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Creating an Efficient & Organized Digital Home Office on the Road

technology, The Road Warrior
November 1st, 2008 1 Comment »

I was on a cruise this past week. With a ton of writing to be done, and little motivation to do it, replicating the home office on the high seas would be a challenge.

But even if I was motivated, I was stymied. My HP Tablet laptop had no CD drive, so I hadn’t installed Microsoft Office before leaving (sure, I could have logged on and downloaded it, but at nearly half a gig for the whole app, who has the time or needs the hassle?).

And do you know what it’s like to write completely in Notepad or Wordpad? Talk about laborious… Read More »

For Home Officer or Road Warrior, Nothin’ Beats the Nappin’ Pillow

Product Review
October 30th, 2008 No Comments »

REVIEW: Even as a home officer, I can be an occasional road warrior. I go to hockey tournaments, host television media tours from NYC, watch Gator games at UF, and generally do my part to support the travel and lodging industries.

And, invariably, those trips involve sleep on the road.

So I often bring along that horse-yoke inflatable collar / pillow-like thing that’s supposed to keep me comfortable when I’m stuck in an airplane seat or slummin’ it at LaGuardia when bad weather’s cancelled my flight home.

What is the traveler to do? Blow up your TravelRest pillow. Read More »

A (New) Mobile Home Office on the High Seas

technology, The Road Warrior
October 21st, 2008 No Comments »

Sitting on Deck Six aboard Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas, Nicole is immersed in Twilight, the first in Stephenie Meyer’s vampire / fantasy series.

We’ve been at sea for four days, headed home tomorrow. I had all the tools to work from the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, except one key ingredient: The Spirit.

I’ve long been chided for working from vacation. Heck, Home Office Highway was all about working while on vacation, or taking, as I coined it, a “workation.”

But this time, I needed no motivation. I got so caught up in relaxation and fun that I decided to avoid work altogether. Read More »

PowerStation Traveller Delivers Highway & Home Office Detente

Product Review, The Road Warrior
September 6th, 2008 No Comments »

Bill Cosby once said, “Parents don’t want justice. Parents want quiet.

Nowhere is this more true than in the family sedan driving down the highway on a road trip. With the home or home office far behind, adults find themselves locked in the tin box with kids clamoring for their mobile devices. Meanwhile, parents find their own wireless phone, iPod or MP3 player, or GPS device competing for power with the kids DVD player or powerable game consoles.

So many plugs, so few ports. Most cars have only one cigarette lighter / power port (vans and SUVs might have several more). And splitters and adapters are so cumbersome.

So if you need to charge the phone, and the kids want to watch a flick, to achieve détente, you appease. 

ReSource has come out with a great way to silence the hordes by providing cheap power to all: The  PowerStation Traveller. Read More »

Product Review: Portable Printing – When Paperless Isn’t an Option

Product Review, technology
August 2nd, 2008 No Comments »

As home officers, road warriors and teleworkers pursue paperlessness, there are instances when “strictly digital” just isn’t an option.

Sometimes when I’m editing a large document, the screen is good. But when I need to mark it up, Track Changes just doesn’t cut it. I’d prefer to review on paper rather than on a computer screen.

During Home Office Highway, I had to print, fill out and sign a W-9 for a client. I didn’t want to leave my RV park just to print at a Design Print Ship Depot. So I powered up our portable printer. Ditto for when I had to ship a couple of packages.

For the trip, we were traveling with an HP OfficeJet 470. It completed the office in a compelling way.

GottaBeMobile had a pretty thorough review of the unit. Another was posted at TabletPCBuzz. My own thoughts would focus on portability (it was small, neat and easily retrieved and stashed again), speed (22 pages per minute in black, and 17 ppm in color), and functionality. It was plainly a power tool. It’s simple to set up, easy to power up, and equally easy to power down and stash away.

When space, speed, power and portability are important — in a device that costs around $250, the 470 is a pretty cool power tool.

Define Your Summer ‘Home Office’

Telework & Virtual Officing, The Road Warrior
July 1st, 2008 No Comments »

Alex Johnson’s ShedAlex Johnson is an ardent shedworker. From his home in St. Albans in England, Alex works from a shed — and blogs about the shedworking concept on Shedworking. He’s even written about it in the forthcoming book, Shedworking: The Alternative Workplace Revolution.

So when Alex and I got to talking about Home Office Highway, he commented on his summers spent working virtually at his in-laws place in Spain (those Europeans are SO cosmopolitan. I’m trying to have a little cosmo-mojo rub off on me by writing about Alex’s exploits).

I asked Alex to share his thoughts. Here’s what he had to say… Read More »

A Mobile Home Office Modeled on Success of Other Road Warriors

The Road Warrior
June 28th, 2008 No Comments »

Home Office Highway isn’t the first to hit the road with a home office on wheels. The “Workamper” concept has been around for years.RV Sales of Broward Mobile Office

Writing consultant and author Marcia Yudkin took a two-month sabbatical back in 2007 (albeit from the family sedan) — and her business never missed a step (check out her report).

The people at RV Sales of Broward travel the region and close deals from aboard the 42-foot Fleetwood Revolution RV-turned-mobile office pictured here. I just spoke with Marc Gilenson, who runs his mobile office-based consulting and business process re-engineering enterprise — and The Association of Entrepreneurs (MyBizUniverse.com) from his 32-foot Damon RV.

I’ve worked from the family minivan. And I’ll work from the ZRV — a 23-foot Fleetwood Jamboree. Check back soon for pix of an interior outfitted for business.

What does it take for you to work from the road? Some technology, the right mindset — and a free spirit. Have you got the right stuff?

Home Office Road Warrior ‘Attire’ Loosely Defined

Telework & Virtual Officing, The Road Warrior
June 18th, 2008 No Comments »

Spring Break Home OfficeSince I began working from home in 1989, I’ve worked from quite a few strange places — ferries crossing the Delaware Bay, minivans scurrying down the interstate, the outback of Papua, New Guinea.

Yet at right is a picture of me in one of my first “remote” offices.

I was covering Spring Break for Advertising Age magazine. I packed my Apple IIc and dot matrix printer in a plastic laundry basket, grabbed my Nikon F, and hit Daytona Beach with my relatively newly-wed wife, Robbie. What a blast!

Once my writing was finished, I went to the hotel lobby, faxed the copy to Chicago, and FedEx’d the slides of kids having fun on their parents’ tab. How times have changed. Today, I’d probably still write from the hotel room table (at little too distracting to write poolside at spring break). But with my wireless broadband aircard in place, I’d do my research and filing with ease.

As this grainy shot reveals, you can work from any office. It also shows how I’ve aged — and grown — in 20 years.


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