DIY Friday: Office Firewall
Focus. It can be tough to get “in the zone” at work. AIM windows popping, email alerts, Really Rocket Science RSS feeds — is there ever a break for work?
Forget about server-side firewalls — its time for an office firewall:
The recipe is pretty simple: turn off your programs, put AIM on away, don’t open a browser, and tell your co-workers to bugg-off.
But some of this is just a little ridiculous:
If interruption by your manager or co-workers is a big problem, work out a way that you can signal you’re available to chat or that you’re super-involved at the moment at your desk. A dishwasher “dishes are clean, dishes are dirty” flippy sign comes to mind, or a mailbox flag type device. Make an agreement with others that when the “sock’s on the door,” you won’t stop by asking if they want to get coffee or what they thought of last night’s Lost.
While some of this is just genius:
A couple of programmers I know who worked at a frenetic office used to schedule a 2 hour long meeting together in a conference room a couple of times a week, where they’d go with their laptops to code in peace.
But maybe we need more dramatic change. Designer Marcus Curran developed an office “pod”:
If your manager isn’t going to sign-off on that price-tag, just turn to cardboard:
Or, best of all, don’t go to the office at all. The new trend may be telepresence:
It’s IvanAnywhere, a robot Bowman uses to interact with his colleagues in Waterloo from his home office 1,350 kilometres away.
“Robot” is a bit of a stretch, actually. IvanAnywhere is basically a coat rack on wheels with attached speakers, camera and touch-screen computer.
The computer screen displays a live shot of Bowman’s face from his living room in Nova Scotia.
But in the three months since IvanAnywhere first went online, he has become such a normal part of the third floor at iAnywhere that co-workers barely even notice they’re talking to a machine rather than to Bowman’s human form.
“We are all so used to Ivan, they don’t even give it a second thought,” says Glenn Paulley, Bowman’s boss and the originator of the IvanAnywhere idea.
When Bowman has a question for a colleague, he doesn’t pick up the phone; he uses his joystick to drive his doppelganger to the team member’s office.
If Paulley needs Bowman’s time on a software issue, he calls IvanAnywhere to his office, just as he would with any other employee.
Bowman uses IvanAnywhere to take part in meetings, even giving presentations with the help of a projector.
Every once in a while, he’ll motor to the floor’s lounge area to look out the window and chat with passersby, much as he would if he were in Waterloo.
