Tech news links 31/05/07

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Home is where the work is

Silicon.com is conducting a home working experiment tomorrow with the whole editorial team working from home for a day.

Amongst most technology companies I encounter homeworking seems to be standard practice now. Employers have realised that people are more productive when not in the office being interrupted all the time and are more than happy to invest in Blackberry's etc.

While at Skype, our whole global PR team worked from homes dotted around the UK and US. We used Skype for free calls to one another, multi-person conferences/instant messaging and a Wiki to access documents/share information via any Web connection. I have to say the whole company walked the walk.

I was talking to employees at Civica the other day and they can work from home when they want or just bob into their nearest office if they fancy a change of scenery. I think this is important as you can get a bit of cabin fever if you work from home all the time.

The other important thing is to be disciplined in your work hours so that it doesn't eat into your home life - which can be difficult if you have colleagues in different time zones! Anyone tips for homeworkers? Or views from your office (as above)?

Inflated figures

Randall Rothenberg, the new head of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), has written an open letter to audience measurement companies, ComScore and Nielsen NetRatings, demanding an audit of their measurement processes according to the FT.

Richard Waters comments that [in the midst of the current Web 2.0 hype] we've gone back to the bad old days where companies are being valued on the number of eyeballs they can attract.

Randall's letter comes after ComScore called for a change in Web measurement tools on the back of their own survey because of the explosion of podcasts and video and people becoming wise to clearing their cookies.

ComScore uses a panel of representative internet surfers over cookies whereas Nielsen argues for measuring website use in terms of the amount of time spent on pages rather than by number of views.

This reminds me of working with Site Intelligence during the dotcom boom when everyone knew people were inflating website figures but John Woods bravely came out and said as much as 80% of companies were fibbing (resulting in half a page in the Observer).

Woods said to gain an accurate picture of website use a combination of measurements is required because of the issue of cookies being cleared etc., rather than a single method for advertisers to determine a site's popularity.

Randall's letter says that the IAB has been calling on ComScore and Neilsen NetRatings to be independently audited since 1999. It's a shame that it has taken until now for the IAB to bear its teeth but better late than never as online advertising overtakes offline. Let's hope not just the cookies get cleaned up.

View from the top

I've just returned from a great snowboarding holiday in Tignes, France which was responsible for the gap in posts. While there I got a message from O2 on my mobile which gave me a flat rate for calls home for 36p per minute which I thought was quite good but still more than double a Skype call back to an O2 mobile in the UK.

Another type of mobile technology was responsible for the delay we had flying back. We were on time until the front wheel on the Thomas Cook aircraft was broken by the tractor pushing the plane out of its dock. A 24 hour delay and extra night in Lyon ensued as an engineer needed to be flown out with two new wheels. You'd have thought something the size of a plane would have room for a spare!

Work smarter, not longer

A report from The Future Labratory claims we are more happy because we are blending our work and home lives using new technology.

Commenting on the survey, The Independent implies that as a result of working-life blending we are happier with "almost half of us (46.8 per cent, to be exact) throwing off the chains that bind us to our desks and taking jobs that involve working away from the office, on our own terms".

Sorry but mobile technology for work just means working longer/harder, no matter how you dress it up. I'm comparing the number of laptops on trains today with how many people you would you see consciously scribbling work notes before mobile computing? The survey points out 77 per cent of people felt new technology had improved productivity.

For me, technology can certainly help us work smarter. Guess it depends what you are doing but does working longer or harder make people happy?

All change

Yesterday the UK's media heavyweights met at The Guardian's Changing Media Summit 2007 and I was lucky enough to attend. I'm going to write up some thoughts but for a taster visit Kevin Anderson's blog here for transcripts of the roundtable debates.

The central theme of the summit was social media and its effect on old media and how the two are/will integrate. The comforting thing I took away from the conference was that everyone's in the same boat. We are all trying to get our heads around how social media will continue to develop, touching our business and home lives, including the Guardian's editor! Just when we begin to understand one new technology along comes another application of it that changes the media landscape again. Anway I'm twittering now. More soon...

The geek shall inherit the earth

A new silicon.com survey has found that leadership skill is the key trait for CIOs who aspire to become CEOs.

43 per cent of those surveyed said leadership was the most important quality for an ambitious CIO, while 15 percent cited commercial awareness.

A greater focus on innovation and creativity has overtaken sales and marketing skills which have fallen again in the annual survey.

Commenting on the results, Phil Young, head of IT, said that often the CIO is viewed as a technologist, which is a perception they need to overcome to be in with a chance for the top job.

For me though the Silicon Valley saying that "the geek shall inherit the earth" rings true here. If you look around, the most successful companies of the moment are technology-driven and have CEOs who have a deep understanding of technology and the competitive advantage it offers now and for the future. What do you think makes a good CEO?