Here’s a nod to one of the better nomadic lifestyle/work from anywhere/break free from the desk blogs out there. It’s called “Location Independent Living” and they’ve got some great content. The blog is edited by Lea & Jonathan Woodward and they’re, well, location independent.[ad]

Start by checking out their About Page

Topics covered include: How to start a location independent business, Travel tips, How to deal with family and friends that rain on your parade, Challenges and impracticalities of the location independent lifestyle, and on and on it goes.

This blog is all about helping others who don’t want to play by the rules…

• Realise that there are ‘real’ and ‘normal’ people living this kind of lifestyle (who aren’t millionaires)
• Understand how you could create your own Location Independent lifestyle
• Get a better quality lifestyle for less work & less money

Check out Location Independent Living here

I’m pretty sure this story has been covered quite a bit already by blogs of this ilk but I couldn’t pass up the chance to include it in our content.

The Economist wrote an excellent post about how technology is enabling a new type of nomad. A 21st century nomad. We’re not hauling around all our possessions like the nomads of long ago. (and actually, the nomads in the Sahara of today with the notable exception that a lot of them have cell phones) Instead we’re toting along our Blackberrys and our iPhones with our laptops hanging from our shoulders and seeking out the nearest cafe, beach, or resort with wifi connectivity.

[ad]I tend to get very excited about the acceptability of being able to be a nomad of this sort. But does the ideal not meet the reality of this?

SOMETIMES the biggest changes in society are the hardest to spot precisely because they are hiding in plain sight. It could well be that way with wireless communications. Something that people think of as just another technology is beginning to show signs of changing lives, culture, politics, cities, jobs, even marriages dramatically. In particular, it will usher in a new version of a very old idea: nomadism…

Of course, there’s still a huge responsibility to manage your down time with family and self. Just because you can conduct business from anywhere doesn’t mean you always should be!

Our nomadic future – Economist.com

Here’s some excellent further reading about how wireless communications are changing the way we work, live, love and relate to places – and each other…

Nomads at last – Economist.com

I stumbled across this post from the Newcomer’s Network which appears to be a resource for transplants to Melbourne, Australia. (I wouldn’t mind transplanting myself there come to think of it.) The article was written in the halcyon yesteryear of 2004.

It discusses the opportunity and mentality behind freelance work from anywhere. It also provides to resources for finding work. You know: Elance, ContractedWork.com, Guru.com (formerly Emoonlighter.com), Allfreelancework.com

The great thing about freelancing is that you can do it from home (where ever that may be) and you never have to darken the doorway of your employer’s office. As long as you have a computer and an internet connection you can “chat” in real time about the requirements of your job, create and send your work and most importantly accept payments online. The jobs are almost always varied, which helps to fend off boredom and if you feel that you’ve worked enough for the month, you can stop.

There are numerous freelance websites where you post your portfolio for others to peruse and then bid on projects. On many of these sites you, as the service provider, pay a small commission to the website based on the amount you actually earn for being connected to paying jobs. Most conduct business in United States Dollars but will deposit the money you earn to any account you specify which makes freelance work perfect for expatriates and people living a global lifestyle.

You are especially competitive and will probably win many a bidding war if you live in a country where the almighty dollar is mightier than the country’s own currency. In places like Thailand, the Philippines, Panama, India, and Nicaragua just to name a few, you can live like royalty on less than $2,000 a month which is easily doable as a freelancer.

The article was written by a site called Jetsetliving.com which no longer exists. Too bad. It’s sounds very exciting!

Check out the full article here

In the near future I want to work less than 20 hours per week, from anywhere in the world, make really good money, and take off at least 3 months a year. I told this to a friend of mine the other day and I think he was offended. But what’s wrong with this ideal?

I personally know people who work 2 hours per day and make over $500,000 per year. Others work a few more hours and make more or less money but they all have one thing in common. They don’t subscribe to the standard “worker” paradigm. Regardless of the amount of money you make (or want to make) here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1. Don’t worry so much about the dollar amount you want to make. Focus on creating a nice spread (difference) between your costs and your income. eg. You live a great lifestyle at $60,000 per year. This pays your housing and keeps you in food, clothes, and some good times. In this case, shoot for creating $80,000 per year in income but don’t do what most people do; spend that $20,000 buffer on stuff. Surprisingly this is a significant challenge for most of us.

