Slashdot Mirror
The Rise of the Digital Nomad
krou writes "The Washington Post has a look at the rise of the digital nomad, workers who have shunned the idea of working in an office, or working from home. Instead, they've taken the next logical step in the evolution of teleworking, and work wherever there is a Wi-Fi or 3G connection, using tools such as Facebook, Skype, and Twitter, to gain both primitive ('If I'm working at home by myself, I am really hating life. I need people.') and practical ('There is no hope for the road system around here.') benefits from this nomadic lifestyle. The need for contact with other people has driven some nomads to start working with others in public places and at strangers' homes. Other benefits from nomadic working include changing the scenery, and starting the work day 'long after many of their colleagues out at the cubicle farm have spent hours preparing for and getting to their workstations.' Coffee shop owners love the trend, and so do some employers, one of whom (an AOL manager), says: 'It's a win-win' because the employee in question 'is happy doing what he loves and from a business perspective, we gain valuable industry knowledge, contacts, and insights.'"
Shunning traditional aspects of society? Check. On the cutting edge of some new trend? Check. Hang out frequently in coffee shops? Check. This should have been titled "Mac-Toting Hipsters Eschew Tradition to Look Cool, Again."
"Going to war without the French is like going deer hunting without your accordion." ~General Norman Schwarzkopf
shameless plug: the digital nomad also cut loose all links with cubicle nation, including the employee contract. Instead, they work on agile projects, where groups of people can dynamically recombine online using stuff like online deals.
Seems more like it's just people who want to feel like they're on vacation all the time instead of at work. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against it. I just think the label "Digital Nomad" is a bit of a stretch.
Formerly known as bum.
If you're "using tools such as Facebook, Skype, and Twitter" in coffee shops for your job, then I'm afraid I've got news for you - dicking around on your Mac for attention does not actually constitute working. It constitutes "dicking around".
Also, who are you going to play table football with? Huh? Huh? Huh? Huh?
Always proofread carefully to see if you any words out.
Homeless.
Yours In Socialism,
Kilgore Trout
Nice to look at and pretend, but for some parts of society it'll never happen. Some of us will always end up going into an office, being out on patrol, or dealing with the public when all hell breaks loose.
Om, nomnomnom...
Am I the only one with an employer that has the attitude "If I can't see you working, you aren't working"?
In fact, the last few companies I've worked at have been like that. Maybe I've just been unlucky, but "working from home" hasn't been an option at any point in my career.
If all you need is a VPN connection to home office to be productive, suddenly Indians and Chinese and Israelis and Irishman can bid for and compete for the same job. You may feel you are on top of the game and this does not pose any immediate threat to your job. Even if the job is safe, the salaries will be lower because there are people willing to do the same job for less pay, less benefits. Eventually someone will learn to do your job, do it better than you and will be willing to accept lower pay than you.
Unlike the H1Bs, these workers do not pay taxes to USA nor do they spend the money in the local shops and take vacations within USA. It is prospect of getting cheap labor from these countries that prompt corporate America to promote telecommuting. Remember that.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Impossible! Whose going to calibrate my Gigawatt laser if I'm out having coffee??
I mean come on people, there are freaking sharks here just waiting to have freaking laser beams attached to their head. It's not like sharks just start naturally growing lasers out of their heads due to evolutionary mutations...
Hrmm that's an idea.
The need for contact with other people has driven some nomads to start working with others in public places and at strangers' homes..
Hey, that sounds like the president and CEO of the company I used to work at. Makes $250k/year and half the time he uses his BB to post updates to Facebook every hour while in public places.
The other half of his time he's busy boning his assistant who makes $150k/year and doesn't even have work or college experience. Maybe that qualifies as "working" at a stranger's home? Hopefully it is at one of their houses, because the assistant is really ugly and I would hate to walk into a coffee shop and see them getting it on.
As someone who frequents one of the coffee shops mentioned (the excellent Java Shack), I find people like this annoying simply for the fact that they tie up a table all day. In small coffee shops, it can be tough to find a spot to sit when you have people sitting there all day with a ton of gear.
It sounds like the owners don't mind, so what can you do?
