Remote working and making it better

Question

Next month I'm going to be moving house and away from the office where I work with 6 other colleagues. I'm keen to keep some kind of presence in the office and although we are avid skype and ichat users I can't help that I will miss out on elements of communication.

Does anyone have any good suggestions and experience - for example: always on audio connections (that doesn't rely on a chat client but is hardware direct into the router), mics on desks, cctv(!), a projection of me on the office wall.

I know that we can code effectively remotely and share screens for code review sessions - I'm more interested in general communications/feeling of being in the office still...

Answer 1

I think you just have to accept that working remotely is going to be different. There will be chat, humour, stuff happening in the office that you'll miss. You're already using Skype/iChat I think anything else would be a bit OTT, a webcam on skype would probably be OK, but other than that you'll have to jump in the car/plane/boat every once in a while and just turn up.

Answer 2

Scott Hanselman has quite a few tips on Surviving as a remote employee He also has a post of "being present" during meetings