Mobility Has It's Advantages

2010-02-16T15:41:00.000-06:00

Mobility Has It's Advantages
by Rich Allcorn

In working "mobile", or being a "virtual office", there are percs and there are pitfalls, with ups and downs, and both good points and bad points. The fact is, when it comes to being "mobile", the biggest plus that I can think of is that you are flexible.

Here, you see me parked in my Jeep! It was a nice cool Spring day! The temperature was about 60 degrees, give or take a few, and it was a perfect working outdoors kind of a day!

I pulled the Jeep back up into a wooded area, and parked it in amongst the trees, in the shade. I dropped the windows, scooted back my seat for a more comfortable working position, plugged my notebook travel adapter into the 12vdc power port (we used to call these cigarette lighters), and with the built-in WWAN (wireless WAN - cellular link) I was "connected"!

Nearby, there was a stream running by. This added a peaceful water trickling sound to the whole ambiance of the site! I was at peace.

I pulled the Jeep back up into a wooded area, and parked it in amongst the trees, in the shade. I dropped the windows, scooted back my seat for a more comfortable working position, plugged my notebook travel adapter into the 12vdc power port (we used to call these cigarette lighters), and with the built-in WWAN (wireless WAN - cellular link) I was "connected"!

Nearby, there was a stream running by. This added a peaceful water trickling sound to the whole ambiance of the site! I was at peace.

Notice the trail in the next picture. This trail led on to, where I do not know. I didn't follow it. But it seemed to go on forever, off into the mysteries of the woods where I found myself today. I had some writing to do, and a wonderful office was provided to me today to do it in, but I had to step out and shoot a few pics first! The scenery was beautiful!

These shots were taken right here in the Round Rock area, in the surrounding Austin Texas region. We have the most beautiful trees and woodlands here. The streams and creeks run in various places. Many, at one time, were clear running streams quite popular for the cowboys to stop by and water their horses. These same streams still run today. They're not quite the clear, inviting streams they once were, mostly due to lawn fertilizers and various run-off from the yards and homes of the neighborhoods up above these creek areas. Yes, man and his presence in an area sometimes really takes it toll on the environment.

So the next time you consider our working environment, keep mine in mind! I get to work in the places that provide me with the most inspiration. I can be camping, or in a local Starbucks; in a Barnes and Noble, or even parked in the woods!

1-Introduction

2009-05-20T15:03:00.027-05:00

In today's technology, and in the vast and ever changing world's economy, it seems most prudent for one to consider working "remotely", or from at home. If your work source is the Internet, then you are not limited to the job market in your local city, or your local area.

I'm Going Mobile!
You can find work just about anywhere, when you're not tied down to a particular region. The problem is, you usually have to relocate or travel to that location, if you want to actually perform the work you want to accomplish. But, when you can work on the Internet, you are 'location free', or in my more favorite phrase, you are "mobile"!

A Look At The Job Market
In the Austin Texas area, where I live, we have a lot of large companies that have, over the years, hired IT folks left and right. Folks were moving here just to take advantage of the abundance of work! Companies were given tax incentives and utility breaks to move their facilities to Austin and set up shop. For a while, life here for the IT-related employee was wonderful!

I did a lot of contracting. This proved to be a lucrative venture as it gave me boat loads of experience in a wide variety of areas in my field! It also kept me in work, constantly. What I liked the most was that I made really good money, I got to work with the latest equipment, and because I was a contractor, it was "my" equipment! I bought it, I owned it, used it, and when the job was done, I took it home!

This scenario worked wonderfully for me. I even set up a "home office", custom built with wall-to-wall plush carpeting, textured walls, ample air conditioning, and quiet ... peace and quiet, where I could get A LOT of work done! I wired the office with an abundance of network jacks, phone jacks, cable TV jacks, and all the electrical outlets I could possibly need. I had a couple of identical pc workstations set up with a special desk to work from.

