Conference 7.286::digital

	One idea I tried to sell (not to hard but I am interested) was
	for two people in my group to only come into the office 2-3 days
	a week. We'd only need one office which we could share on days
	when we both were in. I don't know how much facilities charges
	per office but I think we'd save a good amount. We'd take
	workstations home and bring our terminals from home into the
	office so we may not even need to buy more hardware. Or perhaps
	a shared WS at the office and one each at home. Other than the
	random meeting why do we need to be in the office?

	I would probably take less money or go much longer with out a
	raise if DEC moved me somewhere were the cost of living was
	less.

	For what it's worth I know of at least two people who live 100s
	of miles away from the rest of their groups. Seems to work fine
	for them. I also know a lot of people who regularly work from
	home. Sometimes no one in their group even knows when they are
	not in the office. Between mail and Notes most information can
	be gotten.

	An other idea might be local centers, offices, workstations and
	an EASYNET link. I suspect that a lot of small groups could get
	by that way with periodic visits to the center of the world (NNE)
	to keep the face to face going.

	I believe that Digital could save enough money this way that asking
	people to give up many might not even be needed. If I were I'd still
	think long and hard about it. (Especially during the NH winter. :-))

				Alfred

	There was a telecommuting notes conference for a while. It died
	for lack of interest. I suspect that is was more a lack of interest
	in the conference than in the concept.

				Alfred

    IMHO, it would take an astute and experienced manager or project leader
    to keep a group composed of nothing but "telecommuters" productive and
    working toward a common goal.  There are many groups (mine included)
    who have people that do work at home on occasion, whether for reasons
    of inclement weather, peace of mind, or even just not wanting to get
    dressed in the morning.  But I think work would really suffer if there
    were not a "core" of people in the office who interact and sort of keep
    each other honest.  A lot of "people" management and motivation occurs
    on the face-to-face level, and that just can't be accomplished as well
    through electronic mail.  That's where it would take the talents of a
    gifted and innovative manager to hold things together.
    
    Part of my opinion comes from a previous experience with a free-lance
    writer who did *all* of her work at home.  I quickly realized that it
    does take a special kind of personality to do that kind of work.  Even
    with specific assignments and concrete-hard deadlines, it still takes a
    lot to stay motivated and stay on the job.  And in the process, you may
    begin to withdraw "de-socialize" to the point where working closely with
    other people becomes a psychological burden they are unwilling to endure.
    
    I think that telecommuting does have its place, but part of its appeal
    is based upon relatively poor office environments that make it hard to
    be productive.  We need to fix that problem first, and then examine
    where telecommuting can be used to enhance the productivity of those
    people who, for one reason or another, *can't* come to the office.
    
    Geoff

    I would accept a pay cut if I didn't have the expenses of commuting on
    a regular basis, small as those expenses are at the moment.  But the
    company wouldn't need to save money that way.  On the contrary, the
    costs associated with housing and equipping workers is such that I
    think Digital could offer *raises* and other incentives to
    telecommuters and still save tens of millions of dollars.
    
    If I may digress, telecommuting has other, larger benefits.  We don't
    have to clog the roads.  We don't have to put our cars' weight in
    carbon into the atmosphere every year (the air-pollution cost of
    burning a year's worth of gasoline).  We don't have to spend X minutes
    * 2 trips/day * 250 days/yr on the road, so we can get up later and
    still start "work" earlier.
    
    It would be quite a cultural shift, if I may use the term here, both
    for the company as a whole and for the workers.  I think people could
    learn to be responsible and do their work with less supervision, as
    professional workers have learned to be more responsible than their
    ancestors, but it would take adjustment.

I get the sense that the replies so far are taking a relatively small step
as a basis for discussion.   I meant to imply something like a relatively
enormous change.  For example where folks are discussing working at home and
coming in to work 1 or two times a week I want to open the discussion to
a much different  plane.

I want to discuss something more like this:  

    pay reductions on the order of 50%,
    live in the mountains of Peru [ if that is what floats your boat ],
    come to work 1 or two times per year [for mgmt verification that you really
    exist, I presume].

To those who have had negative experience with a telework assignment,
get more specific.   Are there problems with trust?   Are there problems with
measurement?  Are there just plain communications problems?  Do folks in this
kind of assignment need certain writing skills that don't exist broadly?

I'm thinking that the old negatives associated with teleworking were largely
due to a 'too conservative' mindset (too much risk for a small incremental 
change in the bottom line).  But, when you think in terms of 30,000 people
accepting a $20,000.00 voluntary paycut, even the most conservative bean 
counter should be able to do the math and start drooling.

WE could be looking at an easy 9 or maybe 10 digit cost savings here if we
could overcome the negatives!
    

>I want to discuss something more like this:  
>
>    pay reductions on the order of 50%,
>    live in the mountains of Peru [ if that is what floats your boat ],
>    come to work 1 or two times per year [for mgmt verification that you really
>    exist, I presume].

    Please, pray tell, what kind of work will you be doing that will
    be of value to Digital and still allow such a hermit-like
    existance?

>I'm thinking that the old negatives associated with teleworking were largely
>due to a 'too conservative' mindset (too much risk for a small incremental 
>change in the bottom line).  But, when you think in terms of 30,000 people
>accepting a $20,000.00 voluntary paycut, even the most conservative bean 
>counter should be able to do the math and start drooling.

    Let them drool away. Hardly anybody would leave their
    home/country for a 20K INCREASE, let alone a decrease. Maybe you
    like bannanas, I don't.

>WE could be looking at an easy 9 or maybe 10 digit cost savings here if we
>could overcome the negatives!

    OK, and when this big pile of money is saved who will it
    benefit? Stockholders?  DEC VP's?

    What you propose would be a drastic degradation in the quality
    of life for the employee and their family. No company is worth
    that kind of sacrifice.

