There are few things more frustrating than knowing you have to do something that doesn't really add much value. Going in to the office every day can be one of them. You have a high-speed internet connection at home, a fast and powerful computer, a phone and pretty much everything you need to be productive. You even have a CD of office noise you can play in the background to make you feel like you're at the office. The problem is you have a boss that doesn't like the idea of you not being in the office.

Below are some tips on convincing the boss you should be able to work from home. Before we start, let's try to make sure we understand why some bosses are a challenge on this topic.

Why bosses don't like people working from home

Bosses are funny creatures. Many have at least one primary job: to ensure the people working for them are getting their job done. As a result they tend to send a lot of emails asking for updates, call a lot of meetings to see what progress has been made or just walk around and check up on people reporting to them. Some bosses do this in a way that is inspiring for their employees, some bosses are barely tolerated in this and most fall somewhere in between.

Here some of the reasons a boss may not like you working from home:

• I like to see that you are actually working
• There are times I have questions that need to be answered in real time
• I need to meet with my team to ensure they are all on the same page
• You need to be available to others on your team
...

In this series of blog posts we would like to give you some working examples of how to leverage SharedStatus to help you in real world environments. This post will focus on using SharedStatus to help build a new web site.

The first step is to create a project to hold your work. From the main SharedStatus Dashboard click Create a project, then enter the name for the new web site (Spring 2011 Website Refresh for example) and a description.

We're going to include how we want people to use the labels to help keep track of things so for now leave the description blank; we'll return to it after the next few steps.

Labeling Items In Your Project
Next we will add our labels. The labels are important because they will help you organize your project and better understand what needs to be done. The power of labels are that more than one can be applied to an item and they can easily be added or removed as you progress through your project.

• Requirements: this label will be used for messages and tasks that contain actual requirements for the web site, usually from the stakeholders.
• Feedback Needed: this label will be applied to items as people on the design team create content they want others on the team to provide feedback on. After enough feedback has been received (usually on a message that may include a screen shot or page content, though sometimes a task) the author of that item can remove the Feedback Needed label.
• Final: this label is applied to a message, task or file that contains...

By David Alison

I had an interesting day not long ago. I spoke with three different friends and all of the conversations ended up going into the sales process they used for their individual companies. I found this interesting in that each had fundamentally different businesses: a high tech SaaS based product, a service provided to attorneys and a personalized consumer product business. Yet in each case none of them really had a sale process defined and that ended up becoming the topic of discussion. Two of the businesses were just getting started and one was already pretty mature but didn't really have a formal sales process in place. 

Regardless of the type of business you have I think it's really important to understand in a reproducible way how to sell your product or service. This becomes critical if you have any desire to grow your company by adding sales staff, large numbers of customers or different channels. I'm a software engineer so I tend to look at the sales process as an old fashioned flow chart: at one end is a raw lead and at the other is either a paying customer or someone that you may get to become a customer in the future. In between are the various decision points and attributes that must be collected in order to move that lead into the next stage.

By breaking down the sales process into stages you can begin to understand what it will take to move prospects through those stages. What is preventing them from moving forward? How many prospects can you...

By David Alison

In the late 80s as a young man I was at a party with my wife's family. There were many very successful business people there that I had conversations with. There was one discussion in particular that I still remember to this day, over 20 years later. When I told Tony that I was interested in starting my own business at some point he said:

"David, whatever you do, don't get a partner. Just do it on your own."

Funny how some things just stick in your head. At the time he gave me this advice he owned part of a successful business and he was just a little older than I am now. I didn't follow Tony's advice and in retrospect I'm really glad I didn't.

People pick business partners for all kinds of reasons. Most often it's because they want to have someone to turn to for help, support and encouragement. Starting a business is hard work and the motivation you get from having a business partner is like having a workout partner: you can lift more weight when you know you have someone spotting you and encouraging you to push a little harder.

Picking a partner to go into business with is an interesting challenge, especially when you are just starting out. If you think finding the right life partner and getting married is stressful, think about this: in all likelihood you will be spending nearly double the number of waking hours working with a business partner than you will with your spouse. That's a lot of "quality time" to spend with a person.

The Do's and Don'ts List...

By David Alison

Like many web-centric companies our web site is our primary window into the world. Its the first impression most people will ever get of SharedStatus and it serves a critical role in our business model. Though you can iterate over a design and show internal people, its not until you get it into the hands of outsiders that you start to see what works and what doesnt.

Having a decent software analytics package like Clicky or Google Analytics installed gives you a sense of what people are doing when they visit your site; where they go, how long they spend on key pages, where they exit your site, etc. Use the analytics and perform basic A/B tests on pages and you can dramatically improve traffic flows on your site. The challenge is guessing where people are tripping up so you can design your A/B tests - this is where usability testing can help.

