Features
- Cover Type: Paperback with 294 pages
- Published by: Wiley January 3, 2008
- Written in: English
- ISBN 10 Number: 0470223987
- ISBN 13 Number: 978-0470223987
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Book Dimensions:
9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
- Weighs: 12.8 ounces
Product Description
If you use the web to reach out beyond the confines of your office, cubicle, or home to connect and collaborate with others doing the same thing, you’re a web worker. In this book you'll learn how to use new web tools, discover sites and services you might want to try, and meet the social web where people are as important as corporations. You’ll learn how people are working in new ways because of the web, and how you can too.
Back Cover Copy
"This is a book about the future that is arriving now. It will transform your work habits, productivity, and attitude."
—
Richard Ogle, Author,
Smart World "Zelenka gives every web worker—be they corporate or indie—an array of invaluable tips and insights to survive what surely is the beginning of a golden era of work."
—
Steve rubel, Senior Vice President, Edelman and AdAge Digital columnist
"Zelenka demonstrates how putting the web to its best use can actually boost your productivity, if not entirely transform your career."
—
Gina Trapani, Editor,
Lifehacker "Full of great tips and terrific suggestions, it's a must-read how-to guide for the digitally minded."
—
Kara Swisher, Technology columnist,
Wall Street Journal "This is an awesome resource for independent web workers!"
—
Tara Hunt, Founder, Citizen Agency
Are you a web worker? You are if you use the web to reach out beyond the confines of your office, cubicle, home workspace, or seat at the coffee shop to connect and collaborate with others doing the same thing. In this book you'll learn how to use new web tools to improve your work life. You'll discover web sites and services you might want to try. You'll meet the social web, where people are as important as corporations. You'll learn how people like yourself are working in new ways because of the web, and how you can too.
Reader ReviewsI just finished Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working by Anne Zelenka. Connect is all about web workers, those people who spend all or part of their time working remotely over the web either as telecommuters, freelancers, or some other online working arrangement. I spent about 6 months working remotely, and I could have used a book like this. Based on what I learned from my experience, this book was right on target and offers great advice to people interested in working over the web with good coverage of both the good and the bad aspects. While the flexibility was great for me, you can go a little stir crazy, and Anne has a lot of ideas to help minimize the issues inherent in working from home. In addition to the basic information about web working, some of the related ideas in the book really helped define some of what I have been noticing over the past couple years that seem to he changing the way people work. Anne makes a great distinction between knowledge work and web work. With knowledge work, the focus has been on the corporation, proprietary technologies, desktop tools, and knowledge, but in contrast, web work is focused on individuals, open technologies, web tools, and relationships. When I was at Intel, the focus was more on knowledge work, but I am noticing that at my current employer, the focus is on web work as Anne defines it with collaboration, openness, and relationships being of utmost importance. As an community person, I am definitely more suited to the web work model. Busy vs. bursty is also a common theme throughout the book. Busy work is based on work hours, email, company relationships, inflexible long-term planning, and web surfing as a time waster, while bursty work is about getting the job done regardless of hours worked, collaboration tools instead of email, relationships that are broader than just your company, agile planning, and web surfing as fuel for ideas. This isn't to say that you can replace all of the busy work with bursty work; you still need some amount of busy work to get through the tedious, but necessary tasks. However, bursty work also has a place, and again it is more suited to my personal style of working. I will admit to skipping over a couple of sections, like technology recommendations for home work systems, since I have an in depth knowledge of some of these topics based on my recent experiences as a web worker. Even if you aren't a telecommuter or freelancer working mostly over the web, I still recommend the book and Web Worker Daily, the companion web site. It has a lot of interesting ideas for how work is changing as we move more and more of our lives online.
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