Do you think speed reading techniques should be taught in school?  Do you think or know if it really helps?

I’ve asked this of many people and some swear there’s no such thing as cultural differences when it comes to being on time. Others argued that everyone knows that everyone else will be 15 minutes late so, in fact, everyone is on time.  In today’s increasingly diverse workplaces these differences can create some tension – and make some team members feel they’re being taken advantage of.

Do you deal with this cultural difference in your workplace? What approach do you take?

Many countries there give employees 5 or 6 weeks off per year.  The argument for more time off is usually supported by the fact that everyone needs time to:

1. Rest
2. Be with family
3. Enjoy a hobby (or whatever activity makes one happy – skiing, surfing, etc.)

Those who support less time off have argued that with too much time off, people cannot concentrate once they’re back in the office.

So, are you for more or less time off for vacation?  How much time do you need to recharge your batteries?

What about you? Are you more productive at home, working alone, or when you’re around others?

• Look for important messages now and leave the rest for later?
• Employ The Two Minute Rule; taking care of the ones that matter right now and defer the ones that don’t?
• Read them all now and reply to them all later?

What’s your routine for checking email?

Social bookmarking often produces not only relevant but also better results, wasting much less of a user’s time. Searching on StumbleUpon for example, saves a user from going through pages of irrelevant Google results.  Other popular examples of social bookmarking websites are:

• Reddit
• Digg
• Delicious
• Metafilter
• Squidoo
• Slashdot

…but there are a lot more out there for you to use.  Each one has its own feature set that enhances the user experience, but ultimately it just boils down to user preference when it comes to picking a favorite.

What’s your experience with social bookmarking?  Do you use it?

So, is the World Cup affecting your work?  If so, how are you dealing with it?

How does everyone handle their technology maintenance?  Do you have a routine?  Have you found a way to keep devices, cables and batteries organized without spending too much time on it?

The idea of public slide presentations is not new.  In fact the gatherings remind me of TED (despite the statement on the PechaKucha website that they’re nothing like it) though unlike TED presenters PechaKucha presenters can be anyone of any age without requirements of expertise.  The Nights take place in cities around the world and they are arranged by local organizers.

What reasons do we have to care?

Finally, your gallery exhibit!  What’s really good to fathom is that one of these gatherings could be your outlet to show the work you’re passionate about.  You can finally show your paintings to a live audience and talk about what inspired you to make each piece or you can show your latest website design and tell the audience about the challenges involved.  You can even share your photos from that amazing trip your friends keep asking you to stop talking about no matter how cool you keep telling them it was.

It can be very rewarding to show others the work to which you dedicate so much of yourself but also it may be that someone in the audience really likes your cake decorations and decides to hire you to do their wedding cake.  The same could happen with your design work or flower arrangements or anything else you do.  In a way the presentation could lead to self-promotion although that is not the intention behind the gatherings.

On a different note, the 20×20 format cuts down the length of presentations – anyone who’s ever had to sit through a slide show knows that shorter is better.  Often presenters go on and on and turn a potentially interesting presentation into torture, squeezing full pages of information on slides and reading straight off the slides for what feels like a whole day.  When restricted to the 20×20 format presenters must better organize their presentations and in the worst case scenario audience and presenter only have to go through 6 minutes and 40 seconds of a bad presentation.

Then there is the social element.  One line that caught my attention on the site was “there’s nothing social about social networks.”  So true.  Instead of sitting alone at home with their computers, putting up their presentations on Facebook, people can get out to show their presentations to a live audience and to talk about their projects after they speak as they mingle with the audience.  They might even find people who are actually interested in their projects and want to know more, as opposed to virtual “friends” who are probably more interested in seeing their own updates about their trips to the refrigerator.  The gatherings take place anywhere the city organizers choose such as a bar, a restaurant, someone’s house or yard and so forth, and though the site doesn’t specify this, there might be an entrance fee to events depending on where they’re held (I found out by clicking on events’ links).

