Agile Innovation for Jobs of The Future

Across countries in various offices many employees are developing more agile outputs in their workplace.

Agile approach in project management entails that every aspect of project can be continuously iterated and revisited during the project lifecycle. With this strategy, the waiting gets shortened and the sequential development is optimized: there is no need to complete every phase of the project before the next phase can begin.

What does it mean to be agile now?

Thanks to Dr Winston Royce who wrote a paper "Managing the Development of Large Software Systems" in 1970 knowledge workers in various industries have started to realize that projects and software could not be developed like automobiles on an assembly line.

The most wide-spread version of Agile, called Scrum focuses on obtaining empirical team feedback, creating incremental innovation in real-time as well as testing products or services with iterations that can be adapted easily.

When you compete globally and when you look at the time as your most valuable resource, your main metric for success becomes to get things done. In other words, you strive to produce tangible and measurable results every single day.

But in order to get things done we need to get down to work. How do we start working?

If we react to every single stimulus we receive, we will never get anything done.

For example, studies have indicated that on average three minutes pass by before an employee gets interrupted or switches to a new task. And usually after interruption it takes us around 23 minutes to get back to the state of flow and performance we had before the interruption.

Gloria Mark, professor at the University of California, Irvine elaborated on the aforementioned research results with the thought, ''We don't have work days - we have work minutes that last all day.''

This may sound grim, but it is a starting point to figure out where we are right now and where we are heading to. So many times per day we interrupt ourselves when we switch tasks and so many times we receive external interruptions as we made ourselves available to others.

Although task switching is unavoidable and everyday emergencies will continue to pop up, the focus is created when we pair similar tasks in advance and we organize priorities around three to five items that we must accomplish in a day. Also, it helps us to identify one of our activities that we will try to do better today than yesterday.

Now that I figured out how to laser focus and mitigate interruptions, how can I delegate non-core activities to others?

Yes, you need to learn how to empower your teammates to make decisions for two very simple reasons. First of all, you cannot be everywhere at the same time and you need to create the organization where people expand their knowledge by widening their comfort zone. On a daily basis we make around 227 decisions according to 2007 Cornell University research.

Therefore, it should be clear which teammate is responsible for the each project task. It would be ludicrous that the leader becomes the bottleneck in communication without whom not a single decision can be made.

Let's look how agile methodology can be implemented in three different industries: textile, law and healthcare.

No longer should management experts and futurists tell us which industries got disrupted. We just need to look at the way how we consumed information before social media boost in 2008 and nowadays that Snapchat targets marketing segments with minute precision and within a minute.

Twenty years ago it was difficult to predict in advance such a massive upheaval in retail, travel and ICT sectors we witness nowadays but in retrospect those incremental changes seem quite reasonable.

In textile industry you may adopt the entrepreneurial, agile approach both as you grow big or decide to stay small.

The towel company Southern textiles has optimized its production process since their technicians handle every single step from customers' perspective. Their system behind manufacturing, dying, printing, processing and packaging led them to produce up to 60,000 towels per day. Brands can also get personalized representation on towels thanks to advice and customized solutions of the company team.

How could you test a small retail business before launching it full upfront?

You should get agile in your approach again. You make an item of clothing by sewing and cutting; you post a photo of your creation on social media and you boost it to a pre-determined audience; then you test the demand and tweak the promotion. Go where the market is and instead of getting into the saturated area, create your own niche on marketplaces such as Etsy, Ebay or Amazon.

The first step in harnessing your fashionista entrepreneurial juices is to decide about the serger machine you will need to make items of clothes or accessories. Go to this serger comparison chart and decide what machine will satisfy your needs at best. Tech tools also become an agile ace up your sleeve because you can figure out how to push demand, decrease waiting times and engage those who may not have previously thought about buying from you.

Move beyond healthcare as we know it.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are on agenda of all committed individuals, institutions and businesses, thus reminding us that fundamental healthcare needs to be provided for all people on our planet by 2030 latest.

