May 15 2009

Speed develops Twitter map for National Work From Home Day

May 15th marked the fourth annual National Work from Home Day. It serves to promote smarter working practices in the UK, yet many employers still insist that their staff commute to the office every day. With low- cost broadband connections, secure VPNs and a combination of IP and mobile telephony now commonplace in most offices it’s surprising that more employers haven’t embraced flexible working as a way to save cost and boost staff morale.

In a bid to support the day, Speed’s Matt Watson developed a Google Maps mashup that allows home workers to display their location. All Twitter users did to take part was send a tweet containing #NWFHD and the first half of their postcode ie: “#NWFHD WC2H”. The site then automatically updated every 30 seconds throughout the day, displaying the location of Twitter users working from home.

The idea is based on the #UKSNOW mashup devised by software programmer Ben Marsh earlier this year. Ben’s map allowed Twitter users to plot areas of snowfall across the UK in real time, when the country was hit by heavy snow in February.