1.) Homeless
2.) Buy laptop or better yet cabbage it.
3.) Go to free spot and fire up Botnet.
4.) Finally, profit.
5.) Get whacked by Russian mafia ;-(
There is definitely something I'm not getting here.
That's fine for people who don't want or need something like a "steady income" and projects for companies who don't care about things like a contractor's reputation. This sort of thing is good for people with either:
A) Large personal portfolios but small enough egos that they can fit their heads into a room with enough strangers to collaborate on a project that may take weeks
OR
B) Kids looking to start a portfolio or gain work experience.
An interesting concept, to say the least. If done with due dilligence, it could lend a hand with those who do this sort of thing in their off-time but cannot be bothered to market themselves. I wouldn't go as far as to say it will replace the cubicle for 95% of the world's digital gears.
I am the richest astronaut ever to win the superbowl.
I'm a consultant, I run my own show and I have a regular stable of customers. I have remote access to all pieces I need to poke, I have skills that require little interaction beyond the planning, and I like to travel. My problem is if I'm locally available customers will put a very high demand on me. So I solve it with travel from time to time, I go to another city and sit there and have high intensity days where I focus on single projects alone. Now I'm having the IRS chase me as they don't see these expenses as work related, and figure that if I'm not at a customer site or at an office, then I don't work, and all my expense claims have been labelled bogus.
YMMW.
-B
I'm just about to go back to working from home. I did it for seven years, but left a job today where I'd been in the office 9-5 with the same people, and I got to say I was sad to leave primarily because the last year there has been so good from the point of view of having people to bounce things off and just as importantly have fun with. As a consequence I have been thinking about this very thing. It won't be practical (or even desirable) to work in a coffee shop all day everyday, but I will make some effort to get out there more often to some local Wifi hotspots. OK, so I'm not going to necessarily talk to anyone, but the hustle and bustle of a public location has got to be better than sitting around in my flat, eating cereal and scratching my nuts. (mental note don't scratch in public).
And yes I need this mess. One of the computers isn't mine and the other two are totally different architectures. And the printouts are schematics of a ship that I am doing work on
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
True. 95% of the workforce is way too risk-averse. On the other hand, there is no arguing that people's attitudes are changing. The 9-5 job today is so ingrained in our culture that very few are questioning it.
20 years from now, the current generation, raised on multitasking iPhone/IM/FaceBook may continue to multitask in the workplace by working on several projects at the same time. Will we still have 9-5 day jobs with cubicles, assuming telepresence will be good enough that you could work anywhere with anyone and not be impacted by the distance?
The summary claims, "Coffee shop owners love the trend," but I believe that's a bit of an overgeneralization. From my admittedly very limited conversations with small coffee shop owners around the SF Bay Area, the general consensus I've found is that the people who make the coffee shop their office (sorry, "digital nomads" sounds stupid) take up quite a bit of space for a long period of time and don't order much. At places where there's a ton of space, it's not much of an issue, but in areas where space is a luxury (e.g. SF, Berkeley, etc.), the owners definitely seem to be a bit resentful. To be fair, it guarantees them some small consistent income throughout the day, but if they lose just a couple customers who would have bought lunch if there was room for them to sit, then they're at a loss. Also pretty much everyone I talked to has a story of some jerk who'd come and use their Internet access all day and doesn't even have the courtesy to buy a drink.
Sadly, PS/2 was yet another victim of USB, which doesn't care what you plug into it, the electrical slut.
Which gets the proper "will hack for food" vibe in.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
I'm currently a student working for a professor at my university and I've been given the opportunity to do most of my work from home. I program for him, mostly in PHP for a website he is in charge of.
I do most of my work in libraries, parks, and restaurants. There are pros and cons to each environment. I think the greatest problem I've encountered is finding reliable and free wifi. Denny's restaurants tend to have free wifi, but it kicks you off every 30 minutes which is a real pain if you're trying to do something that requires long periods of thought.
Public libraries are most preferable, but at least here in San Diego, they are overcrowded and sometimes I can't find a desk to sit at. Libraries at my school are not crowded and have plenty of room to sit, however, parking requires permits. The park by the library is nice, at least during the day time, but sometimes if there is a lot of glare it is hard to work. Also, the wireless signal in a park is much weaker.
