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"It shouldn't be difficult for you to imagine the last party you attended as we come out of the holiday season. Maybe you have a few standout memories of that special occasion: the food might have been delicious, the decorations, beautiful, and you might have found yourself immersed in the most interesting conversation ever with another guest. However, I'm willing to bet that those details would have meant very little without an outstanding host to tie everything together. We all know a great party host creates a safe and interesting environment for their guests and makes everyone's comfort level their top priority. Actually, when it comes down to it, an effective virtual leader possesses the very same qualities and demonstrates the same behaviours. When we really think about it, every great party host has a number of personal characteristics that enable them to be the centre of the party, providing everyone with energy, inspiration, and the ability to simply be themselves. He or she is interested in building a relationship with every guest; similarly, an effective virtual team leader builds relationships with the team members. A good party host will ask their guests questions; this is an indicator of politeness and also puts people at ease and makes them feel valued. Your host may ask "How was the drive over?" or "Have you seen any interesting movies lately?" Naturally, a virtual leader is also interested in putting their team members at ease and making them feel valued. In a virtual team situation, this involves keeping the lines of communication open; asking team members questions about the progress of their tasks or whether they need assistance. Open communication also means virtual leaders should reply to questions and issues that are raised by their team members in a timely and clear manner. An effective party host also has an unmistakable presence at their party; often, this involves achieving a balance between being overly involved with their

"New Book: 'A Manager's Guide to Virtual Teams' Published: Wednesday, 16 Nov 2011 | 11:37 AM ET Text Size By: Yael Zofi Author, "A Manager's Guide to Virtual Teams" Twitter 11 LinkedIn 7 Share GUEST AUTHOR BLOG: Keeping Your Team Connected on Your Virtual Journey by Yael Zofi author of "A Manager's Guide to Virtual Teams." Yael Zofi | A Manager's Guide to Virtual Teams Virtual work arrangements are on the rise as traditional work situations are giving way to more flexible ones. The concept of an office in a fixed location that you have to go to is becoming less universal. As executives engage in stringent cost cutting, office space and their attendant expenses shrink, and fewer employees spend their workday at adjoining workstations. Today, knowledge workers can be productive anywhere, thanks to mobile devices, faster network access and online collaboration tools available in coffee houses, inside homes and on city streets. While organizations have long established operations in multiple locations, colleagues are increasingly asked to collaborate across time zones and continents, with shared responsibility for outcomes. In my consulting practice I have seen large conglomerates organize projects around teams that reside in different countries, fully expecting that they will get deliverables out the door quickly within budgetary and time constraints. These teams follow the sun, handing off work products to each other. This is all made possible by technology, the great enabler that helps us create efficiencies and fosters quick decision-making. But what about the human connection? Although team members do not share the same location, they must still work collaboratively to meet common goals. What keeps these individuals organized, communicative, and productive without ongoing face-to-face interactions? And how will organizations ensure the human connection that fue

"Productivity, Remote Teams At Time Doctor, we work with staff members in more than nine different countries - as you can imagine, team collaboration has a range of unique challenges. There are a number of tools that we use in our company, most of them are free. ((With over 10 years of experience under our belts, we've tried the best and worst of many collaborative tools - we thought it would be valuable to share the tools we we use and what exactly we use them for; Google Docs Google docs - provides free online spreadsheets and document management with a Gmail/Google Account. The spreadsheet feature is particularly useful when you need to have multiple people working on the same spreadsheet at the same time (something you can't do with Dropbox). It doesn't have all of the features of Excel, but it's very useful for collaborative editing of documents (including text files). You can use Google Docs effectively as a company "wiki" where anyone in the company is able to add any information to the document. How we use Google Docs: Domain management, financial reports, feature suggestion lists, payroll coverage, performance appraisals, ranking reports, login information, directory lists and online resources. Jing Project Jing Project - This is a fantastic free collaboration tool (although you need to pay for some features). It allows you to take a screen or video capture of anything on your desktop. Screen captures can be easily annotated, and you can record your voice along with any video to easily explain something. You can upload the capture to Screencast.com and they'll turn it into a simple link where anyone can view the capture. This is perfect for communicating with designers for example when you wish to write comments and explain to a designer what needs to be changed. Here is an example: http://screencast.com/t/GuTz0hjDteI How we use Jing: communicating with designers and developers, creating training and instructional vide