Most important "business" lesson I ever learned: never write a "document" in an email message; write it in Word and attach it instead, to activate the pointy-haired neurotransmitters.

Much as it's probably true, I absolutely hate that. Somebody once showed me a diagram demonstrating the increased efficiency gained by using a wiki instead of email - but the entire gain would have been nullified if they assumed that rather than entering stuff directly into the wiki, people would upload word documents to the wiki (which the pointy-hairs invariably do).

> rather than entering stuff directly into the wiki, people would upload word documents

This is precisely why both of my last two employers actively forbade real Wikis in favor of dumbed-down Word document repositories.

Just need to write something that automatically converts word docs into new wiki pages. Then the pointy-hairs can upload all they want and everyone else gets some sanity.

Don't even try to make the conversion full featured, just rip it plain text. When the boss asks why his charts and headers don't convert over, show him how easy it is to fix that in the wiki. By getting his feet wet this way, eventually he might not even bother uploading word docs at all.

Or maybe I have too much faith in pointy-haired bosses.

> When the boss asks why his charts and headers don't convert over, show him how easy it is to fix that in the wiki.

The rational response to that from the PHB's point of view is to ban wikis.

no, just fire the pointy-hairs. if somebody is uploading word docs to a wiki then they're not qualified to work with you. don't waste your time.

I wish it actually worked that way in the real world, but it doesn't. Yes, you can quit and do a startup, but then you end up with pointy-haired VCs instead of pointy-haired bosses.

It may be difficult to believe this while in US, but in other countries industries are dominated by engineers...I know of one bank in Chile where all the business guys were being replaced with civil engineers (in Chile, that means a guy with an extensive math + science background).

Pick your battles.

A fine solution in a start-up or when you are in charge, but not so easy to accomplish in a large organization, where the pointy-hairs tend to accumulate.

Hence Sharepoint.

Even better, send a PDF. It looks "professional" and will get that much more attention.

Careful! I thought so too, but MBA's get pissed when you send things they can't edit, because then they have to use email to submit comments back to you.

PDFs are a really valuable tool when you don't want people to modify your document, and you have the political capital to refuse changes.

As an MBA (and hacker), I can say that I would absolutely prefer a PDF to a word document. If you really want to make comments, just made a comment in the PDF. Adobe Reader, though I prefer not to use it, lets you easily make comments, and this is the program most people will be using.

I think the m-team types understand "Track Changes" better than they understand comments in PDFs, but if your team prefers PDF, more power to them. I'd obviously rather generate a PDF than a Word Doc, and I'd rather generate a wiki page than a PDF, and an email than a wiki page. But life's pretty short.

Ah thanks. That explains a lot.

I guess it's ok if you have some allocated office space so you're not literally working from your home.

I've worked from home before and I can pretty much relate to what the article says. It's nice to do once in a while, but I much prefer to actually go to the office.

The key to working from home is to have a clear separation between your office and the rest of your life. It's ok if it crosses over (after all, that's the advantage of not having to work at an office), but they shouldn't be intertwined.

I live in a condo and work from home and the separation is very difficult. Especially when I was contracting and trying to work every waking hour.

However, I still really enjoyed the flexibility of it and still had enough social interaction to keep me sane.

Now that I am only working on a startup, it is so relaxing :) Maybe because I am enjoying the process and work instead of just trying to put in hours.

Ironically, it seems you've not read past the headline of the article.

I continue to work from home because I think that, for me, it's a net win. This article is intended to point out its downsides, not to suggest it's a bad idea overall for everyone. I'm looking forward to writing about the positive aspects of working from home in a few days.

I read the whole thing and I thought you were about to quit doing it too.

I've found that "business" email is usually best expressed in a few sentences: Issue, suggestion, next step. Usually the next step is a formal discussion and decision.

In business you can't expect most people to read a multi-paragraph email, realize what their role in the decision is, and act on it.

Also, some of us have much higher mental bandwidth for email communications than average. So it's a good idea to start the "handshake" with a very simple communication and take it from there, regardless of how intelligent the recipient may be in other areas.

Same here - although I have paved path and some stairs as well as the yard. Its nice - don't miss any commute. And I go in to an office in the city about once a week - I find it hard to actually work in an office though - I am naturally to chatty and social.

i love working from home.

it's 3am right now, i'm just wrapping up. i didn't start work today until 1pm because i had to help my girlfriend pack and get to the airport.

i one of my housemates is a good friend though and also works from home, so maybe i'm insulated from the loneliness factor.