Starbucks is a no go for me since their wifi isn't free. And starbucks is the MOST crowded at all times of the day.
The Ralph's used to have free wifi, and is open 24 hours a day, so I would occasionally study or work from there. But recently they stopped offering free wifi. So I stopped going there.
Overall, I'd say the park is the nicest place to work. There is fresh air, light breezes. Ambient noise is neither repetitive nor distracting, but actually, in the same way the ocean is, relaxing. And you can always get up and take a walk to clear your mind. The other problem though is its hard to find power outlets. So you better have a nice laptop with a good battery, or else you won't be out there long.
My page.
Don't forget about the rise of nomadic scientists! (most notably Garrett Lisi)
...if your job involves working with sensitive information.
I have a bad feeling about this...
indigigent
Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt = [citation required]
This is making me think of homeless MMO players. Red Dwarf had an electronic drug that was essentially a VR life simulation. You get to live out the life you always dreamed of. The best part, of course, is that one of the characters trapped in the game was so full of neuroses and hangups that even his fantasies were a miserable wreck. But for those who had normal fantasies, they'd end up hooked into the game ignoring their own bodies as they slowly starved while lying in a puddle of their own waste. There was also a similar device featured in Star Trek, a game that got people so hooked they wouldn't notice aliens stealing the Enterprise.
When MUD's first became popular, I thought "Surely unemployment would be the addict's best friend. Get fired, lose the house, thus nowhere to plug in the computer, you're going cold turkey!" But the devices are getting so small, so power-friendly, and with games like EVE you can earn game-time just by playing a bunch, it doesn't take much of a stretch to imagine paying for wifi access via selling in-game gold and now the homeless guy living in the cardboard box might not be a wino but a game-o.
As for sending all the work over to Bangalore, I think that there's still going to be cultural barriers to doing so. Companies I've worked at, management has trouble figuring out where to go to lunch with a face-to-face meeting, let alone actually planning things in sufficient detail that a design doc could be sent overseas. At bare minimum an excellent project manager is needed to translate from vagueness to something the techs can understand, whether they're on this coast or overseas. Plus there's the pain in the ass of the differing time schedule. My dad had worked night shift at the phone company garage, a brilliant idea of management where the trucks get worked on at night and thus have greater availability during the day. The only problem is that the parts houses are only open during the day. A truck might be in and out same day on the day shift but for night shift they have to place the part order in the morning, let it arrive during the day, then wait for the next shift to do the work. That's the same sort of thing you're dealing with when working with India. Very delayed turnaround unless you can convince the Indians to work nightshift to fit American hours, a sure recipe for burnout.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
Economist addressed this more than a year ago, but with the focus of "do companies really know where their work from home workers are located?" It went on to address the large number of workers that are hired in one country but then relocate or spend a large amount of time in a vacation destination or higher tax country. They continue to pay taxes based on their company location and pay into pension plans, etc, but they avoid the higher taxes of the country they may be currently living in.
Working from the road is fun, but it really depends on what you're doing. When I'm doing any sort of code I need to be at my house with my 24" monitors and reference library (not all my books are electronic). Other times though it makes the time pass faster to work from a coffee shop (in particular, the one across from the college at around noon ).
Anyhoo, some of the things I found I needed to work completely remotely include: :D )
1) 300W inverter
2) USB hub
3) 3G card
4) Skype (actually now a Google voice node
For the really remote days I picked up a Duracell power supply. It's large (has a fullsize car battery inside) and *heavy*, but lets me work for 8 hours completely away from mains power. I can get by with the laptop and the 3G card, but the power runs out after a couple hours. It seems like a lot of stuff, but it lets me work from the beach or a park.
BTW, I was near the beach once and in the middle of typing when a bunch of really rough looking teenagers started milling around. That was a tense moment until a guard came along to check around. Won't go there again, but it's something to keep in mind if you want to get far away.
Wireless. Nomads. Lame.
Since these people 'on the go' are being called 'digital nomads', why not just save time and call them...wait for it...gonads. I'll show myself out.
