During the past few years, the rise of higher quality wired networks and mobility has changed the definition of telecommuting. Today, people working outside the corporate office are just as likely to be in a coffee shop or their car as in their home office. My new site, Telework USA, covers these changes from employees' point of view.
The changes are great:Wired networks are more robust, cellular networks (especially as LTE becomes ubiquitous) can be used to do "real" work and mobile devices, from smartphones to tablets, are as powerful as those provided by employers.
All of this is enabling employees to work on sensitive data beyond the firewall – and to connect to the crown jewels buried in corporate servers and data bases.
Parallel changes are the consumerization of IT and the “bring your own device” trends. Companies are saving millions of dollars in capital outlay by allowing (and often encouraging) workers to use their own gadgets. Nothing is free, however: BYOD programs introduce a complex and potentially messy raft of management, security, regulatory compliance and other challenges.
The fate of remote work touches on environmental issues that are important to Daily Kos visitors. Each worker who operates from home or isn’t required to go all the way to the corporate office every day reduces pollution and our reliance on fossil fuels. It also frees people up for more fulfilling and varied lives.
There are two differences between Telework USA and other telecom blogs and sites. One is that I am tracking the fast evolution of this sector from the point of view of the end users, not the employers. The other is that the blog is as much a hobby as a vocation, so I include music videos with just about each post. (Here is the site's music index.) The informal tag line of the site: "Come for the telework, stay for the music."
Please visit the site, subscribe to the newsletter and send ideas--and music clips.