The PechaKucha format’s not all that special but…

Anyone could have come up with the 20×20 format.  In fact Ignite, another gathering for slide show presentations, has a 20 slide x 15 second format and there are other slide presentation gatherings with their own formats.  Guy Kawasaki, a venture capitalist who’s sat through hundreds of slide presentations, suggests using 10 slides x 20 minutes x 30 point font.  You could come up with your own 10×10 or 8×12 or whatever format.  What’s important is that some format be established to push presenters toward shorter and (hopefully) more interesting presentations in a professional or informal setting.

What is interesting about PechaKucha is that they went as far as to set up an organization and brand their gatherings, which seems to be one reason why they are becoming increasingly popular.  There’s no fee to use their trademark but to hold an event under their name an organizer must sign an agreement.  In this way the organization can limit the number of Nights in a given city to one and keep some sort of control over the types of events their name is used for; they certainly wouldn’t want to be associated with illegal activity for example.

It is definitely good news that this outlet is available to us all but I’ll have to wait for a presentation near me so I can find out first hand what it’s like.  If you’ve been to one of their “nights”, please let us know what you thought about it!

Lower Costs for Employers

Reduced office costs
Fewer people in the office results in lower office bills: less coffee to provide, fewer paper clips to stock, fewer phone calls to pay for, less toilet paper to buy and so on.

Managers may plan to have a certain number of employees working from home at any given time and may even choose to have smaller offices where employees rotate among desks.  These days so much is done by email that an employee might not even need his or her own number at work but should he or she really need it, technology may permit call forwarding, calls over the internet and whatever else is possible.

(If you’re an employee and you’re terrified of not having your own desk with your own stacks of documents, check out this 14 minute video about Semco, a company in Brazil in which employees in fact are not allowed to use the same desk all the time.  But be warned: after learning about Semco you might never see work the same way again!)

Reduced health insurance costs
Employees who have more flexibility in their schedules tend to be happier people because they may arrange their schedule to include running errands, taking care of their children and getting enough rest and exercise.  Happier employees = healthier employees = lower health insurance costs.  You may read about the “link between psychological health and overall health” here.

Lower Costs for Workers

Less fuel and other car expenses
In 2009 Cisco released the results of their survey of nearly 2,000 of their telecommuter employees around the world.  On average each employee saved approximately US$5,000 in 2008 in fuel expenses alone by telecommuting (the total for all surveyed was US$10.3 million).  Working from home you’ll also be putting fewer miles on your car and reducing gas emissions.

Lower child care expenses
Although working from home you’ll still need to dedicate the same amount of time to work, you can still be the person who will drop off and pick up your children after school, take them to the doctor or even watch out after your toddler for half of the day.  But most importantly, the time you spend with your children is priceless, which brings us to the next section.

Personal Reasons To Work from Home

Spending time with your children
Thirty five hours per week at work (40+ for Americans) plus commuting time all adds up to time not spent with your children.  Both you and your children will be happier if you spend more time with them.  But you can always ask your children what they think.

In my own experience, I feel very lucky I had my dad around when I was a child.  Due to his working schedule, Dad spent half days at home and it was just awesome to see him around!  He could just be taking care of our dog or taking a nap before his next shift but there was a very warm feeling in knowing that Dad was around to take care of me if I needed him.

More time for oneself
You may put the time you spend commuting towards your hobby, favorite sport, studying or other experience more enriching than attacks of road rage and smelling the armpits of that guy in the metro who’s never heard of deodorant.

Increased productivity
When employees have more time to be with their families or to do things for themselves, they’re happier people.  Happier people are less stressed out and are less likely to make mistakes.  Happier people are more productive, which leads to more work done and more money saved.  This I learned from Dr. Foo, my neurologist in NYC (great guy, by the way!), but in reading an article at CNN some supervisors see the productivity value in flexibility as well.  One supervisor mentions that employees are more committed to a company that allows them to have flexible schedules.  Another manager explains that having employees with flexible schedules is an advantage to her because that way her company may expand its working hours to better cater to the 24/7 business cycle in which it works.

If you’ve never thought of working from home but your company offers this option, you might be interested in finding out how such arrangement works out for you.  If your company doesn’t have a work-from-home program, you may be in a position to ask your boss about this arrangement.