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
I can see how Skype may assist in working, but it completely fails me where Facebook or Twitter would come in handy as *tools* for *work* for the vast majority of jobs.
. . . until they start looking for the Kirk, the Creator, then start looking to find and sterilize imperfection.
Slightly disreputable, albeit gregarious
University Avenue in Palo Alto used to have a rather nice tea cafe, Neotte, with power outlets at every table and free WiFi. The place was packed with people with laptops. Several Web 2.0 startups were hatched there. But the customers didn't order much. A friend of mine worked there, and she was usually behind the counter reading a book. Even with the place full of customers, there weren't many orders for tea. The business concept was a flop.
The place converted to a coffee bar. Unfortunately, they were directly across the street from a Starbucks, so that didn't work. Now it's a Red Mango yogurt place, where people tend to buy and leave, not hang out.
"have you got past the wanking phase?"
Working From Home - Mitchell and Webb
http://www.videosift.com/video/Working-from-Home-Mitchell-and-Webb
I work from home quite often doing development and database work. I have a home office, and will alternate from my office, to the dining room table, to outside on the patio. I have a few pets and it works great to be productive and not have them caged all day. I have a friend who lives nearby that does IT work for a different company, and although he gets to work from home, he doesn't always enjoy being completely isolated. So sometimes once a week, he'll come over and work from my place, even though we may only interact for lunch. At the same time, I've thought about going out to a coffee shop or similar place to work, just because I can. I haven't only because the coffee at home is so much cheaper. =)
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
yeah okay i'm one of these. web app developer been commuting for years.
Here's what stinks about working out of a panera or most cafes.
-It's usually freezing cold in summer, so i have to dress for winter in July.
-Yeah i have to buy food or drink, and usually it's fattening.
-Many places crank the lobby music so i can't hear my own music without causing ear damage.
-Lunch can be crowded and more loud than usual.
However I have enjoyed spending a month living in another state, with my sister, and just working out of a dunkin donuts during the day. Got in some family time at night and weekends I could not have otherwise.
Working at home (or out of cafe) does get a bit lonely. I miss the zany whacky coworkers, etc.
These people don't generate as much business as you might think. And they drive away business in fast food restaurants by taking up a whole table for hours.
This can also be couch surfing consultants who've been experiencing the contracts drying up. Not enough work to pay for a flat, but I'll take what I can get. If you do this and work at Walmart, it's called being underemployed.
9-5? Where the hell are you working? It sounds like heaven. I'm expected to work whatever it takes to get the job done, which usually translates into a 8-6 or 7-6 job.
The article summary is kind of lame - it's hard to argue that Facebook is anything work-related except in very light doses. But the main idea is completely real, and reflects my lifestyle, at least part of the time!
I have a laptop and a 3G wireless card. I usually work 'at work' but when I travel for business or pleasure, I pretty much always have them with me and I work almost as well at the local Starbucks, airport, hotel lobby, McDonald's, or living room as at the office. SSH, DAV/SSL, and OpenVPN are your friends, here!
I took a 1-week 'work-ation' this spring and went to Yosemite Park. I still put in work days, but rather than sit in the office, I was in a folding chair with power providedg by an inverter in the car.
BTW: I'm typing this on my WinMo phone in a restaurant over lunch. I routinely answer email and schedule from the phone, too. Thanks to Zimbra, I can coordinate my schedule with the office staff, too. 'Digital Nomad' isn't a buzz word, it's how my life works!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Way way back in the days before the Internet, CompuServe Information Services ($6 an hour plus phone bill, often referred to as CI$) important. At that time, there was a guy named Steve Roberts, aka "Wordy," who travelled around the country on a recumbent bicycle with a TRS-100, posting updates to CIS.
Googling suggests that he is still experimenting with a nomadic lifestyle... I think... Some posting suggest he has an email address at microship.com It's not clear to me whose website that is or what, exactly it is about... but perhaps it is his and perhaps he is still experimenting with a nomadic lifestyle.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Hey I could host a nomad girl at home. We could work from there. There is wifi and 3g connectivity! Even in my bed! (I should post that on craigslit too!)
Yes, but can they monetize that synergy using the cloud computing paradigm?
