Telecommuting for Earth, a survey of 500 American adult office workers aged 18 and older, conducted online by uSamp in April shows that employees who telecommute from home take more proactive actions while at home to save the environment then they do when they’re in the office.

Earth day is today so I thought I’d share this with you

• Turn lights off when not in a room – 74%
• Make lunch – 60%
• Keep heating and air-conditioning low to save energy – 56%
• Print minimal amounts of paper – 53%
• Power down computer at night – 50%
• Recycle – 39%
• Avoid bottled water – 34%

Beyond the environmental impact of telecommuting, the study also showed that employees stand to save a significant amount of money when they are able to work from home. 42% say they save $1 – $20, 38% say they save $21 – $40, 19% say they save more than $40, and an additional 6% say they save in excess of $80 per day when they work from home.

When asked how strongly environmental concerns weigh into the decision a boss makes on whether or not to allow telecommuting, surprising numbers of them say it matters:

• 42% say the planet weighs strongly or very strongly into the equation
• 62% say at least somewhat strongly

Phone.com allows me to telecommute and I know many of my coworkers do as well.  Does your your company or the company you work for promote telecommuting?  Is it something you think about when applying for a job or hiring a new employee?  Let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

Sometimes being a small business owner means not having a traditional office. People typically end up working from home or a coffee shop but in the last few years coworking locations have been popping up all over the place. No more need to work from your bedroom day in and day out or pay the outrageous prices for a cup of hot mud or an iced slushie coffee.

Now let’s start off by saying coworking isn’t for everybody. If you keep national secrets on your laptop, coworking may not be right for you. If you aren’t someone that wants to interact with other humans then coworking definitely isn’t for you. I could go on and on in jest but if you don’t want to cowork then you know it.

Some of the best reasons to cowork are:

• You get a professional work environment
• Collaborating and networking with like minded individuals is the norm
• Reduce the cost of office overhead
• No need to buy coffee, juice or stale sandwiches
• You can get professional meeting space for clients or prospective business (most coworking offices have private meeting rooms)
• No long lease
• No need to buy office equipment like printers/paper, desks/chairs, wireless routers, telephones (use Phone.com on your smartphone to make/receive calls and texts) and much more
• It’s not a coffee shop and a few benefits fall in there:
  • Security of knowing you can leave your laptop for a few minutes to take a call
  • Privacy without isolation

One list I saw include a benefit as more chance for office romance, as much as many people will smirk when you read this it’s true. If you’re working long hours you may not have enough time to go out and meet a potential boyfriend or girlfriend.

Over the years I’ve worked at a few coworking locations, they’re pretty easy to find, Google will be your friend. Have you ever worked at a coworking office? What did you like or dislike? Tell us on Facebook or Twitter.

Being a techy guy and very into mobile phones I get asked all the time what phone to get. In the last few years it’s pretty much narrowed down to “Jeb, should I get an iPhone or an Android?”. The question previously included BlackBerry, Nokia and sometimes even Windows Mobile but that was years ago.

I don’t think it really matters anymore when it comes to Android versus iPhone. I usually use an iPhone 5 as my day to day phone but for 7 days in a row I used a Samsung Galaxy S 3. Both are top of the line phones loaded with almost all the cool features. So I can say with 1 weeks worth of authority that they are basically the same. Once I got through downloading all my necessary apps there was 1 single app for the Galaxy S 3 that put it on par with the iPhone 5. It’s just a keyboard app called SwiftKey that made it much more useable.

The point is, I don’t think it’s the hardware that defines phones anymore and in some cases it may not even be the software. Both Android and iPhones have Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and if business apps are important to you they both have Facebook Pages Manager, DropBox, Google Drive and most importantly of course Phone.com. It’s so easy these days to set up these phones there’s really nearly no difference between them. Connecting an Exchange email account is a piece of cake on both platforms. Gmail is even easier.

There is 1 important glaring problem with Android and it’s what made me eventually switch back to my iPhone 5. I’ll probably end up swapping back and forth on a regular basis but the one thing I didn’t want to use was one single app. I balked and didn’t install my banks app on the Galaxy S 3 because I was worried about security. It’s commonly known that the Android App Store doesn’t have the same strict policy on apps accessing your personal data and I’m not willing to take the chance when I have a perfectly good option with the iPhone.

So does it really matter? If you’re buying a new work phone for yourself or maybe you’re buying them for employees in my opinion, now that I’ve used both for more than just a few hours or few days I must say… It depends, I know that’s not what you really wanted to read. There are too many variables to really get into but to name just 2, I find the voice recognition for composing the content of a text message or email is better on an Android then on an iPhone but if you’re trying to do the entire process without looking at the phone (just pressing a button to activate Siri) then the iPhone works better. On the other hand when it comes to accessories the iPhone wins hands down.

My answer is, do your homework, don’t let a salesperson bully you into buying one phone over another because when it comes to the top tier phones, they’re basically all the same. They all serve the same purpose and in my opinion one is basically interchangeable with the next. Remember that most US States have a 14 or 30 day buyers remorse policy and that might be the perfect way for you to try both platforms and see what you prefer.

Do you have a policy or preferred method of choosing what platform? Let us know on Facebook or Twitter.