Usability Testing was hard
For many years I worked in technology companies that had usability labs to help validate product designs. In the early days this involved dedicated lab space, video cameras, recording equipment and extraordinary amounts of time to do correctly. We would set up our tests and then have to go out and recruit people to come in and walk through our products. Putting together the reports and editing the video into a single selection of feedback was incredibly time consuming.

Usability testing was clearly for large companies that had the resources to pull this off.

Usability Testing is easy
Not long after...

By David Alison

Have you given any thought to leaving the "security" of a regular paycheck and going out on your own? If so, this blog post is for you. It is my not so humble opinion that working for yourselfowning your own businessis one of the greatest experiences a person can have. I equate it to the difference between living in your parents home and going out on your own and getting a place to live as a young adult. It is initially pretty frightening but the feeling of independence and growth is incredible and once youve done it successfully you cannot imagine going back to live with Mom and Dad.

I recognize that not everyone is cut out to start his or her own business or even work outside the structure of a corporate environment. The skills required to start and then successfully run a business are not always the same and require that you switch gears quite a bit.

Ive collected a list of attributes that can help you determine if you are the kind of person that can start your own business. Ive been networking with the owners of businesses of all shapes and sizes for many years and found quite a few common themes that I hope you will find valuable.

You are a good candidate to start a business because

You are willing to take risks
This is the most obvious one so obvious I hesitated including it on the list. Starting a business is a risky proposition. You need to be sure that you have set yourself up as much as possible to absorb the risk associated with starting a business,...

By David Alison

As an entrepreneur you get to experience lots of major milestones, some more important than others. Coming up with the idea, finding the right partner, incorporating the business, launching the web site, getting that first paying customer or client. Each of theseincluding landing funding if thats the fuel to grow the businessare signs that you are progressing.

Another major milestone is the day you decide you need to hire your first employee. You suddenly go from being responsible to your partners and customers to realizing you have a regular payroll you have to cover. Just as you can feel good about the work you do, you can get tremendous satisfaction from knowing the business you created is now adding value by creating jobs for people.

As I reflect back on the successes Ive had with my various business ventures one of the most rewarding experiences was creating jobs for others. As an employer I got a chance to play an important part in the lives of people, helping them expand their careers and watching them grow their families. That reward came with lots of stress, especially when times were tight and we worried how we would make payroll.

Given all thats on the line, below is some guidance on when you should hire that first employee.

Can't see the forest for the trees
Entrepreneurs are used to having a heavy workload. It's just part of the gig. What can be difficult is realizing that one day you (and potentially your partners) are holding your company back...

By David Alison

There are lots of reasons people want to work with a partner when starting or growing a business. In many cases a partnership happens out of a shared passion; two or more people discuss an insanely great idea and before you know it they are sketching out a product or business plan on a cocktail napkin. Then there are those that have an idea but recognize they need someone that has skills they lack or maybe want to share the crushing workload that comes with starting a business.

Finding one or more business partners can be an interesting challenge. Not only do you have to make sure youre picking the right partner, you need to have some candidates to draw from in the first place. But where do you look?

Friends and Colleagues
The most common place to find a business partner is within your current circle of friends and colleagues. If youre a university student it may be someone you have classes with or have teamed up with on a project. Maybe youve been out in the workforce for a while and youve got a lunch group youve been talking to about an idea. It could even be a relative that you know is interested and has experience in the business you want to start.

Going inside of your close circle is very common and often can lead to great partnerships. You know the person pretty well and likely have seen that they have an expertise that can help your business. Provided you dont add a partner from this circle purely because you like them and it would be cool to work...

by David Alison

All too often a project fails or a problem happens in a business because something doesnt get done correctly, on time or in some cases at all. In order for a group of people to function properly together each team member needs to know their role and just as importantly how to properly task others on their team when they need to delegate something. This is just as true of peers working together as it is in a classic manager / subordinate relationship.

Here is a list of dos and donts for sharing tasks with other people

Do: Keep the task assignment simple
When you assign a task to someone think it through and make it as clear as possible without being too wordy. This is of course easy for small, simple tasks (Example: Replace the toner in the printer) but not so on larger tasks. If the task requires more than a short paragraph to describe then chances are you should break it up into multiple tasks.

Dont: Keep people working on something you no longer need
The one thing thats worse than telling someone that you no longer need something they are in the middle of working on is to just let that person keep working on it when you know its no longer needed. Business needs, competitive threats and reactions to industry news can all quickly change priorities. Letting someone continue to spend time on a task that will only result in it being filed in the trash can is incredibly demoralizing.

Do: Make the task clearly achievable
The best tasks to assign to others (and even...