Broadband, Telework and the Renaissance of American Life
http://www.broadbandforamerica.com/blog/broadband-telework-and-renaissance-american-life
Posted February 21st, 2012 by Michael Haaren -RatRaceRebellion.com
Imagine living in a pedestrian community where you could work from home or walk to an eWork center. The center could have daycare, a cafe, shops, and a gym. You could eat locally-grown food (think light carbon footprint and actual nutrition), patronize local businesses, and read to your daughter's second-grade class. Your employer could be down the block, across the nation, or over the sea.
No more ghost towns. No more road rage. No more missed soccer games, bedtime stories, or school plays. Suddenly, the rat is no longer quite so involved in the race. As commuting and driving generally are minimized and our bonds to place and people restored, we become "emotionally available" once again to partners, children, friends and community.
The reigning triumvirate of the car, the truck, the highway has been properly demoted, replaced by a higher and healthier authority -- the heart, the senses, the whole.
For this dream to come true, one important element needs to be in place – access to broadband. Broadband allows for individuals to connect across the globe. Being anchored to a desk to achieve efficiency in the workplace could be a necessity of the past as individuals could just as easily connect from anywhere else in the world.
Expanding broadband access to all corners of the nation is crucial for telework. Availability of broadband would help to not only avoid the rat race but would also build on an economy in need of repair. Internet access can pave the way towards job expansion
as well as a more fruitful and efficient workforce.
This is the great promise of broadband and telework. And it's high time it were kept.
Michael Haaren is CEO of Staffcentrix, LLC, which provides virtual-careers training programs to the US State Department, Air Force and other clients. He appears often in the media as a telework advocate, including CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Businessweek and many more. He is the co-author of two guides to home-based work, The 2-Second Commute and Work at Home Now, and Co-Director of the telework jobs website, RatRaceRebellion.com.
No more ghost towns. No more road rage. No more missed soccer games, bedtime stories, or school plays. Suddenly, the rat is no longer quite so involved in the race. As commuting and driving generally are minimized and our bonds to place and people restored, we become "emotionally available" once again to partners, children, friends and community.
The reigning triumvirate of the car, the truck, the highway has been properly demoted, replaced by a higher and healthier authority -- the heart, the senses, the whole.
For this dream to come true, one important element needs to be in place – access to broadband. Broadband allows for individuals to connect across the globe. Being anchored to a desk to achieve efficiency in the workplace could be a necessity of the past as individuals could just as easily connect from anywhere else in the world.
Expanding broadband access to all corners of the nation is crucial for telework. Availability of broadband would help to not only avoid the rat race but would also build on an economy in need of repair. Internet access can pave the way towards job expansion
as well as a more fruitful and efficient workforce.
This is the great promise of broadband and telework. And it's high time it were kept.
Michael Haaren is CEO of Staffcentrix, LLC, which provides virtual-careers training programs to the US State Department, Air Force and other clients. He appears often in the media as a telework advocate, including CNN, the Wall Street Journal, Businessweek and many more. He is the co-author of two guides to home-based work, The 2-Second Commute and Work at Home Now, and Co-Director of the telework jobs website, RatRaceRebellion.com.
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