CFO.COM REPORTS ON VIRTUAL WORK AND VERMONT

If you get a chance, pop onto CFO.com and read through Alan Rappeport's June 30 article on the state of Vermont promoting the virtual work place.

They get it in Vermont. Work can be accomplished without folks actually sitting in the same building. And think of the energy savings . . .

Happy July 4th!

The Virtual Economy’s Gift to Mothers

Mother’s Day isn’t usually my thing. . .

But this year I got thinking about all the ways the virtual work place has meant that I could be a mother (don’t use that tired phrase “mom” with me, please) and keep up my professional credentials.

Hey, more than that . . .Make a decent living and be there for Julia, now 14.

It was way back in the early 1980s that I started to realize juggling motherhood and journalism was going to be a really tough route. I watched female colleagues struggling into work with bags under their eyes and frantically trying to arrange childcare for sick children while they rushed on deadline to meet the demands of the job. I couldn’t figure out how they managed.

And, basically, I decided in my early 30s -- as my proverbial biological time-clock started to tick -- that I couldn’t bear living that way. Nor could I imagine being a stay-at-home mother who didn’t work in some way. No offense to those who love that role – and it’s a tough one when you add on more than one child – but domesticity isn’t my thing. I’m better at exposing global corruption, trends in e-commerce, the virtual economy and fuel consumption . . .stuff like that . . . When I do housework, it’s usually around 11 p.m. as a relief from the stress of the work day.

By the mid-1980s with the arrival of cheap PCs and fax machines I started to get an inkling that, with enough hustle, I could quit my daily news job and run my own show. The freedom from daily deadlines, if not all deadlines, would mean I could live that old cliché: have my cake and eat it too as a working mother from home.

And, with fits and starts, ups and downs, and all the usual struggles of parenting and building a business, it’s worked. Julia was conceived in the spring of 1993 and arrived only hours after I finished the last chapter of my first business book – ISO 9000 Made Easy. Ten books later and countless school plays, dance recitals, choral concerts and too many tantrums to ponder, Julia and A – Z International keep growing together.

In fact, I had this wondrous experience in New York City just a few weeks ago that I wrote about in the last entry. I was able, finally, to introduce my “little” girl to my children’s book editor.

“Here’s my muse,” I told Steve, as a beautiful, dignified (at that moment) Julia reached out her hand in greeting.

Yes, tears did well up in my eyes. Because having Julia may have meant there were projects I turned down and major entities who turned me down because I couldn’t hop on a plane at a moment’s notice. But never once have I regretted having her. As I often say, you can’t cuddle up to your book jacket and reviews, tuck them in and sing a good night song (horribly off-key, by the by . . .)

Without Julia there would have been no beloved Perwinkle, our now deceased parakeet who I intend to immortalize on YouTube come summer. There would be no debates over skirt lengths or avid discussions over why the producers of “Sex and the City” made Carrie Bradshaw look so tacky. Who would have played the sitcom game in the car and made up horrible plot lines, or helped me write my children’s books?

And for all that I feared Julia would slow me down – and she did for many years – she also made me smarter, more aware, and even recently taught me how to text message. She makes me feel old some days, yet keeps me young at heart.

I’m proud to say on this mother’s day that because I learned to brand and market myself so I could earn our keep, I could be home to nurse Julia on the days she was with me (as, alas, her father and I divorced long ago). I’ve never missed a rehearsal or a major event because I had to stay late at the office. The office is right here and accessible at all hours.

So, ladies whose biological clock is ticking, know that today’s technology will let you have work and motherhood. Will it be easy? The answer is an unequivocal NO. You have to be able to create a product or service that people want and will spend good money to have. You have to be tech savvy and be good at marketing and keep going some days beyond endurance. Besides, which, if you breast feed get used to talking to clients as your baby suckles.

But you’ll never have a boss telling you that you can’t make that dance recital, baseball game or soccer match. Hey, you’re the boss, right?

Happy Mother"s Day

CNN.com/LIVE profile of Amy Zuckerman is up on 12/17

http://www.cnn.com/2007/LIVING/12/14/hidden.tech/index.html

Visit this link to read more about what it's like to operate a virtual company and the issues we all face in this workstyle/lifestyle.

And you'll learn a bit more about my history.

Amy Zuckerman

Network World Indicates Rise in Virtual Workplace

These sorts of ads are proliferating.

Seems the only people who don't get this are Congress and corporate America, or at least those dinosaurs that still want to tether people to their desks so they can "look busy" as they doodle.

