One of the newest AHLLC clients, thanks to our direct client, crayon, is ooVoo, a startup videoconferencing and instant messaging application that is providing users with a couple more options than its competitors.

In this day and age, people are always looking for the next best thing, or the new cutting edge features ooVoo allows video chats with up to 6 participants in real time, and unlike its biggest competitor Skype Video, does not use a P2P network. Like IM, you can send text messages and files.

If you try to call someone using ooVoo and there’s no answer, you can leave a text, voice or video message for them that’s receivable on any computer. You can even check your call history and select a personal ringer for your account.

One of the more attractive features is the ability to record and send videos messages to anyone (ooVoo users or not) as well as having the ability to send that same message to multiple people. There is also an option that allows users to place their ooVoo link in their e-mail signature or on their blog that when clicked will immediately place an ooVoo call to the user.

With all of these great features, ooVoo has one flaw that stands out; it’s only being offered for Windows right now. But don’t worry Mac users, they promise to have a Mac platform launched relatively soon — ooVoo is even talking about a double secret invite only Mac Alpha.

Oh, and did I mention it is free? As the holidays approach, what better time to get connected with those you are close to. Go check out http://www.oovoo.com to get a feel for all of the great capabilities of live video chat. (Check out the ooVoo Facebook group for more information)

Saul Wainwright is our biggest evangelist for the Abraham Harrison virtual company, virtual team, and virtual office. Saul and Google, both; however, Saul is a better blogger. Check out what WWD Coffee Break says about Saul’s futurism and take on the quiet revolution we are perpetrating by way of allowing our team members freedom and flexibility:

It’s Not Just a Job, it’s a Movement – If you’re feeling alone and isolated in your web work, cozy up to this blog entry from Saul Wainwright. He reminds us that the trend towards independent contracting and flexible work could potentially shake up all sorts of things we take for granted, from the way retail sales are conducted to the very concept of TV “prime time.” Sure, there are drawbacks too, but it’s nice to be on the forefront of change sometimes.

I finally got to sit down today and peruse my Sunday New York Times Magazine and I discovered an article that is oh so relevant to the lives of all the employees of Abraham Harrison LLC. The article is titled “Home-Office Politics” and talks to how the new workers, those of us that work from home deserve a New Deal!!

There are certainly some policies that penalize those of us that work from home – such as having to contribute the full 15% to Social Security, or the lack of group health insurance policies or other such things. However, in my opinion I can live with these type of constraints when I have the freedom and flexibility to work at hours that are best for me and my family.

The growing influence of home workers will, in my opinion, change many dynamics of our social and political lives as the segment of the American working force that works from home increases. According to a Democratic pollster Mark Penn there are over 4 million Americans working exclusivly from home, which is a 100% increase since 1990, while another 20 million Americans work from home part time.

This is a big number and is growing. Many liberals have said that this movement to “independent contractor” or “self-employed” status is being driven by companies desires to off-load responsibilities – like health insurance, retirement policies and long term responsibilities – a contractor is far easier for a company to get rid of then an employee.

The drive to “indpendent worker” status may very well have been driven by corporate America’s desire to cut costs but I think it will gather momentum as more and more people realize some of the truly positive benefits to this sort of life style. Not to mention how it stands to really redefine the commercial and social landscapes.

Firstly think of the way retail would change if people could go shopping at anytime of day – rather then on Saturday and Sunday or after 5 pm. Hell, I go to the stores at all kinds of random times – I have no solid schedule…

Secondly – would the “prime time” slot loose it’s importance on TV? Heck, if everyone didn’t come home at the same time they may not care to watch TV between 6pm and 8pm.

Thirdly – the environmental benefits as far as I can tell are huge. I barely produce any paper waste (in fact I don’t think Abraham Harrison produces much waste period). None of us commute, none of us have to have office’s using up extra land and extra resources to maintain.

So, as this drive towards increasing amounts of people working from home continues, look for a major shift in how our routines are structured and what it does to our society as a whole. Hell, when the labor movement brought us the weekend and an 8 hour day there was no doubt that this changed everything.

Imagine a society where the majority of workers are home – going out at random hours, hanging out with their children and spouses and in general living a much more organic and natural lifestyle.

