The Olympian from Olympia, Washington • 34

D6 a Business Monday May MARYSHACKLRT New cordless phones loaded with extras Craze comes to America l34d Talk and walk: Lower prices and new features increase the popularity of the phones which are in 66 percent of US homes Gannett Nows Swvlcr Wherever Kathy Canter goes her cordless phone follows To the kitchen where she cooks dinner lb the bathroom where she soaps the kids down And from bedroom to bedroom as she makes sure homework gets done Canter remember when she last retied on a telephone that let her walk only as far as its cord "I live without Canter said from her cordless phone in Wesley Hills NY "It enables me to do more than one thing at a Cellular phones which people take on the road might seem more glamorous but recent innovations cordless models have extended their ranee and anoeal Thefatest breakthrough is a digital cordless phone that can pick up a signal up to 4000 feet from its base That? four times farther than TECHNOUOGYAT HOMI TELECOMMUTING CAN BE PART OF WORK SOLUTION Technological advances facility savings ana work force realities have caused many companies to consider telecommuting as a serious work alternative Telecommuting is a work strategy that allows employees and contracted labor to work away from the office whether it is at an airport a hotel a customer site or home In many cases telecommuters are field-based salespeople and ser-vice technicians who physically cover large geographical territories and are constantly on the move In other instances muters are home-based workers who work and communicate with the main office through the aid of computers teleplumes and fox machines Several work realities have motivated companies to look at telecommuting as a work alternative In the sales and service area customer relationships have flourished and customer service responsiveness WtS Th Associated Ptmi VIRTUAL REALITY PETi A larger version of Tamagotchi a Japanese computer toy that lets the user raise a virtual chicken makes a grand entrance at FAO Schwartz in downtown San Francisco this month The toy was available locally at The Bon Marche pool particularly from the University of Washington Games From D5 perfect visiting company to publish mimes whose sheets" are still posted on the Internet: Mean Streets and Martian Memorandum for example In 1994 Erickson went off on his own with a company called Flash-Dint with a band of buddies like sun Mitchell who he had known most digital cordless phones and more than 10 times farther than the cordless plumes most people use With new $380 phone a user can take the handset across the street to a house or to a point nearly three-quarters of a mile away Today's cordless phones often are loaded with features Some have built-in answering machines that can be accessed from other rooms Others use digital technology that thwarts eavesdropping and reduces static quite a leap since the cordless debut in 1982 Back then a cordless phone only had one channel produced lots of static ami had to stay near its base Today a baric cordless phone with 25 channels costs less than $50 The extra channels reduce static and the odds of someone listening in The more powerful digital 900-MHz phones start at $100 "The 25-channel phones are pricewise where 10-channel phones were a few years said Evon Beckford a product tester for Consumer Reports which is published by Consumers Union in Yonkers Lower prices and new features have boosted the popularity of cordless phones Tbday cordless models can be found in 66 percent of all UJ5 homes according to the Consumer Electronics Manufacturers Association up from 52 percent in January 1995 A endless phone works a lot like AT A GLANCE 3 Buying tips Evon Beckford a product tester for Consumers Union in Ybnkers NY offers these tips when shopping for a cordless telephone: a Put the phone up against your face How comfortable is it? Put the handset in your hand Is easy to hold? Generally curved phones tend to be more comfortable than boxier ones a How Mg Is your home? An estate might need the range of a 900 MHz phone with lots of chan- nets A small apartment or home might be served fine by a 25-chan-nei phone Whore Is your homo? If you live in a heavily populated area more people will be fighting for your phone's channels A phone with 25 channels makes sense When you buy a cordless phone test its range as soon as you get home "If the phone is in kitchen go to farthest point that you think yours likely go" Beckford says If It's noisy or cracking get a different phone a How private are you? Digital models offer more privacy than analog phones Some companies also add scramblers which make it more difficult for others to listen in a two-way radio which is why it often ticks up static from stray radio rignals or other cordless phones It uses narrow FM frequency bands to transmit calls from its base to the portable handset Less expensive models use 10 to 25 channels on a 46 to 49 MHz FM band They generally have a range of 100 to 300 feet The more powerful 900-MHz models use the wider 900-MHz FM band with ranges of about 600 to 4000 feet Some 900-MHz models use digital Jones Digi-- but not digital phone uses hopping" to cut down on eavesdropping With this technique a voice signal is encoded then 200 times a second in random order through 50 of the 173 channels Eavesdropping can happen when another cordless phone user accidentally winds up on the same channel using Conversation also can be picked up by scanners Even so cordless fans like Canter imagine going back to a phone that stays put a convenience she said "It lets me run from room to a "Our biggest asset in this business is he said "Creative people are hard to find" Erickson said he guessed that the area would attract more videogamers Sure enough a half dozen companies have moved here or expanded their efforts here The Lacey office does indeed have a locked door and buzzer not unheard pf for rivals and spies to snatch ideas or even software from places where computer games are developed Flashpoint was sold to Media-Tech of Maryland Erickson became directin' of its West Coast operation That gives the staff more visibility and a say in the marketing of their roducts MediaTech owns ethesda Software and is a well-known game company produced games in association with the makers of