If we apply agile principles in our work, we realize that there are several roads to take in meeting this lofty goal. The first one is to educate more medical staff for the higher demand not only because of the SDGs for the impoverished ones who lack basic medical amenities at the moment, but also for the aging population that wants to invest in prosperous and healthy longevity.

In order to coordinate the increased workforce, the new generation of experts with knowledge of medicine and project management needs to be trained. The profession of a healthcare administrator is on the rise since the ones who can supervise the medical staff with their flexibility and reliability get to mentor their colleagues and receive higher salaries.

Finally, medical services on demand and remotely will become the new standard since the virtual and augmented reality are developing at a steady pace. In the world where 2.2 million surgeons, aestheticians, and obstetricians are required for 143 million operations, the impeccably focused and coordinated staff which communicates remotely via VR and AR solutions may bridge the gap between the demand and supply in medicine.

Law services get also more agile and disrupted.

By now we have learned that agile teams which work side by side, especially in software industry, get to produce new products or features and to test them within several weeks.

When it comes to legal offices, the incredibly successful ones focus on the niche service they can provide better than anyone else. They both acknowledge possible glitches which may occur along the process and continue to expand on the expectations of their users.

Legal project management is different than industrial project management because the focus is not on creating uniformed products, but on personalized outcomes for clients.

For example, Mastriani Law Firm has identified eliminating debt for their clients as primary value proposition. Their process of protecting clients' interests focused on the results and for more than 95% of clients they have managed to completely eliminate interest or reduce the principle, without debt consolidation or bankruptcy.

Attorneys that want to adopt Scrum in their work will need to face the music like professionals in other industries. They will get exposed to a steep learning curve as they realize exactly in which segments their firm has not been managed completely efficiently. Likewise they will implement IT tools and new procedures in their own legal field, but with a new perspective.

Because agile project methodology focuses on rapid team feedback and fierce collaboration, it can be implemented in law offices fantastically because high demands of this job may require ''fighting in trenches''. Californian-based attorneys at Mova Law Group have specialized at helping clients experiencing traffic accidents and their value proposition is not to charge any fees upfront unless they win in the court. This strategy takes the pressure off clients and embodies greater trust in the legal team who can focus on their best performance.

It was noticeable in legal companies which became more agile that there was an overlap in responsibilities among staff, so once they re-organized a task list so that one key person was required to deliver results, the efficiency increased significantly.

Sometimes law experts create innovative compensation schemes so as to incentivize their staff or contractors. Air miles may be the perfect gift for driven people fond of travel. That is why The Smith Investigation Agency has decided to award those who engage in activities such as Private Investigator Training course, Investigative Research Services or Reward Milles for Surveillance. Apparently, for those interested to contribute to investigation niche the sky is the limit.

Hopefully, now you feel more at ease to question your work methodology until now and to use processes so as to deliver more successful, efficient projects.

Agile method and Scrum in particular will increase your productivity, but you need to spark creativity in your life occasionally, which is measured by a gut feeling and intuition rather than different charts and bars. From this week onward start question yourself more often not only what you do during your working hours, but also how you do it.

Photo credits: Daily Burn, Stroke Interiors, Setster

When to Jump, an independent media partner of The Huffington Post, is a curated community featuring the ideas and stories of people who have made the decision to leave something comfortable and chase a passion.

Break-Ups to Boss Babes

I owe it all to the ex-boyfriends. Shout out to them all.

If I hadn’t had failed so many times in my relationships, I never would’ve started a blog in college venting about my dating woes. If I never started that blog, I wouldn’t have written over 10,000 hours for it - learning the ins and outs of what to post, when to post, blog imagery, captions, template styles and personal branding.