Dark Reflection
Keep in mind that 9 to 5 is relative. I certainly could do my job from home at midnight, but my clients (in HR departments) do their jobs from 9 to 5 in support of the worker bees in their companies doing their jobs 9 to 5. So as long as my boss feels I need to be at their beck and call, I will be working from 9 to 5.
Now, in versus out of the office is a matter of employee control. We are a very merit-based workplace, and we don't even have to dress very well (we put the "casual" in "business casual"), but we do have to be physically present. Makes the boss feel like he's getting his moneys worth. And I don't mind too much because I get a kick out of our office being the worst dressed but best paid in our building.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
Dynamically forming new teams all the time won't work because you have to personally get to know people to know what you can expect them to do. Keyword searching of resumes doesn't really meet that requirement. It's not just a matter of satisfying potentially irrational emotions in humans (such as loyalty and trust), but also the fact that each knowledge worker has different knowledge. Even a sports team, doing a relatively simple and well defined task e.g. playing basketball, has to play together for a while to perform well together.
I know some technomads and they have a post on different LIP lifestyles that may be of interest.
http://www.technomadia.com/2009/05/digital-location-independent-lifestyle-designing-nunomads/
Only if that synergy is leveraged through customer-focused AJAX on Arduino. Aeron chairs for everyone!
Now, slashdotters who still live in their Mama's basements, and are afraid to come out during daylight hours can have jobs too!! They can take their work to the video arcade, and to Chucky Cheese's. They can even work from inside a '60's style VW van!!
I see a win-win situation here.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Ever since Dell started using the term "Digital Nomads" I always get this image in my head of a hair ape like person walking around and dragging their knuckles. Digital Nomad... not something that sounds pleasant...
>work wherever there is a Wi-Fi or 3G connection, using tools such as Facebook, Skype, and Twitter,
Seriously, how much real work happens on ANY of these platforms?
They provide more distractions than help.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
all you are arguing for is an artificial inflation of costs
the guy working from india also has 1/10th the cost of living of the mcmansion living $1/gallon hummer driving american, so of course he can underbid you
why do you think it is your right and privilege to cost so much more than you are rightfully worth?
protectionism doesn't help anyone, it just slows down progress
and this is speaking as a programmer living in the usa
if someone can do in manila my job for 1/5th the price, i don't understand how i can justify my rate anymore. how can you?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It seems that digital nomad has come to mean a person who has a stable fixed home, and then works remotely sucking up free bandwidth from somewhere. Well.. ok, I suppose that sorta digitally nomadic.
Then there are others of us who are truly nomadic - without a fixed home. My partner and I travel full time in a solar powered small geeked out trailer, and we provide our own internet access via cellular wireless broadband. We work, live and play full time on the road with amazing regularly changing office views, and have been doing so for over 2 years now. We work on various projects, support our clients and more. I'd say we're also digital nomads.. but not in the sense that this article portrays. We tend to call ourselves 'Technomads' instead.
- Cherie / http://www.technomadia.com
Is it just me or is this old news? Surely people have been doing this for years? Telecommunicating, from home or coffee shops, is hardly news.
However, I can't imagine a better way to work, as long as you've got the self-discipline to actually work and not just spend all day on facebook and chatting on skype; few do.
I saw this trend really picking up steam while I was consulting. When I first started working for the firm I worked with in 2000, we did most of our work onsite. We were working in the SMB market, taking care of companies with 1-50 servers and 5-500 employees. By 2005-6, most of the work was done remotely via VPN. We did standard IT work and some development projects. When I left in 2007, unless the problem was hardware related, I never had to visit client sites. The clients appreciated it because we billed for drive time and mileage. I didn't like it so much because I lost that revenue, but on the other hand, I could also handle more clients at the same time so it some what balanced out.
It seems like certain IT tasks are better suited to remote/offsite work than others. Development projects seem like the best candidate. So long as you meet your deadlines, it doesn't really matter where or when you produce your code and applications. Of course you have to be around for meetings, or arrange teleconferences, video conferences, whatever. A lot of support can be done remotely, but when something goes physically wrong you have to be there to work with the hardware.
