Home Sweet Office: a Trend? *

Some years ago, to turn a space at home into an office was nearly impossible for most people. This was merely a fond dream by professionals to have more time withtheir family or avoid traffic jams. However, in the past the technology systems were not mature enough to provide the requisites like the proper equipment. Additionally, corporate culture and labor laws weren’t prepared for such endeavors, and therefore home offices were restricted to a few professionals in very specific areas.

Recently a number of factors, mainly relating to cost, have put the home office back on the agenda. The recent rise in home offices has occurred thanks to the popularization of broadband Internet, programs to share documents, ease of VoIP telephony, reduction in equipment prices, increased auto traffic and violence, and global growth with limited physical space - all these have made the new home office model a solution and provided people with a new way to work. The home office system can now be justified by companies with the  implementation of different management goals. For example, an employee working at home may get paid for results, rather than the number of hours worked. Thus this new model can be profitable for companies by lowering costs and raising profits. Employees who work from home have a better quality of life and more time to enjoy their families. As a result, current research indicates a yield increase of between 20% and 30% in the work output from home offices. Additionally, this type of professional who is choosing to work from home is growing at an amazing 10% a year. Today, one in four Brazilians works from a home office at some time each month.

Nevertheless, for those who think a home office is the solution to avoiding a corporate hierarchy or a way to get rid of unwanted responsibilities, they will be disappointed. Working from home requires strict discipline and professional maturity, since the separation between work and personal life becomes more tenuous. Therefore, the professional needs to create mechanisms to manage and control tasks for himself. For example, spouses and children must be made aware that in the professional’s work, a schedule cannot be altered, even if the family are just a few feet away. But on the other hand, a home office offers the opportunity for professionals to see their children more often and to participate more in their lives, and so the family can become a motivating factor rather than hindering th progress of work.

Work outside the office is still a long way from changing the world. What has happened thus far is not a radical change; however, it does represent the corporate acceptance of another way of working. Following the success of this experimental phase, large companies are now adopting this system and finding it a productive model, full of benefits for the employees and companies, with many stories of successful people and all their productivity accomplished out of the office. It is just one more way to work, not for everybody or for all companies, but the choice is up to you! For more tips about how to manage your home office and be more productive, visit www.curitibaworld.com.

* Article published on Curitiba in English.

Home Sweet Office: Tips

So here is listed some important tips given by specialists:

- Family and Business:
You chose the Home Office as a way to work? You have to teach to your family during the workday that place in the house is your office, be creative, use strategies to demonstrate this, a sign on the door, defined schedules

- Choose your place of work:
Choose a room, a cubicle - delimit your work corner and guide your family about it, of course if you have to share space with your family, create schedules and rules. Preferably, beware that your office is away from distractions.

- E-mails, e-mails and more e-mails:
Organize them! work at home, your contacts will be basically via email. If you dont organize, you will have difficult in communication - so separate by color, themes, no matter, select and prioritize and avoid spam.

- Technology - Best Friend
Broadband Internet, telephone network efficiently, a good pc, a laptop, netbook, external hd, IPAD, no matter, use the technology in your favor, have only one phone line for your professional use, scanner, cell phone, all that technology you can add to, learn about, because without this, home office does not work.

- Beware of Stress at home
As you will have free time increased, not needing to go to the office, enjoy exercise, reading newspaper, relationship with family. A good tip sometimes, 'move' your office to the restaurant in a mall, to aerate the head or give some 'holiday' for people in the house.

- Daily routine
The freedom of the home office is not always a good thing if you do not know how to manage yourself. Create a routine, create timetables for you, and learn to respect these hours with the "Brazilian way" in the home office, the only one that can lose is you. Just be careful not to become a workhoolic and start working from 7am to 10pm without pausing. Beware what you wear, sometimes sleepwear in home office can decrease your productivity, but wear something comfortable.

And finally, "Have an entrepreneurial spirit", because without it is impossible to work remotely, or at home!

Google Street View lands in Curitiba

From now one, Curitiba will be mapped for Google Street View - feature that displays maps at 360 degrees for multiple locations on the website launched in 2007 and finally reaches the state capital. The images started to be captured this month, but Google doesn't tell how long it will takes or how many cars are in town. Also the company doesn't confirm when the images will be available, but it might happen little by little, by region. The Street View in an additional service o Google Maps, which has a set of maps of all cities and streets in the world.