The blog took a back seat in the priority bus when I was hired to takeover the marketing and branding strategy for a luxury goods store in Greenville, South Carolina. The job required me to have a public role in the community and attend networking events, luncheons and dinners with decision makers. I loved every second of it. I was living in the literal lap of luxury. Surrounded by glamour, working with brands big and influential - I was totally enraptured by the lobster dinners and fancy wines.

Then an event happened that changed me. I flew up North to fall in love — but it was unreciprocated. In retrospect, that was the best thing that happened to me. I remember my snotty, tear-stained face pressed to the window as I flew home. I knew I couldn’t be the same person who flew up 700 miles trying to make meaning of her life with a stranger she barely knew. I had gotten so off-track spiritually — I needed to find a purpose for my beating heart.

So, I moved home, regrouped financially, and took a moment to strategize.

Two months later I launched a new blog, www.ashleybrownwriting.com, that focused its attentions on telling diverse stories. For six months I balanced my full-time job with my blog, writing about new businesses, minorities, and the under-represented. The more I wrote, the more I noticed the difference some of the stories were making in my community. My hits skyrocketed when I covered Latinos making a difference. I did a 10 Most Eligible Bachelors of Greenville, South Carolina, that helped the hidden nice guys get the female attention they deserve.

After six months I hit 100,000 views and decided to leave my full-time job to start a marketing strategy company. My employer became one of my clients and within two weeks I had a full plate for the next six months. It’s kind of unreal how quick everything has happened and I feel very blessed. Whenever my head gets too big, God knocks it back down with a dose of reality. I’ve started to develop a niche in my market working with female entrepreneurs and female-owned businesses. Women own one out of every four businesses in Greenville, South Carolina. I’d like to see that number rise.

Writing is where my heart lies. I’m working on pieces about addiction in marriage, homelessness in Greenville and women’s sexual health. I also write about young business owners as they launch their businesses and need press. When I saw how many people actually read this thing, I woke up and realized that I have to hold my business and myself accountable to making a difference. It’s not about me or my legacy, but about using this platform to help people connect, grow and heal together.

The blog pulls about 10–15 story requests daily and I’ve had to learn the hard way how to balance that with the commitments of running a business. 80 hour weeks don’t feel like 80 hour weeks when you’re working for yourself though — I think a lot of entrepreneurs say that.

I decided to take the jump when my heart screamed for me to listen. The more I listen to my heart, the more alive I feel. Naturally I was terrified, but the thought of not listening to my heart and never growing scared me even more. I jumped as quickly as I could, full force.

Initially, I was so afraid of what people would say that I didn’t tell friends or family until after I had already lined up the office space, done the paperwork, met with the lawyers, accountants and given my notice at work. My heart was pushing me to take this risk and I was afraid that someone might sit me down and encourage me to table the idea until later down the road.

I greeted my own fears as old friends and began to welcome them instead of pretending I was some fearless maverick. When I announced my decision and some people were skeptical I laughed with them instead of taking their fears of my failure to heart.

I think the key to success is learning to love failure. I’ve failed 1,000 times. The first 999 times I failed were scary. But by the 1000th time I started to laugh at myself and my astounding ability to fail on such a grand level. In retrospect, I’m grateful for all my dating and career mishaps now. Every single one of them pushed me to believe in myself and to encourage other women to take the jump and follow their passions.

As my Queen Beyonce says, if someone tells you that your dreams are too big, “Tell them boy, bye.”

Boy, bye.

When to Jump, an independent media partner of The Huffington Post, is a curated community featuring the ideas and stories of people who have made the decision to leave something comfortable and chase a passion. You can follow When to Jump on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For more stories like this one, sign up for the When to Jump newsletter here. (Note: The When to Jump newsletter is not managed by The Huffington Post.)

10 Ways Ridiculously Successful People Think Differently

Successful people come from all walks of life, yet they all have one thing in common: where others see impenetrable barriers, they see challenges to embrace and obstacles to overcome.

Their confidence in the face of hardship is driven by their ability to let go of the negativity that holds so many otherwise sensible people back.