Dear Amy,

IT shops are striving to manage distant virtual offices as the number of these remote sites continue to rise. Listen to this Webcast, Building IP Networks for the Distributed Workforce to get real-world advice on how to best manage this ongoing trend. http://www.accelacomm.com/jlp/EM_80123198_v1111507/7/80123198/

Learn how building a robust WAN might be your best tool in supporting a virtual workforce. Hear detailed information on how to achieve this goal, which includes:

• Leverage quality-of-service and network optimization tools
• Ensure the right amount of bandwidth to each site
• Perform application benchmarks
• Review carrier contracts regularly
• Create corporate standards for remote-office gear
  

Click here to listen to this informative Webcast to learn more.
http://www.accelacomm.com/jlp/eMBlast_80123198_v1111507/7/80123198/

Sincerely,
Network World, Inc.

Corporate Secretary Cites Virtual Work Place

For those who think virtual companies are home-based crafters, only, think again.

This month the publication Corporate Secretary has a superb article by Aviva Freudmann, a writer based in Frankfurt, Germany, on the rise of go-getter companies like Elcotez, INTTRA, Airwide Solutions, and others, that operate virtually. Or at least operate what I call the hybrid virtual businesses where there may be a headquarters, but many personnel work from home or in an office alone from all over the world.

The virtual world is rising.

Larry Jackson and i-Arthouse.com - Virtual Hollywood

For years, Larry Jackson, 58, did the high-class Hollywood hustle as a production executive with film industry giants The Samuel Goldwyn Company, Orion and Miramax. He made Julia Roberts a star as the man behind Mystic Pizza and was the executive on film hits like Silence of the Lambs.

So why is a man with this sort of Hollywood cache today working out of a home office in Amherst, Mass. - a town known for colleges, not cinema?

The move east in the summer of 2001 wasn't entirely Jackson's choice. As he explained over lunch at a local greasy spoon a year later - in between cell phone interruptions from the producer of a film from the Czech Republic whichJackson was about to distribute in the US - his wife wanted out of Los Angeles. She was concerned about raising their two children in a more wholesome environment. Jackson shared her concerns about the kids and knowing they would have to enter "the unsavory elitism" of private school life.

Moreover, he and his wife were more than alarmed when their bedroom was invaded one night by armed gunmen looking for a big haul in what had been touted as the safest neighborhood in LA. The couple survived. But they were held at gunpoint for about twenty minutes as the house was stripped of valuables. That long silence sent them an urgent message: relocate, and fast.

Then there was the fact that he was growing disenchanted with the corporate side of the movie industry. Jackson was finding that the studios weren't being as creative as they once were and had become dominated by MBAs and number crunchers. "They wanted to make movies that aren't adventurous and ride on the coattails of something else," he said.

Looking around for someplace to live, he and his wife sought a town "with none of the evils of urban living, but all the culture and intellectual sophistication you can find in urban centers." And that place was Amherst - home to several name colleges, Emily Dickinson and lots of cultural activities, and now the epicenter of virtual company research as the home of Hidden-Tech. Moreover, the town is just down the road from up-and-coming Northampton, Mass. and the film distribution company, Northern Arts Entertainment, that Jackson co-owns with a partner in nearby Granville, Mass. named John Lawrence Ré, who moved up from New York City many years ago and now lives on 400 acres of wilderness.

"It's wild but he's fully broad-banded and we trek into NYC whenever necessary for major meetings," he says.

Jackson's had his ups and downs in virtual company land, but today he's hyped again. He and Ré were able to secure an initial round of funding to create i-ArtHouse.com, a very special online film library that contains extraordinary films from around the world, "most of which have escaped distribution in North America and some that haven't been seen outside of their country of origin. Many have won significant prizes in major film festivals," he notes.

The launch is imminent. Some of i-ArtHouse.com's films will be available for streaming, some to download to own or rent. Some will be available to burn to an encrypted DVD that the buyer can keep. The combination of those options will vary, says Jackson, explaining that the rights "are different from film to film."

Although not everyone has the connections and capabilities to work in Hollywood-related industry from a home office, Jackson says the industry is changing enough for this to be a possibility for those with tech backgrounds, as well as for for screenwriters, composers, production designers, costumers, animators and even film editors. "An editor can be cutting a film anywhere in the world and communicating with a director anywhere else in the world, with a production company or studio in a third place - all linked through video conferencing."

Stay tuned for more on i-ArtHouse.com. And share you ideas about working for Hollywood from just about anywhere.

What is the Virtual Work Place?

I toss this term around and realize not everyone knows what I mean?

Working virtually means relying on advanced communication technology (translate that to a computer and Internet access) to drive your business.

The setting is less important than the operating style. You may operate from a bedroom, a cellar, a garage or the living room.

You may rent space and even have back up help in the form of subcontractors or another principle for your business.

You may telework and maintain a side office.

Perhaps you're a full-time employee building what Barbara Reinhold, a career expert, calls a sidecar business.

And you may want to earn enough to support your lifestyle -- a lifestyle entrepreneur -- or grow a Microsoft.

Any of these categories fit into the virtual work place.

Write to me and tell me who you are and how you operate.

AmyZ