mobility
This is where you will find all the pages tagged mobility.
A Japanese Export: Talent
In Hsinchu where I live, you see the effects of the influx of Japanese workers everywhere. In many ways they seem catered to far more than the many other foreign workers here.
One of the hottest exports from Japan these days isn’t video games or eco-friendly cars.It is engineers.
Japan’s once vaunted electronics industry has downsized to survive global competition, and is inadvertently setting off a brain drain. Thousands of Japanese engineers and other industry professionals have gone to Taiwan, South Korea and China to seek work at aggressive, fast-growing companies that want to use Japanese technological expertise.
Japan's brain drain - New York Times
New 'bedouins' transform a laptop, cell phone and coffeehouse into their office
A new breed of worker, fueled by caffeine and using the tools of modern technology, is flourishing in the coffeehouses of San Francisco. Roaming from cafe to cafe and borrowing a name from the nomadic Arabs who wandered freely in the desert, they've come to be known as "bedouins." San Francisco's modern-day bedouins are typically armed with laptops and cell phones, paying for their office space and Internet access by buying coffee and muffins. "In 'Lawrence of Arabia,' the bedouins always felt like they were on the warpath. They had greater cause," said Niall Kennedy, a 27-year-old San Franciscan who quit his day job at Microsoft Corp. to run his own Web company, Patrick Media, out of cafes and a rented desk. "At a startup, you're always on the go, plowing ahead, with some higher cause driving you."
New 'bedouins' transform a laptop, cell phone and coffeehouse into their office
10 New Ways to Make Money Online
So you want to ditch your corporate cubicle and join the ranks of web workers? But you have a mortgage, maybe a dependent or two, and a taste for Venti Mochas from Starbucks? You can make money in the new economy, though it might not be as easy or cushy as keeping your old economy job.I’m not talking about advertising or affiliate marketing or selling your junk on eBay. Those are so last millennium! I’m talking about the new new economy.
Web Worker Daily � Blog Archive 10 New Ways to Make Money Online �
Airlines Sharpen Sites for Web-Savvy Traveler
On the other hand, as noted here last week, there is the rapidly growing business-travel market of small companies, independent contactors and others who can’t negotiate volume discounts. According to Orbitz, which recently introduced a companion Web site called Road Warrior to serve this market, online “unmanaged” business travel spending is about $28 billion a year.That is a pretty big pool of potential revenue. So with the rapid growth of small-business and independent employee travel, booking sites, including those run by airlines and hotels, are scrambling to redesign their Web sites to appeal to that Internet-savvy market.
Airlines Sharpen Sites for Web-Savvy Traveler - New York Times
On Telecommuting, Telework and Alternative Officing
Do you have any questions about getting your telecommuting program started? About convincing your manager to let you work at home? About your technology decisions? These and many other subjects are covered in this FAQ section- so take time to search through it to find the answers you need.
Frequently Asked Questions - Gil Gordon/Telecommuting
Phones are the new cars
The car's history suggests that the phone's future is about divergence, not convergencePhones, like cars, are fashion items: people generally replace them long before they actually wear out. Both are social technologies that bring people together and act as symbols of independence for teenagers. And phones and cars alike promote freedom, mobility and new lifestyles, with unexpected social consequences. Both started off being defined by their precursors: early cars resembled horseless carriages, and early mobile phones looked similar to push-button fixed-line phones, only without the wire. Now both come in a bewildering range of strange shapes and sizes.
Last, and perhaps most important, the history of the car suggests that the technology industry's current mania for “converged” devices is misguided. Nobody asks what the ideal shape for a car is, or predicts that eventually all cars will look identical. Instead there are different models for different uses: roomy people-carriers for school runs, sports cars for those suffering mid-life crises, small cars for urban dwellers. Some people own more than one car, since no single vehicle meets all their needs. The same will surely be true of phones: the quest for the perfect handset that does everything is silly, since different types of users have different requirements. That suggests that handsets will become more diverse, rather than more uniform, in future: divergence, not convergence. At the same time, expect to see more people switching between different phones depending on the situation. For clues to the future of the phone, look in your driveway.
Economist.com | Articles by Subject | Technology trends
Design your home office for comfort and ease of use
The notion of universal design in the home, or how to make interior spaces more user-friendly and accessible, usually comes up in kitchen and bath designs.But what about accommodations for ease of use in home offices? According to the U.S. Census and Transportation Research Board, the number of Americans who work at home grew 23 percent between 1990 and 2000 to more than 4 million at-home workers.
It is routine for large businesses to consider ergonomics, lighting and other factors when creating offices to make work spaces more functional. Even reducing employee fatigue is part of the planning mix.
But not so in home offices. Without the same access to design experts as big business, homebound workers are generally left to their own devices to choose desks, lighting, storage, carpet and chairs. But an odd mix of products may not work cohesively to help workers perform at their best.
According to Dick Duncan of the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina State University, in-home workers tend to pooh-pooh the idea of function in favor of low cost and product appearance.
Full article here (with basic tips)
Wireless living
Technologies such as WiFi and Bluetooth are freeing us from fixed locations and driving mobility and behavior change.Much of the early development has seen the gradual freedom for the professional to work from cafe to hotel to plane to office, but 2007 should see WiFi drive social and leisure change too.
Many neighborhoods in the US are now speckled with WiFi hotspots from people's own homes. Residents are opting for a wireless router that frees them from a PC tower and home-office desk so that they can use their computer from room to room, house to garden.
Do what you love, where you love to do it
One of the major changes I’ve seen over the past 10 years is the increased number of international opportunities for entrepreneurs. In fact, the best international job you can have is the one you create yourself. Today’s global economy offers numerous opportunities for individuals who want to sell their products and services abroad as well as start their own import-export businesses. Many traditional international jobs in government and business are not as exciting and rewarding as they once were, especially given increased concerns with safety and security when living and working abroad. I also have my own personal biases. Many international jobs today are in countries that don’t particularly appeal to me. I started out in Southeast Asia more than 30 years ago and still find this region to be fascinating.
Do What You Love: An Interview with Ron and Caryl Krannich
La Dolce Vita, Internet Style
Colletta di Castelbianco is a 13th-century Italian village that was on the verge of extinction -- until an architect gave it a new design and Internet connectivity gave it a new lease on life. The story of how it became a haven for mobile professionals.
Nomadic herders go high-tech
Satellites, cell phones and spectrometers: Probably not the first things you think of when you picture sheep and goat herders in Afghanistan. But those modern tools may soon make the lives of nomadic families a little more stable.Afghanistan is the latest location for projects coordinated by the University of California-Davis and Texas A&M University, to provide early warning systems about animal health and to help pinpoint the location of the healthiest grazing areas.
A $4.4 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development's Mission to Afghanistan will fund the effort for four years.
"Agriculture is so fundamental to helping people become economically self-sufficient," said Elsa Murano, dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas.
Nomadic herders go high-tech - CNN.com
