At Yuuguu we practise what we preach - everyone works from home and we don’t have an office.  We have a lot of experience of what works and what doesn’t in distributed team-working.  Here are the key insights from Anish Kapoor, our CEO:

Get the right people

This is not about their skills on the CV, its about their personality, how they work and what motivates them. We use psychometric testing to make sure people can work on their own, that they will enjoy it and they have the communication skills to work in that way. We also focus on recruiting people for whom working from home can make a big difference in their life; typically people who have spent a few years commuting and are sick of it.

A clear vision

You can’t be with people every day so this ensures we are all moving in the same direction. 

No politics

Politics and sneaking behind people’s backs will kill remote team working.  Stamping this out comes from the top – senior management need to make sure this doesn’t happen. 

Show trust

You need to show that you trust your people to deliver on tight deadlines or important projects remotely. That means not dragging people into an office as a deadline nears. If you get the right people and trust them, then they will rise to the occasion. Sometimes people will make mistakes – you need to allow them to do this, and just work through it. It has a huge impact on the level of trust people feel they have from the company.

No clock-watching

Don’t try and track the hours people do. Let people have flexibility in their time – so an afternoon to see the kids school play, or a day off. 

Make time to chat

Make an effort to speak to the people who report to you every day, or every other day at the very least. Don’t have a reason for the call – just call for a chat. You will end up discussing all sorts of things. 

Beware of email debates

Discourage email threads where people argue with each other. You need to stop these in their tracks – this shows a lack of communication. Encourage people to pick up the phone and speak with each other. These ‘arguments’ then get resolved very quickly – as most are down to misunderstanding.

Socialise

When you are all together – do something more social, don’t fill it full of meetings.

A considered approach

When we have conference calls we debate and discuss things.  We normally leave final decisions for outside of the call. We found that if decided things in the call – then after people would have other ideas and thoughts, and it would be a nightmare to get back in touch with everyone.

Make it fun

Revel in the fact that you are working remotely. Our dev team have ‘virtual beers’ on a Friday for example. They all get on a conference call and just chat – with beers or coffee. It’s the online equivalent of going to the pub after work.

Worries about the state of the economy are doubtless causing businesses to look at ways to cut cost. At my last company, one of the areas that was quickest in attracting Finance Director’s red pen was the training budget.  This was never a popular move and thankfully there are ways to avoid it.

Any investment in training is in time as well as money, so keep the time that’s been allocated and avoid the cost.  There are loads of opportunities for self-teaching at little or no cost and reserving specific time slots for self-development means that people will take time out of their usual work day.

There are lots of skills within any company that can be shared.  This internal training can be rewarding for both parties.  At uSwitch we introduced lunchtime learning sessions, where functional specialists would share their knowledge with other people.  It was optional, informal and very popular.

Cut out unnecessary travelling costs.  I heard recently about one of our customers who uses Yuuguu to train hotel reception staff in different European cities.   This saves time and money in an area where ongoing training is really important to keep customers happy.  You can read some more thoughts about using Yuuguu for training.  

Do you have any tips to add to my list?

One of the things I love about Yuuguu is its popularity all over the world.  It’s no surprise that we have significant users from North America, where web conferencing is most widely used, as well as the UK where we are based.  (That is, if you can say we’re based anywhere - we are a virtual company and have people in Spain, Germany and the US, as well as the UK).  

I often look at our stats to see international usage patterns.  The fastest growing Yuuguu network groups are in India and Mexico.  And much of our usage crosses borders - we have an interesting case study of a translations company who uses Yuuguu to collaborate on projects across the globe. 

Yuuguu is a tool with a broad range of uses, so it’s no surprise that people are using it in ways we hadn’t anticipated.  A popular use of the tool is for remote support - helping people with some kind of technical issue when they are in a different location.  We didn’t build the tool for this purpose, but people are finding Yuuguu to be a really useful service for this scenario.

If you are involved in support with your business, or are one of those people (like me) who is often asked by relatives to help with their home computer, check out our guide ‘How to use Yuuguu for Support‘.  We also have a case study of a company using Yuuguu to help clients with technical issues, saving them time, money and staying true to their green principles by avoiding unnecessary travel.

