Daniel Klotz: 11 Problems You Can Solve in 2009: Part V - Telecommuting
Harl Delos
· 1 year ago
I think you (and I) need input from the folks at Mapquest. They started here but moved to NYC.
Part of it is connectivity, and although it's greatly improved since AOL bought them, we still have a problem with that. We don't even have good cellphone coverage, especially in the southern part of the county, where living costs are lowest, and our broadband isn't the greatest. I keep hearing that Verizon is going to bring FIOS here, and yet they haven't. I've decided to stop holding my breath.
I suspect another problem is that there's not much of a high-tech community here. If you're a geek, you want to associate with other geeks, so you're more likely to accept a job in a community where there's an engineering school.
I'm not saying that's the whole story. The computer was invented at Penn, and Philadelphia squandered that advantage, letting Silicon Valley develop in California. On the other hand, I can't think of a single community that's seen their residents become more competitive internationally by building a stadium or a convention center.
Kyle
· 1 year ago
Great post. I think that the coworking movement is going to see an explosion over the coming year for those exact reasons. more and more companies are looking to lessen their overhead, and what better way than to let your employees work from home.
Lancaster is a prime location for telecommuters as well. It has a great culture, and more tech than one would expect. Mapquest is actually still headquartered in Granite run, plus there's a quickly growing tech community. Good things to come i'm sure.
danielklotz
· 1 year ago
Kyle, thank you for reading and responding to this post. You address some of Harl's concerns with more authority and direct experience than I can offer. As you continue to find ways to make your working arrangement "work," I know we'd all love to hear about how you do it.
Josh Babetski
· 1 year ago
For the record: MQ has never been based out of NYC. The .com site was launched locally and the offices have always been located in the Lancaster area and Denver, CO.
Pennsylvania as a whole is not competitive when it comes to attracting tech businesses and talent for a number of reasons. The state also suffers from an extremely high-rate of brain-drain, creating even less appeal. Turning attention to modernizing PAs attitude, laws, taxes, and culture is where there's tremendous opportunity for growth in the local tech community. Other areas of the country have done an excellent job with this. The DC-area has launched a number of initiatives to become "Silicon Valley East" and they've created momentum.
Central PA's geography, the coworking/telecommuting movement, and people being priced out of nearby metro areas and the Bay Area add to local potential, but without infrastructure, community, and incentives, they'll be other places that will continue to capitalize to PA's detriment.
In just the past year, I've seen a big jump in local organization, using tools like Facebook and Twitter to find and connect the disconnected tech fragments in our area. As that movement spreads and grows, it's up to this fledgling tech community to turn some attention to addressing these other issues and creating an environment of opportunity to attract others.
aullman
· 11 months ago
One way to deal with many of the issues facing home telecommuting is to utilize remote offices. Home telecommuting is not the only option for workers who want to skip the long daily commute. Remote Office Centers offer improved infrastructure and better structure. ROCs lease individual offices, internet and phone systems to workers from different companies in shared centers located around the city and suburbs.
ROCs provide structure, infrastructure and social contact. All of these are important for most workers.
ROCs are fairly new, but represent nothing more than a paradigm shift.
There is a free web site that lists ROCs by location:
Yes, there are number of studies that support telecommuting. Government is also encouraging this practice. This will be gaining momentum in the days to come. Cheers
All Comments
Part of it is connectivity, and although it's greatly improved since AOL bought them, we still have a problem with that. We don't even have good cellphone coverage, especially in the southern part of the county, where living costs are lowest, and our broadband isn't the greatest. I keep hearing that Verizon is going to bring FIOS here, and yet they haven't. I've decided to stop holding my breath.
I suspect another problem is that there's not much of a high-tech community here. If you're a geek, you want to associate with other geeks, so you're more likely to accept a job in a community where there's an engineering school.
I'm not saying that's the whole story. The computer was invented at Penn, and Philadelphia squandered that advantage, letting Silicon Valley develop in California. On the other hand, I can't think of a single community that's seen their residents become more competitive internationally by building a stadium or a convention center.
Lancaster is a prime location for telecommuters as well. It has a great culture, and more tech than one would expect. Mapquest is actually still headquartered in Granite run, plus there's a quickly growing tech community. Good things to come i'm sure.
Pennsylvania as a whole is not competitive when it comes to attracting tech businesses and talent for a number of reasons. The state also suffers from an extremely high-rate of brain-drain, creating even less appeal. Turning attention to modernizing PAs attitude, laws, taxes, and culture is where there's tremendous opportunity for growth in the local tech community. Other areas of the country have done an excellent job with this. The DC-area has launched a number of initiatives to become "Silicon Valley East" and they've created momentum.
Central PA's geography, the coworking/telecommuting movement, and people being priced out of nearby metro areas and the Bay Area add to local potential, but without infrastructure, community, and incentives, they'll be other places that will continue to capitalize to PA's detriment.
In just the past year, I've seen a big jump in local organization, using tools like Facebook and Twitter to find and connect the disconnected tech fragments in our area. As that movement spreads and grows, it's up to this fledgling tech community to turn some attention to addressing these other issues and creating an environment of opportunity to attract others.
ROCs provide structure, infrastructure and social contact. All of these are important for most workers.
ROCs are fairly new, but represent nothing more than a paradigm shift.
There is a free web site that lists ROCs by location:
http://www.remoteofficecenters.com