Digital Nomads

Drew Jones, SHIFT

It has been ten years since David Berreby published his seminal Strategy & Business article on digital nomads- The Hunter Gatherers of the Knowledge Economy: The Anthropology of Today’s Cyberforagers.In the article Berreby draws on the controversial field of evolutionary psychology to point out thathominids have spent the majority of our evolutionary past adapted as nomadic hunter-gatherers, not as farmers, crafts people, factory workers, service workers, or any other mode of living and working invented since the advent of the agricultural revolution and sedentism (~10,000 years ago).

The 3+ million years that elapsed between the emergence of early hominid species and the beginning of sedentism effectively wired us as nomads. The 10,000 years since humans ‘settled down’ have not been long enough to fundamentally alter our hunter-gatherer hard wiring. Since the development of agriculture and sedentism, the species has endured a succession of “social cages”- agriculture, city states, chiefdoms, kingdoms, nation states, and most recently, large corporations. Jared Diamond goes so far as to say that the “adoption of agriculture was the catastrophe from which we have never recovered.”

Until now…

The more networked our economy and society become, the more possible it is for people to live and work nomadically. As the folks at Worksnug put it, “work is not a place you go, it is something you do.” This flexibility gives people the opportunity to rediscover their inner nomad. Berreby puts it this way: “Perhaps the information economy, that purely human creation, reproduces our ancestral environment, replacing literal landscapes and foraging with a virtual version.”

Nomads 2.0

They want to come and go as they please, wear what they like, work the hours that suit them- and not too many, thank you- because they value a balanced life more than piling up possessions. They want to work in small groups and be a part of every decision. Direct orders set their teeth on edge. You must explain why you want them to do something or, better, show them by example. You earn their respect by doing what they do.

The above quote is not (but easily could be) about today’s digital nomads. It is an anthropological characterization of the !Kung San, a small group of nomadic hunter-gatherers in the Kalahari Desert in Namibia.

· Their ultimate value is freedom of movement.

· There is a strong valuation on the personal autonomy of adults.

· Most self-aggrandizing or dominant behavior is nipped in the bud.

· They impose moral sanctions on those that don’t behave altruistically.

Berreby suggests that at the heart of nomadism is an egalitarian ethos grounded in an aversion to alpha males and dominant behaviors. In the corporate context, this sets up a conflict with the kinds of leadership behaviors that are commonly rewarded. No wonder, then, that senior managers are often the most vehement opponents of flexwork and telecommuting programs: They fear losing control over the people working for them.

Leading Remote Teams

In the absence of good-ole-boy networks and management by face-time, how does one go about getting the most out of remote workers and teams? We suggest that there are (at least) 4 basic values that digital nomads share, and that any would-be leader of nomads needs to understand in order to be respected (and effective).

1. Community: While they are independent-minded and value their freedom and mobility, they are also community-oriented and work well in groups. They simply want control over the groups with which they affiliate. This is why social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook are so popular among digital nomads: they enjoy connecting with others in communities of their own choosing.

2. Transparency: Nomads, both traditional nomads and digital nomads, are what they say they are. Everything is out in the open. Goals. Objectives. Time lines. Budgets… Communicate exactly what is expected of them, and you will get their trust.

3. Trust: The single-most important ingredient to leading digital nomads is trust. Nomads do not need to be micromanaged. If they have a technical issue/problem, they have a community they can turn to for help. If you require them to come to you with every problem, then you better be able to solve the problems yourself!

4. Results Only: As Jodi Thompson and Cali Ressler demonstrated with the R.O.W.E. (Results-Only Work Environment) telecommuting program at Best Buy in Minneapolis, independent-minded knowledge workers want demonstrable results as much (or sometimes more) than their leaders. Refine performance management systems and use them frequently and consistently.

What other values do digital nomads share that are misunderstood (and mismanaged) by their corporate leaders? Please add to the list and revise our initial 4 core values!

Thanks for following along in this global series. The last part I would like to share with you are some of the Global Tools I use to keep this all going smoothly. If it weren’t for the following tools, I would not be able to live the fun nomadic life that I do. Take some time to review the list and implement any of the downloads that fit for your business!

Recommended Global Tools & Downloads

• WordPress- This is who I use for my blog. I highly recommend it because it is easy, even for first time users. Just having WP is ok, but knowing how to make it function so you get a greater audience is why you pay a professional.

• Skype- I use Skype for my weekly client coaching calls, and also to communicate with my family. If the other users are signed up with skype, your calls are free. You can also purchase Skype credit to make calls to landlines and cell phones. I use this to check in with my friends and family, or to call potential clients that do not have Skype already. The calls are only two cents a minute to any country so consider setting it up even if you just want to stay connected with international friends!