If you’re planning to go to Web 2.0 Expo Europe in Berlin next month, you can help yourself to a €100 discount on your conference registration, or a free pass to the Expo, compliments of Yuuguu.

All you need to do is use this discount code: webeu08com

Web conferencing, screen sharing and collaborative working now available direct from a web browser

16 September 2008, New York: Users need nothing more than a Flash -enabled browser to join web conferencing and screen sharing sessions launched through Yuuguu real-time collaboration software. This news enables an even wider audience to work collaboratively or screen-cast presentations over the internet instantaneously.

Yuuguu’s flash-enabled technology now offers screen-sharing, instant chat and group messaging services to participants through the web rapidly, at no cost and without downloads.   Only the host needs to download the Yuuguu software and participants access the session on their Flash-enabled browsers through a simple web link and PIN code.

Yuuguu is a free and easy-to-use application for working with colleagues or friends over the web.  It allows users to share screens, host online meetings and work in real time on the same documents over the web for free.   It operates on Windows, Mac and Linux computers, so allows people to collaborate across different platforms.   Users can even adjust the quality of screen sharing to cater for low bandwidth connections.

The free software is extremely simple and quick to set up and allows up to 30 people to collaborate at once. Revenues to support the free service are from a conference call facility, and a pro version of the product will be available soon with enhanced features. There are obvious benefits for SMEs as well, as no IT support or infrastructure is required to begin collaborating.

Current Yuuguu business customers uses include remote team working, online presentations, remote support and project management. Additionally, remote business meetings generate significant savings in travel time and costs, as well as reducing a company’s carbon footprint.

Consumers are using online technology to communicate as never before, with ‘web 2.0′ collaborative tools leading the way. Yuuguu offers everyone the ability to work and share in real time using cutting-edge technology previously only available to big corporations with money to invest. From keeping in touch with family to getting creative with friends, free-to-use Yuuguu works seamlessly on all major home platforms to help consumers collaborate the way they want to.

Founder and CEO of Yuuguu, Anish Kapoor said: “We wanted to simplify our technology even further and allow more users to work together and share information in the quickest way possible.  This is now possible through our flash based web share, where there is no installation necessary and web collaboration is virtually instant.”

About Yuuguu:

Yuuguu, named after the Japanese word for fusion, was founded by entrepreneurs Anish Kapoor and Philip Hemsted in 2007 after they became frustrated by working together remotely and not being able to see and share each other’s computer screens in real time. The company is based in Liverpool and received funding from Rising Stars and Liverpool Seed Fund among others.  www.yuuguu.com

For more media information, please contact:

Ranbir Sahota/Sara Pennant
Vitis PR
Ranbir@vitispr.com/Sara@vitispr.com
+ 44 (0) 121 242 8048
Skype: ranbirsahota/ Sara Pennant

Many employers worry about the productivity of home workers and feel more comfortable with having a team in one location, where they can see what their staff are doing.  But the evidence suggests that home workers are in fact more productive, not less so.

In this article, we explore the benefits of home working employees, look at how resistance to old-fashioned stereotypes of home workers are fading away and show how many companies are gaining a competitive advantage by introducing more flexibility.

Yes that’s right! We are going to be handing out competition cards at events we are attending over the next three months for you to be in with a chance to win a Macbook Air. We will hand them out at the events, the airports, on the plane, the taxi driver between venues and in the streets of San Francisco New York, Berlin, London and now even in Denver. Look out for the team in the black t-shirts and the slogan ’stop me to win a MacBook Air’ on the back.

Yuuguu is on tour and we are doing it in style, just debating to take the Wii down to FOWA London

“SEO is evil” That’s the topic of the first debate at Barcamp Leeds, hosted by Dominic Hodgson and one of many sessions in this two day event of hot topics and debates initiated by attendees.

Yuuguu is proud to sponsor such an event that helps spread experience and technical knowledge regarding all aspects of Start-up businesses to the curious employee looking to further skills.