2. Position yourself for freedom. It’s a no-starter if you’re in a work situation that allows absolutely no flexibility. I used to think you needed to own your own business to create this kind of freedom (that’s what I do) but I’m seeing with increasing frequency friends and family who are allowed to telecommute to the companies they work for. In the case of telecommuting you may be able to not only spend far less hours per week completing your job function but also work from anywhere in the world.
If you’re an entrepreneur you definitely need to be very intentional in regards to the way you build your business(es). Focus on creating systems and products/services that don’t require you to trade your hours for dollars. I highly recommend Tim Ferris’ 4 Hour Work Week for some fantastic insight into this concept.

3. Equip yourself with the proper tools. With the proper tools at your disposal you can run an international conglomeration from anywhere with internet access and no one’s the wiser! We, of course, talk all about these tools here at Vacant Desk but here are a few critical ones for your inspection:

1. Earth Class Mail – Get your paper mail scanned and sent to your email. The last chain to the desk defeated. Bwah-ha-ha!
2. Virtual PBX Service – This is a phone system(800 # or otherwise) that forwards to anywhere you want to take calls. We use both Get your own Ring Central and GrandCentral.com. Super slick! If you’re a super duper advanced tech monster you can set up your own Asterix box and rule the tele-superhighway.
3. Personal Computing Device – I use a Powerbook. Some people prefer more portable options like the Nokia 770 or something similar.

The reality is that there is a deeply entrenched philosophy in the consciousness of the American worker: “Put in your hours, be a good employee, save your money, and retire one day in the distant future.” Challenging this can actually be offensive to those that embrace that mindset whether they recognize they think this way or not.

It’s amazing what’s possible when you’re positioned properly in your own mind. Success in almost anything is very dependent on your expectations. Is it acceptable to you that you will work 20 hours or less per week and make a great living? Well then, you’re halfway there already. You now have a competitive leg up on all those drones out there who don’t have the proper mindset.

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Part of being truly mobile is being able to entertain yourself on the road anywhere in this big wide world of ours. These days all you need is some decent bandwidth, a computer, and some sort of bit torrent transfer software and an idea of what you want to watch. In this case we’re talking about t.v. Now, regardless of what you think about the legality of downloading tv shows from torrent sites it’s very easily accomplished. There are even a few programs that will find upcoming episodes of favorite programs, check the viability of the file for download, and initiate the download based on your preferences. One of my favorite is a free program called Ted. Ted is one of the aforementioned products that allows you automatically download upcoming episodes from healthy torrent files. Check it out. It’s cool!

Technorati Tags: torrents media mobile worker

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I saw that the CEO of Earth Class Mail was interviewed on CNBC the other day. I know I’ve made three posts about this company so far but I think that out of all of the “mobile worker” resources one could understand and use, this is the most innovative. Check it out.

I made a post some time ago offering an beta invitation to any reader who would provide a review of the GrandCentral.com service. I ended up giving the invite to someone who had already wrangled an invite for themself and was already using the service. However she graciously agreed to write a review anyway. What a swell person! Here it is:

Hi! Actually someone already sent me an invite (I’ve been trying for two months to get one!), but thank you! I can tell you about my experience though. My boyfriend and I both got accounts about a week ago, and it is pretty cool.

You do get to pick your own phone number, but it’s out of a list, and I settled on one after I couldn’t find anything with the last four digits spelling something I liked. Since I can’t figure out how to clear off my cell phone’s voicemail after spending hours on it, I loved their voicemail system. You can listen in while someone is leaving a message and decide whether to pick up or not. And my mom really liked my custom message for her.

One thing I definitely didn’t like was that my boyfriend and I both use the same home phone, but only one of us can put it on our account. I asked GrandCentral about it via email and they got back to me extremely quickly, saying they would be offering it in the future, but not in the Beta stage. Since Google tends to keep there programs in Beta for years, this kind of bummed me out. I also didn’t like the lack of options for the ringback tones. They were pretty abysmal, including one extremely annoying male voice saying he was from Las Vegas.

Another cool thing is that you can record calls just by pressing 4 on your phone at any time. This actually came in really handy when a computer parts order didn’t go through right. You can also mark callers as “spam,” letting you completely ignore those pesky telemarketers. So far these have been the features I’ve used the most of; I’ll keep you updated on anything new I find out about it. –Caroline

Thanks Caroline!