The project is also mapping other capitals, and the Google proposal is to offer the service by 2014 in all cities hosting World Cup games. Since October last year, 51 Brazilian cities are already mapped. In total, 82 cars in Brazil are doing the job of capturing the images, and each car has 15 cameras. In capturing images of busy streets, where many people appear, Google uses software that blurs faces and license plates automatically, to prevent them from being identified and, according to the company, ensuring the privacy of individuals. The cameras installed in cars capture images of the horizon and sky, providing an image of 360 degrees horizontally and 280 degrees vertically. When photographing the streets, a GPS marks images for the computer to identify where is the place.

To use the Google Street View is necessary to access the website maps.google.com. Once you find the street, just drag the yellow stick man Pegman, located in the upper left corner of the screen or give the maximum magnification on the map. To "walk the streets", just click the arrows in the image, making the user go to the next screen. To view an image, you must click and drag the mouse.

You are responsible for what you publish

By creating a website, blog or any other social media account, the user becomes not only visible but also vulnerable. Any content published on the World Wide Web is subject to be passed, sometimes so much wider than the author intended. A recent survey published by comScore in April, shows that 99% of more than 47 million of Brazilian Internet users accessed at least once, some social network during the month of March this year. Besides pictures, shared links and stories of everyday life, is also part of the content available on those networks many offenses, threats, and false information. And who publishes or passes need to know what can be, even unknowingly committing a crime.

According to specialists, the most common crimes related to the internet are:
- Calumny: it's when a person assigns to another person a crime without proof. The aggressor is arrested and fined for a period of one to three years;
- Defamation: happens when the individual ridicules another, damaging the reputation and image of this person before the society;
- Injury: is characterized by reference to the negative characteristics of a person - calling someone "ugly" or "dumb", for example.

In the last two cases, the author pays a fine or goes to detention for a period of one to six months. The same punishment applies to anyone who commits the crime of threat, when the author says it will kill a person, for example.

There is no specific law that treats crimes on the Internet (cyber crimes), however for specialists, this is not a problem once the crime is classified, the treatment is going to follow the same rules already existent, no matter if it is personal or virtual.
Besides that, depends on where it was done, it can have a great propagation causing a public embarrassment and hard to have the control. And more than this, it is easy to leave traces and the police come easily to the person who committed the wrongdoing.

Take a look at some other crimes on the Internet:
- Pedophilia and child pornography: characterized by the creation of Web sites or content (pictures and videos) related to child sexual abuse;
- Racism: written material, pictures or any other representation of ideas or theories that promote or incite anger, discrimination or violence against any individual or group based on race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.
- Calumny and Defamation: disclosure of information, often untrue that may harm the reputation of the victim.
- Cyber bullying: mobile messages, emails, messages on blogs or social networking sites containing swearing, insults or humiliations.

The nonprofit organization SaferNet works to guide the Internet users and the prevention of crimes, and also receives complaints - which can even be anonymous. The complaint may be made by the site www.safernet.org.br.
In Curitiba, the victim can look to Center to Combat Cybercrime (Nuciber) and with the evidence in hand; make a police report so that research can happen. Phone (41) 3323-9448. Rua José Loureiro, 376 - 1st Floor (attached to the Office of Identification).

Brazil is the 3rd that most uses Twitter

A research recently published by comScore showed that Brazil ranked third in the ranking of greater use of the microblogging service Twitter, with 23,7%.
The Netherlands is the first with expressive high among social network websites with 26,7%. More than one in each internet Hollanders visit the website in a month.

Japan is the second with 26,6% and after Brazil, is followed by Indonesia (22%), Venezuela (21%), Canada (18%), Argentina (18%), Turkey (16.6%), Philippines (16.1%) and Singapore (16 %).

The research was done in march with users over age 15 that go online from home or work.

The search engine Bing grows 250% in Brazil

According to the research published by Hitwise - digital marketing service of Serasa Experian says the Microsoft engine, the Bing, showed a growth of 250% in terms of market share in Brazil within a year, and it's a already the second most used.

The Google Brazil, in turn, remained at the top of this market, with 90.94% of all searches conducted in the first three months of 2011. However, represents a fall of 2.81% compared to the previous year.

The ranking of the top search engines used by Brazilian Internet, Google.com ranks third in the preference of users, with 2.07% followed by Google Portugal, 0.99%, and Yahoo! Brazil with 0.57%.