In a conversation this week with Neil Goldberg, founder of the Gate 3 Work Club (recently closed), we learned about the Anytime Anywhere Work policy at Sun Microsystems. Known at Sun as iWork@Sun, the policy encourages remote working arrangments for employees, where it minimizes the need to be on campus ulness they need to physically be there.
This is the sort of location-flexibility that we have been encouraging here, and I feel remiss that we have not flagged Sun's efforts to date (particularly since they've had the arrangement for over 10 years...Oh Well)
More BigCos like this will make the larger distribution of work (of which coworking is definitely a part) more common and more acceptable.
Jonathan Schwartz, Sun's current CEO writes about these and other issues facing Sun at his blog. One of the few interesting CEO blogs I've read, actually. Sun's share price continues to struggle, but who knows, maybe their progressive approach to work will help them crawl out of their troubles. Some might say it's what got them in trouble in the first place.
Fuck that! That had nothing to do with it. The server market carries its own hazards and problems.
I'm now a fan of Sun... Hoping for the Sun to rise again soon!
The Butcher
I think Cisco must have a similar sort of program. I was talking to one of their sales people in Minneapolis and he mentioned that almost all of the employees out of this location are remote workers. Cisco provides hot-desks at the physical location should they choose to work there or meet with customers, but other than that they can work from any where.
Thanks Mike-
Somewhere in our travels Cisco's program has been mentioned, and we need to study their program. So thanks for the heads up. There are more progressive firms out there than we at first realized, and these are important as examples going forward. Thanks much for the info.
Cheers