Skip to content

Category: Remote Work

Posts about working remotely.

How Slack is bad for an online community

Dave Cheney recently made waves in the tech world by writing that Slack is inappropriate for open source communications. This reminded me about how the Chef community had made the move to Slack last year, and how they’d identified some major gaps between IRC (the previous preferred chat platform) and Slack. Because you can’t moderate users, block users, or protect your own private messages, I’d recommend communities go elsewhere. I’d take this further and argue that Slack is bad for any kind of non-corporate community.

Five things I do when arriving in a new place

When arriving in a new place (city or country), or even sometimes before takeoff on a travel day, I have a checklist of things I immediately do. I’ve developed this list over the course of traveling in South America, Europe, and Asia for the last year with Remote Year. Even when I’m not traveling with the group, I pretty much immediately pull up this list and run through the items as soon as I open my laptop in a new place. I figure that other travelers, remote workers, and digital nomads might also find this list useful.

Can DevOps and Remote Work learn from each other?

More people than ever are working from home. Estimates range from 10% (in the least remote-work-friendly countries) to 60% in the United States. Even global data shows that half of all workers may be remote by 2020. DevOps, the cultural movement towards more agile systems administration, has also been gaining traction. Gartner estimates that 25% of global 2000 businesses will employ DevOps as a mainstream strategy by 2016.

So what can DevOps and Remote Work learn from each other?

My Remote Year Profile: Martin Smith

Check out my Remote Year profile, featured today on remoteyear.com.

WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO COME ON REMOTE YEAR?

I have been living in Gainesville, FL, since 2001, and already loved to take longer trips and work abroad, so this program was perfect for me. I truly enjoy meeting new people, and exploring new places, and I relished the idea of being able to do that for a year without having to plan and worry as much about the logistics of lodging and workspaces. Combined with the opportunity to travel with a group of interesting people of all ages and all walks of life, the opportunity to come on Remote Year was a no-brainer for me.

Goodbye Gainesville!

When I was in high school, I used to debate two big major paths — making a positive impact in the world right now, or going to college and learning a skill that could (after a much longer incubation period) be a multiplier on making the world a better place. At one point, I was really torn about waiting another four years before I could make an impact on the world around me when I knew there were projects and adventures I could start right away. Well, after being in Gainesville for more than 15 years, I’m embarking on an adventure that I’ve been thinking about for a while, that has the potential to make a big impact on my life. Goodbye Gainesville!