I am a web Bedouin -- not the desert dwelling nomadic tribe -- but the new term for an online worker without a fixed office. At various times during the work day (which can be almost any time), I might be found in the local coffee shop, the city park, the library, or my screened-in porch.
The working world is becoming quite a friendly place for us Bedouins. With Wi-Fi, cellular technology, instant messaging and internet-based project management, I am as much in my office while at the pool as at home.
Two new services are making the Bedouin's work life even easier. One, GrandCentral, I wrote about earlier, before it was bought by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG). GrandCentral gives me one phone number to distribute to my working contacts. I can route a call placed to this number to any other phone of my choosing, as well as record any conversation on it.
Paper mail has been more of a problem, but services such as Earth Class Mail have solved that problem too. For a monthly fee of $10-25, ECM provides me with a physical mailbox address I can distribute. The outside envelope of any mail that arrives in that box is scanned and its image sent to me via e-mail. I then have three choices:
- Have them pitch the mail unopened
- Have the mail opened, the contents scanned and emailed to me
- Have the envelope sent to me unopened
ECM also offers to store the scanned results for me.
While the number of pieces of mail is limited, and overages incur addition charges, this service would be invaluable to businesspeople operating from, say, a mobile home, an increasingly popular choice among the semi-retired.
As a Bedouin, the service is tax-deductible, and frees me to travel at my whim. An office? What a 20th century concept.
Note: I don't have any holdings in either GrandCentral or Earth Class Mail.
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