The social contract of social media

I've recently had some strange LinkedIn connection requests. One of them apparently from a senior official of a bank. Whilst not completely unheard for me to receive some unexpected requests they usually come with some explanatory message, for example from agents wanting to discuss an employment opportunity or asking for recommendations. Often it's obvious that they work in a sector related to areas I'm familiar with and there are at least a couple of mutual connections.

I could be considered a bit cagey when it comes to my use of social media channels. I rarely connect with people on LinkedIn whom I haven't actually worked with on something or have some business opportunity to converse over. Having been employed by the same company is not criteria enough nor is a chance meeting and one deep conversation on open source versus commercial at a conference. And whilst I may accept connection requests from colleagues at an organisation I am working with during the term of my engagement, I will look back a couple of times a year and drop connections where I don't envisage an enduring relationship. Likewise my criteria for Facebook friends is either you are an actual friend or family member and we socialise together, you're in my wider social network even if we're not best buds, or I would choose to cultivate a friendship with you outside of work, location or circumstance.

So as you can imagine, I do my homework on people who request connections on my professional network. And my warning bells went off regarding this banker. The account was obviously new, I couldn't validate his position at the bank, our mutual connections first numbered one and then two in the space of a day. Suspicious. It bothered me enough to look up the published board members of the bank and there were no correlating documents, media releases or other useful search results marrying the person and the company. I left it in my inbox and a few days later the invitation disappeared as did the person's profile.

The reason I am careful with my connections and why I prune regularly is because I use LinkedIn as verification, both for myself and for others. Unless we carry out a full security check on every applicant for a job, it's difficult to verify that what's in their CV is actually anywhere near reality. Sometimes evidence is a simple Google search away. If you search for me you'll still find an article on the Lincoln University website regarding the launch of a student intranet and another on the establishment of an IT Project Office: so yes, I really was there to put online enrollment facilities together; I really do know what working in the tertiary education sector in New Zealand requires. But outside of those things, LinkedIn and my connections with other people who've also worked for the organisations I've worked with, is one way to validate me and my experience.

In effect there is a social contract in place that we each will be responsible for validating our contacts and we can rely on each other to be effective gatekeepers. There's the expectation that we allow trusted others into our wider network and that information, such as our contact details, that we restrict to our network is being opened to people who don't have intent to be a nuisance or worse. If we start to distrust that network and begin to lock our information into tighter and tighter security circles we basically undo the primary advantage of having a professional network.

So, in this world of easy click or tap to allow people in I take my duties seriously. Are you playing your part?

Getting through the wall

I'm taking a break from technology and clothes to talk about people, specifically teams of people, because one of the things I'm often asked about is how to deal with a team that's perceived to have issues either with motivation and/or performance, albeit I'm asked in context of IT service delivery or projects.

Don't worry - it's just the wall

One of the things that often trips up new leaders or managers is the perception that things have turned sour with their team; that everything had appeared okay for a while but now everyone's apparently demotivated, there are lots of issues and the outlook is gloomy. And whilst that really may be a sign of trouble, my first response is usually "don't worry, you've merely hit your wall". And by wall, I'm using the exercise analogy - that patch on your run, reps, or class where you no longer feel that this is doable and you feel like quitting; the bit before you break through and feel the euphoric rush of endorphin, adrenaline and success.

I look at a team as a biological entity with each team member taking on a role in the body: the person who is the heart and motivator of the team, someone who is the brain and conscience, the hands that do and the legs that support. Each has a function and a place and the whole body needs to be kept in careful balance. And like any living entity with a circulatory system, there are chemical shifts and cyclical changes. Inevitably, every team I have ever managed goes through cycles of anything from four to eight weeks where everything's chummy and then we get a bit tetchy with each other and the client.

The tetchy, gloomy wall usually only lasts a few days but does bring interpersonal conflict, maybe a little drama, and a definite decline in productivity. And why wouldn't it? On a project lasting twelve to eighteen months it is difficult to maintain high levels of performance. The body get tired and needs to walk instead of sprint for a bit.

Remember to rest

Don't fight the wall. If you do you risk fatigue and once that happens it's much harder to recover from without actually changing out team members. Instead, acknowledge that it's that time and carry out activities to mitigate the damage of interpersonal conflict.

This is the time for someone to bring in some baking, to go for a team lunch, turn the office lights off at a strict 5pm and send everyone home or - if it's particularly bad - give everyone the day off. Once you understand the rhythm it becomes easier: avoid scheduling high pressure activities or major deliveries for that period. And find a trigger event.

Demonstrate success

A trigger event is the equivalent of looking ahead while you're running and negotiating with yourself that you can make the call to keep going or to stop when you get to that corner or that bus stop: just get past that next little slope; just one more routine in dance class; one more set of burpees and you can still hold your head up high.

Choose a small, non-critical delivery to serve as a reminder that even though the team is tired, it's still functional and able to get stuff done.