    Lee

    I get the feeling that there aren't a lot of people who'd want to work
    in .0's paradise.  There are some decided disadvantages to living
    in backwaters (lack of medical care, for one).  There might also be
    problems remaining in touch with others in the company -- most
    countries don't have reliable phone service.

    Perhaps we are just hung up on the example.  What about going to live
    in some place like Canada.  I've often dreamed of living in northern
    Vermont and teleworking to S. Nashua.

    re: .5 and .8
    
    I really believe that you are looking at your own highly individual
    situations, which are not applicable to the company at large.
    
    Most people in this company do not write code or design for a living.
    Fully 50% of my job is customer contact.  Many other jobs require some
    sort of specialized equipment that would not be feasible to have at
    home.  Yet other people that I know of actually come to the office to
    get away from the chaos of their households.  The list goes on.
    
    There *are* problems out there that could be solved by telecommuting,
    like the pollution problem, and the overcrowding problem.  But I think
    that we would be trading problems, not fixing them.  Digital would have
    to fork out a major amount of money to me to set up a workspace at
    home, and in the process they would lose the economy of scale that
    comes from providing these resources in a central location.  Also,
    there would remain serious liability issues, like what if your job
    required you to work on confidential materials, and someone broke
    into your house and stole them?  That situation actually exists today,
    and could only get worse in the future.
    
    The real key is to make the workplace truly productive in terms of ROI
    and work performed, and in terms of emotional satisfaction.  Digital
    still does a lot better at it than most other employers.
    
    Geoff

    RE: .4
    
>    I would accept a pay cut if I didn't have the expenses of commuting on
>    a regular basis, small as those expenses are at the moment.  

    You could look into joining a Digital Commuter Van.
    

1) Personally, I like where I live and wouldn't really prefer to be anywhere
   else in particular on a permanent basis.

2) I'm too motivated by $$$ to consider a substantial pay cut for any but the
   most pressing reasons (such as, as an alternative to no job at all). This
   is largely due to the fact that I eventually would like to have financial
   independence. I could never do that on subsistance wages no matter where
   I worked/lived.

-Jack

    I'm surprised at the narrowness of the opinions expressed here so
    far.   The most surprising observation is that people are forgetting
    that we have a multi-cultural workforce.  For many of these folks
    it would certainly not be an imposition to 'go home' to the family
    they have left behind.   They are here because of the opportunity
    and sometimes the freedom as well but still maintain strong ties
    to their native land.  For some this would certainly not seem an
    imposition if they could take their multinational job with them.
    
    Another surprise to me is people's perception that the big bucks
    you might be making in one of the world's megacities, are making
    you financially well off.   Mine don't do that.   My bucks are paying
    for a huge mortgage.   My bucks are paying for a 10 month old car
    with 25,000 miles on it.  My bucks are paying for an infrastructure
    that is crumbling away as we 'speak'.   I think...... no, I know that
    there are places (and not too far away at that) where the money
    required to sustain me would be much less than it is here in the
    Maynard area.   I could teach my children better on my own and maybe
    need less medical attention too if given an opportunity.   I might
    even be able to save some money.

    Another surprise to me (especially in a company known for innovation)
    is that we seem to be blinded by the first obstacle in the path.
    For example, the noter who commented on the unavailability of good
    phones didn't look beyond that.   While the statement is likely
    true, it is also quite true that it doesn't have to be a show stopper.
    There are many telecommunications options to get around this and
    Digital should be among the leaders in overcoming an obstacle like
    this.
    
    Lastly, why do folks insist on assuming that this will be an infinite
    assignment to hell?   It doesn't have to be forever.  It certainly
    doesn't have to be to hell (far from it!).  And, the proposition
    here is that this is voluntary not imposed.  I think that something
    like 70% of Americans live on less than 2% of the land.   The land
    we have left behind, in our press to the cities, is lacking only
    one thing to make it a viable place to live again.  Jobs!

    Paradise is not necessarily a cheaper place to live.  One may wish to
    live someplace more expensive...  The base Noter (no offense intended)
    asks if we'd take a fifty percent cut to work at home.  I would not.
    
    Reply .12 states that living and working at home would afford the
    chance to provide educational and medical services for his family. 
    After you've spent five or six hours teaching your children, when would
    you work?
    
    That aside, I think the concept of telecommuting has enormous
    possibilities.  In the long run, I think it will catch on.

    re: .13 INTER::JONG
    
    Read the base note again.  At home yes but not necessarily your
    current one and not necessarily a conventional one.  If you currently 
    live in the greater Maynard area you would be hard pressed to find a 
    more expensive area.  It could be done of course but it would be
    a similar megalopolis so no real change would happen.
    
    And again, this paradise is YOUR paradise.  It's what turns on YOUR
    juices.   That could be Oklahoma or the coast of Maine or Thailand.
    For every place in the world that I have traveled there are usually
    two vastly different lifestyles in close proximity.   On the one
    hand you have a tourist oriented 'strip' where prices are outrageous
    and geared for the person who only wants to live there for a week
    or two.   Around 'the corner' there is usually a place where the
    lifestyle is best described as impoverished.   
    
    Its impoverished because there are no jobs.  An example might be
    Nova Scotia.  Nova Scotia is much like Maine in habitat but real
    estate there today is comparable to turn of the century prices here.
    Before you all tell me you wouldn't live there on a bet, remember
    this is just an example.
    
    I'd be willing to bet that 4 hours a day teaching my kids in a one
    on two situation is more attention in one day than they get all week in a
    normal school.   Medical problems might come more under the category
    of cuts and bruises than drug addiction, environmentally induced
    cancers, stress induced, diet induced, drunk driver induced, crash
    induced, etc....
    
