---
title: "The slim office"
author: "Stan Voo"
url: https://www.99rabbits.com/blog/the-slim-office
published: 2015-06-26
summary: "Like a thin client, a slim office keeps every document and tool in the cloud, so anyone can work from any computer. How I moved my small office there."
---

# The slim office

By analogy with the [thin client](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_client) in computing, I propose the idea of a "slim office".

**A slim office** is a way of setting up workplaces in which any employee can do all of their work at any computer, because all the data and tools live "in the cloud", that is, on the servers of various services, and are available through a browser.

Here's my experience. I've moved my small office almost entirely to the slim format.

The work computers hold no documents, databases or anything else that matters to the business. None at all. For work, employees use the Google Chrome browser, the Google Apps tools (Gmail, Drive, Docs and Sheets), and OpenOffice Calc for very large spreadsheets. For phones, a virtual PBX with softphones (phone software).

Every business system is SaaS: order tracking and processing, CRM, business processes, communications, all in cloud services. As exceptions, some files are kept in Dropbox when there's no better place for them.

We have no real paperwork to speak of, given the company's small size. So there are no problems with paper either. What's left is moving our contracts with partners to electronic form. But that depends little on what I want.

## Why is this better than an ordinary office?

1. At any moment, any employee can start working from another computer, even a brand-new one. The switch takes less than half an hour (install a browser and an office suite, sync the Chrome account). This can be **useful when hardware breaks or is confiscated by incompetent authorities**. I've heard more than once how a raid by polite men in masks paralyzed a whole company for at least several days by taking away its computers and servers. Are you ready for that?
2. The safety and **security of the data is guaranteed by the reputation of the services** we use. Their backup and data protection systems are by definition better than any of mine, since that is their core business.
3. By moving to cloud services instead of desktop applications and running your own servers, you **get all the advantages that come with SaaS**: reliability, guaranteed data safety, transparent information, convenient access any time from anywhere, high speed and so on.
4. If your employees don't use specialized desktop software that only runs on Windows, you **can save on operating system licenses** and use a free OS. Ubuntu, for example.

## Weak spots of the slim office

### How to store passwords

The main bottleneck, as I see it, is the security of employees' account passwords. To solve it I use the [LastPass](https://lastpass.com/) password manager. For a long time we did without one, like everybody. But believe me, **if you don't solve password storage for your employees, they'll write them on scraps of paper and pin them up somewhere in the office for all to see.** That doesn't strike me as the best approach. Does it strike you as one?

> I'll write [a separate post](https://www.99rabbits.com/blog/why-your-company-needs-a-password-manager) on password security.

### You need a stable internet connection

Obviously, a stable internet connection is now critical for things to work. If before you could do some things offline, now far less is possible. You may have to pay for a reliable plan, and it's probably worth adding a backup line from another provider.

> As it turned out, this can cause some headaches even in a civilized city of a million people. The business center where I rent the office has only one internet provider. Sadly, that's typical of shopping and business centers in Ukraine, since the management gets a kickback from the provider for the "exclusive".

---

I realize that not everyone can set up a slim office. Especially medium and large businesses. But for a small one it's well within reach. You just have to stop fearing the mythical loss of data. It's you, or any of your employees, who is more likely to lose important data, since you lack the specialized knowledge and habits to store it safely. And I'm sure many companies could save a lot and streamline their processes by moving their tools "to the cloud".