Obstacles do not block the path; they are the path.

This perspective helps successful people to think differently to everyone else, which is important, because if you think like everyone else, no matter how smart or experienced you are, you'll hit the same ceiling. By thinking outside the box and going against the grain, successful people rise above their limitations.

We all know how important it is to approach problems with radical optimism and creativity, but this is easier said than done. In a study conducted at Adobe, 96% of employees identified creativity as essential to their success, both in terms of their income and the value they bring to the world. What's more, 78% wished they were capable of thinking differently, believing that they would progress through their careers more quickly if they did.

Too often we attribute creative and "different" thinking to natural, innate characteristics that belong only to the lucky. The truth is that you can study how ridiculously successful people think and incorporate their approach into your repertoire.

1. They're confident. If only we knew of all the great ideas that never came to fruition because people lacked the confidence to put them into action. Successful people confidently act on their ideas, because they know that a failed idea is not a reflection of their ability; instead, they see it as a wonderful learning opportunity.

2. They're composed. Ultra-successful people are composed, because they constantly monitor their emotions and understand them and they use this knowledge in the moment to react with self-control to challenging situations. When things go downhill, they are persistently calm and frustratingly content (frustrating to those who aren't, at least). They know that no matter how good or bad things get, everything changes with time. All they can do is to adapt and adjust to stay happy and in control. If you'd like an objective measure of how you do at this, consider taking an emotional intelligence test.

3. They're honest. Super-successful people trust that honesty and integrity, though painful at times, always work out for the best in the long run. They know that honesty allows for genuine connections with people and that lying always comes back to bite you in the end.

4. They seek out small victories. Successful people like to challenge themselves and to compete, even when their efforts yield only small victories. Small victories build new androgen receptors in the areas of the brain responsible for reward and motivation. This increase in androgen receptors enhances the influence of testosterone, which further increases their confidence and eagerness to tackle challenges. When you achieve a series of small victories, the boost in your confidence can last for months.

5. They're always learning. Super-successful people often know more than others do, because they're constantly trying to learn. They vow to constantly grow, and they fill every spare moment with self-education. They don't do this because it's "the right thing to do"; they do it because it's their passion. They're always looking for opportunities to improve and new things to learn about themselves and the world around them. Instead of succumbing to their fear of looking stupid, truly exceptional people just ask the questions on their mind, because they would rather learn something new than appear smart.

6. They expose themselves to a variety of people.There's no easier way to learn to think differently than spending time with someone whose strengths are your weaknesses or whose ideas are radically different from your own. This exposure sparks new ideas and makes you well rounded. This is why we see so many great companies with co-founders who stand in stark contrast to each other. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak from Apple were a prime example. Neither could have succeeded without the other.

7. They keep an open mind. Exposing yourself to a variety of people is useless if you spend that time disagreeing with them and comforting yourself with your own opinions. Successful people recognize that every perspective provides an opportunity for growth. You need to practice empathy by putting yourself in the other person's shoes so that you can understand how their perspective makes sense (at least, to them). A great way to keep an open mind is to try to glean at least one interesting or useful thing from every conversation you have.

8. They're fearless. Fear is nothing more than a lingering emotion that's fueled by your imagination. Danger is real. Danger is the uncomfortable rush of adrenaline you get when you almost step in front of a bus; fear is a choice. Exceptional people know this better than anyone does, so they flip fear on its head. Instead of letting fear take over, they're addicted to the euphoric feeling they get from conquering their fears.

9. They turn tedious tasks into games. Every job entails some degree of tedium. For most people, tedium leads to sloppy, rushed work. Only the most successful people find ways to make the tedious interesting. By turning tedious work into a game, they challenge themselves and produce high-quality work, making things interesting in the process.

