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The issue of October, 2002.  Click on any story title to go there and read it, or download the entire issue in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) so you can print it and read it at your leisure.  

If you're not yet a subscriber, you can only read or download "The Insider," a special four-page section of .  Other stories require a subscriber's password.  You may also read or download the the entire Charter Issue (June, 2002).

  Table of Contents (October, 2002)
Rewarding Teams
  Encourage Collaboration and Cooperation

Traditional rewards go to individuals, which can create a hostile team environment.  By building rewards based on teamwork, the team will move toward more collaboration and cooperation, raising all performance.  It may take figuring out what your HR department allows, and being innovative in helping team members figure out how to reward each other.

Know Your Colleagues
  Learn What's Important To Others

Through the Internet, and in the growing "distributed economy," you may work with people you've never met.  How do you cement the kinds of relationships we've always built in the face-to-face office setting.  The solution:  Gather information, do some research, and show people you care.

IM & Trillian, Redux
  A Good Product Gets Significantly Better

The problems that beset Instant Messaging are going away.  As usual, small, agile entrepreneurs outwit the large companies who'd prefer to keep their IM systems proprietary.  Check out the new Trillian Pro to see how.

A Product You Don't Need
  Solving A Problem The Wrong Way

A new conference table, from Switzerland, constantly and automatically moves the chairs.  We think it might be easier to ask people to get up and move to a new chair.

The Insider:
Measuring Productivity
  Business As If People Matter

Too much business management is based on appearances and out-dated concepts.  Today's manager of far-flung teams must be clear about what real productivity is, and how to measure it.  It's even harder when you're measuring the quality of ideas and thinking that goes into the product.

Focusing eMail Contents
  Limit Each Message To One Topic

eMail is sufficiently unique that we need to use it differently.  Because you're trying to reach through the clutter in somebody else's in-box, you need to limit your topics, and gain a reputation for delivering what you promised on the subject line.

Work/Life Balance
  The Trend Toward Balanced Lives

For nearly a century, most of us have been working for wages, but the tide has turned:  More and more people are now working from home because they want to put work in appropriate perspective of a whole life.  Managers will have to motivate people for whom work is just one part of their lives.

Staying Visible
  Making Sure You're Not Forgotten

You work away from the other members of the team, what keeps you from being forgotten?  Action on your part to engage, to participate, to stay visible is required to make up for the lack of "face time." 

Anxiety Signals Learning
  That Vague Discomfort Might be Good

Not all anxiety is bad:  When you're in a new situation, where the customs and rules are unfamiliar, you're likely to be anxious.  Treasure the feeling, transform it into curiosity, and you'll most certainly learn something.  And the learning lessens the anxiety.

 

  Portable Document Format (PDF) files:
Entire October, 2002 Issue
  (Including The Insider)
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The Insider 188 Kb Click for PDF

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The web edition of has been assigned ISSN 1539-9206.

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