    So to restate the intent of the base note; find a place in the world
    you really love, move just around the corner from it if it is a
    tourist trap, figure out what you need to live there comfortably,
    set up shop and send Digital the bill.   Is there a trade off possible
    here where everyone wins?    
    Don't get hung up on the percentages.   Try this out for a way to
    clear your head

    Re: [.14 (Bahlin)]:
    
    Hmm.  I feel that because I'm disagreeing with your idea, you're 
    calling me blind.  Is that what you mean to say?
    
    No matter.  For my own part, I like living in an urban setting, with
    other people around.  My paradise would be a nearby suburb of a great
    city.  Boston, MA suffices.
    
    If I wanted to live cheap, I'd move to China, Haiti, or the Philippines.
    Given that I don't really want to live cheap, I repeat:  No, I would
    not take my employer up on an offer of a chance to work from anywhere
    in the world in return for a significant pay cut.  Instead, I would
    offer to telecommute for a pay *increase*, in the expectation that the
    company would save the tens of thousands of dollars of annual overhead 
    that would otherwise be spent on housing, heating, cooling, connecting, 
    protecting, informing, equipping, administering, supervising, feeding, 
    and otherwise providing for me.

    In reply to what I think was the spirit of the first note:
    
    I would like to live alone - maybe in the mountains, for about
    six months a year and live in the city for the other six.  Maybe
    I just always want what I dont have.
    
    Perhaps a little more realistically, I would just like to break 
    out of the 8am-6pm mode.  Sometimes I am not in the mood for 
    doing what I do at 8am and sometime I am really in the mood at
    6pm.  Sometimes I am in the mood for working at 2am.  Also there
    are many non job related things I can't get done between 6pm and 8am,
    So I spend my vacation time waiting for the carpet cleaner to show 
    or talking to my child's teacher.
    
    The bottom line is I could be more productive with more flexibility.
    Many things would even be less expensive if I didn't have to take whatever
    is available after 6pm.  However, trying to convince a customer of this
    when he is being charged by the hour is even worse than trying to 
    convince a boss.
    
    I can see that there would be some problems to work around, but I 
    think a lot of the resistance is in the same vein as the resistance
    to not wearing suits and ties to work.  Nobody thinks its that
    important, everyone has to do it because everyone else is doing it
    and nobody want to offend anybody.
    
    Tell me people wouldn't be more productive in comfortable clothes.

    
    	   I already live and work where I want to.  Should I take
    	a cut in pay for having found paradise already?  
    
    	   Well, okay... Houston is not what most people consider
    	paradise, but it works for me.  I'm getting what I want out
    	of life.  That's all that matters to me.
    
    	- Greg

re:                      <<< Note 944.12 by ISLNDS::BAHLIN >>>
>                           -< Take the blinders off >-

It's not a case of blinders, just differences of opinion.

>    I'm surprised at the narrowness of the opinions expressed here so
>    far.   The most surprising observation is that people are forgetting
>    that we have a multi-cultural workforce.  For many of these folks

Neither is it narrowness of opinion or forgetfullness of our multi-cultural
workforce. I seem to recall in .0 you asked how people would raect to,
or feel about, a revolutionary program of allowing DECcies to work remotely
at/in their own personal paradise. When you seek people's  views, it's
not appropriate to berate them for expressing them. They may not agree
with yours, but they _are_ their views, and they are entitled to them.

Since I may appear to be "taking you to task, point by point" . . . 

>    it would certainly not be an imposition to 'go home' to the family
>    they have left behind.   They are here because of the opportunity
>    and sometimes the freedom as well but still maintain strong ties
>    to their native land.  For some this would certainly not seem an
>    imposition if they could take their multinational job with them.

Of course, this is understood. Do you not think that this is recognized
even by folks who haven't a distant homeland?
    
>    Another surprise to me is people's perception that the big bucks
>    you might be making in one of the world's megacities, are making
>    you financially well off.   Mine don't do that.   My bucks are paying
>    for a huge mortgage.   My bucks are paying for a 10 month old car
>    with 25,000 miles on it.  My bucks are paying for an infrastructure

If you took this from my reply, which stated something about plans for
financial independence, all I can say is that I hope to have my mortgage
paid off in ten years or less, I drive a 10 _YEAR_ old car with 125,000
miles on it (obviously no payments due), and that, megacity or not, while
the cost of living may be somewhat higher than where I came from (upstate
New York), the "living wage" more than makes up for the difference. Also,
I don't feel that I live in a "megacity". I reside in Mont Vernon, NH, a
town with a population less than 3K, no commercial zone, and a distance
of 26 miles from ZKO (yet only 14 from MKO!) Is there something special
about my property? You betcha! I've got over 20 acres of woods, a 3-acre
pond that I share with one neighbor by the name of "Uncle Sam" and my
closest civilian neighbor and/or public road is more than one fifth
of a mile from my house. How could I want for more?

-Jack

    .16 made a good point about flexibility.  Perhaps we should start
    with that, i.e., for many people, Paradise is where all managers
    are flexible about work hours.
    
    

    To the people who feel they are already in an ideal working/home
    balance please accept an apology from me.   I did not mean to imply
    that you are in any way wrong to feel the way you do.   I know
    with great certainty that this would not be for everybody.
    
    My comments were (and still are) based on a perception that those
    who feel that this is not for them are dismissing the discussion
    out of hand.   I recall responses  like 'absurd', 'no way', etc.   I
    would hope that even if it's not for you, a discussion could still
    be had without the emotion.   If this proposal were to fly, it would
    be heavily dependent on a core of folks who still worked in
    conventional styles and it would require cooperation between the
    local and remote workers.
    
    This little side bar discussion is an excellent example of one of
    the difficulties that would have to be dealt with in a remote
    workforce.   It is incredibly easy to inflame an electronic discussion,
    without intent, by simply using a word that is a hot button for some
    one.  All of the little things I would be signaling with tone and body 
    language are missing in here.    As a result, each word is potentially
    inflamatory because they stand there without a supporting cast.

    I think you have to evaluate this from several perspectives:
    
         Quantitative/Qualitative (What do the numbers say & what will it
         do to improve the quality of our work lives?)
         