I had various servers running on my own internal network, with the various operating systems I might need to support or work with. I even built my own wiring closet, with punch down 110 blocks (telco) and everything! I had ISDN piped in (DSL was just getting started in our area yet) so that I could bridge out or VPN to any site with ISDN access in the server room! I had two Apple workstations, a couple of WY60 terminals, and even an LA-36 teletypewriter terminal! I'm telling you, these were the wonderful days!

I stayed in work constantly! When I was in between job assignments, I used that time to relax, go camping, or work on an upgrade to the office. I did not have a digital camera then, but have managed to scan in a photo I had of the operations center. As you can see, I was "set", with all the reference books and materials I needed to run my own HELP DESK from there, if I needed to. One of the things a lot of companies liked was when I would come in and document their network and equipment. I developed various spreadsheets and forms using standard Office templates so that they could later be maintained after my tasks were done. These proved invaluable for network and system recovery.

Life, however is rather funny about change. It has this incessant need to do so! And , it did! Remember those big companies who "settled" into our sweet lil' town to do business? Well, they figured out that if they gave a lot of their employees "the boot" before the end of the year, they would look good on paper! Nevermind that a lot of families were going to have a crappy Christmas this year because of it! One of these companies, probably the worst at this, would always do this right before Christmas, and then afterwards, some time during the 1st quarter of the following year, they would go out and hire "new folks" to replace those they pulled the "bah humbug" on just a few months before!

A Flooded Market
After 2 or 3 years of this repeated process, and coupled with the tragic events of 9-1-1 and their effects on the IT market, we found ourselves with an over-crowded market that was now flooded with unemployed IT folks! We still haven't figured out how to thank them for their wonderful gift to our community ... the one that gave them all of these incentives to come here!
(I'm being retorical)

Now, there were scores of folks, like myself, who were now out of work! What do they do? Being the resourceful young folks that we are, our IT folks decided to be independent "consultants"! WAIT? THAT'S MY JOB! And you guessed it, I found myself right along with them ... trying to find work in an overcrowded market, created by the false reporting techniques of big business.

It's Time For Change
My point is this: the IT-related Job Market is now just too unstable to depend on, at least for this area. The market is flooded with already unemployed IT folks, and we are then faced with a new enemy ... a recession! Now, it's not only IT folks ... it's a LOT OF FOLKS! What does one do? Well, there's an old saying that goes something like, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going!"

Now that doesn't mean that we pack our bags and leave! No, it means that we begin to apply the use of that grey matter mounted on top of our shoulders ... we begin to use our head. It's time to think "smart"! We cannot afford to just apply "hours" any longer to what we do. We have to "work smart", if we want to overcome this situation. So where do we turn?

We turn to the Internet. After all, what is the Internet but just a big fat network! It's a big network that connects ... the WORLD! So with it we should be able to "reach out and touch someone" so to speak, without ever having to leave our homes!

The Work-At-Home Scenario
It's time to find ways to work "remotely"! If our market is now flooded with the jobless, what else can we do but to look elsewhere. And if we can do that without having to even step outside, then how wonderful can that be? More and more every day, folks are 'waking up' to the idea that they can work from at home. Companies are casting off their blinders and setting aside paradigms and former beliefs that this could not be done, and they are opening the doors to "work-at-home" employees, and finally embracing the idea that people can actually work responsibly without being supervised and watched over.

In recent studies, and in even in some that I performed a number of years ago, it has been proven to be cheaper for most employees to work from at home. There is no need for the purchase of office space or cubicle partitions. The office does not have to provide as much at their facilities if a great deal of their employees are work-at-home employees.

Ofcourse the key is selecting the right equipment, and knowing what you need and how to set it all up. Did you know it is now possible for you to have a phone that connects to your office, with extensions, intercom, transferring capabilities, and all the features ... and it only has to plug into your local network there in your home - your DSL connection to the Internet?

