• Denial Is Not A River - And Telecommuting Info Needs To Flow
Posted by Tom Harnish on June 5th, 2008
People are quitting their jobs because they can’t afford the commute. Is that a matter of cutting off your nose to spite your face? Not really when the sad fact is that going to work can actually cost almost as much—or more than—you make. Public transportation is sometimes an option, but . . . .
And get this, while public transportation usage is up, some systems are cutting capacity because they can’t afford the energy costs.
Putting together a gigabit wireless network would be a lot cheaper than building and maintaining a light-rail system and feeder buslines. But everyone seems to be in denial. Instead of attacking the real problems of crumbling and insufficient infrastructure, and industrial-era management techniques, instead of looking at real solutions, people focus on feel-good programs, phony issues and concerns.
We still focus on roads and bridges to make captialism flow when there’s just as dire a need to build a modern network infrastructure, and create technology jobs to build new layers on that infrastructure. We don’t need 1950s solutions for catalyzing the economy, we need a forward looking strategy that will make sure we’re players as China blossoms (or is it mushrooms?). But even when it comes to roads we’re woefully behind. China plans to build 53,000 miles of new highway in the first two decades of this century compared to just 1,130 new interstate miles here.
The problem is you can’t plan strategies if you don’t take into account reduced revenues due to job erosion and increased fuel costs—and do something about it.
Can you spell tipping point? We’re all going to be in hot water if we don’t start waking up to the fact that everything is moving fast, and we (individuals, companies, governments, and countries) have to run harder just to keep up, nevermind get ahead.
- If you enjoyed this article, try these:
- • Telework Can Lower Stress On Weak Infrastructure
- • Work At Home Weekly News
- • Telecommuters Tell Gulf Oil To Pound Sand
- • It’s Not Just Bailouts
- • Telework pros and cons
June 6th, 2008 at 4:49 am
Good article, but the time for trying to convince business to allow teleworking has passed. It’s time for a mandatory act to allow those who are able right now, to be allowed to work remotely, in order to significantly reduce demand for oil quickly. See my MoBlog at mobeezy.mobi for a full explanation.
June 6th, 2008 at 7:40 am
One of the greatest challenges in marshaling our telecommunications resources is the insistence that ‘work from home’ is the only model we can imagine and our reluctance to try something different. The numbers and facts demonstrate we need a more holistic approach and we need to understand the nature of infrastructure. It should be a RED flag that the 1.2 Billion dollar Urban Partnership Agreement from the USDOT instructed communities on the 4 ‘T’s with the 4th T for teleworking and that none of the awarded communities submitting any definitive and innovative methods of using telecommunications. Telework today is a bit like holding a hammer by it’s head - you do not get maximum impact and the harder you try the more frustrated you become. Most communities have been exhausted by the ‘telework’ mantra and are now fatigued. We need new ideas and new methods. I offer the distributed workplace proposal as a starting point. This model could move us beyond our current impass but takes a willingness to accept that new ideas will, by definition, be different. Workforce deployment needs to be expanded beyond the kitchen coffee table. I ask open review of the distributed workplace model on the pocketsnet.com website. If we want new ideas we have to have a starting point. I hope you will review and comment with the understanding we need to re-engineer our local economies with new approaches.
Best regards,
M B Shear
June 6th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Your post rings so true. I no longer work in the corporate world and now work from home. I can’t imagine if I still worked for the financial institution that I used to work for. I was never home and was all over the U.S. Now that the airlines are cutting flights and gas is so expensive I don’t know how companies are going to adjust.