't tell you now. Wait until you have a quarrel then he will let his tongue loose on you.
Forget the media hype.
Here is relevant reality.
When you give yourself cheaply to a man you throw away your dignity and self-respect. Eventually you throw away your virginity and your pride.
What is virginity worth?
Everything a well-cultured girl represents. Everything worthwhile. Everything dignified, everything honorable.
Anxious about having your first girl kiss? Daydreaming about girl kissing?
Stop. Wait for your time.
If your man is so anxious for a kiss, let him commit to a relationship. Let him do what responsible men do. Let him take you to the altar and prove that he is mature for a girl kiss from you by signing above the dotted line.
Girl Kissing comes with responsibility.
If your man is not mature enough for those responsibilities, then he's indeed just a boy. Let him wait until he is a man.
If a man tells you, "kiss me if you really love me", he's simply blackmailing you to submission.
You can be absolutely sure he won't stop at just kissing you. Sooner or later he will want more.
So . . .
Don't throw away your dignity to cheap blackmail from any man.
You're perfectly normal even if you've not had your first kiss at age thirty.
So, are you ready for your first kiss?
You're ready when you're married. Kiss only your husband.
Your first girl kiss is on your wedding day. Anything short of that is courting trouble. It's like putting fiery coals on your dress. You will get burnt.
Wait for the right time. Be patient.
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Your love search ends here because this site has all the answers you seek.
Use the true love search box below to search this site or the entire web for answers to your pressing relationship questions.
Simply type in your question or your subject of interest in the search box and PRESS ENTER or click the SEARCH button to begin your search.
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True Love Search
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Searching for true love? Look no further.
Your love search ends here because this site has all the answers you seek.
Use the true love search box below to search this site or the entire web for answers to your pressing relationship questions.
Simply type in your question or your subject of interest in the search box and PRESS ENTER or click the SEARCH button to begin your search.
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Use the true love search box below to search this site or the entire web for answers to your pressing relationship questions.
Simply type in your question or your subject of interest in the search box and PRESS ENTER or click the SEARCH button to begin your search.
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Be a Win
Be a winner! Motivation Quotes For Your Personal Development.
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Your character can be your biggest liability. It can pull you down and keep you down. The motivation quotes collected here will help you to develop winning character traits.
If you are going to achieve your dreams you need to think about where you are in relation to where you are going. This principle applies just as much, if not more, in the area of personal leadership.
You need to lead yourself to develop the characteristics or traits of a winner. Personal leadership and private victory come before leading others and public victory. You cannot have good success without personal mastery. Yes, there is such a thing as bad success.
Look through and think about these characteristics of winners. Study any person that ever achieved anything great, such as those who gave us these
Famous quotes – they had these traits in one way or another. Success doesn’t come by chance, it comes by discipline. Success is not some mysterious thing out there that picks some for greatness and leaves others to mediocrity. Success is a choice.
Decide today to develop yourself and program yourself for success. Develop these winning characteristics and you will win.
You my also want to see these famous motivation and success quotes:
Click on the words below to get to the appropriate quotes.
Remember also to look after and develop yourself physically and mentally for a complete and well grounded life. We all hear about the importance of physical fitness. And we all know how tough it can be to get physically fit. But exactly why is physical fitness so important? why is physical fitness so important?
inspirational quotes - vision motivation quotes - determination motivation quotations - faith inspirational quotations - persistence motivation quotes - courage motivation quotations - integrity inspirational qoutes - focus motivation quotes - discipline
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Motivation Quotes For Your Personal Development
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by.Ricky Lila
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Your character can be your biggest liability. It can pull you down and keep you down. The motivation quotes collected here will help you to develop winning character traits.
If you are going to achieve your dreams you need to think about where you are in relation to where you are going. This principle applies just as much, if not more, in the area of personal leadership.
You need to lead yourself to develop the characteristics or traits of a winner. Personal leadership and private victory come before leading others and public victory. You cannot have good success without personal mastery. Yes, there is such a thing as bad success.
Look through and think about these characteristics of winners. Study any person that ever achieved anything great, such as those who gave us these
Famous quotes – they had these traits in one way or another. Success doesn’t come by chance, it comes by discipline. Success is not some mysterious thing out there that picks some for greatness and leaves others to mediocrity. Success is a choice.
Decide today to develop yourself and program yourself for success. Develop these winning characteristics and you will win.
You my also want to see these famous motivation and success quotes:
Click on the words below to get to the appropriate quotes.
Remember also to look after and develop yourself physically and mentally for a complete and well grounded life. We all hear about the importance of physical fitness. And we all know how tough it can be to get physically fit. But exactly why is physical fitness so important? why is physical fitness so important?
inspirational quotes - vision motivation quotes - determination motivation quotations - faith inspirational quotations - persistence motivation quotes - courage motivation quotations - integrity inspirational qoutes - focus motivation quotes - discipline
More inspiring motivation quotes
Inspirational Poems
Home
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Motivation Quotes For Your Personal Development
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by.Ricky Lila
Inspirational Motivation Picture and Motivation Quote Collection
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This motivation picture and motivation quote collection was inspired by Biblical wisdom. The Bible is by far the biggest and best source of motivation and inspiration that I know. So read it’s wisdom and treasure it. Search for it as for hidden treasure.
I hope you will enjoy the pictures and the quotes.