         Macro/micro (Say, company wide vs. individual cost centers)
         
    There are probably some guidelines available, even as I type this, &
    without looking in the orange policies & procedures manual.  One coming
    to mind real quick is "Do the right thing".  I think a cost center
    manager should be able to determine that by consulting with her/his
    troops & customers.  In some cases telecommuting, job sharing, part
    time workers makes sense, in other cases it doesn't.  Possibly this
    should be frankly & openly discussed upon accepting a new position.
    Company wide policies should support that approach, I believe.  Perhaps
    someone in the know can comment on this?
    
    On a personal note, figure out a way to put all the NH -> MA commuters
    in a NH cost center, then let 'em telecommute!  I'd love it, the Duke
    wouldn't! :-)  In my present job, I could telecommute fairly easily,
    depending on the current project.  But, I need to come in sporadically
    to review things, meet with people, do presentations, etc.  I would
    suspect that many jobs are similar.  Telecommuting isn't 100% of the
    time but some portion. 
    
                                                 Bill
                                                 

    
    I already live in Northern Vermont, but I would sure love
    it if they strung a line to my house. That way I wouldn't have
    to risk putting my car in the ditch (like I did twice last year)
    or trying to start my car in -30 when all I want to do is 
    put another log on the fire. :^) 
    
    Paradise has it's price I guess. I still feel fortunate.
    
    I work on Unigraphics, and all I do is doodle on the tube all 
    day. I have no real interface with people on a daily basis.
    My jobs are estimated, so the amount of work that is expected of me 
    wouldn't change, so I don't see any problem with cheating. There
    is not really a good way fooling with the results. The 
    work either gets done or it doesn't.
    
    Boy don't I wish.......
    
    Mark 
    

  Last year I took a college course in data communications and did some research
on telecommuting. It has a lot of potential, but the major technological barrier
is providing suitable phone lines to rural areas. Many rural phone lines aren't
even fit for 1200 baud. At 1200 baud, it takes about 5 seconds to display a page
on a terminal. You really need a higher baud rate to telecommute. So one of the
first things you need to find out in choosing a home to telecommute from is
whether you can get a high quality phone line. In some cases it is literally
something money can't buy; a few places such as Heathrow, FL (a planned com-
munity near Orlando) have fiber optic lines in every house as "standard equip-
ment". 
  .12 is an excellent description of the problem facing us in terms of concen-
trating high tech industries and their employees in a few metropolitan areas.
Without telecommuting, it's a no-win situation. Jobs for engineers (including
software engineers) are very limited, both inside and outside DEC, in areas such
as the Maine coast. In search of a better living environment and more afford-
able housing, people end up commuting 80 miles or more round trip. There is 
virtually no public transportation that DEC commuters can use, and riding a
vanpool means being tied down to someone else's schedule. There is not much that
technology can do to reduce the environmental and dollar cost of commuting be-
cause the amount of energy required to move one person one mile is fixed by the
laws of physics; all we can do is to improve the efficiency slightly. But tech-
nology has a lot of potential to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of
data comminication. In 5 years it may even be practical to communicate from
home by data, voice, and video simultaneously.
  I would like to see DEC be a pioneer in telecommuting but I don't think it
will happen. It is more likely that smaller, newer high tech companies will
take the lead and DEC will wait until it becomes a "competition" issue.

    There used to be a conference called "TELEWORK" that discussed the
    various aspects of "remote" working, but it died for lack of interest
    when the original moderator left the company.

    I do agree that there are probably some ways of working "smarter".  As
    I contend with the thousands of others on my 22 mile commute to work
    and back each day, I've often daydreamed about living on an island off
    the Maine coast (I actually do have a cottage on one!) but still do
    software engineering type work.  I suppose if I really had the
    gumption, something could be worked out, especially here at DEC, but
    the hour ride on the ferry and the two hour ride to MA just to attend
    one of DEC's famous meetings is somewhat daunting.

    Anyway, there's a book by Alvin Toffler titled "The Third Wave" that
    paints a picture of how it might be.  Toffler agrees that working at
    home is limiting in that an important aspect of our work lives is the
    interaction with a wide range of people that you wouldn't get holed up
    in your little cabin in the woods.  He suggested it might work
    something like this:  People living in close proximity to one another
    (community) would band together and build a community work center,
    perhaps close enough to where you live that you wouldn't need to drive
    to it.  You would go there to report to work, so you'd have the people
    contact for a healthy work life.  Corporations, like DEC, would hire
    groups of people to work on a particular project (like contract work),
    rather than hiring a permanent staff (the company would still have a
    central staff, just not so large).  The groups would then work together
    and with the sponsoring corp for the duration of the project, then form
    new groups to work on the next (perhaps for a different company).  The
    community work center would have all the latest in comm gear so a
    majority of the work could be done in situ.

    How does that sound?  I know it would appeal to me.

    Bruce

    I wonder if Toffer knew of VAXnotes.   I think in many of our buildings
    today one could argue that this intermingling thing is already under
    siege.   How many locked labs do you encounter on a stroll through
    the Mill?   One could argue that we are already working alone together.
    
    I love the idea about remote sites where people could cluster services.
    It makes a lot of sense as a first step towards a distributed work
    force because it could be a place where the communication costs
    get spread across many employees.   Over time it would seem that
    these clusters would logically evolve due to common interests of
    lifestyle.   Would it be possible to utilize two way satellite 
    communications from sites like this to overcome the phone line
    problems?
    
    One interesting phenomenom that could arise from this is that a
    stronger sense of community would exist under these conditions than
    exists today where people are force fit into organizational buckets.
    One thing I've observed in today's DEC culture is that we are
    physically located by job descriptions in many cases and this leads
    to a kind of phony social bond and subsequent sterile view of the
    world.
    
