One of the biggest adjustments to working from home, or remotely, for me has been the struggle to feel like you’re “part of the team”. Obviously, you are part of the team, and you are doing the work that has been assigned to you as you go through your days, but it can be difficult to have a connection to the other members of your team when you don’t really see them often. Luckily, for me, our annual user’s conference was this past week in Vegas, which gave me a chance to be in the same place as many of the folks I come in contact with on a daily basis.

It was a good chance, not only to meet some of the same people I communicate with internally and put a face to the voice and/or email address, but also to work side by side on a massive project. (Putting together the labs and conducting the training lab sessions at the conference is quite the team effort!!)

In a nutshell, whereas a week ago I was still feeling my way around the organization, and finding my place in it, now I know I’m part of the team and exactly who I’m working with. Nothing brings out that knowledge quite like being thrown together into a stressful project. It’s bonding, if you will.

On the other hand, it also shows me exactly how difficult it is to find those sort of bonding moments when you are working remotely all the time. As a manager of remote direct reports, I might try to make it a priority to get my team together for projects like this every once in a while. There are no team-building exercises that can replace the bonds that are forged in the midst of a large, stressful, project.

I’ve talked frequently about the need to network and build relationships within your own organization. I’ve posited that it will make your life easier if the people you support see you as one of “us”, as opposed to one of “them”, and the best way to do that is be friendly with the people you work with. Now, a study by CNN Money shows it also increases the likelihood of getting a promotion.

Of course, now that I work remotely, this takes even more effort!

Last weekend, the wife and I set out to do some exploring in the area where we live here in South Carolina. When we left the house, it was warm, and mostly overcast. On the 25 minutes journey up to Table Rock State Park, we drove through a bit of a shower, but it had stopped raining by the time we ventured into the park, so we decided to do a little hiking on the creek side trail.

Along the way, the rain started again, just a little bit, the humidity picked up some, and then dissipated, and the gray day gave way to some pretty sunshine and a great sunset.

As a photographer, the changing conditions could be a bit of a challenge, but what are you going to do, give up and stay home? Nope, we kept hiking on and tried to keep the rain drops off the camera lens. (Not to mention trying not to slip and fall into the creek with camera in hand myself!) And we were rewarded with a beautiful sunset over the lake before heading home again.

This is also an interesting metaphor for your career. Sometimes the path you start out on changes mid-hike, and you have to adjust to some new conditions that you hadn’t planned for. That can be a challenge, certainly, but if you roll with the changes, keep persevering on the path you’ve set for yourself, you may just find some rewarding views on your way.

One of the things that is both exciting, and overwhelming, about starting a new job is all the new stuff you get to use. In a week and a half since starting the new job, I’ve been getting used to having a Droid instead of a Blackberry, using Google Apps, learning new systems for things like HR and CRM, learning how our learning management system works for recorded training, and just trying to navigate my way around. Soon, I’ll be learning about recording those online training modules and doing live online training with our labs, all while also traveling to do training classes in a number of different places in the next couple of months.

Like I said, as a geek, having new toys, software, hardware, gadgets, etc. is pretty exciting. At the same time, that is tempered by the enormity of it all, and trying to figure out how to prioritize all of the different things I need to learn.

I’ve always cautioned friends and professional peers that starting a new job is very humbling, because when you walk in the door, you bring certain skills with you, but that first day, before you get the lay of the land, and fit yourself into the workflow, you’re pretty useless. Heck, you probably don’t even know where the bathroom is without having to ask someone.

When you start a new job working from home, the only advantage you have is that you know where the bathroom is. (And maybe where to get lunch..) Everything else, including adapting to working from home all day, is totally new! But, eventually, you learn how things work, where you fit in, and where to start. What separates the best new hires is not knowing everything when you walk in the door, it’s quickly figuring out where you fit into the grand scheme, and how you can best start playing your role effectively.

That’s why I often feel like the best thing you can do for the first week or two, is just shut up, and listen to the people around you. They are tying to help point you in that direction.More than likely they’ve been doing extra work while this spot remained open, they want you to get up to speed.

Of course, it never hurts to have some online support as well, so who can tell me about the Motorola Droid x2, and what apps I should definitely look at?

Apparently, while 2011 was a year of huge changes for me, the changes just keep coming in 2012. I won’t be relocating again, but I will be switching jobs, and that is going to also impact what I’m doing on this site. I’ve accepted a Litigation Support Trainer position with AccessData. I’ll be based out of my home office, doing online training and various other projects from there, while also traveling to do onsite training, working at some of the various trade shows, etc.

I’ll also be contributing to AD’s eDiscovery Insight Blog (http://ediscoveryinsight.com/). In the interest of not competing with myself, or with the company that pays my bills, I will not be writing about the legal industry or litigation support on this site any longer, short of pointing you to things I write over there.