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Make your paper mail electronic – read anywhere.

[UPDATE: 1/27/10] Lots of angry people but I still use it!]

I just got off the phone with one of their client support executives and got the skinny on how the new plans work. I encourage you to read my review below regardless of the most recent changes to the ECM services.

• My plan was $27.99 per month and now it will be $19.95 per month but won’t include 50 scanned pages.
• I’ll now pay $1.50 per scanned mail piece but this includes up to 50 pages per mail piece and $1 more for an additional 50 pages. (So a 90 page piece of mail would cost $2.50 to scan) On average I scan about 6 mail pieces per month out of all my mail. This means that I’ll pay close to what I was paying before after my scanning charges.
• Shredding used to be free (recycling still is) but now costs $4.95 per month. I always liked to be able to shred certain documents with credit card numbers, etc. I was told over the phone, though, that the recycling is securely boxed up and shipped to the recycling facility where it is immediately destroyed. Not left laying around. Interpret this as you will.
• They have a service that deposits any check into any U.S. bank for $24.95 per month. Ouch! I only receive a couple of checks a month. Most of my clients ACH my fees to me.
• The plan features can be switched on month to month. This means that you can use the check deposit feature one month and not the next. Same for the shredding feature.

Over all the service still seems very useful to me and I’m going to stick with it. Just for perspective I get about 30 pieces of mail per month, scan 6 of those on average, and get 2 – 3 checks from clients.

HOWEVER! Most users who’ve commented here who were with ECM before the pricing change seem pretty pissed! Costs have gone up significantly for the small business user who needs to scan most of their mail. The only reason it’s still costing me about the same is that I have the Seattle walk up address and can go pick up my mail in bulk twice per month. I still like the convenience of having the downtown address, the scans if I need them, and a centralized location to receive my mail.

REVIEW

I’ve been using Earth Class Mail since the beginning of August 2007 for all my business mail and some of our personal mail. At first glance this service seems awesome. The premise of having all your mail go to a secure processing facility to be processed for access at anytime and from anywhere is very appealing to anyone who spends anytime working from a remote location or traveling. What’s more, I reasoned, it’s a lot cheaper than using the USPS mail forwarding service which in my case was costing me $40 per month minimum.(I believe this is the standard minimum cost for anyone and just results in having all your mail physically forwarded.)

In the past I would be traveling for an extended period of time only to come home to find a monstrous stack of mail waiting for me usually including one or two time sensitive documents gathering dust. I think people assume, when you’re running a business, that paper mail sent to a business address will be received immediately so they don’t think to notify the recipient that it’s coming. That’s just not the case these days for the mobile worker or frequent vacationer.

How Earth Class Mail Works

Rather than go into a lengthy written explanation I’ll refer to this helpful diagram. Click on it to see it full size.

Setting up the new Earth Class Mail account

Setting up my accounts was relatively straight forward although I was a little confused about exactly how to fill out the form 1583. Form 1583 is a U.S. Postal Service form that gives Earth Class Mail Corporation the authority to receive mail on your behalf. The U.S. Postal Service requires Form 1583 as a fraud prevention measure. Obviously it’s a necessary step but I think ECM could do a little more to make filling out the form correctly easier. Perhaps a step by step visual tour? I’m pretty government form and tech savvy and it required at least two phone calls to ECM support to figure out how to get it right for my four business entities.

UPDATE 9/19/08: Earth Class Mail has recently made this a whole lot easier with their 1583 Wizard

How the billing works

Plans are charged month to month. They no longer have the 6-month minimum contract periods nor do you have to make an up front deposit to cover your potential scans. You pay for scans when you need them against your credit card on file. The picture below is their new service offering as of August 2009 although they may take a few weeks to roll out these exact plans. I’m told that if you signup today under one of their legacy plans you’ll eventually be converted to one of these two plans. Please be aware that the plans at the site are not the same as below. But this is where it’s going for everyone regardless if you sign up under another plan today.

After speaking with the ECM representative today I’m convinced that most small businesses will be just fine with the Essential Plan. You may be thinking that you’ll need to do a lot of mail scanning. And perhaps you will. But I think you’ll find that not only do you rarely need physical copies of your mail, you often don’t even need to know what’s inside your mail. I know this sounds stupid on one hand but I think you’ll have the same experience I’ve had – most of what I get is just not needed because of the fact that most of my bills, banking, invoicing, and communications is happening electronically these days. Even so, scanning up to 10 pieces of mail per month just isn’t that expensive if you have the Essential Plan.

