• Survey shows how much Americans love telecommuting, TG Daily: Amongst the results include 29% that would give up chocolate to telecommute.  No need to be too irrational.

• Telecommuting workers improve employee productivity, happiness, retention, The Work at Home Journal: Includes an example of a mother of two from Boston working with a non-profit and staying connected with co-workers 400 miles away.

• Stanford Study Proves Effectiveness of Telecommuting, Denver Office News: Highlights focused on increased productivity and reduced attrition.

• Telecommuting, Improving the environment, Work at Home Mafia: Increasing sustainability with less driving.

• An unexpected side effect of remote work: Denser communities, GigaOm: Discussing the change in local communities with more people telecommuting.

• Telecommuting can mean happier workers, AZ Central: Helpful advice for people beginning to start telecommuting with their workplace.

While most jobs that offer telecommuting probably have their own systems available for different human resource and administration needs, you can create your private network for some of your projects, research and other collaboration activities.  Here’s some examples of doing do.

Folders: Create folders for your different projects or other topical areas.  Maybe some you share with others for work, some you keep for yourself.   This can help to better manage both your work activities as well as personal tasks, or multitasking, while working from your home office.

Within each folder are different applications that you can use as appropriate.

• Actions: Share projects and add actions including the priority, status, date due and owner.

• Documents: Use for backup or sharing presentations, excel worksheets, word documents, PDFs as well as graphics, audio or video.  Send an email notification to quickly inform others of changes.

• Notes: Share new ideas or store meeting and conference call summaries.

• Events: Schedule trips to the office or conference call schedules, including recurring events, email alerts and different viewing options for the day, week or month.

• Contacts: Other users can store extra contact information such as their phone or location.

• News: Add different news feeds to stay informed of external changes in your industry, such as informative blogs or using the keyword search for specific niches.

• Websites: Share commonly used websites with others in your network.

Learn More

Take a look at the telecommuting solutions page for more information or review the plans available to get started.

When doing so, as one eventually realizes that starting small and solid is better than larger but lacking any depth or weight, you can use a private network to help nurture those few initial customers as well as some organization of your other activities.

Sharing Content with a Specific Client

Set up a main folder under your All folder for a specific client, add the user to your network and share the folder with them.  When they log into your network, they’ll only see the folders that you’ve shared with them.  Likewise, when they click on the All folder, the only contacts they’ll be able to see will be the ones from folders they have access to.

This allows you to set up a different main folder for each customer and they won’t be able to see each other, unless of course you create a new folder that includes both of them, such as with a larger project or event.

Once a folder is created, you can add content to applications as needed, this could be for actions, events, websites, different types of documents, notes or using a news reader to stay informed of other external changes.  After content has been added, you can inform them with an email notification, they can add a comment for feedback.

This type of network can be helpful for nurturing each new client or customer, before you’re ready for a full-blown marketing, website or other social networking blitz.  Slow and steady for your stronger and longer lasting relationships.

Other Organizational Activities

Besides setting up folders to work with different customers, you can also create a few folders for your own personal use.  If you don’t share with them with customers or other users on your network, they also won’t be able to see any of those folders or any content included.

Add projects in actions for kick-starting new ideas, websites for easy reference to various operational or administrative aspects of your work, events of relevant festivals or conferences or any other applications for your different activities.

Learn More

See the freelancing solutions page for more detailed examples or the FAQs for other questions in a freelancing environment.

Overview

These are the basic areas that we’ll be going through.

• Folder Setup: Use to initially organize your different products.

• Adding Application Content: For different types of information about your product or service.

• Informing Others: How to share with others and get feedback.

Folder Setup

To start with, you can organize your products into different folders.   Maybe you have a main folder called Marketing, with initial sub-folders for each product category, then further sub-folders for each product.

Or, you could add another layer of folders to separate between current products and new products.  With the flexible folder layout, you can re-arrange to however you feel is appropriate for the types of products or services in your business.

As you’re creating new folders, you can share it with others in your network by adding them as an Editor or a Reader.   An Editor can add new content, edit, remove as well as send email notifications or add comments.   A Reader can only view content and collaborate with email notifications or comments.

You can also include the option to add users to sub-folders, helpful to add a new user to multiple folders at once.

After the folder is created, you can later edit the contacts the folder is shared with either by editing the folder or within the Contacts application.

Adding Application Content

After folders are created, you can add information about your product to the different applications, all located in tabs within each folder.

Some examples of using the applications:

• Documents: Share product briefs, data sheets, images/photos/graphics, audio or video files, customer presentations, selling strategy presentations, competitive analysis reports or other industry research (PDFs) as appropriate.

• Events: Schedule a road trip to introduce your product in person to key customers with your sales team, include dates for relevant conferences, add an email alert to events requiring additional preparation.

• Websites: Store a variety of reference websites, some for different types of customer examples, links to the actual products on your own website or various industry websites pertaining to your market or product.

• News: Add keyword searches for your type of product, an end application, or versions of a competitive product that you’re improving or building on.