How bloody exciting is that???

I feel like a true trend setter now. I don’t think I will ever be able to go back to working in an office!!!

In an article onBusinessWeek.com titled Ebay’s Skype Bubble Bursts the author talks to the failure and major shuffles at Skype over the past week.

It looks like Skype just ain’t doing what Ebay thought it would do – grow, make losts of money and seamlessly and synergistically meld with PayPal and the Ebay auction site. It looks as if this is not happening and that the competition is stiff out there – you got google, msn, yahoo etc all offering their own free versions of phone calls.

And their saddest piece of news was that the SkypeOut minutes were remaining flat. In other words people are not flocking to Skype as a way of making call from computer to a normal phone number. This is not hard to believe – the quality still doesn’t rival your regular phone.

Sometimes I think we have gone backwards on our telephone quality – copper lines give such nice clean sound, then next comes cell phones, followed by proper VOIP systems, and then at the bottom are the free online VOIP systems. I still like picking up my regular land line and making a call.

I guess this is what happens when everything gets shook up by new technologies – we get flooded with mediocrity; best thing to do is wait for the good fish to float to the surface!!

Well, I did feel bad for the two co-founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis and several of the other early investors who expected to get $1.7 billion if everything had gone as projected, instead they are looking at having to share only half a billion dollars. What a bummer!!!

So, we wait and see what Ebay does. Maybe some of these companies (like google with youtube) will start shedding some of these assets at bargain basement prices. Could soon be a good time to go shopping. Haa, Haa!!

Happy phone calls!!

Bold Interactive gives us some love in their Coffee Break – September 21, 2007:

Workers Love Them Some Telecommute Abraham Harrison @ Marketing Conversation

Abraham Harrison LLC, where I work, is promoting not only a cutting-edge work environment, but an environmentally-friendly work place as well. The simple fact is that the workers at AHLLC are not commuting every day. To understand the savings afforded by thousands of people working from their homes, you need to first understand the reduction in commute time. Consider this:

• The average one-way commute distance per trip is approximately 19.5 miles (or 39 miles round trip)
• The average number of round trip commutes of about 1000 workers per year, assuming 50 work weeks, is 250.
• By eliminating the need for say 1,000 people to commute, there is an actual reduction in vehicle miles traveled (VMT) of 9,750,000 miles. In other words, almost 10 million miles not traveled.

Now, Abraham Harrison does not employ 1000 people (well at least not yet..stay tuned), but you can get the picture from the figures. The amount of gas that is not being burned into the environment is just another aspect that helps preserve our world.

If more workplaces could make the move to managing their employees from their homes/alternate workplaces, imagine the wear it would take off the environment. Companies also need to understand that this will not hurt their productivity. For example, it’s been proven that home-based workers have been achieving faster call resolution, higher conversions and larger sales orders than in-office customer service representatives.

Another thing to look at is that Abraham Harrison is operating through a virtual office, not one that is soaking up resources. Each worker can make pure efficiency happen with a computer and an Internet connection. There is no need for all the other fluff. All of the energy that is being burned up is within the brains of the employees……

We at AHLLC tend to gloat about our fly virtual company and our jet-set international staff-of-mystery. I think our folks like working with us well enough. How do I know? Well, the Wall Street Journal says so, Seeking Loyal Workers? Let Them Stay Home.

A recent survey finds that workers who telecommute from home or elsewhere, while still a very small portion of the work force, report the highest levels of satisfaction with their jobs and loyalty to their employers. In the poll of about 10,000 U.S. workers, 73% of remote and home-based workers said they were satisfied with their company as a place to work, compared with 64% of office workers.

In addition, 70% of the telecommuters said they were “proud to tell people I work for my company,” while only 64% of office workers agreed with that statement. The survey was conducted by the Kenexa Research Institute, a unit of Kenexa Corp., a recruitment and retention consulting firm.

“When companies allow employees to work remotely or from home, they are explicitly communicating to them that ‘I trust you to be dedicated to the accomplishment of the work, even if I’m not able to observe you doing it,’ ” says Jack Wiley, executive director of the institute, which is in Minneapolis. “It boils down to respect,” he says. “I respect you and I have confidence in your commitment to the work — to do this under the conditions and at the time you feel will be most productive for you.”