    A more distributed work force might enable situations where the
    participants in projects are bonded by common lifestyle while bringing
    a more diverse skills mix to teams.  Isn't this exactly what is
    required for successful teams?
    

    On another topic...... I think it clarifies things for me to think
    of this proposal as a step more then TELEWORK.   Where TELEWORK
    was just working at home, this is more like restructuring the work
    and the home to achieve a vastly different way of working.  It may
    or may not involve TELEWORK as a central requirement.   Wouldn't
    it be exciting if Digital pioneered this and leveraged our technology
    from the effort.   That could be a whole topic by itself.  Can we
    still act this boldly?
    

    As a hardware engineer I used to work in the Highlands of Scotland.
    I worked from home and was over 120 miles from the office. I used
    to visit the office every two weeks, but the rest of the time I
    travelled from home to customer sites over a 55,000 sq. mile area.
    
    After six years I evaluated how much time I worked for the company,
    it was often over 70 hours per week. I would collect and deliver
    parts on Saturdays and Sundays, and regularly started before six
    in the mornings finishing after ten at night. I felt that I could
    not get promotion and the office changed everytime I went there.
    People who had joined at the same time as I had (nearly 10 years
    earlier) were now managers in the office or had moved to even higher
    jobs eslewhere. 
    
    Six months ago I moved to become the resident engineer at one of
    the largest sites in the North East of England, near my home town
    where we now live. I work the required hours and can't wait to go
    home, I *hate* it. It is one of the "prestige" jobs, I might get
    a promotion out of it eventually. But I would give it all up and
    *half* my salary just to return to working away from an office,
    even the 70 hours a week was not a problem , in reality I enjoyed
    it. I have tried to return but in their wisdom they are not replacing
    me, they are going to fly engineers up as required, or send one
    to stay in a hotel for a few days at a time!!!
    
    I sure have made the biggest mistake of my life, - I am now having
    to work on other ways of returning to that situation.
    
    If you get the opportunity try it but don't look back at your friends
    you left in the office. Just enjoy life.
    
    Richard.
                                 

    Perhaps a more workable solution for the short term, while we wait
    for the good phone lines to be installed, is for those of us in
    the Merrimack-Maynard-Marlboro corridor to commute to the nearest
    DEC facility for our day's work, rather than driving past four or
    five facilities on our way to our designated site.
    
    Karen

    Re .27
    
    Sounds like a good idea -- seems relatively simple to implement
    on a small scale in order to try the idea, investment is already
    mostly in place (maybe some additional equipment needed), has some
    obvious benefits in reduced polution from commuting, saves natural
    resources (petrol), could save some employee commuting expenses,
    could save Digital *alot* of money by avoiding facilities expansions.
    
    Maybe you should write this up and put it in the suggestion box.
    You could suggest trying it on a small scale first, then if it works
    it could be gradually expanded.

    -dinesh.

    Take the idea further - and make a profit out of it.
    Surely somewhere we have a customer with a significant number
    of employees who spend most of their time 1-1 with a terminal.
    Ideally, customer saves on office space + overheads , gets
    good publicity - catering for needs of working parents etc
    - we get "home machine" sales.
    
    Mike Day
    

    re: .24
    
    This concept has been up and running for several years, implemented by
    Rank Xerox in the UK. Rank Xerox subcontract work to ex-employees who
    are now effectively one-man/woman businesses. They can work either from
    home or from geographically convenient local centres, possibly shared
    with other businesses. 
    
    The last report that I saw of the experiment indicated that it was
    working very well.

    I've seen reports of some clerical work like insurance claims
    processing being done remotely.   One example I remember was an
    American company using people in Ireland to do data entry on terminals.
    They sent paper to Ireland where armies of data entry clerks entered
    data in a big room.   There didn't seem to be any real need for
    that room.   The work could have been done by anyone with a mail
    box and a phone line.
    
    These kinds of work are easy to visualize as candidates for telework.
    Does anyone have examples of tasks which are more traditionally
    done in a group setting?   I was involved in a project that would
    fit the requirements.
    
    This project was software development.   We met the people doing the 
    coding twice in the space of 1 year.   All the rest of the interaction
    was by telephone and U.S. mail.  This was before the days of
    networking.   We specified code that we wanted in a pseudo language
    with very loose lexical rules.   We also coded and supplied source
    for the module that would test the module we were buying.   This
    was a very successful development project.   I think that the knowledge
    that we couldn't do face to face, put more discipline in the process
    and we got working code, bug free, on time.   Today's technology
    would drastically improve the time component of this project.
    

    Another example of teleworking comes to mind: an American Company
    is to set up a subsidiary in Loughrea a small town 20 miles east
    of Galway city,where I live.The company,Sigma ,is involved in 
    processing medical insurance claims.I was discussing this with
    an American to find his views on it.He said it was being done
    not to make use of lower Irish payroll costs but because of the
    time difference between U.S east coast and Ireland.
    Data is sent out in the evening (U.S time) and processed in Irish
    working hours to be ready in time for next U.S morning.
    The company is making use of a time difference to offer a faster
    service without having to pay overtime or shift premiums.
    Loughrea has a big unemployment problem but in common with a lot
    of Ireland has excellent telecommunications hence no tecnical 
    barriers,there also exists a large pool of well-educated people
    who are willing to work at home rather than emigrate.
    The government here are currently exploring new ways of attracting
    such forms of enterprise,an example being the Financial Centre being
    touted as an alternative to much more expensive London,(same time
    zone,same language)etc.

    re: -.1
    
    This kind of setup has been covered in a science fiction novel by
    Bruce Sterling, _Islands in the Net_, and elsewhere.  The skeptic
    would say that just as manufacturing jobs have migrated "offshore"
    from the United States, now technology makes it possible to send
    information processing jobs offshore to lower-wage countries.
    