For larger businesses that have more than five employees who need to receive mail in their names and/or plan to have checks electronically deposited you’ll want to go with the Professional Plan. You’ll also get the scan downloader for batch downloads of your scanned documents. All accounts will be able to download their scanned mail but you’ll have to do it piece by piece without the downloader.

My favorite feature

It has been absolutely refreshing to be able to shred (UPDATE: As of 8/1/09 it appears that there’s going to be a $4.95 per month charge in addition to any plan you may have to shred mail but it may not be any more secure than just recycling but I wouldn’t bet on it.) or recycle my “virtual” mail at will.  I relish the opportunity to recycle all the annoying credit card applications and advertisements that I used to have to haul out to my trash every week. It’s also been enlightening to see how often I don’t actually need paper copies of actual mail. I’ve been seeking to go paperless for years and this allows me to preempt the step of having to scan mail I want to keep copies of but don’t want the paper version clogging up my life or productivity. (I typically just download the pdf’s of the scanned mail to a folder on my desktop.)

Overall I’ve been extremely pleased with Earth Class Mail’s offering. There are a few competing options but I wasn’t comfortable with them in comparison for one reason or another. (Security, reputation, price, etc.) It’s important to note that you’ll most likely want magazines and packages going to your physical location instead of the ECM processing facility unless you live in an RV or are overseas with the military.

I do have a wish list for Earth Class Mail:

• Improve the User Interface with AJAX scripting. This will allow the user to navigate their mail with greater ease and time savings. See Gmail for a great example. [Update – As of June 2009 their new interface is VERY ajaxy and more intuitive)

  Update Dec 07 – They recently dramatically improved their interface. Much quicker and behaves a little like a well coded AJAX site.
  Update June 09 – They did a complete redo of their interface. It behaves much like a good browser based email client. Much more intuitive.

• Allow for batch downloading of scanned documents. “Download All” would be very helpful for the user who has more than one scanned piece of mail in their queue. (As of August 2009 they are implementing this for their professional plans with a $4.95 charge.)
• Improve the 1583 process for people with multiple business entities but only a couple of recipients.

This service is great for the “Vacant Desk” worker or anyone who’s constantly going somewhere. Check out Earth Class Mail if you’re interested.

I highly tentatively recommend Earth Class Mail

It’s perfect for frequent travelers, people who are trying to go paperless, those who get headaches just looking at stacks of mail, or people who want to centralize their communications.

Earth Class Mail

[UPDATE: I'M PLUM OUT OF INVITES. SORRY. BUT, BY ALL MEANS, READ THE ARTICLE!]

I have one GrandCentral.com invitation I’m willing to give up for the first reader who asks for it via a comment below and will complete a simple assignment. That assignment being that they need to write a comment (or an email perhaps) in return after they’ve used it for a while to let us know how it’s working for them. I may use their comments in an upcoming post about using these kinds of tools to manage the mobile worker lifestyle.

I’ve been using GrandCentral for a week or two now and I personally find it very useful. Very handy. Yes, indeed.

My wife and I recently canceled our Dish Network satellite TV service because we reasoned that we could actually save hundreds of dollars a year by buying a season pass to our favorite shows (such as The Office) from the iTunes store…Yep. I had, literally, just climbed down off the roof after dismantling the part of the satellite I had to return when I learned that NBC and Apple had a falling out over the terms of their agreement. No big deal. I’m sure NBC will find another way to distribute my favorite NBC shows. They sure did – the anti-Mac Unbox service from Amazon! Thanks NBC. Yeah, yeah. I know I’m only represented by 15% of all pc users but c’mon!

Part of being untethered to a location includes being able to entertain yourself on the move as well as working from wherever. The fact I can’t download (legally) future episodes of The Office really frustrates me. What’s more I predict that NBC is going to see a drop in revenue they would have otherwise enjoyed from selling their content in iTunes. This isn’t specifically because Mac users won’t be able to download their favorite NBC shows. It’s because Amazon’s interface (user experience) is sooooo awful compared to the iTunes methods and the way it works with the ipod.

Any Mac users out there want to share how they’re going to get their Office fix outside of watching the episode on TV?