The way businesses are organized has changed as technology has grown. We regularly see companies reorganizing their teams into virtual teams, often known as geographically dispersed teams (GDT). This allows people in different countries to collaborate on a single project. Like most things in life, there are advantages and disadvantages to this style of team and it is not for every business. Is it right for yours?

In the past, it was thought that efficiency had a direct connection with proximity. The thought was held that the more face-time a manager was able to give their team the more productive they would be. Managers are realizing that this may not be true, and that building a team out of people that work well together and have very targeted skill sets can yield a much more significant result. Another strong factor impacting productivity can be the mentality of the individuals the group consists of. Many people are encouraged by their personal desire to learn more so as to further their careers; this self-motivation is a trait that works well in a virtual team environment. People who are motivated by social interactions or by the desire to avoid negative feedback may not be a good fit for a virtual team.

For some businesses, it is practical make use of virtual teams.  Many companies, large and small, have embraced this innovative organizational technique. Obviously businesses that require people to physically interact to perform a task, such as construction, aren’t candidates for virtual teams. If you think implementing virtual teams as an enterprise wide strategy or smaller capacity is a good fit for your company, here are a few items to think about.
 
Advantages

• Recruitment based on competence not proximity
• Team members can work during the times when they perform most efficiently
• Teams consist of members who are self-motivated and self-driven
• More accommodation for team members’ personal and professional lives
• No commuting time or cost
• Reduced overhead, because there is no physical location
• IT expenses are lowered as most teams use web-based tools for collaboration
• Managers can better examine the team’s overall performance because there are less social pressures

Disadvantages

• Less social interaction, which can be a demotivator for many people
• Loss of trust among team members if there is not guarantee that everyone is pulling their own weight
• Creativity could be stifled, because the physical dynamics are lost
• Team members may overwork themselves as managers can not physically see the length of time each task takes
• Managers may lose track of the team’s progress, i.e. out of site out of mind

Online technology is the primary way that virtual teams interface with one another, including email, audio conferencing, and file sharing programs. Here is a list of a few websites and products that support teams that interact virtually.

• Go to meetings – an economical way to have remote meetings
• Yammer – a private social network for businesses that enables quick communication and interaction
• Drop Box – a free way to share files
• Second Life – allows for interactive meetings with the use of avatars

If you would like more information on virtual teams in action, look at the articles below: 
http://www.theanywhereoffice.com/mobile-work/telework-viritual-teams-midmarket-companies.htm
http://www.forbes.com/2010/08/19/virtual-teams-meetings-leadership-managing-cooperation.html
http://www.openforum.com/articles/7-effective-tools-for-managing-a-virtual-team

If you go to Google News and enter a search for ‘tech bubble,’ you’ll obtain a dozen fresh articles debating this question: Are technology stocks, particularly social media companies, overvalued?

The mother of all tech bubbles occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when half-baked business ventures got armloads of cash just for fixing a .com to their name.

When the market regained its senses, in 2000, the bubble burst and buyers wound up with dot nothing. The question du jour: Does today’s market possess any of the attributes of the dot-com-era market?

The answer:  Yes and no.

In the yes column, you have businesses with huge stock prices without much in the way of, say, profits. Think about some recent and awaited IPOs: LinkedIn.com, Pandora.com, and Groupon.com. Two of these have yet to turn a profit. (LinkedIn logged its first profitable year in 2010.) Twitter is expected to fetch a huge share price when it goes public this year, but the company has yet to iron out its moneymaking strategy. (Minor detail, right?)

The no column, there’s a huge quantitative and qualitative difference between 1999 and 2011. As Mashable columnist Jolie O’Dell notes, in 1999 308 tech companies filed for IPO. So far, there have been 25 in 2011. What’s more, it’s easier to see the worth of an Internet company today, when nearly 80 percent of adults and above 90 percent of teenagers are online. In the late 1990s, lower than 40 percent of adults used the Internet, according research from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

In other words, the market has matured significantly in the last decade or so. And the players are more mature too. LinkedIn is no Webvan.

Regardless of the differences between 2011 and 1999, there’s still cause for concern. Stock market bubbles are like extremophiles — they find a way to grow in even the most hostile environments. (Which is why you see such huge stock values in an otherwise dismal economy.)

If we’re heading for market correction, I suspect it won’t be as severe as the one in 2000. But if Facebook starts running Superbowl ads featuring sockpuppet, it’s time to panic.