What does that mean for mikemcbrideonline.com? I think it goes back to being the blog it started out as all those years ago. A little tech, some geeky stuff, some personal lessons learned about careers and travel, and, of course, photography. I’ll still be sharing interesting articles in the legal and litigation support fields, here and on Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus, along with links to various other things I find interesting. There won’t be a complete purge of all things legal, but it certainly won’t be the main focus the way it has been for the last few years.

If you’ve been coming here for the litigation support stuff, I hope you’ll join us over on eDiscovery Insight, and I hope to be able to continue to share information and insights with you in various ways. If you’ve been following along for years and trying your best to weed through the boring legal stuff, I hope you’ll enjoy the new turn on the site. Just bear with me as I go through an adjustment period and figure out exactly what I’m doing around here.

On a personal note, I’m excited by this new opportunity. I’ll be working with a great team, at a very exciting time in the history of the Summation product line. I’ll be getting a chance to teach others, and help them understand this crazy world of eDiscovery, on a regular basis. It will certainly make for a different 2012 than I was expecting, but a very interesting one too!

Hopefully, I’ll even get a chance to meet up with some of you in my travels, or at trade shows, so stay in touch!

I hesitate to mention just one episode of the Career Tools Podcast, because they are always chock full of great advice, but this week’s episode really struck a chord with me.

Titled Keeping Your Search Confidential, the cast includes lot of great advice about being involved in networking, and having contacts within your industry. As they say, being aware of what’s going on in your industry, keeping up with opportunities that exist, and having knowledge about your own marketability isn’t being disloyal, it’s being professional.

Professionals know their own worth, are capable of immediate action when something like a layoff occurs, and are always open to seeking out better opportunities for themselves. They understand their career is exactly that, THEIRS!

Seriously, give it a listen, and then subscribe!

I know, I know, I’ve been pretty quiet around here of late. I promise that will change shortly, after some craziness settles down into a new normal. In the mean time, my friend Jared Coseglia shared a link on Twitter to the new podcast he is doing in combination with ILTA:

In these podcasts, created in collaboration with ILTA, leaders in the corporate and AmLaw 200 world discuss the evolution of their careers and share secrets to their successes. Listen to these podcasts to learn what you need to do to bolster your own career.

Could be worth checking out!

This weekend, someone sent me an email in response to this post about the lack of good job descriptions, pointing me to an HR tool that actually tries to solve this problem.

Halogen Software’s Job Description Builder.

Now, I have never used this software, and don’t know much about it, but in all honestly, our current systems for keeping up with job descriptions suck, so if a tool can help, great!

On the other hand, while the tool can be setup to require updates to job descriptions at set intervals, or require that those updates come from managers instead of the HR department, you have to make that part of your culture if you really want it to be effective. (Garbage in/garbage out and all of that..) Having a system that tells you when it’s time to update job descriptions doesn’t help much when the descriptions are just industry jargon with no real tie to the work being done.

Hmm, maybe what we need is a tool that would create a tag cloud of work done by someone in that job. For billable employees in law firms, it could look through billing entries, grab keywords, and show you where your description falls short.

Someone should build that, but in the mean time, HR folks, please use whatever you have to to help alleviate this problem!

I found quite a lot to think about in this TED video. From thinking about how we view the world by the lens we choose to view it with, be it media, news, who we spend our time with, etc. to rethinking the relationship between being productive and being happy. Could we have it backwards? Instead of basing our happiness on meeting goals, are we more likely to meet our goals when we start out happy, with a grateful and joyful attitude? Lastly, can we train ourselves to be extraordinary instead of average by embracing happiness and ignoring “normal”? Personally, I’m going to give Shawn’s advice some serious thought.

My wife has written an interesting perspective on the huge waste of time that is created when a job description is vague and doesn’t really identify the job you might be applying for.

It struck a chord with me not only from previous job searches, but also from things I’ve seen and heard in both the technology and legal industries. (Especially in the legal technology area!) It seems all too common for there to either be “formal” job descriptions, that describe the job as it was done the last time someone in HR got on the everyone needs a formal job description bus, no matter how many years ago that was, or something thrown together at the last minute by people who have never done the job they are now advertising for.

The latter situation comes about because of a pure lack of planning. Someone resigns and everyone is caught by surprise. There’s no succession plan, no cross-training has been done, and there’s no clear immediate steps identified for replacing that person. It usually takes longer than the two weeks notice to even make any sort of decision about hiring a replacement, therefore there’s no input on what to look for from the person who has actually been doing the job.

On the other hand, the former situation comes about because there was, at one time, an attempt to develop succession plans, and identify the steps necessary to assure work continues to get done in the interim, but those plans have not been updated in years. Things change, quickly, in any technology area. New tools are brought in, roles change, staff members assume new responsibilities, etc. Dusting off the years old descriptions is not going to give you a clear understanding of the skills you are currently looking for.

In both situations, you wind up reviewing resumes and maybe even interviewing a lot of people who aren’t good fits at all for the job you currently need to fill.Wasting your time, and theirs.