"Team I know we're all a little bit over this project at the moment but let's just get through this sprint with a couple of really killer user stories done; we won't worry about our velocity we'll just do a great job on a couple of key features."

Walls are part of performing

Walls are definitely more noticeable when your team is no longer storming. They're noticeable in norming teams because it feels like a step back into the storming phase.

Walls are an essential part of performing teams. Why? Performing teams are working to levels of excellence, they're engaged and pushing hard. Pushing hard means pushing past your level of fit and it is tiring. Pushing too hard causes injury so knowing when to rest and taking rest is an essential part of maintaining a healthy, performing team.

Walls that last a week or more are no longer walls: they're a sign of distress. Please, please know the difference.

Before I sign off, some homework for you. Lift your head up from your computer screen and look around at your colleagues. Are you still performing or have you hit the wall?

Filing options

Today I was asked on the Facebook page: "Gadget Girl, I have a couple of questions, one around best practice. I'm stripping two laptops for resale. I'm transferring files I want to keep onto USBs and discovering numerous duplicates because, at various stages in the document's life, I've saved to stick so I could work from a different PC, then failed to delete the older version from my laptop at home. Because I work from a number of computers, should I really just work on my docs on USBs? And not save anything to my PC? Or should I just save in the cloud? It's time to revise my methods. How should I best manage my files going forward? Thanks!"

Post by Melissa Reimer.

Funnily enough, I too have been busy tidying up files on various drives and will be sharing some tips, tricks and tools next month but in the meanwhile I can at least give you a guide on what to do going forward.

I am not a fan of USB drives and would never advise anyone to work solely on portable media. They're fine for backups or files you're not professionally or emotionally wedded to but never, ever use them as your primary workhorse. You risk that files might corrupt, the drive is lost or physically damaged, ends up in the wrong hands, or gets left plugged in on one machine when you're wanting to work on another. Additionally, porting across operating systems can occasionally be problematic — plug into a Mac for example when you haven't properly ejected from a Windows machine — and because it's not part of the normal operating environment you lose some useful native functions such as the ability to get files from the recycle bin or retrieve previous versions from disk (if version snapshots are enabled on the computer).

I recommend that you go Cloud.

There's a few options out there — a great many of them are free for the minimum amount of storage — that you could select from based on your requirements and how you prefer to work. Some things you should consider:

• How secure do I need the information?
• How automated do I want synchronisation to be?
• Will I want to have some form of version control on documents?
• Do I need to be able to share files?
• Will I always be connected in some way or do I need local copies that synchronise when I'm next online?
• Is it important to me whether there is only one instance of a document or am I happy that it synchronises all the different instances?
• What devices (other than my computer) will I want to access this from?
• What other functionality do I need - e.g. do I want the option to edit Word documents online, for example?

Microsoft OneDrive (previously SkyDrive) and Google Drive have the benefit of allowing you to edit documents as well as store and synchronise files. They both have applications across a generous share of platforms which will allow you to access local copies of files. Local copies can be useful performance-wise or when you're not connected. I use both of their offerings but for me Dropbox is the tool of choice.

Dropbox has been around long enough that it is supported on most operating environments and for many apps is used as a mechanism for platform-independent cloud synchronisation. Although it doesn't have online editing functions that doesn't matter to me. Access to previous versions is, however, and Dropbox certainly allows that. It synchronises the majority of my files without issue; the odd conflict is clearly marked and I'm provided both copies to review. Certainly for my writing, including this blog, it all happens on Dropbox. I also use it to transfer files between my plethora of devices and to share with others (who do not necessarily need to be Dropbox users) for the odd collaborative endeavour. I can even make files public for download: useful since the Blogger website I use doesn't store files. I can configure which files I want to synchronise to which devices, can access them online, and for the most part it all happens without me watching it.

Of course Microsoft, Google, Dropbox and even Apple's iCloud service have free offerings which would suit most people dealing in files which aren't individually very large. For more sophisticated services, particularly if you're wanting a cloud backup service for all you files, you may be best to hunt down a fee-based provider who can give you better pricing large amounts of storage.

Mid-week Q&A

It's been a few weeks since the last Q&A. I've had a number of questions in the meanwhile but in anticipation of a dry spell I'm metering them!

Q: we only have printed copies of our logo. How can we track down the font used?

Next time you have some interesting typography and want to track down the font, take a snap and load the picture to the WhatTheFont service: http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/

You will be prompted to ratify or correct its character matching before it gives you a report of potential matches.

If you're a real typophile you can also download the app for your iOS or Android device.

Q: sometimes I go into the email on my Android phone and I can't find my work Exchange emails: what's happening?

On most Android devices you'll find two email programmes, the default Android mail programme (Mail) and the Gmail app. The Gmail app uses any Google accounts loaded on the device and displays only those mailboxes, whereas the Mail app allows you to configure non-Gmail accounts.

If you're only operating Google emails that's not too much of a problem, however if you're using Exchange, Yahoo or another mail provider you'll want to ensure that you're selecting the correct app.