10. They dream big but remain grounded. Successful people reach for the seemingly impossible, but they do so in a way that is actionable and realistic. While you may not know exactly how you're going to achieve your dream, you need to make progress no matter how small the steps. For example, Elon Musk's goal at SpacEx is to "Occupy Mars." While this is a big dream, Musk keeps it realistic by engaging in regular steps that, some day, may get him there. SpacEx just landed a rocket upright on a boat in the ocean for the first time ever. It's a far cry from colonizing Mars, but it's an essential step in the process.

Bringing It All Together

The above behaviors can make any of us more successful if we use them every day. Give them a try, and see where they take you.

What other habits set ultra-successful people apart from the rest? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

Big Companies Backing Obama's Climate Agenda Also Fund Its Enemies

Many of the corporate giants touting their support for President Barack Obama’s environmental agenda are also backing that agenda’s biggest opponents. 

Companies including DuPont, Google and PepsiCo donated to droves of U.S. lawmakers who refuse to accept the scientific consensus on humanity’s role in climate change, according to a new analysis of public records by Reuters.

The report, published Tuesday, sheds new light on what is often a disconnect between the policies that large companies advocate for and the candidates behind whom they put their money. 

Reuters reviewed donations made during the 2016 election cycle by political action committees of the 30 biggest publicly traded U.S. companies that signed Obama’s “American Business Action on Climate Change Pledge.” The 2015 commitment, signed by 154 companies, served as a public promise by large businesses to push for environmentally friendly policies and to support strong climate action like the historic accord reached in Paris last December.

During the period reviewed by Reuters, two companies ― PepsiCo and the chemical giant DuPont ― doled out half or more of their political spending to the campaigns of more than 130 congressional lawmakers listed as “climate deniers” by Organizing For Action, a Democratic-leaning nonprofit founded by former Obama staffers. 

Google, AT&T, General Electric, Verizon and Mondelez gave more than a third of their political donations to candidates, almost all of them Republicans, on that list, Reuters found. (Verizon owns AOL, The Huffington Post’s parent company.)

A GE spokeswoman said in a statement that the company backs “elected officials based on a wide range of issues, but we have consistently been outspoken about the need to address climate change and have invested over $17 billion in cleaner technology R&D over the last 11 years.”

None of the other companies named above responded immediately to The Huffington Post’s requests for comment.

The Republican Party has long been the more business-friendly of America’s two parties, advocating for tax and employment policies that are favorable to companies’ bottom lines. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, members of the party ― particularly those with backing from the fossil fuel industries, like coal and oil ― have denied the role of human activity in causing global temperatures to rise. Obama has slammed Republicans for being “the only major party that I can think of in the advanced world that effectively denies climate change.” 

That has produced a schism between some big businesses and the party that claims to represent their interests.

Last September, an unlikely coalition of companies ― including Goldman Sachs, Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson and Walmart ― committed to using 100 percent renewable energy within a decade.

Corporate purchases of clean energy skyrocketed last year ahead of the Paris treaty, which was formally ratified last week by China’s parliament. This was particularly true among companies that had never bought renewable power before. Of the more than 20 corporate giants that inked major renewable energy deals last year, 15 of them were first-time buyers, accounting for 67 percent of the market, according to a report by the nonprofit Rocky Mountain Institute.

Rocky Mountain Institute

First-time corporate purchases of renewable energy for this year already top those in 2011 and 2012 combined.

Still, the tension between certain companies’ political spending and their stated environmental values is sometimes hard to ignore. In June, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wrote an op-ed lambasting companies for failing to lobby on behalf of climate-friendly policies. He criticized firms like PepsiCo for remaining part of trade associations that fail to acknowledge climate change, or that even deny its risks outright.

“Washington’s dirty secret is that even the American companies that are really good on sustainability put net zero effort into lobbying Congress on climate change,” he wrote in Forbes. “We are far closer to getting something big done on climate in Congress than most people think, but the good guys in the corporate sector have to start showing up.”