and and Wayne Gretzky Hockey MediaTech West helped with SkyNet PBA Bowling and Dagger-fall The latter won the Computer Game Developer's Association award the Oscar of the video game business Erickson is used to people coming up to him at gaming shows and asking for autographs fun to go into a store and see your product on your he said is a great business a lot of fen" But what makes it great is what TheMediaTb- makes it a challenge: chers are already designing race courses for their latest gt XCar we design this year will look primitive next year" Erickson said McNeil Island with his buddy the son He remembers now the deer there would eat out of your hand Erickson wanted the same sort of upbringing for his kids which is reason that he returned You would figure that an kid would like to tinker family could not afford a computer so he built one from a kit when he was 12 in 1977 It was programmable which was cool Pretty soon Erickson was attending computer club meetings He was different from the other members: His mom would drop him off at the meetings Hib beginnings It was at clubs that Erickson started selling the PC interactive games that he recorded on cas- settes To the right of desk is a bookshelf stacked with games In one plastic case he still has a collection of his first games: with names like "Star and "Solder of carefully handprinted in penciL It was sunple stuff with the goal to find the secret door and a pot of But the story lines were fed off love of fantasy and science fiction and writers such as Michael Moorcock Steven Brust and Roger Zelazny He wrote games for the Commodore 64 and early Apples "All you had to do was approximate the shape of something and that was OK" he recalled Erickson went to the University of Utah and tinted up with a Utah field-based strategy gives sales and service personnel valuable "face time" with customers That helps to develop long-term relationships Tapping into market In other cases business has realized that there are skilled employees at home with child-care and elder-care responsibilities who can also be tapped as work resources if they are allowed to work at home 1 for businesses a i to approach and strategy riowty The first step is to check around See if organizations similar to vour own have utilized telecommuting and what results they have had Most are very willing to share the information The second key is to secure a top-down commitment from your business and to try telecommuting as a pilot Telecommuting involves management factors that must be carefully addressed Companies with field-based sales and service personnel have found challenges in information sharing and morale If the home office is based in Seattle and the sales representative works out of his home! gin to feel computers and fax machines do not provide the same quality (tf information exchange and camaraderie as an in-person strategy session or an impromptu conversation by the coffee machine over a particular customer account Some sales managers have discovered that they have had to "manufacture" weekly meetings with their field-based sales forces to continue to build emphasis on the team the internal support system and the sense of identity with the company cus- inhighschooL Mitchell was the color and art man and Erickson was the techni- cian part of the staff brainstorming meetings for ideas "The group brainstorms and then Shaun and I boil them down' my artistic side the technical side I know the limits of the Erickson said Mitchell said he always wanted to be an artist a passion fueled by seeing the fantasy work of artists like Boris Vallejo would say it what I want to Flashpoint and Electronic Arts published Noctropolis another well-known game They also worked on sports games including a golf game forSega Erickson hearkened back to his childhood in Steilacoom and decided he wanted to return to the Northwest He has a family now: wife Cari and children Kyle 8 Jarin 6 and Aia 3 The MediaTech employees and families moved in June 1994 They worked with the Economic Development Commission to relocate They found office space in Lacey though Erickson's basement office perhaps this is appropriate has a great view of the building's outdoor electrical Junction box Intel by the way had nothing to do with his choice The i does not do video games But I son said he did expect video gainers to head to Puget Sound It near Microsoft ana associated companies and epjoys an educated labor VIs -L in The Call The South 1 Best-Seller Aimouncamants Sell It mors efficiently mors effectively In The Olympian Classified Marketplace! 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K-6 166 Mhz In the areas of repetitive telecommuting work such as claims processing and telemarketing issues have centered around effective productivity measurement and supervision of the work force In many cases companies performed extensive benchmarking of those functions within their physical office settings determining how many claims or calls were processed per hour The benchmarks formed the basis of determining whether the home-based work force was equally productive as it was not under direct supervision The other key to successful telecommuting is technology investment Minimally home-based workers need to be tied into the business via telephone and computer If the home-based worker is a technical writer or an engineer high speed high bandwidth communications such as ISDN (Integrated Digital Services Network) may need to be installed If the worker is a customer service or a sales representative access may need to be guaran-teed to large on-line databases on roducts and customer accounts ie key is to perform a cost analysis that bears out a reasonable return on investment to the alternative of adding to physical facilities As we move into the new millennium competition in the global marketplace will intensity and technology will become faster and more affordable Company work force flexibility needs will grow as well Telecommuting will be part of the answer Mary Shacklett is vice president of marketing and technology at Twin County Credit Union in Olympia Shacklett has been an executive in the computer software and semiconductor industries Write to her in care of The Olympian RO Box 407 Olympia Wbsh 98507 NEW! 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