    Wes

    RE: last few
    
    The insurance companies are going to Ireland not because of time
    differential but because they get a better quality of worker.  Sigma
    is not the only insurance company doing this offshore data entry
    Metropolotian is another.  The main reasons for doing this are that
    data entry is more accurate, workers more productive, workers more
    appreciative of the work, morale is higher.  If the reasons were
    time related they would just add second shifts and not be bothered
    with crating and flying all the claims over to Ireland.

  Why are the U.K. and Ireland ahead of us in telework? It seems there is more
to it than the higher quality and lower cost of European labor. Is their phone
system (specifically, the "last mile" of residential service) really better
than ours? I think one factor is that their commuter transportation system is
worse than ours, except where commuter rail service is available. In the
example of Loughrea, Ireland, if there were a similar situation in the U.S.,
we would probably solve it by building a freeway from Loughrea to Galway and
encourage people to commute from Loughrea to Galway and businesses in Galway
to expand in Loughrea. By building data "freeways" instead of real ones, Ire-
land can avoid the resulting environmental problems (air pollution, noise, and
destruction of scenery) instead of trying to repair the damage after the fact,
as the U.S. is doing.
  I would much rather see the U.S. take the lead in telework, or at least ad-
vance at the same rate as Europe.
  Transatlantic and transpacific telework is a double-edged sword. It can put
people to work in areas of high unemployment without the expense of major
plant and highway construction, but it also carries the risk of putting people
with similar skills out of work in the U.S. 

    One could argue that  the dramatic change we are witnessing
    in the world is due in part to information.   Not so much the content
    as the technology of information flow.   When tyrants can't control
    information they can't control the minds of their subjects.  When
    the mind is free, physical freedom inevitably follows.
    
    I make this point only as evidence that information technology has
    enormous interdependency with other forces in society.  Furthermore,
    we appear to be at a breakpoint in that relationship.  That is to
    say, we are witnessing (in Eastern Europe) explosive social upheavel
    that will put us on a new course of history, arguably a result of
    information technology.
    
    I would further argue that companies like Digital, that are on the
    bleeding edge of information technology have a tiger by the tail.
    We are constantly 'tweaking the tiger' by adding capabilities into
    the arena without preparing the spectators.  The first company that
    can break ground with the spectators will have taken control of
    the tiger.
    
    The issue, for me, in this topic is this; "How can Digital foment
    the social change required to unleash this tiger?".  25% of the
    U.S. workforce does some or all of their job at home.  I am, at
    times, one of those and I would do a hell of a lot more of it if
    I could do it with more data security, integrity, and speed.  And
    oh by the way it would also be nice on DEC equipment but that's
    another note.  
    
    This week (and for the forseeable future) I am working in Florida.
    My home is in Massachusetts.  I fly here every week and spend great
    chunks of that week using mail via a TSN link to my home facility
    (Boxborough).  This is bizarre.  It is also necessary because it is 
    the only acceptable way to interact with my team and customer.

    I think that if the U.K./Ireland telework is ahead of the U.S.,
    it is because it is somehow more socially accepted.  There is
    a combination of [mostly] social change and technology change
    that could accelerate the change we are already witnessing.

    I'd like Digital to lead this one.

    I have deleted a number of replies here because the had nothing to
    do with Digital and because, in my opinion, they were drifting towards
    negative cultural stereotyping. Can we please keep this topic in some
    way related to Digital? Thank you.

    			Alfred Thompson
    			co-moderator HUMAN::DIGITAL

This is posted here after finding a reference to this topic in a reply to a
note I wrote in the marketing Notes file.  After reading through the
replies in this topic, I found my idea VERY APPLICABLE to the discussion.

Below is a note which summarizes a paper I wrote called; "The Computer
Village, An Experiment for Living in the Future."  The paper is available
in either Postscript or DECWrite format.  Just send me mail, and I'll send
you a copy of the paper.

Any comments?

             <<< NODEMO::$1$DJA2:[NOTES$LIBRARY]MARKETING.NOTE;1 >>>
                   -< Marketing - Digital Internal Use Only >-
================================================================================
Note 1114.0                   The Computer Village                    23 replies
HPSCAD::DDOUCETTE "Innovation: Simplicity in Creati" 41 lines  15-FEB-1990 13:00
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've been working on an idea for the past few months.  The response from
the technical people that I've talked to has been positive (more or less).
The idea is based on Telecommuting, which is working at home by using a
computer.  Here's the idea:

Get a housing complex (condo or apartment) and wire the whole thing with
ethernet.  Put workstations in all the units.  assign one unit to be a
server station, that's where you put the disk farms, CD-ROM servers,
printers, FAXes, high-speed connections to the "outside", and anything else
we can think of.  People who live in the Complex are given the opportunity
to work at home instead of an office.

What does this do?  It provides a 10 Mb/Sec link to the home, that's 150x
faster than ISDN.  The whole system is managed so that the majority of
network traffic stays within the complex.  The cost of high-speed lines to
the outside world, and all the other servers, are spread across all the
members of the complex.

Savings?  Well, the employer doesn't have to pay for office space, the
employer will still come in for meetings, though.  The employee saves money
since he isn't commuting to work every day.  Employees are also saving
commute time as well.  There is also a significant energy savings, less
pollution, and less commuter traffic.  The latter two are becoming issues
in some cities such as Los Angeles and others.

No, not all the members work for the same company.  I would expect a
combination of a few large companies with a dozen or so employees and the
rest small consultants/entrepreneurs.  Almost like the selection of
stores in a shopping mall.

This project has been a midnight effort.  But now I need some marketing
help.  I've gotten all the technical issues resolved.  We could configure
one today if we had access to a complex.  My problem is getting some
organization willing to buy-in to the idea.

I'm looking for feedback, comments, etc.  I've written a paper which goes
into this with much more detail, it's available in Decwrite or Postscript
to anyone who asks.  Just send mail.

Thanx!
Dave D.

