- Paperback: 294 pages
- Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (4 Jan 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0470223987
- ISBN-13: 978-0470223987
- Product Dimensions: 22.8 x 16.4 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,434,216 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Connect!
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
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.
From the Back Cover
"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
— 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.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
If you're the kind of person who logs on to webmail instead of using Outlook, dreams of running (or has even tried to run) a business from internet cafes or your laptop, or who sincerely believes that Google is revolutionising the way the world is, you'll enjoy this light read - but you'll also know much of what it has to say.
Connect! has some pedigree, coming from the Web Worker Daily stable. Web Worker Daily is a website/blog dedicated to helping people who have the internet at the heart of their daily working lives. And the book carries on the themes of the site, recommending websites, offering advice for "web workers", highlighting pitfalls and shortcomings of working "on the go" and remotely, and overall painting the expected positive picture of a very modern attitude to work.
While there are only so many types of job that web workers can undertake (which is acknowledged), and the tone can get a little "new age" especially when it drifts from its core topic, the real lesson that the book repeatedly teaches is that people, not technology, make the world go round, and that technology should facilitate business interactions, not replace them. It's something many remote workers, with only a Messenger window and their own thoughts for company, could take on board, to the benefit of their businesses and of their very 21st-century souls.
Connect! has some pedigree, coming from the Web Worker Daily stable. Web Worker Daily is a website/blog dedicated to helping people who have the internet at the heart of their daily working lives. And the book carries on the themes of the site, recommending websites, offering advice for "web workers", highlighting pitfalls and shortcomings of working "on the go" and remotely, and overall painting the expected positive picture of a very modern attitude to work.
While there are only so many types of job that web workers can undertake (which is acknowledged), and the tone can get a little "new age" especially when it drifts from its core topic, the real lesson that the book repeatedly teaches is that people, not technology, make the world go round, and that technology should facilitate business interactions, not replace them. It's something many remote workers, with only a Messenger window and their own thoughts for company, could take on board, to the benefit of their businesses and of their very 21st-century souls.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Solid recommendations and interesting ideas about how the web changes how we work and connect with people.
24 Jan 2008
Format:Paperback
I 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.
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.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Helpful, practical, balanced, and exciting - a new way of viewing work
12 Jan 2008
Format:Paperback
This book articulates concepts and beliefs that I didn't even know that I held or believed - but there they are on paper. I have instinctively been employing a connected web worker approach in many of my professional and personal pursuits and Anne Zelenka has nailed the joy of balancing work and home life while offering encouragement for others to find their own way.
The book is clear, well-written, and includes tables and other reference materials that let you dive in deeper. It doesn't sugarcoat the experience of working at home and offers suggestions for starting from scratch or blending an approach that fits you.
Plus, this book offers terminology for the web worker (such as the Tidy Web) to make it easier for us to communicate with others about the priorities and selections you can make when connecting with others online. There's a great chapter on different alternative career paths (kaleidoscope, organic, slash, hero's journey) that was very informative as well.
It's hard to describe the energy I get from my current work/life balancing act to many of my friends and family, so I appreciate well-written pieces. I want to buy this book for all my coworkers and managers and their managers so they can understand that a connected, bursty lifestyle can work for many of us.
The book is clear, well-written, and includes tables and other reference materials that let you dive in deeper. It doesn't sugarcoat the experience of working at home and offers suggestions for starting from scratch or blending an approach that fits you.
Plus, this book offers terminology for the web worker (such as the Tidy Web) to make it easier for us to communicate with others about the priorities and selections you can make when connecting with others online. There's a great chapter on different alternative career paths (kaleidoscope, organic, slash, hero's journey) that was very informative as well.
It's hard to describe the energy I get from my current work/life balancing act to many of my friends and family, so I appreciate well-written pieces. I want to buy this book for all my coworkers and managers and their managers so they can understand that a connected, bursty lifestyle can work for many of us.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Empowering and Comprehensible
16 July 2008
Format:Paperback
This book impacted my view of the internet in an empowering way. It caused me to reevaluate my approach to both work and family, and how to blend (even sometimes separate) those worlds in a more smooth and efficient manner. I learned many tips and tricks that have assisted me in accomplishing goals and meeting deadlines. This book also prompted me to consider going out on my own as a freelancer. I don't know if I would have given much thought to such a venture without the discussions and concepts the author brought forth. What I like best about the author's writing is that it is comprehensible for a relatively low techie, like me, to understand.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
