[Air-l] Re: Air-l digest, Vol 1 #404 - road warriors

[Valdis Krebs]

interesting thread on nomadic computing/working...

some real life feedback from two nomadic workers, both 
consultants:

1) Major firm decides to get rid of most of central 
office for consultants and adopts 'hotelling'... if you 
come to the central office, you must 'check in' and we 
will provide you a 'room' and a link into the company 
network.

Consultant finds he misses his colleagues, and the 
informal chats, and idea sessions.  Hears from others, 
via phone chats, that they feel the same. Nomadic 
consultants sometimes go out of their way to schedule 
layovers in the same airport so that they can interact 
F2F.  On-line chat, email, vociemail and cell phone 
just don't substitute effectively for F2F intereaction 
with colleagues they say.

2) Independent consultant works from home office, 
spends 8-12 hours a day on internet, has clients/
colleagues all over the world.  Recent I/T project was 
being all done over the net using email, FTP, web sites 
and WebEx. A meeting was scheduled for the whole team 
in one physiscal place for 2 days.  The two day meeting 
accomplished much more than months of email -- we all 
concluded that: "A day F2F is worth a 1,000 emails" -- 
especially for complex work.

Independent consultant may interact with 20-30 people a 
day on-line, but still misses proximity of others.  
Occasionally gathers his lap-top and goes to local 
bookstore cafe to work and be with real people.  Who 
else is in the bookstore cafe?  Other nomadic workers 
who desire close proximity to living, breathinjg 
bodies!  What's nice about the cafe is that it is a 
good place to form diverse ties -- outside of your 
company/industry.

Valdis Krebs
http://www.orgnet.com