        Dave,

        I'm definately curious about this.  But let me play devil's
     advocate for a moment and ask you how a complex would be much
     different than an office building?  I can see some of the obvious
     things such as the people would be living at the complex but
     wouldn't that in itself cause problems?

        How do you allow for the individual/couple that owns a home and
     can't live in the complex but would like the convience of working
     from home?  If you have different hi tech companies in the same
     complex, how do you keep neighborly feelings with the "competition"
     of different companies?  How would you compensate for an individual
     or couple that wanted to live in the complex but couldn't afford
     the rent?

        I've very much in favor of being able to work from home.  I've
     done it before and found it to be very rewarding.  It allowed me
     the freedom to come and go as I needed, to not have to worry about
     what I was wearing, and to work the hours and in the conditions
     that best suit me.  I'm actually surprised that it isn't done more.

        I'd be a bit leary of your plan as you sketched it out as I,
     personally, would feel as if I was still stuck in an office.  I'd
     much prefer to see companies find some way to wire areas instead. 
     There is considerable computing power availiable rather
     inexpensively for the desktop.  I'm close enough to the site I work
     at so that dialing in is never a problem for me, as it's just a
     local call.  I think I'm a bit spoiled by that.  ;^)

        Anyway, that's my .02 for now.

        Vicki

    RE last few:  Sounds slightly similar to why cities have developed -
    people efficiency when in closer approximation than roaming around the
    fields and forests. - Fred - And more and more important when there is
    information to be shared.  The next revolution must come about because 
    we do not have to be close to one another to share pure information.
    Gee, but what about the nuances?

Re: .41 (vicki)

Office buildings vs. Complexes:

Offices will not go away for a while (i.e., twenty-fifty years).
There will still be offices for those who want to work in an
office.  Maybe a group of buildings in the Computer Village is
dedicated to meeting rooms and offices.  The goal is to provide
the capability to work at home for people who want to work at home.
People who want to work in office still do.  In the future, today's 
large office complex may be replaced with conference centers for workers 
who live in a region to meet and talk.

The Computer Village is *NOT* a housing complex which is 100% populated
with employees of one organization. there should be a strong balance of
small businesses which complement a few groups from large companies.  Almost
like the way shopping malls are organized.  It should be possible for a couple 
to live/work at a Computer Village and work for two separate companies.
My wife and best man work for a competing company today, and I would expect
that it is very common in any high-tech area to have friends working for
different companies.   Working for different companies in a Computer Village
would effect personal relationships in the same way people are
effected today.  I.e., little to no effect.

If someone wants to live in a Computer Village and can't afford it, there
isn't much we can do.  Picture the Computer Village as a high-cost condo/
apartment complex.  People who want to get into a complex with a pool and 
health club, and can't afford it, don't get in.  If they can't afford a
Computer Village, they get a regular office job.  Oh well.

Wiring issues:

By wiring a housing office with a LAN, we provide high-speed access to a 
limited group of homes.  The Telecommunications industry is working at
increasing the speeds for data to all homes using ISDN (Integrated 
Services Digital Network).  This will bump up data speeds to 64 kbps.
Ethernet, on the other hand, is 10 Mbps or one hundred fifty times
faster.  ISDN is a few years away, Ethernet is off-the-shelf...

The real money is made wiring existing condo complexes.

Dave

P.S.
I've found in my discussions that people either love or hate the 
idea depending on how effective they work at home, today.

    re: .43
    
    1) I do not ever, ever want to live in an apartment/condo environment
       again.
    
    2) I do enjoy working from home.
    
    3)  Let me know when you are ready to wire my house.
    
    Bob

Not being a networking expert, but...

In more suburban areas where there are single family homes, couldn't the
neighborhood be connected with broadband to the "server node".  Each
home would need a broadband to ethernet "thing-a-ma-jig".  The cable company
would provide a frequency range in which to carry the ethernet traffic.

Sounds neat, but possibly expensive and definately not secure.

Keep developing this idea though...

Re: Home vs complex.

Complexes are cost effective in areas where land costs are too high to
justify the cost of less homes in the same space.  That is, there are very
few ranches in Boston, but many complexes with a hundred or more units.

The moral of the story?  If you want to live in a city, you live in a
complex.  If you want to live in a rural location, you live in a house.
Because of the concentration of people, high-speed data lines will be
available in the city before the rural locations.  That's an issue of
logistics.

The Computer Village may be limited to the top 50 Metro markets in the
country, plus similar markets around the world like Japan.  But as long as
we can make money, and understand the technology involved, we can provide
the services and products needed when the rural locations are wired.  LAN
technology wouldn't work for rural locations, but the demands for someone
in a Computer Village will probably be the same for someone with the same
job who works in a cabin in the mountians.

If we can sell the technology now to a small market and develop it at the
same time, isn't it worth pursuing?

Re: signals running on Cable TV.

Actually, there's already work done in this area within Digital.  They're
looking at 10 Mb/sec using two standard TV channels.  The problem I see is
that the cost of a connection is going to be too high for each home, but a
group of systems within a Computer Village could share a single Cable 
network link...

Dave

> The Computer Village may be limited to the top 50 Metro markets in the
> country, plus similar markets around the world like Japan.  But as long as
    
    The last time I checked, Dallas/Ft. Worth would definately fit your
    Metro market definition, but I still have my single family home.  I
    could move within 5 miles of downtown Dallas and still have my single
    family home.  Of course, if I did that, my daughter would have to go to
    an undesireable school, so I think I'll stay where I am.
    
    I'm sure the same thing happens in other large metropolitan areas.
    
