If it weren’t for the fact that everyone loves seeing my happy and smiling face at work I think I could really get into telecommuting - well except for the fact that my daughter seems to think the world lives to give her attention…

That aside, where else can you work in PJ’s, wear bedroom slippers, and sip on a latte while relaxing from your arm chair? I don’t have bedroom slippers, so I suppose I would have to expense those. But other than that - I got this gig down:

I have remote software on all of the servers, remote software to access any desktop or notebook I need, a VoIP handset to talk, e-mail for managing the tasks, instant messenger (IM) to chat, and a BlackBerry for errands. I’m all set.

Seeing is Believing:

People don’t see me, and what most people don’t see they don’t believe. Sure, many of us ‘technologists’ get it. We are mobile professionals on the road - and we judge performance based upon the results - right!?

Do the Benefits Outweigh the Perception?

Many organizations, including government, has turned to telecommuting as a cost-friendly way to maintain increasing demand for results. The benefits of telecommuting are wonderful:

1. Higher productivity: More relaxed attitude and less office distractions.
2. Lower overhead: lower expenses related to facilities costs.
3. Other perks: lower fuel costs for the employees can equate to a raise for a creative manager.
4. The list goes on…

The perception, however, can be a much different thing.

Perception is Reality:

I would venture a guess that most of you reading this blog are technologically - well, shall we say - progressive. You thirst for knowledge, to connect, to create… Sadly, you make up a smaller percentage of the workforce.

Thus toots the train of thought many executives travel upon.

“It is not the spoon that bends …

… but you that bends around the spoon,” as the quote goes. In essence, you have to see your way around the wall that is common misperception regarding telecommuters: that is they are hard to manage, hard to communicate with, and can be lazy.

I like to think of myself as a progressive leader, and make no mistake, that is what it takes to buy into a modern day vision of the mobile worker. However, I was recently bitten by a telecommuter for a SharePoint project I am working on that had the makings of a nightmare.

At the outset of the project, I had spent over a week trying to connect, but due to schedules it took us quite some time. Then there was the business of setting access and signing contracts. After these items were settled in, it took us another few days to connect - and to my dismay we only connected via IM - well after business hours?

Well, we discussed this and that, and this developer had a seemingly wonderful grasp upon some of the nuances of SharePoint development. I was promised a statement/estimate of work, and thus we were off.

Then a week came and went - no statement of work - no visible results. Then another week began to pass, and I initiated contact only to find no response, no work, nothing.

So it is that I, the progressively-minded leader, was bitten. I should’ve heard the alarm-bells, no the sirens, of project mismanagement missteps across the board - but I allowed myself to deviate from my standard management practices - all in the name of telecommuting.

So, there is a lesson somewhere inside, or else I will just feel miserable having wasted 4 weeks of my project portfolio’s time.

Telecommuting; the Brutal Truth:

What was my mistake? Not remembering that telecommuting is no different than comparing wired to wireless networks. Both have their places, but telecommuting is simply a medium of transport. Have some faith in the fact that belief does not have to be determined by sight alone.

With the advent of having a cell phone in not every household, but seemingly in every hand in every household in the U.S., the accompanying ringtones and wildfire of personalizations that come with such a viral spread of communication really speak for themselves.

Nielsen Ringscan broke out some US ringtone figures. There were 220 million ringtone purchases in 2007 resulting in sales of $567 million, and ringtone sales spiked 22 percent in the last week of the year (mocoNews.net, January 2008).

In corporate culture even, ringtones seem to say something about a person and evoke immediate reactions from not only the people around you but the owner of the phone himself or herself. For instance, I knew someone who set a personal ringtone to play the Darth Vader introduction every time their boss called in. Now what emotion do you think that evoked?

Being in the “IT” field, we often run the middle line between managing growing fleets of disparate mobile devices but offering some level of flexibility to our customer. In larger organizations this can indeed be tough, but are the small things life like ringtones important morale boosters that help deliver on your bottom line?

That’s hard to say, but I have a BlackBerry and I would share with you that I relish the feeling of connectedness that a mobile PDA device gives me. It allows me to the flexibility to know when I need to react and when I can sit back and let someone else handle the ‘heat’ for awhile.

Due to a recent hardware failure, I had to replace my BlackBerry. First, Verizon Wireless was quite nice about that portion of things and even apologized for the inconvenience. Of course, what we are paying a month for our corporate account, they should bend over backwards - but I digress…

Needless to say, I had to go through and set up my calling profiles again, how the phone behaves when in vibrate mode, when in my holster, etc. I must say this is a rather nice feature I have not seen on other devices. I decided to try this little e-mail notification file called “sonar”.

It sounded just like the name, like a submarine pinging something underwater. After awhile, the tone began to really grate on me. I don’t really know why, but I began to detest getting e-mails on my BlackBerry. Last night I switched to a much more upbeat sound - and now… I smile a little smirk when an e-mail comes in.

Does someone love me that much to send me an e-mail? Well, I wouldn’t go that far - I’m not that desperate! It’s just another blanket invitation to another seminar on virtualization or disaster recovery, or the bestest (yes that’s right - I said best-est) MPS program just launched to help make my company a ton of money!

Oh well, I can’t tell you my ring tone will help make the company more profitable or me more excited than I already am to check an e-mail, but there is some truth in “wanting” to be there in mind and body.

Someone’s calling, are you there?

So what gets you excited? What small thing, be it a ringtone or something else, gets you motivated to do what you do?

Ken Stewart’s blog, ChangeForge.com, focuses on the collision between the constantly changing worlds of business and technology. Ken is also the Director of Technology at Kearns Business Solutions.