But there may be cause for optimism, according to Anne Kelly, a senior program director at the nonprofit Ceres, which pushes investors and companies to take environmental risk and sustainability seriously.

By backing candidates who question the science behind climate change, some companies could gain influence over those candidates and sway them to more climate-friendly positions, Kelly said.

“Our hope is that by funding certain lawmakers whose positions on climate and energy do not match the companies’ positions, they’re actually encouraging those lawmakers to evolve and giving them cover,” Kelly told HuffPost on Tuesday. “We understand that lawmaking is complicated and [companies] may need the support of those people for other issues that may have nothing to do with climate or energy, though that’s not an excuse.”

Mark Zuckerberg 'Deeply Disappointed' SpaceX Destroyed His Satellite

Elon Musk isn’t the only tech titan mourning the fiery destruction on Thursday of one of his SpaceX rockets.

The rocket was two days away from launching a satellite into space that Facebook planned to use to beam internet down to sub-Saharan Africa, part of the Silicon Valley giant’s goal of connecting the world online. There were no reported casualties in the explosion.

“As I’m here in Africa, I’m deeply disappointed to hear that SpaceX’s launch failure destroyed our satellite that would have provided connectivity to so many entrepreneurs and everyone else across the continent,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post Thursday.

Facebook had planned to lease bandwidth on the Amos 6 satellite from SpaceCom, the Israeli firm that operates it. It would have been the first step in what may be Facebook’s most ambitious project yet ― providing fast access to the internet, or at least to Facebook, everywhere in the world. 

wow. This is an unequivocal middle-finger from Mark Zuckerberg to Elon Musk. pic.twitter.com/Ztxc2zWCO1

— ಠ_ಠ (@MikeIsaac) September 1, 2016

Thursday’s conflagration is certainly a setback for Facebook ― but perhaps not a major one. In June, the company completed the first successful flight of its solar-powered Aquila drone. The four-propeller aircraft, which has a wider wingspan than a Boeing 737, flies slowly at an altitude of up to 90,000 feet, relaying a Wi-Fi signal back to the ground in a 60-mile radius. 

“Fortunately, we have developed other technologies like Aquila that will connect people as well,” Zuckerberg said on Thursday. “We remain committed to our mission of connecting everyone, and we will keep working until everyone has the opportunities this satellite would have provided.”

Red Huber/Orlando Sentinel via Getty Images

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off the launch pad, Feb. 11, 2015.

The cause of the SpaceX explosion is still unknown, but it appears to have begun at an upper oxygen tank while the Falcon 9 rocket was being fueled, Musk, SpaceX’s founder and chief executive, said in a tweet.

It’s not the first time the private space firm has lost a rocket this way. In June 2015, a SpaceX rocket exploded when a strut ― a steel rod that’s about two feet long and one inch thick ― snapped, releasing helium into the rocket’s upper stage liquid oxygen tank. The company has crashed a handful of other rockets over the past year as it attempted to land one upright on a platform after bringing it back to Earth. Musk founded SpaceX 14 years ago to make space travel cheaper by building rockets that can be reused. In April, the company finally nailed the landing. 

It’s unclear whether Facebook would work with SpaceX to launch other satellites in the future. But for what it’s worth, Silicon Valley can be surprisingly forgiving of its own:

Unlike essentially every other kind of challenge a startup runs into, you probably don't hear "it's not rocket science" much at SpaceX.

— Aaron Levie (@levie) September 1, 2016

7 Things I Didn’t Expect To Learn While Working Remotely

I never felt completely comfortable in a typical office environment. Looking back at my early 20s, it was probably foolish of me to leave a stable, well-paid journalistic job to pursue an uncertain life of a freelancer that would enable me to work with a flexible schedule and be my own boss.

Back then, remote work wasn’t such an established buzzword, but it was essentially what I’d been doing and gradually continued to do full-time ever since. Firstly only tentatively for clients who were located in the same city, later for clients hundreds of miles away.