You can download any motivating picture that you like by clicking on the image. This will open new window from which you can save the picture. Alternatively you can download the picture by right-clicking on it and choosing “save target as” from the options that appear. You will need Acrobat Reader to view the pictures. If you don’t have Acrobat Reader you can download and install it from Adobe. These files are large so please be patient when downloading. The larger files have no watermark.
You can find more motivation pictures here and if you want even more then check out these motivating pictures too.
motivation picture
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. Proverbs 6:6
motivation picture
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isiah40:31
motivation picture
As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever. Psalm 125:2
motivation picture
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. Isiah 61:3
motivation picture
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Mathew 6:30
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All images are from Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain. You are therefore free to use them in accordance with the Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license and/or the GNU Free Documentation License
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1. Click on the HTML link code below.
2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.
Inspiring Motivation Picture and Motivation Quote Collection
footer for motivation picture page
Site Build It!
This motivation picture and motivation quote collection was inspired by Biblical wisdom. The Bible is by far the biggest and best source of motivation and inspiration that I know. So read it’s wisdom and treasure it. Search for it as for hidden treasure.
I hope you will enjoy the pictures and the quotes.
You can download any motivating picture that you like by clicking on the image. This will open new window from which you can save the picture. Alternatively you can download the picture by right-clicking on it and choosing “save target as” from the options that appear. You will need Acrobat Reader to view the pictures. If you don’t have Acrobat Reader you can download and install it from Adobe. These files are large so please be patient when downloading. The larger files have no watermark.
You can find more motivation pictures here and if you want even more then check out these motivating pictures too.
motivation picture
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest. Proverbs 6:6
motivation picture
But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isiah40:31
motivation picture
As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about his people from henceforth even for ever. Psalm 125:2
motivation picture
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. Isiah 61:3
motivation picture
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Mathew 6:30
HOME
All images are from Wikimedia Commons and in the public domain. You are therefore free to use them in accordance with the Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license and/or the GNU Free Documentation License
Share this page: Google Buzz Facebook Myspace
StumbleUpon Technorati del.icio.us Twitter
Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...
Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?
1. Click on the HTML link code below.
2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.
Inspiring Motivation Picture and Motivation Quote Collection
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Motivation for you
What is the Meaning of Success?
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What is the meaning of success? What is success?
I recently thought about these questions and couldn’t quite come up with an adequate answer on my own. This was because I came to realise that there is more to success that what we normally perceive it to be.
So rather than give my own ideas on the matter I asked subscribers to “The Dreamer’s Guide” Motivation Newsletter what success meant to them. The answers were quite varied, although quite a lot had some things in common.
This just goes to show that, to some extent, success is a personal thing. You may achieve exactly the same thing as someone else and yet not feel as successful as the other person. It all depends on your perspective as these success quotes and famous success quotes show.
Speaking of perspectives, I came across some very interesting perspectives on success and some of its adverse effects from Life-sip.com. I never quite thought of success as a cancer, but it could be.
I also found that success can be yours - if you have the right information. This provided some good insight as to what success is. You would also do well to check out this useful site that will help you achieve goal setting success. Here you can learn how to achieve your own success with these free goal setting tools and advice, including a tutorial style workbook.
Check out the pages below for the answers I got to what success means.
Thanks to all of you that contributed and sent in your thoughts. It is amazing the amount of knowledge and great advice there is out there. Thanks for sharing it in grand style.
The Meaning of Success - Personal perspectives
Personal perspectives - 2
Personal perspectives - 3
Personal perspectives - 4
Personal perspectives- 5
Personal perspectives - 6
Personal perspectives - 7
Personal perspectives- 8
Personal perspectives - 9
Personal perspectives - 10
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Meaning of Success
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by.Ricky Lila
Site Build It!
What is the meaning of success? What is success?
I recently thought about these questions and couldn’t quite come up with an adequate answer on my own. This was because I came to realise that there is more to success that what we normally perceive it to be.
So rather than give my own ideas on the matter I asked subscribers to “The Dreamer’s Guide” Motivation Newsletter what success meant to them. The answers were quite varied, although quite a lot had some things in common.
This just goes to show that, to some extent, success is a personal thing. You may achieve exactly the same thing as someone else and yet not feel as successful as the other person. It all depends on your perspective as these success quotes and famous success quotes show.
Speaking of perspectives, I came across some very interesting perspectives on success and some of its adverse effects from Life-sip.com. I never quite thought of success as a cancer, but it could be.
I also found that success can be yours - if you have the right information. This provided some good insight as to what success is. You would also do well to check out this useful site that will help you achieve goal setting success. Here you can learn how to achieve your own success with these free goal setting tools and advice, including a tutorial style workbook.
Check out the pages below for the answers I got to what success means.
Thanks to all of you that contributed and sent in your thoughts. It is amazing the amount of knowledge and great advice there is out there. Thanks for sharing it in grand style.
The Meaning of Success - Personal perspectives
Personal perspectives - 2
Personal perspectives - 3
Personal perspectives - 4
Personal perspectives- 5
Personal perspectives - 6
Personal perspectives - 7
Personal perspectives- 8
Personal perspectives - 9
Personal perspectives - 10
HOME
Share this page: Google Buzz Facebook Myspace
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Enjoy this page? Please pay it forward. Here's how...
Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?
1. Click on the HTML link code below.
2. Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.
Meaning of Success
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by.Ricky Lila
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