• Actions: Create both actions for rolling out your actual product, such as for your alpha or beta customers, such as datasheets and samples, as well as any follow-up actions from your customer visits.

• Contacts: See additional contact information such as local phone numbers or add new users from your network as an Editor or Reader to the folder.

• Notes: Create a list of smaller tasks or ideas, store meeting notes from customers and share with others that weren’t able to be there.

Informing Others

Let others know of any new content added with an email notification, they can give feedback in comments.

Examples of using email notifications and comments.

• Email Notifications: Add others that the folder is shared with to either a To:, Cc:, or Bcc: fields.  They can reply either directly in the email or click a link to go directly to the content that you’re referencing.

• Comments: When others are viewing your content, they can add a comment for any additional questions.  To immediately inform you of the comment, they can also send it in a quick email notification.  From which you can reply directly from the email or log in to add a follow up comment for the group to view.

Learn More

For more information, visit the business solutions page or the FAQs for using in a business environment.

For easy reference, the total quantity is displayed right next to the name of the application.

Some examples of how this subtle feature can be useful.

• Viewing from the All Folder: See all the application items that you’ve created or from folders that have been shared with you.  By default, this is the first page that is displayed when you log into your network.

• Viewing My Actions: To see how many actions that you’re the owner of or responsible for.

• See activity in Sub-Folders: When clicking on a folder, you can select to include content only from the folder you’re in or to also include from any sub-folders.  This helps to see a bigger picture of activities for larger projects or collections of different types of reference content.  If viewing with sub-folders, if you see an item you’re interested in, just click the name to view details, edit or add a comment.   You can also click the folder icon next to the name to go directly to the item in its appropriate folder.

• Identifying Content That’s Missing: Maybe for a new project or event, besides adding actions, notes and documents, you might see that nothing has been added yet for websites or news/blogs, usually complimentary and helpful to stay informed or have as a quick reference for when your project starts moving or getting close to an upcoming event.

• Cleanup Assistance: Sometimes you can get in a creative mood and generate a wide variety of initial research content, but later find much of it no longer needed, lessons already learned, and time to reset or cleanup what you have to start moving forward.  This could be removing or integrating some notes, removing actions already completed, or finding some websites and news sources no longer being updated or as relevant.   Either way, it’s a good idea for some occasional content cleanup, easily seeing your total quantities can help to do so.

Learn More

Go here for the Updates application overview or take a look at the FAQs for additional feature examples.

Here’s a quick walk-through for doing so.

• Step 1: Click your username on top right of any network page.

• Step 2: Click Edit profile.

• Step 3: Select your new time zone.

• Step 4: Click Save.

And a screenshot of the process:

Once changed, your events and any action due dates will be updated appropriately to your new time zone.

While editing your profile you can also modify other options, this could be adding a new phone number that others can reach you at (such as when having to use a different network), or adjusting the location to your new destination.

Learn more about areas complimentary to time zone changes:

• Users: Personalization options including language preference.

• International Solutions: Examples for using with users in different locations.

This is a custom change just for the images stored within the Documents application.  From this view you have the following options:

• Viewing the Details: This includes the name of the photo, author, date uploaded, size, description and file type.

• Adding a Comment: While viewing the photo, you can add your own feedback with a comment, inform others of the comment with an email notification.

• Edit: The editors of a folder will see an Edit option, where you replace the current image or graphic by uploading a new one.

• Email: Send an email notification of the image to others the folder is shared with.  Within the email will be a link to go directly to the image in your network.

• Download: The option to store the image on your computer to use with other applications.

• View in Full Screen: Expand the image to the full screen size of your computer, tablet or mobile display.

Learn more about the Documents application in the overview or see the FAQs for descriptions of specific features.

With a new network being relatively low cost, at least compared to most tools used in the workplace, this can be an attractive option to increase collaboration with a specific customer.  Besides project collaboration in actions, you can share documents, schedule events with email alerts, share websites of reference or use other applications as needed.

Once a new network is created, you can switch to that network at any time from your main network by clicking the link “Switch Network” on the top right of any page in your network.

After you’ve added or updated any content, you can inform your customer with an email notification.  They can reply either directly from their email or click a link in their email to add a comment to your network.

Getting Started, Adding Folders for Projects

If you have a list of different projects you plan on working on, you can create one main folder for the larger project idea, then for all the smaller projects or features being added, you can create appropriate sub-folders.  For each sub-folder, you can share with different users, add any actions required and send an email notification if needing to inform others.

Start Adding Actions

For adding a new action to your project, you have a few options:

• Owner: Select from a list of other people the folder is shared with.  If the action doesn’t have an owner yet, you can leave it blank.   Others can claim ownership of the action at a later time by highlighting it and clicking the “Take” button.

• Status: As soon as you assign an owner, the status will go from Unassigned to Assigned, which is probably ok for a new action.   As it starts getting worked on, you can changed the status to In Progress, Pending, Completed or Verified.