I love working remotely, and I’ve spent countless hours talking to other remote people finding out what is it about remote work that makes them tick. Now I decided to take a step back and look at the things I didn’t expect to learn while working remotely.

Setting boundaries can be harder than you think

After working in an office with a specific schedule, suddenly you have to set your boundaries and decide how much work is too much. It’s easy to become overworked when you don’t have others around you to compare your load. Setting boundaries is important for both your health and your work motivation. For me personally, this is one of the few aspects of remote work that I still struggle with every now and then.

Sometimes a simple chat (online or in person) with a fellow remote colleague can put things into perspective, other times you just go with what feels right. But since remote workers are generally known to work harder than their office-based counterparts, slacking off isn’t something you usually get to fight.

You may be glad for a routine

When I talk with people who are eager to start working remotely, I get to hear often that they hate routines and the predictability of their usual work days.

I’m personally not entirely big on routines and like to break them once in awhile, but I found that having some sort of a routine or a ritual to detach from work is helpful as much as structuring your working time. 

My workday usually ends with a quick 30-minute workout ― it makes for a nice transition from thinking about the job to become relaxed, and also this way I’m sure I get some daily (or almost daily) exercise. After those 30 minutes I’m ready to turn on the resting mode and enjoy the rest of the day.

It’s not about being left alone all day

If you’re like me, you’re quite happy being on your own and don’t really long for contact with others. Bad news is, working from home does not guarantee minimal contact with other people. Quite the opposite. Even if you’re an introvert, you’ll have to learn to become more extrovert in both, online and offline world. 

I found that the community around the location-independent lifestyle is one of the greatest benefits this lifestyle has. Whether you have a problem that needs solving, need another opinion or want to change a job, fellow remote professionals are the best way to get it sorted.

Community also helps you to feel like you belong somewhere, which might be tricky if you work alone most of the time. Facebook groups and Slack chats like Buffer community and #nomads are best places to look for fellows with a strong community feel.

Constant traveling is a productivity killer

You’ve probably heard those aspirational stories of people who move from country to country every couple of days, living the dream life of a digital nomad. The truth is, being productive while constantly traveling is a myth. Or a very demanding lifestyle that can’t last for very long. 

Being always on the move, having to deal with accommodation, poor Wi-Fi, fatigue and dropping energy levels make all work to be something you don’t really look forward to.

Having a long-term base (though “long-term” can mean different things for different people) is much more beneficial to your productivity and enables you to feel more local.

Meetings can be helpful

I’m from the generation that happily prefers online chat over other means of communication, so this one might come in as a surprise, but remote work made me realize that calls and meetings can be, in fact, productive sometimes.

Online chats tend to make our communication brief and concise, which is generally good, but a lot of details may slip. Calls make people chattier so you get to know the bigger picture and exchange ideas easier. And however digital our age is, personal meetings are still the best way to grow relationships. An honest handshake, a direct look into someone’s eyes or a situation joke help you build a unique bond and those just can’t be emulated online.

It’s all a very nice bubble, but a bubble nonetheless

Many people from “outside” won’t understand very well what you’re doing or how is it possible that you don’t work in an office. Over time you get used to doing a lot of explaining ― to your family, friends, potential clients… it might take time for them to really get your work, and some may not get it at all. 

Being constantly from head to toes in the remote community makes you think that everyone understands where you’re coming from and that things that are normal for you are normal for everyone. Think ability to work without a boss in the same room, collaborating exclusively online, planning your own work schedule, etc.

It’s important to keep in mind that our work realm coexists with other work realms and remind ourselves to be more down to earth. 

You will not want to go back

Once you get used to the location-independent lifestyle and start enjoying the benefits it brings, it’s incredibly hard to go back. Talking to others and interviewing people from the remote community I’ve never heard anyone say, “Yeah, I’ve returned to being office-based and it feels great.” 