• Firefox- I have saved a ton of time since changing my browser to Firefox. I can save my pages without having to re-open them later. This, alone, has saved me hours of research time and redundant opening of windows. Use it. Love it.

• Gmail- Outlook isn’t global, gmail is. I have switched out and never felt better. Global is better. I can check email from anywhere, forward several accounts to one, share documents, have a calendar, and store my contacts. They *of course* have better search tools for your email, as well. Save time, get gmail.

• Twitter tools- There are several tools that integrate with social media and make your life easier. I use a few that integrate well with Twitter because that is my main tool. Currently, I use Su.pr to track my posts and shorten my address. Ping.fm is great if you want to simultaneously update facebook, twitter and linkedin (plus a variety of other tools). For checking in on updates, I use Twhirl. It is easiest to do multiple Retweets, or to thank people that are saying great things about you. Another twitter tool you might want to check out is Destroy Twitter. This is another integration tool and you can manage your tweets through your dashboard.

Play around with these tools and see which combination work best for you. The ease of use and time saving should help you to better manage your global tools so that you can spend your time more efficiently. I’d rather you be seeing the world and enjoying your life, so get to downloading!!

Thanks so much for participating in this blog series. It is my hope that you now feel more equipped to take your business online and go global. There are many other tips and tricks you can find my visiting my website. Feel free to be in touch, leave a comment, and let me know future posts you would like to see on this sight.

If you’ve got a question, I’ve got an answer! Leave ‘em below! Also, if you have other tools you would recommend, please add them here so we can all benefit!

Right, put your pens downs, stop typing, hang up the phone, get off the jargon merry-go-round and take a deep breath.

Are you calm now? Good.

Now – if you’re in any way related to the IT world, (which I guess you will be reading this), then you’ll know how much the industry loves a new buzz word, a new craze, something, anything to follow! Any Monty Python fan will have seen the behaviour in the ‘Holy Gourd of Jerusalem’ scene…. Look it up.

Cloud Computingis the living embodiment of the latest vacuous piece of jargon that’s been doing the rounds all year. And yes, with a gun to my head, I’ll say that Esselar ‘does cloud computing’. The problem is that the phrase doesn’t really mean anything. Another problem is that people think its new technology and are therefore concerned about the longevity of the fad.

Under the hood of cloud computing, there’s nothing really new. It’s mainly traditional IT services packaged and sold in a new way. Nothing to worry about. This is a natural evolution. The main benefits being that you don’t need to buy the old IT ‘box’ anymore. It’s all hosted in secure data centres in the Internet.

So how does this all benefit us nomads? Can it keep us working? Is it secure?

There are various ways that cloud systems keep us working and I’m sure many of us are already using them. Hosted VPNs, for example, can get us connected to the applications and data we need from anywhere in the world with all the usual benefits of resilience, scalability and manageability at a price that’s fair. But more of an interest to us as users, especially considering all of the recent articles, reviews and blogs pointing to security issues within ‘cloud computing’ is, “are we secure?”

As with most systems, the weak link is the user themselves. If you know the name of someone’s pet, their child’s name or the name of their other half you’re very likely to be able to crack their password in no time. And it does happen, but if lists of static passwords are stolen, they could be valid for years.

Not only that but many users (none of us obviously…) use the same password for several portals/sites/networks. And for those of us using multiple complex passwords, would you be able to do this without that note on your phone or sticky label in the drawer?

So what is the answer?

Bear with me on this one as it’s something that until now has been the reserve of global organisations with thousands of users… With the evolution of cloud computing, two-factor authentication (2FA) solutions have now become viable for businesses of all sizes.

For those of us that aren’t too sure what 2FA is, it’s basically using the combination of something you know along with something you have as a means of securely accessing private systems. Think of the chip on your bank card and your pin number. But in this case, as well as your pin, you also use a one-time passcode that is generated from one of a variety of ‘authenticators.’ This can be in the form of a physical token on a keyring, an SMS message sent to your phone, a BlackBerry application or through an application installed on your desktop or laptop. The back-end servers that validate these passcodes are all now hosted in the Internet.

All of a sudden you can work remotely in complete security. So what’s changed? Because it’s all hosted you no longer have to worry about the ‘boxes’ being in your network. Let someone else worry about maintaining, patching, and upgrading them.

So my advice would be to embrace remote working through the cloud and hosted IT as we have been doing, but if you’re going to look into it make sure you consider your security and don’t take the unnecessary risk.

And remember that cloud computing is about more than SaaS and hosted applications; it’s full of often unconsidered services.