• Priority: Give the action some weight or importance with a priority, select from a numbered list of 1 to 10.

• Date Due: Helpful for an upcoming event or other milestone, you can specify the date the action is due.

• Time Due: If appropriate, you can also assign a time to the date the action is due.

• Description: To better explain the action in more detail, including rich text editing options.   This can be used to add an additional bullet list, numbered list or other options to better emphasize different parts of the action.

Once done, click save and the action will be added.  To compliment your project activities, you can add content to any of the other applications, including Documents, Events, Notes, News and Websites.  As the applications are in the same folder, this makes it easy to go back to for later reference.

Organizing Your Projects

As people start working with the different projects you’ve created, there are a few ways you can use your network to stay organized and well informed of any changes.

• Including Content from Sub-Folders: If you’d like to see any actions from your sub-folders, you can select from the drop-down to either include content from sub-folders or only from the folder you’re in.  To go to an action in its’ sub-folder, just click the folder icon next to the name of the action.

• Sorting by Priority: This can be helpful when reviewing actions with others, going through the list and reviewing the highest priority first.

• Filter by My Actions: If reviewing independently, just click the My Actions filter to see a list of only the actions that you’re responsible for.

• Other Organizing Options: Besides My Actions, you can add the filters Unassigned, Pending or Completed, as well as being able to sort by the status, owner, due date and more.

• View in a Slideshow: After you’ve added your preferred filters and sorting options, you can view them in the normal list view, or to go through a little more smoothly in slideshow mode.  To launch the slideshow, highlight the action you want to start the slideshow on and click the “Slideshow” button.

• Email Notifications: Any time you’ve added a new folder, a new action or a change to an action, you can inform others with a quick email notification.  Just highlight the respective folder or action, click the “Email” button, add recipients, any new text to the email and send.   People receiving the email can reply either directly from their email or by clicking a link included in the email to visit the action in your network.

That’s it.   Lots of options for people to both create new projects as well as staying updated and managing current projects.  Learn more in the overview and the actions FAQs or try it out for yourself with a free Spark network!

If you have a folder set up for a specific project or activity, with content added to each of the applications, you can create a page to see all your content in one view.  This can be combining widgets from news, websites, actions, events, notes and documents.

Additionally, besides adding content from the immediate folder that you’re in, you can add content from other folders that you have access to.  This can be helpful for larger projects spread over different areas of your network.

Here are five examples of how you can use the Pages application:

• 1) Managing a project: Integrating actions, notes or events for upcoming reviews.

• 2) Planning a larger event: Using events, websites, news, and actions.

• 3) Organizing a trip: Storing websites for logistics, itineraries in notes and photos in documents.

• 4) Working with customers: Displaying recent documents, actions and upcoming meetings or visits.

• 5) Researching a market: Learn about changes in news, using websites for reference, updating notes, events and actions as needed.

Regardless of your specific activity, as your projects get larger and more involved you can use the Pages application to bring the content back together to efficiently review and move forward.

Go here to learn more, see the FAQs for information on specific features.

While it’s nice to have the websites stored in their appropriate folder, complimentary to the activity of the folder, sometimes it’s nice to view all your websites.  This includes both the ones you’ve added and those by others, at least from folders that have been shared with you.  To do this, just click the “All” folder, followed by the Websites tab.

When reviewing your list, you can add a filter called “My Websites” to see only the websites that you’ve added.  Other helpful options include editing if appropriate or informing others with an email notification.

If you’d like to visit the website, click the “Go To” link, or to see the website in its respective folder, click the folder icon.

Lots of ways to both add websites complimentary to other types of content in their different folders, as well as stepping back to see a bigger picture with the All folder.

Here are the steps to move your note from one folder to another:

• 1) Highlight the note.

• 2) Click the “Move” button.

• 3) Select the new folder that you want to move the note to.

• 4) Click “Save” and you’re done.

A screenshot of the process:

Additionally, once the note is moved, you can let others know with a quick email notification.  Just highlight the note, click the “Email” button and add the appropriate recipients.  By default, the subject will be the name of the note and the note will be included in the email, of which you can modify as needed.

Email notification recipients can respond either directly from the email or by clicking on a link to log into your network and add a comment.

Here’s a brief walk-through of the steps involved:

• View Item Details: Click on the name of the item to view its details.   This could be a note, action, website, news feed, event or documents such as an image or photo as well as being able to listen to an audio or music file.  The details are shown on the left side of the new window.

• Add a Comment: On the right side of the details screen is the area for comments.  Click “Create” to add a new comment.  If you find you’ve made a mistake, you can always click Edit to make the necessary changes.   You’ll only see the Edit option with Comments that you’re the author of.

• Send an Email Notification: After you’ve added a comment you can notify the author of the application content with an email notification.   Just click the button “Email” next to the comment you’d like to send.   By default, the comment will already be included in the email, of which you can modify the text as appropriate.

Once the email is sent, the recipient can respond either directly from their email provider or click on a link included in the email to visit your network, to possibly work or view other content in more detail.