The Crowdsourced Guide to Remote Working in the Age of Coronavirus

General Introductions to Remote Working (... you can contribute here).

OMG I’m working remotely, now what?!

🔗 omgwfh.com

🗣 http://www.benedikt-lehnert.de/contact 

Best practices and tips to help you stay sane, focused and boost your productivity while working from home, a coffee shop or really anywhere in the world, because distributed teams are a reality and remote work is the future

Distributed / Remote Working

🔗https://edgeryders.eu/t/distributed-collaboration-manual/11263

Edgeryders’ guide to Distributed Collaboration

Open Data Institute Remote Working Resources

🔗 Open Data Institute - Resources to support working, collaborating and training remotely - #PUBLIC

CAST/Catalyst guide to remote working for charities/nonprofits

🔗https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/voices/how-to-work-remotely-in-a-time-of-coronavirus.html

How to work from home

🔗www.theverge.com/2020/3/11/21171349/remote-work-how-to-home-coronavirus-quarantine-productivity-tips

🗣[email protected]

Working Remotely in Slack: Getting Started (webinar)
https://slack.com/events/webinars/working-remotely-in-slack-getting-started

Basecamp book on remote working https://coronavirus tech handbook.com/

🔗https://basecamp.com/books/remote

Nb Basecamp have offered to refund any purchases of this book, as a contribution to the group effort - see this tweet for more information and discussion. 

Activities to do 150+ Enrichment Activities for Children While Parents are Working Remotely with kids while parents work remotely

🔗https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1KCFnWreu4v7VoO3NbgP-Qcq2LyE1FvliYSoiTLRY7Qg/edit?usp=sharing

Remote work advice

1. If you've been commuting, keep a percentage of your commute cost for "nice things" at work - whether that's a great lamp for your desk, an image you love in a frame, some plants or a set of 20 Sharpies in different colours. Put the rest of the money into your savings if you don’t need to use it for other essential costs.

2. The presenters on Radio 5 Live (or your station of choice) are a big part of your life but they are not actually your real friends. Talk to some real people each day as well as the radio/the cat/the dog.

3. Routine! Get up, wash your face, stretch. Be sure to set times around to stretch, do a little exercise, drink water, eat nourishing foods, and when to turn all the tech off. “I am only working from 8-4, an hour for lunch, and 4 mini-breaks for stretching and water.”

Remote Design Kit

Help designers find jobs, inspiration and design specific remote advice

🔗https://docs.google.com/document/d/11gU0KThfomgY-697xsBi26s_P_5tOpYfV0y4IeluhRg/edit?userstoinvite=anton%40designcalendar.io&ts=5e70e650&actionButton=1#heading=h.szqjw0pbtjee

Doist’s Twist Remote Work Guides

🔗https://twist.com/remote-work-guides?utm_source=doist_blog&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=remote_work_guide 

Trello’s Remote Work Guide

🔗https://info.trello.com/hubfs/How_To_Embrace_Remote_Work_Trello_Ultimate_Guide.pdf 

1Password’s Remote Work Guide

🔗 https://blog.1password.com/remote-work-tips/

Notes on hosting virtual meetings

🔗https://docs.google.com/document/d/11EEmovZLlILjm0j2V3MGTVvwB_3L39I-63xB9wpvSiE/edit#

🔗Abby Cabunoc Mayes on Twitter: "Online meeting tips 💻 With more meetings moving online to prepare for #COVID19, I thought I'd share lessons we've learned running @MozOpenLeaders (online cohort-based training & mentorship) over the years. A thread 👇"

Note: Where possible use voice only for conference calls (with a profile pic) as it’ll improve call quality by reducing the bandwidth required for the call.

90 minute interactive workshop on remote teams

🔗https://www.daoleadership.com/managingremoteworkforce/

Free 90-minutes interactive workshop on how to manage remote teams during Coronavirus pandemic.https://www.daoleadership.com/managingremoteworkforce/

Remote Management

So you’re now running a remote team… what do you do?

[I thought we should have this as a section!]

Gitlab Guide to having an all remote company & remote work emergency plan

🔗https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/

🔗https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/remote-work-emergency-plan/

Remote Working Tools

Producthunt Library of Remote Work Apps

🔗https://www.producthunt.com/e/remote-apps

Meetings / Video Conferencing tools

Encourage meetings via videoconferencing.

Invest in a proper webcam/speakers/microphone.

Zoom is a very popular option. It is free for up to 100 people for up to 40 minutes (you can then restart the call - time for a coffee!)

Tico Powercall is the amazing one that enables you to set a video conference within 2 clicks in 3 secs. Without requirement of registration or download. Totally free for up to 65 mins and 20 members at the moment.

Skype - video conferencing

Jingle has made their video call background image finder free for sixty days. Works with Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or other video chats with virtual background support.

Loom.com - instantly shareable video via browser. Seamless screen, mic, and camera recording for Chrome. Reduces need for meetings or long emails. Free for Teachers and Students. They’ve also increased their free plan during the pandemic.

https://untwist.io/ helps you keep track of all your meeting notes across all your projects - and it is entirely free during this time of crisis. 