    Bob

    re: last several
    The Computer Village is an interesting concept.  Some exploration of
    what city planners have been doing is needed.  Some 10 years ago, I
    served on a community planning advisory council in Sacramento, CA.  We
    were exploring zoning which placed business/professional, residential,
    food service and educational zones together in a single complex. 
    Overlapping uses work well.  Children may use parking lots for
    basketball, tennis, etc. after business/professional use is complete
    for the day and on week-ends.  People could have both a home and an
    office in the same complex, since all work performed cannot be in the
    so-called "cottage industry" setting (e.g. customer contact is needed).
    Security would seem to be an issue, that I did not see as being
    addressed comprehensively.  Electronic surveillance has been too
    successful for there not being adequate protection for the employee and
    the employer.
    In addition to the condominium, you should explore the cluster home and
    zero-lot-line single family homes as possibilities.  Possibly a missing
    ingredient is the area or customer parking and reception areas so that
    when customer contact is needed it can be facilitated.  Possibly
    locating of the complex adjacent to public transportation and hotel
    facilities would make it more desireable.
    I see some great potential, I just want more.

Re: Location, criteria, and selection of sites (.47, etc.)

I'm sorry for not explaining it correctly.  The Computer Village works best
in highly concentrated housing units.  The size of the region to be wired
with a LAN is restricted by costs and wire length.  If the region to be
wired gets to be too big geographically, LAN technology looses its cost
effectiveness.  We can't wire a whole city with LAN today because of sheer
size and scope.  When you get into rural zoning, the cost of wire per
customer gets too great (You also have to negotiate for access to telephone
poles, something you can get away from in a single complex since the land
is shared/owned by the complex).  Focusing on concentrated housing
developments defines a reasonable size market, at a (hopefully) reasonable
cost per unit.

The best two examples I know of concentrated housing are condos and
apartments.  They are also the most popular.  There are other examples of
housing developments which could also be wired.  That's fine too, but I see
these first two as the lions share of a very large market...

Has anyone ever heard of "Arcologies" and the works of Paolo Soleri?  
Check out the book "Oath of Fealty" by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.

Dave

    When the TELEWORK conference was active, about a year or two ago, there
    was a study done on Ethernet in the home.  The analogy to cable
    TV was drawn, in such that as the necessity evolves, the market will
    be there for the equivalent of "cable companies" to install Ethernet
    in the home.  This study was basically a feasibility study.
    
    Send me mail if you wish for me to get the originator's permission
    to post the proposal here.
    
                                                      .steve.
    

	Since there seems to be some interest (and I'm interested) I've
	opened a conference at CVG::TELEWORK. I welcome new topics around
	the whole area of tele-work.

			Alfred

                <<< CVG::WORK1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]TELEWORK.NOTE;1 >>>
                  -< The Virtual Office - working from Home >-
================================================================================
Note 1.0                       Welcome to TeleWork                    No replies
CVG::THOMPSON "My friends call me Alfred"            11 lines  28-FEB-1990 09:56
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    This conference is for discussion of working from home or, as it's
    sometimes called, tele commuting. Please use this conference to
    discuss hardware/software requirements, limitations, benefits,
    "how to get your boss to buy-off on it", and brain storm for ways
    to make it work better.

    A previous conference on this subject died away but there appears
    to be more interest on the subject at Digital today. Let's have
    at it.

    			Alfred

                <<< RUMOR::AP:[NOTES$LIBRARY]TELEWORK.NOTE;2 >>>
                  -< The Virtual Office - working from Home >-
================================================================================
Note 22.0                           Dataville                         No replies
HPSCAD::DDOUCETTE "Innovation: Simplicity in Creati" 62 lines  22-APR-1990 16:10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Folks,

I've finally completed "Dataville:  The Making of a Computer Village."  It
is a sequel to the paper "The Computer Village:  An Experiment for Living
in the Future."  Hopefully I've addressed most of the issues raised in the
first paper without raising too many more.

If you're interested in a copy of the paper send mail to HPSCAD::DDOUCETTE.
To print the paper, do the following commands:

 - - - - - - - - - -  

MAIL> EXTRACT/NOHEADER Dataville.ps
MAIL> EXIT

$ PRINT Dataville.ps /QUEUE=Your_local_LPS_queue /PARAMETERS=DATA=POSTSCRIPT

 - - - - - - - - - -  

ALL-IN-ONE users may require additional editing after you extract it.  You
want to extract all text before the following lines:

 - - - - - - - - - -  
%!PS-Adobe-2.1
%%Creator: DECwrite V1.0
%%+Copyright (c) 1989 DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION.  
%%+All Rights Reserved.
 - - - - - - - - - -  

After that, its all postscript.  If you wish to forward the paper, you
should do a FORWARD/NOHEADER.  Postscript interpreters don't handle mail
headers very well.


As with the previous paper, I'd appreciate any comments, both pro and con,
as well as any proof-reading.  Send comments through mail, interoffice,
I've even been known to accept comments on a FAX, ;-).  If you feel I
missed an issue, or even wish to argue about the structure of the paper,
feel free to get in touch.  I would prefer to debate the issues in the
RUMOR::TELEWORK NOTES file.  I am also willing to do a presentation on the
Computer Village, or discuss developing a Computer Village with any
organization in Digital

Currently, I'm looking into getting the papers "formally" published by an
organization within Digital.  I am also working on a Summary Report, or a
"Computer Village Care Package."  This package is the accumulation of work
I've completed while developing the Computer Village.  It will include the
Executive Summary, a revised Computer Village paper, the Dataville paper,
research from other groups in Digital looking into Telecommuting issues,
newsclippings on Telecommuting, technopolises, and other technology issues.
References from MIT's project Athena, and the U.S.  Census Bureau's TIGER
project will also be included.  This Summary Report will be a couple of
hundred pages, double sided, and will only be available in hardcopy.  If
you wish a copy, please send me your mailstop.  I expect to finish
organizing this report in a few months.

Happy Earth Day Everyone!

Dave Doucette
MS:	MR01-3/T2		EMail:	HPSCAD::DDoucette
Office:	MR01-3/M4		DTN:	297-2504
Phone:	(508)-467-2504		FAX DTN:297-6796 (MRO1 mail room)