Remote Employee

[M V]

Anyone have experience working as an employee of an architecture firm remotely? Clearly, this profession can do this easily but I am wondering of any real life experiences and workflows.

[heni30]

My neighbor was working for a medium size firm in Dallas and continues to work for them since she moved to Atlanta

5 years ago. I can put you in touch with her if you'd like.

[Francisco Penaloza]

I would be very interested in know how they work that out, I know there is nothing like direct interact with architects or designers while working in a project but most of the time an Arch Viz person can work alone without supervision.

Hey George do you have more info about your friend, like time schedules file sharing method and stuff like that?

 

Time ago I almost had to Fly to Chile, where my company here in California was working in a very big project and we where trying to figure out similar stuff, like using Dropbox to share files and such.

[M V]

I would imagine you can VPN right into your server at the office and access files remotely that way.

 

"nothing like direct interact with architects or designers "

 

Thats the thing I need to figure out is how to make not being here work the same way as being here. Anyone have experience with using GoToMeeting to screen share with a tablet in order to share sketching on screen? Architects like to sketch while they talk and not having trace paper right at my desk while they look at a 3D view will be the biggest hump to overcome. Everything else can be done digitally very easily.

 

Printers can be network mapped from the VPN so I can send prints / plots direct to the office and there are a million options for file sharing.

[Francisco Penaloza]

Where I work we have a lot of chat and video conference stuff that works fine but still video lag and poor sound is always an issue.

The cool thing is a Microsoft chat thing, I think it come with Office enterprise or something , in that chat you can share screen exchange file and you ca doodle over the chat screen, we have a few offices around California so when working with other offices architect I use that chat screen sharing software with phone calling so we both see the same and the architect can doodle over my image or screen.

Can't remember the name now, on Tuesday I tell you:p

[M V]

I assume this is it. Its called Lync.

 

http://products.office.com/en-us/Lync/Lync

[heni30]

@valero/francisco,

 

I spoke with with my neighbor and she's too busy right now with her kids in school to be answering emails but she is a seasoned architect and says there are no special systems like online chat conference that need to be utilized. She says if the studio WANTS to do it they will make it happen.

 

In your case it sounds like they are hesitant about dealing with the hassle which is not a good sign.

 

She's on a very experienced level, however, so her situation might be different from a situation where clear guidance communication between an architect and a less experienced employee is more critical.

 

Do you want me to ask her any specific questions? As I said - there are no special communication requirements in her situation.

Edited August 31, 2014 by heni30