Working from Home on a Tropical Island Paradise?

CarrotLord asks: "I've recently returned from a holiday in Bali, and I liked it far more than I like London, where I live and work. With the growth of telecommuting and outsourcing, surely it should be possible for a technology worker to relocate to a cheaper, more pleasurable location such as Bali, and work from there, living an enjoyable life, working less, earning less, but still being able to afford a good standard of life. Personally, I would take an 80% pay cut quite happily to live there, and I'd still be financially secure. Surely, someone could set up a company, employing skilled workers in locations of their choice, to do remote outsourcing work at a relatively low price? Does anyone do this? Has anyone thought about doing this?"

Comments

Hard to Collaborate Over Distances

[humblecoder]

I am currently working on a project with a team that is spread across two locations, and I find that are team is much less efficient than if we were all working in the same building together. The main reason for this is that it is much harder to collaborate on things. Normally, if a group of people need to hash out some ideas together, they get in a room with a white board, put their heads together, and usually they leave with a common understanding of the problem and the solution. However, when you need to do this type of activity with people with whom you cannot meet with face to face, this type of activity takes a lot more time and is a lot more inefficient.

Certainly, technology does help to a certain extent. We use email, phone, instant messaging/ Net Meeting, virtual whiteboard, etc. However, it seems like it is harder to convey ideas using these techniques. What ends up happening is within a site, people generally end up on common ground, but between sites is where most of the disagreements in point of view occur.

The second roadblock is that team unity and cohesion suffers. If you see someone on a regular basis and can have informal conversations with them, you can build up a lot of goodwill and trust over time. You know where the person is "coming from" and you have a better understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and point of view. However, building this type of cohesion across long distances is really hard and it takes a lot more time and effort. As we all know, teams which are "tight" and have a good working relationship are very effective, while teams that lack this often work at cross purposes.

The third roadblock is that communications and information is not propogated efficiently across sites. Sometimes, news and information are passed through informal chats with people. Sometimes I will go over to a co-workers office just to "shoot the breeze" and I will end up learning a lot about what that person is doing and about the project in general that I do not get in the formal meetings.

Based on these personal observations, it seems to me that a virtual team really needs to really need to think about how they are going to overcome these issues in order to really work.

Personally, I think, first and foremost, you need a strong manager who has experience herding cats across time zones.

Second, you need to have a strong technical lead who can set the technical vision and direction for the group, since a virutal team cannot be lead by consensus.

Third, you need to have good collaboration tools to maximize the efficiency of the communications and to try and reproduce the "bull sessions" as best as possible.

Finally, you need to be able to divide up the work so that there are as few dependencies as possible, so that people can work independently on their piece with minimal active collaboration. Obviously, there will be a need to communicate at the integration points, but if you accept the fact that virual teams will not be bale to communicate as efficiently, the need for this communication should be kept as low as possible.

I am not saying that virual teams can't work. However, they need a different style of management, a different style of organization, and they are probably best for certain type of projects.

Now that I think about it, there are a lot of parallels (no pun intended) between parallel computing and the optimal organization of virtual teams. Perhaps there is a thesis topic lurking in there somewhere!

I highly recommend it

[MarkusQ]

I highly recommend it. A few thoughts:

• If you presently work in IT, especially in a small shop, talk to your employer. You may be surprised at how receptive they are to the idea.
  • Don't mention (or at least, don't get specific) about the pay cut right up front
  • Point out that you'd be glad to have visitors
  • Look for (and point out) other advantages, such as you providing swing-shift support or...?
• Broadband is available in surprising places. It's also unavailable in surprising places. Do your homework.
• VOIP
• Research the climate for a whole year. Quantify things like "the rainy season" and make sure you know what you are getting into. Some places are really nice for six months out of the year, and...interesting...for the rest
• Make sure you like the local food.
• If there is a local language other than English, try to learn as much of it as you can.
• It takes more discipline to work this way. Lots more.
• Explore the tax consequences, work permits, etc. Many places can be sold on the notion that you are a "tourist" who happens to be being paid by your company back home--the idea being that you really are commuting, and aren't "working" in the country--just spending your money there.

--MarkusQ

P.S. My present job (which I'm taking a break from for a few minutes to cruse /.) is in the US. My house is on the side of a (dormant) volcano near the equator.

Yeah, I'd say you're on to a good idea.

Re:80% pay cut?

[NanoGator]

"Before you go taking that 80% pay cut, allow me to point out that "80% pay cut" and "80% of current pay" are two very different things. You might want to choose your wording very carefully."

I really don't know much about Bali, but I assumed he used that wording intentionally. I went to Brazil a couple of times and the cost of living is much much lower than it is here in L.A. I'm paying roughly $1,000 a month for a 1bd apartment. In Brazil, a much much larger apt was roughly $200USD a month. I've actually thought about relocating down there and doing freelance work for the US. Living is cheap and man it's nice down there. The people there are so nice. I mean... wow I still fantasize about it from time to time.

So what stopped me? Even when I found places where I could get 'broadband' internet access, I couldn't get US websites to load very fast. (It's worth mentioning that this was a few years ago.) Since I'm a 3D artist that often works with footage, the practicality of doing something like that was quite questionable. I gave up on that idea.

I have a couple of reasons for posting here. One is that I'm hoping somebody will chime in and say if Bali is like Brazil in the ways I've mentioned. The other is that I'm curious if the internet access in either place today is strong enough to support that type of work. Comments?