Otter.ai for live transcribing video meetings into audio+text notes that you can playback, search and share. Integrated with Zoom, Dropbox, and Google/Microsoft calendar and contacts.

Online conferences/events with breakout rooms where participants can move themselves using Zoom + Google Docs + user profiles: example event on QiqoChat

Jitsi is similar to Zoom and completely free but has some browser limitations with Safari and Firefox (link).

8X8 now own Jitsi and works similarly

Unhangouts, out of the MIT Media Lab, has breakout rooms, lobby for conferencing: https://unhangout.media.mit.edu/ The Peeragogy.org team tested this a few years ago during the Google Hangouts on Air period. Still around apparently.

Unconference: https://unconference.com/

Team.video is in beta but claims to work on all major browsers without requiring downloads, has nifty “agenda” and “notes” features, is free for up to 15 people

Microsoft Teams is free for up to 300 people: https://products.office.com/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software

https://www.hugo.team/

Google Hangouts/Meet will work for smaller teams (generally up to 25 teams) but bandwidth overload if too many participants.

Google’s JamBoards are good for virtual ideas sessions

Whereby.com is an easy alternative.

Vectera.com is a browser based video conference tool. Completely free until 1st June.

Konf.co is an online conference platform, launching soon.

Slack (https://slack.com/) is a good platform for distributed companies to message, call, share screens, share docs 

Cisco WebEx is free for personal use as of 3/12/2020 https://www.webex.com/pricing/index.html 

Nextcloud talk has video conferencing and is self-hosted https://nextcloud.com 

BigBlueButton is open source web conferencing app designed for learning situations  https://bigbluebutton.org/ 

Wikipedia has a nice comparison list of web conferencing options https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_conferencing_software 

Talky.io

An update from us regarding COVID-19.

Discord - a collaboration platform similar to Slack for small teams (upto 50ppl), has given their free account subscribers access to live streaming/ screensharing/ teleconferencing tools. To learn more about their Go Live feature you’ll find info on the support page: https://dis.gd/golivescreenshare

Note: Where possible use voice only for conference calls (with a profile pic) as it’ll improve call quality by reducing the bandwidth required for the call.

The nonprofit Citizens Foundation now offers free hosting and support for any nonprofit that wants to engage citizens online or do internal idea generation work remotely alongside video conferencing. Check out the Getting Started tutorial! https://citizens.is/getting-started/

Leave Tracking

Vacation Tracker - An easy way to manage leave within your company. Perfect for remote teams in multiple locations. Slack Integration. 

Blog articles on Nonprofit Resources for Remote Work 

Nonprofit Resources for Remote Work During the COVID-19 Outbreak

https://blog.techsoup.org/posts/nonprofit-resources-for-remote-work-during-the-covid-19-outbreak

Key Tips for Working Remotely for Your Nonprofit

https://blog.techsoup.org/posts/key-tips-for-working-remotely-for-your-nonprofit

Understanding the Videoconferencing Tools Available to Your Nonprofit

https://blog.techsoup.org/posts/understanding-the-videoconferencing-tools-available-to-your-nonprofit

For non-profits, programs or advocates working with victims and survivors of sexual violence or domestice violence, more resources can be found at : CoronavirusTechHandbook.com/isolation

Asynchronous Collaboration Tools

Email Transparency

Tools that allow companies to make some or all email threads searchable within their company, which is especially helpful in remote work situations where you can’t just turn to the person next to you to ask for help.

FWD:Everyone is a tool for reading, searching, sharing, and discovering the most useful email discussions happening within your business.

TopicBox is a tool for sorting and storing knowledge within email by team, project, or topic.

CopyIn is a tool for turning your internal email into a company knowledgebase.

Qiqo Chat

🔗https://qiqochat.com/
Tool for building online communities (web conference, live events, discussions, newsletters,...)

Kialo 

🔗https://www.kialo.com/ 

Useful tools for collaboration, brainstorming and debate whilst remote working. Enables you to visualize discussions as an interactive tree of pro and con arguments. Benefits of use over social media to crowdsource stakeholder views is that you can create either public or private debates. 

Work in the time of Corona

🔗https://blog.alicegoldfuss.com/work-in-the-time-of-corona/

🗣https://twitter.com/alicegoldfuss

Some assurances and tips for maintaining your mental health while adjusting to this new life.

Leapers

🔗http://leapers.co/go/coronavirus

A community supporting the mental health of the self-employed is gathering and sharing resources on positive mental health around remote working, working under isolation, and the challenges of coronavirus for the self-employed, who may have loss of business as a result.

Combating burnout, isolation, and anxiety in the remote workplace

https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/mental-health/

https://www.mhe-sme.org/covid-19/ 

9 Ways to Make Working At Home More Joyful

https://www.aestheticsofjoy.com/2020/03/9-ways-to-make-working-from-home-more-joyful/

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