"Going to work" is becoming old school. "Work" is now something you do and no longer a location. The growth of telecommuting, home-based businesses, cell phones, laptops and other mobile means is mute testimony to the idea that more and more people are leaving the traditional office behind. An AT&T Telework White Paper in April of 2003 states "a significant increase in remote working is taking place," and John Challenger, CEO of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc., an international outplacement consulting firm, predicts "telecommuting will be the predominant workplace trend in the next 20 years."

This socioeconomic shift that is quietly underway promises to literally alter not just the entire commercial landscape but also the where and how people choose to live. The forward-thinking businessperson would be well advised to consider how this will alter every aspect of running a business in the very near future.

We are returning to a primal way of life that we are all hard-wired to prefer. Modern technology and the Information Age are allowing us to return to a lifestyle where we live and work in the same place, just as it used to be.

For the first 500,000 years or so of our existence we were all farmers or hunter-gatherers, and we lived and worked in the same place. Then along came the Industrial Revolution and we had to go to where the jobs and machines were located. We started "going to work." For the first time we now lived and worked in two different places. The work locations became huge factories employing many people that created cities and increased transportation options. And the distance between our home space and our workspace increased.

We brought that thinking into the dawn of the Communication Age and built tall buildings filled with individual workspaces called offices. "Going to work" evolved into something we now call a "commute" which meant putting on a "uniform," getting into a fossil fuel burning vehicle, leaving our home space and driving to another space where we replicate a chair, desk, phone and roof over our head. And our workspace and our home space were more divided than ever. When we were at work, we couldn't do much about home life, and at home we couldn't do much about work issues.

Then along came the Information Age and our jobs became the sharing of information. Our days were filled with communications, phones, faxes, computers, and a diminishing amount of face time with customers. The "back office" idea flourished with its attendant Dilbert culture, but we were all still "going to work."

The advent of modems begat "telecommuting." Phones were already everywhere but now data could be shared from anywhere. Workspace didn't have to be centralized and could be done from anywhere, even from home, and management took notice of the idea "that just because you hired them doesn't mean that you have to house them." At first it wasn't easy but ultimately, progressive companies like IBM began to figure out how to work remotely. The saving in infrastructure cost is obvious, but "productivity gains are the most significant benefit of telework." (AT&T Telework White Paper) In a properly supported, independent work environment, most people were better managers of their own output than those who worked in traditional "line of sight management"settings. As a result, a lot of middle management jobs were no longer needed.

While the top of the organization chart loves the idea of working remotely, so too does the bottom of the organization chart. We want to go home. We want the flexibility and independence to blend our work life with our personal life. We want to choose the "when" and "how" of working. We have family care issues and commute issues and self-esteem issues. When the kids go to bed at 8:30 at night we do not get the urge to leave home and drive to our traditional office, but we might be inclined to wander down the hall to that home-based workspace because the quiet time of night is more conducive to our work style. Even if our paycheck comes from a Fortune 500 company, working remotely still serves the American Dream of being your own boss. It feels right and touches something primal within all of us to live this way; the way it used to be for so long.