The New Nomads- Taking Your Job on the Road

I found a very interesting article at Business Week.com and would like to share it with you. The big question is: How many of you does this describe?

Do you ever wish you could win the lottery, chuck the rat race, and take off to explore the world? Heck—who hasn't? These days, however, there's a group of independent-minded, techno-savvy entrepreneurs who are turning that dream into a reality. They call themselves New Nomads, and they've transformed work-at-home into work-anywhere-you-damn-well-please.

Whether they take to the road armed with suitcases, laptops, cell phones, and Skype (EBAY) accounts, or settle in at a vacation destination every summer, this band of mobile-preneurs has learned to communicate and support each other with virtual communities like NuNomad.com and LaptopHobo.com. Several of them e-mailed their stories from around the globe to Smart Answers.

Is this is the real end-result of Web 2.0? Will the proliferation of wireless internet connections allow programmers and bloggers to travel the world, free of the constraints of mortgages and utility bills? And what are the pros and cons of this kind of lifestyle?

Spiritual and Financial Benefits

"The only downsides are that my dream has been always to have a beautiful rose garden and we both would love to have pets," Chiba wrote. Yes, there are cons to the wanderlust lifestyle, though Bolanos calls them "challenges" rather than "cons." "You must work downtime into your professional schedule when you are transitioning from one place to another," she wrote. "I have often been caught off-guard by how many days it takes me to shake jet lag and get acclimated to new surroundings before I can really be mentally available to clients. I've learned not to push too hard when we are moving."

The pros, of course, far outweigh the "challenges"—at least as far as the Nu Nomads are concerned. "I make Western wages, but spend it in developing countries, [which is] about one-quarter the cost of living of Southern California, where I'm from," Hamel wrote. "Personally, I've enjoyed being influenced by the differing communities I have visited and/or lived in, and [have benefited also] spiritually—not in a religious sense, but being able to home in on the core of my value system and learn to love more and fear less."

Or will the future of work look more like what is happening at Best Buy:

The nation's leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical--if risky--experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

Hence workers pulling into the company's amenity-packed headquarters at 2 p.m. aren't considered late. Nor are those pulling out at 2 p.m. seen as leaving early. There are no schedules. No mandatory meetings. No impression-management hustles. Work is no longer a place where you go, but something you do. It's O.K. to take conference calls while you hunt, collaborate from your lakeside cabin, or log on after dinner so you can spend the afternoon with your kid.

[...]

The official policy for this post-face-time, location-agnostic way of working is that people are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done. "This is like TiVo (TIVO ) for your work," says the program's co-founder, Jody Thompson. By the end of 2007, all 4,000 staffers working at corporate will be on ROWE. Starting in February, the new work environment will become an official part of Best Buy's recruiting pitch as well as its orientation for new hires. And the company plans to take its clockless campaign to its stores--a high-stakes challenge that no company has tried before in a retail environment.

Another thing about this experiment: It wasn't imposed from the top down. It began as a covert guerrilla action that spread virally and eventually became a revolution. So secret was the operation that Chief Executive Brad Anderson only learned the details two years after it began transforming his company. Such bottom-up, stealth innovation is exactly the kind of thing Anderson encourages. The Best Buy chief aims to keep innovating even when something is ostensibly working. "ROWE was an idea born and nurtured by a handful of passionate employees," he says. "It wasn't created as the result of some edict."

Now these are some work environments that I could really get into. Check out these links -

CultureRx, NuNomad.com and LaptopHobo.com.

There is even a handbook for those who want to find out how to get out of the office for good:

Quit Dreaming and Go! A Step-by-Step Manual on What it Takes to Travel the World and Support Yourself in the Process has been assembled as a practical “How To” manual for those of you who are serious about breaking out of the office and into the world. As a 135 page downloadable ebook (or 188 page printed book) it includes information on all vital aspects of travel preparation for making a nomadic work life possible.

Check it out.