I'm working on about 10-12 projects at any given time and I work from 9 to 5 (more like 8 to 6, but whatever). Where I do my work isn't so important (although I do like having my office several miles from my home) since I'm always working on my laptop, but *when* I work is important. It's good to have a consistent block of time for work so you can give yourself an opportunity to enjoy life.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Just think of the possibilities. I might even be able to go home early!
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
I rarely do it anymore, but for nearly two months back in 1998 I worked out of a Starbucks for 3-4 days per-week and found that my productivity tripled.
For the first two days anyway ... then I learned to switch to decaf shots post-noon and my productivity dropped down to only double my normal rate :-)
Of course that was before you could get connectivity (my house was across the street so I tried wireless modems and then a Graphite Airport but no signal could get past the power lines running down the streets) and I'm sure that not having to deal with interruptions from co-workers or management played more than a small part in the productivity increase.
"Overall, I'd say the park is the nicest place to work. There is fresh air, light breezes. Ambient noise is neither repetitive nor distracting, but actually, in the same way the ocean is, relaxing. And you can always get up and take a walk to clear your mind. The other problem though is its hard to find power outlets. So you better have a nice laptop with a good battery, or else you won't be out there long."
Can I mug you? :)
> The need for contact with other people has driven some nomads to start working with others in public places and at strangers' homes. I could see this need someday becoming so great that eventually these folks may be driven to the point where they form functional groups with like minded colleagues and commune in a central location. Out of sheer desperation for human contact, of course. I think "office" would be a catchy name for one of these communal locations. > at strangers' homes. This part is ironic because in fact, yesterday morning a stranger burst into our house while I had opened the door to get the paper, he sat down in our breakfast nook, plugged in his computer into the nearest outlet, and went straight to work saying nary a word. Poor bastard.
I used to telework much more. However, I find that (a) I get more done while monofocused in the office and (b) when I need people they're around.
Now, I do still telework some. In fact, I make sure I leave my office (a small 10'x20' room) by 3:30 or so in order to concentrate on coaching my boys' baseball teams. I then do work via vpn at night after they're asleep and while my beautiful bride is watching the Bachellorette or All My Children or whatever.
However, the allure of TW seems to be limited to mundane routine tasks. Anything that requires much paper handling (which we still for some reason have) or interaction just doesn't work in TW situations. Yeah, I've seen people post about IM, and it does work to an extent, but there's something about getting together in a hallway in front of a physical whiteboard that is missing from the TW equation.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Driving is expensive, risky and time-consuming. Plus I want to *scream* at bad drivers. (Today's example. a tiny women driving a gigundous SUV, badly, with a cell phone glued to her ear as she bore down on the guy in front of me while she was busy discussing where to pick up her little darlings after school).
.
Does anyone really need that?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Or well it was a bookshop and coffee shop combined.
Anyway. These were exactly the kind of customers I did not want. People who work or study from coffee shops are the worst customers you can imagine; not only do they sit for hours and hours taking up potential customer space without really buying anything more than an occasional latte, but after a while they'll think they're your friend too. If you're really unlucky they'll get completely disillusioned and think they actually work there.
I had my coffee shop for a year before selling it. I actually had one guy who wrote his whole university D study (don't know what the US equivalent is, I'm a Swede) at my shop, and then had the stomach to brag about the fact.
The best customers are the take away customers. Period.
iHobo: No coffee. Takes up table space at Starbucks. Lame.
I believe the politically correct term is "physically disabled"
:)
(prescient captcha: victim)
I am sorry. Going to the coffee shop down the street does not make you a nomad. It is just going for a coffee. Moving from country to country is being a nomad.
I specialize in providing support services to "digital nomads" in Chile, and run a community made mostly of these sorts of people that live in Chile
. Many of my clients are IT professionals that have moved their families to Chile, and work exclusively on the internet. Many have lived and worked all over the World. They just choose Chile because it stable, safe, and has some of the best internet in Latin America. A few live completely off the grid in rather remote locations besides their internet connections through wireless, sat, cell phone.