IBM Does It With Excellence
IBM, for example, seems to have mastered the work-at-home scenario. When I worked there as a contractor, it seems that a better part of their employees were working from at home. My immediate supervisor worked from his home. I worked there for 2 months before I actually met him, face-to-face! My "team lead" worked from his home too, only he lived in Arizona! We would have daily phone-conferences for team meetings, and we often took online training across the internal network we were connected to. We were using a VPN connection, from each of our homes, using DSL (or a Roadrunner cablemodem connection) and we could see the presentation on our pc's, and could even interact with the instructor in realtime two-way full-duplex voice communications!

There are many positions that require one to be in-office, but for those whose work description would lend itself to "any location", the work-at-home scenario proves to be perfect! IBM impressed me with their excellence in being prepared for folks to work from at home. Their intranet is set up to support much of the things one would need from the office. They have a very secure VPN system which allows you to connect to the office network from your ThinkPad notebook computer. They have a complete Help Desk, and computer support, and can even swap parts, or a whole pc, by overnighting it to you! They even have the capabilities of rebuilding your pc, to their factory default installation, with the IBM enhancements ofcourse, all through their VPN connection while you are at home! My hat goes off to them for their innovations in this area!

And, if you are visiting the IBM campus, you can be just as portable! You can be just about anywhere with your same notebook pc, and you'll be "connected"! They have a complete wireless WAN system throughout their campuses that is secure, and solid. It allows for you to roam about the campus, and remain completely connected. I saw folks working in the cafeteria, out on the balcony, in the courtyards, and while they were waiting for meetings in the foyer of an office area. All I had to do for access was to apply "online". Once I had approval (online) from my supervisor, I received a logon ID and PASSWORD. That was it - I'm "in"!

In The Articles To Come
In the articles to come, we will address things like setting up a home office, setting up your "virtual" office, and types of jobs and endeavors you can consider for working from at home. We will discuss the various equipment that you might need, and what wonderful things you can do with these magnificient pieces of electronic wonder, to make your work-at-home setup an adventure to remember!

At the end of each article, I will try to introduce what's coming up in the article(s) to follow, to help you to anticipate our upcoming subject and why you might want to make sure and elect to "follow" our articles. All of these articles will be available from the archives, after they've been read. At the bottom of each posting, in the right column, you will find a link where you can look up past articles in the archives.

In The Meanwhile
Suffice it to say, the thing to do for now is to begin to "think outside of the box"! Get a handle on the fact that working an 8-to-5 job like Ward Cleaver used to do is becoming a thing of the past. Companies that do hire for those positions do not offer the stability and security that was once available during the "Leave It To Beaver" series we used to watch.

In today's corporate environment, laying someone off has been honed and whittled down to a fine art. With the widespread use of HR departments and the HR systems that have been developed, you can now get rid of a perfectly good employee, and easily cover all your tracks so that they will find it next to impossible to come back at you for some procedural thing you might have done wrong. It's become a sound practice now, with folks who have learned to "cut 'em off" and never so much as have a notion of remorse.

Cheer up, though! Today is the day of adventure! It's the time of new thinking, and new ideas ... of new work ethics and scenarios! Today is the beginning of a new way of living ... contractors, part-timers, and prn's (as needed) are the norm now, with more and more "out-sourcing" being done every day.

To be prepared, though, you are going to have to have your own "home office". If you don't have a spare room or area for this, then you're going to have to consider what I call the "virtual office" scenario. With this you can work from anywhere, with a notebook computer and some related hardware. But you are going to have to be prepared ... if you want to survive the changes of our society, and stay on top of the game!

Check back with us next week as we begin to discuss the various types of hardware you will need to consider, what our recommendations are, and where you can find these items, as we look at the "HOME OFFICE SCENARIO".

Until then, remember ... think outside of the box!
Make me proud.

Written by Richard A. Allcorn
© Copyright 2009 - All rights reserved.

For additional information, please consult the following websites:
Personal website - http://www.richallcorn.org/
Additional posted writings can be found here - http://www.richallcorn.com/writer