So yes, the life of a remote worker definitely lead to some out-of-my-comfort zone moments and surprising situations, but I know now that I wouldn’t change a thing. 

Follow Simona on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sim_vanco

Related...

• 5 Remote Work Myths Debunked
• What It's Really Like To Be A World-Traveling Digital Nomad
• To The Burned-Out Mom Working From Home
• 5 Reasons You Will Fail At Working From Home

Do You Really Need an MBA to Succeed in the Tech World?

Are MBAs going to become more or less useful in the tech and startup industry in the next ten years? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Adam Enbar, Co-Founder & CEO, Flatiron School, on Quora.

MBA skills are becoming increasingly more important, but getting an actual MBA may not be the best way to get those skills anymore.

There are actually two things that I want to address:

1. How important are the skills you learn in an MBA?
2. Is an MBA the best way to acquire those skills?

How important are the skills you learn in an MBA for the tech and startup industry?

As a startup founder myself, I strongly believe that the type of skills you're expected to gain through an MBA (sales, marketing, strategy, leadership) remain critically important to the tech and startup industry. In fact, these skills may be more important than ever. Today, most tech startups are no longer successful because of pure technological innovation, with the exception of outliers like TESLA or Oculus. They are successful because of the way they leverage technology to upend business models. Just look at Airbnb or Dollar Shave Club or Warby Parker: they are disrupting their respective industries by using existing technology in a smart and innovative way to solve a specific need for their customers.

The tech industry needs more business leaders who not only understand technology (even if they're not technologists themselves), but can also spot opportunities to apply that technology in new ways to improve business models. Then comes the really hard part of developing sales and marketing programs: acquiring new users and customers. Even with the greatest engineering team in the world, if a company doesn't have enough customers or can't differentiate their product among competitors who are all offering the same thing, it will have a hard time staying afloat.

Is an MBA the best way to acquire those skills?

Like many degree programs, an MBA has (or should have) two main benefits:

1. Skills that will help you to be successful on the job in the future (which I touched on above)
2. Access to the school's network and brand

The second benefit only really applies to a subset of elite MBA programs, though I'd argue that pedigree is generally becoming less of a differentiating factor in the workplace. Plus, the Internet now enables so many new and powerful ways to network in business, such as accelerator programs like Y Combinator, which arguably rival the networks of some of the best MBA programs.

Having worked with hundreds of hiring partners at Flatiron School, I know that what really matters to employers is whether you have the skills to succeed in a role - regardless of whether those skills are acquired on the job, through traditional higher education or via an accelerated type of education like a bootcamp.

The challenge then becomes assessing those skills. For technical roles, such as the ones we prepare students for at Flatiron School, they're fairly straightforward to evaluate (although there's still room for improvement in the hiring process for developers). We know our Full Stack Web Developer program prepares grads to be operational as junior developers on day one. But for roles in sales or marketing, it's much harder to assess someone's skills, and that's why some employers still rely on a degree or credential to demonstrate that a candidate has, at the very least, completed coursework that's relevant to the job.

But is that a good enough reason for you to invest a lot of time and money into an MBA? Is it the most efficient way to acquire relevant business skills? I'm not sure. In fact, based on my experience running Flatiron School and helping hundreds of grads find jobs, my gut tells me no, it's not.

That's not to say an MBA is not the right option for some people (I went into a huge amount of debt for my MBA and can confidently say it was more than worth it). Where we go wrong in education is assuming that there's only one path to success. In my experience, a one-size-fits-all approach in education is rarely the answer. I imagine new types of business training programs will begin to emerge (if they haven't already) that will give people more options when deciding where to invest their time and money.

This question originally appeared on Quora. - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

More questions:​

• Programming Bootcamps: What's the future of the coding bootcamp industry?
• Capitalism: Do coding bootcamps have a problem of being too focused on making money?
• Venture Capital: What should startup founders who want to go VC know as they take steps to that end?