Living in Chile
And it turned into a real job. I write software that was all originally designed for the coffee shop. Things like a gateway that allows people who buy a drink 3 hours of internet access before they have to buy another one, an online ordering system for people to order coffee (now used by a bunch of other coffee shops and restaurants), and a customized OpenBravoPOS system. So technically now, there is two companies at the shop's location. There is the Coffee Shop and then the Technology company I co-founded with the coffeeshop owner.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Here's one (me) http://countermoon.org/ and one who's been on the road for years, over here: http://microship.com./
There's another one, but she's not checked in for a while. She's currently WALKING AROUND THE GLOBE and we don't know where she is, lately: http://photogypsy.org/
It's about taking computers/HAM equipment/etc with us on our journeys. Steve Roberts (microship.com) has been doing it since about 1983!
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
Perhaps the biggest difference in making telecommuting palatable on a large scale might be the proliferation of, ironically, bugs. That's the real critters as in swine flu etc..
Imagine the CDC not just recommending, but ordering, telecommuting for all employee's where it can be done. Just so they don't have to congregate in crowded public transport systems or at work amongst each other.
It's a bitch having to take that big scrum board with me.
I found it interesting that only one employer's opinion on this situation was mentioned and it was in a positive light. I used to work from home two days a week out of my five due to a four-hour round trip commute. We have since moved back into the city and part of the reason was the stress I was under to continually prove to my employers that I was actually working. I kept a log of every task I performed (to the minute) and sent it to my line manager on a Friday evening. I was constantly reassuring colleagues that I'd be available to do their presentations (I'm a presentations designer) and have it back to them in time for their meetings and I was asked EVERY Wednesday by at least one person 'oh, you're not in tomorrow are you?' to which I had to reply 'I'm working from home, so just drop me an email or call my extension' and felt like shouting 'I WILL BE WORKING!!'. My employers forked out £1,000 to set me up with a remote terminal and phone and I was online at 8.55am every day, ready to go, but no-one at my office was ever comfortable with the lack of physical presence. The crunch came when I was ill on a Wednesday and decided not to do the two hour commute, emailed my HR manager to say I was sick but well enough to work from home after a couple more hours sleep, went back to bed and started work at 8.55 as usual. Later in the day - bearing in mind that I was sick, but actually WORKING - I got an email asking that as I'd worked from home today, which one of my 'work from home' days would I be swapping to work in the office that week? We moved back to the city a month later. My point is that your employer may want to keep you bad enough to set you up working from home, but in most situations, this will never, ever, EVER be accepted and embraced by your colleagues. They figure you're sitting at home in your PJs (which I was) watching Sally Jesse (which I wasn't) and playing on the internet (which I do just as much at the office - like now!). I loved working from home and would do it again in a heartbeat, but not in a job where I was expected to be 'part of the team'. When I quizzed my manager about the entire thing he said it was about 'visibility'. Apparently even in our enlightened, technologically advance society, you aren't part of a team unless you are physically there.
People were working like this before offices were invented. "Lloyds of London" (the insurance concern) is so named because their underwriters used to work out of a coffee shop in London, named "Edward Lloyds". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd's_of_London This was in 1688....
Nothing to see here, move along...
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
and i can confirm it is the next step in societal evolution.
who cares where you do your work as long as the work is done properly.
Read radical news here
"B) Kids looking to start a portfolio or gain work experience."
- I'll take B.
I dislike how this "news" is packaged as a strategy, I'm guessing that some wanna-be up-and-comer marketing droid took a good look at what he noticed he and some of his unemployed-but-looking graduate friends were doing, and thought to spin it as a strategy rather than what it really is.. people who can't get more than temp-work and are stuck in coffee shops to a) get out of the house so they won't spend time sleeping or playing WoW, and b)prettying up the fact that they're stuck in a coffee shop with nothing to do but browse facebook.
I would rather have seen this die than actually become news on slashdot.. This is a clear case of marketing-speak, and I was kind of hoping that recent events in the last 9 years or so would help people to stop this kind of non-news.
Yeah, 9 to 5 would be awesome. I work 6 to 4:30, presuming all goes well and I don't have to be there late.
9 to 5 is a myth... employers these days expect 9 to 7
No sig for the moment.
sry, just had to ...
more space than an iPod.