Via the Wall Street Journal

I recently stumbled across a new ChangeThis Manifesto entitled “When You Absolutely, Positively Should NOT Use Email: A Civilized List”. It seems strikingly relevant to a virtual company, where nearly ALL communication is done via email. Though I am not sure the “time of day” rules apply, as we cover numerous timezones – it is certainly worth a read through.

It’s written by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe. Shipley is Deputy Editorial Page Editor and Op-Ed Editor for The New York Times and was formerly a member of the Clinton Administration. Schwalbe is senior vice president and editor in chief of Hyperion Books and a former journalist.

There is one rule that stands out in my eyes for being both humorous and 100% correct:

Don’t Email When You’re Drunk

Die positiven Folgen der Prekarisierung?! Globalisierung und Flexibilisierung sind die Stichworte meiner Generation. Seit ich mich aktiv fuer meine Umwelt interessiere, wird sie von Katastrophen heimgesucht; Ich war 14 als die new economy zusammenbrach, am elften September 2001 war ich 15 und es ging immer so weiter. Arbeitsplatzabbau und die Hartz-Reformen, deren Message war; streng dich an, ein Arbeitsplatz ist keine Selbstverstaendlichkeit, du musst dich wahrscheinlich mehrfach umorientieren und den Wohnort wechseln, wenn es sein muss. Fordern und Foerdern.

Lebenslange Vollzeitbeschaeftigung ist ein Relikt des 20. Jahrhunderts, welches denUebergang ins neue Jahrtausend nicht geschafft hat. Dem Sozialstaat geht das Geld aus, Leiharbeitsfirmen haben Hochkonjunktur und auf einmal tritt der Begriff des Prekariats auf; die neue, abgekoppelte Unterschicht!
Gewerkschafter beklagen die Tatsache, dass das unternehmerische Risiko auf den Arbeitnehmer abgewaelzt wird, er hat kein Sicherungsnetz mehr und das Klassenbewusstsein verabschiedet sich gleich mit.

Doch man kann auch ein anderes Phaenomen beobachten, die so genannten Selbstmanager. Sie sind gut ausgebildet, nehmen oft nur Projektvertraege an und verkaufen sich danach meistbietend an den naechsten Arbeitgeber. Sie sind die modernen Soeldner der Business Welt, hauptsaechlich anzutreffen auf den Schlachtfeldern der neuen und alten Medien. Sie verdienen genug, um eigene finanzielle Reserven fuer schlechte Zeiten anzulegen und mit jedem neuen Arbeitsauftrag vergroessern sie ihr eigenes Netzwerk, welches sie langfristig vor Beschaeftigungslosigkeit schuetzt. Der Selbstmanager ist in diesem Sinne kein Arbeitnehmer, sondern eine kleine Ich-AG. Er nimmt sich als eine oekonomische Einheit war und investiert wie ein Unternehmen, zum Beispiel in Technik (Handy, Laptop) Netzwerkpflege (der angenehme Teil; Partys) oder Bildung. Was Gewerkschaften ein Graus ist; die kurzfristige temporaere Bindung und die staendige Notwendigkeit zur Neuorientierung, bauen sie als ihren Vorteil aus. Sie sind mobil und haben kein Problem oefter den Wohnort zu wechseln. Er steht fuer eine Generation von jungen, erfolgsorientierten Leuten, welche die Globalisierung nicht als Gefahr, sondern als Chance begreifen.

Der typische Selbstmanager fuehlt sich nicht unsicher, sondern frei!

“Roughly one out of every six American workers commutes more than forty-five minutes, each way. People travel between counties the way they used to travel between neighborhoods. The number of commuters who travel ninety minutes or more each way—known to the Census Bureau as ‘extreme commuters’—has reached 3.5 million, almost double the number in 1990,” according to There and Back Again: The soul of the commuter, from the New Yorker. Did I mention that Abraham Harrison LLC doesn’t have an office? Everybody telecommutes. Everybody’s remote. Nobody commutes— for us. Does that make us family-, sanity-, resource- and eco-friendly? Yes.