| By Michael Sampson on MikeSampson Working from New Zealand for a US-based company as a marketing guy is a huge testimony to the power of the Internet to enable collaboration over remote distances. I am amazed that I get to live in the middle of nowhere and yet carry on conversations with people all over the world. So where actually do I work? If I worked for Foldera out of Huntington Beach, the view from my office would look something like this … However, I actually work from home in the middle of nowhere in the South Island of New Zealand, and so the view from my office window is this … Photo 2 (yes, that’s the clothes drying on the left hand side, the garden (all 140m2 of it!), and the chickens off to the right. Over the fence our farmer neighbour is growing some sort of crop, and there’s often 100-200 sheep or so over there too.) Now “working from home” may give the impression that I’m cooped up in a corner of a bedroom, or relegated out to a cold dank garage, or stuck precariously in the laundry cupboard. Not in this case! Actually, I have 24m2 of dedicated office space, and I think my setup is pretty awesome. Wanna see it? Photo 3
This is my “writing and doing” desk, or command central for talking with customers, prospects, thinkers, and my Foldera colleagues. I have a great range of hardware available: to the left of the screen is a 17” Toshiba laptop, then a Toshiba Tecra M4 Tablet PC connected to a Philips 23” monitor, and finally a 23” Apple Cinema Display connected to an Apple Powerbook 15”. You might be able to make out some of the other gadgets around the desk too … a Treo 600 (a bit long in the tooth now, but it’s my current cell phone), a BlackBerry 8700 (which I’m evaluating, and am so far pleased with), and an accursed HP iPAQ hx2495 which has utterly failed to live up to my expectations. Oh well. Photo 4 When I want a break away from being surrounded by screens, I walk 3 metres (yes, that’s how we spell it, and yes, that’s the measurement we use for distance down here) over to my “thinking desk”. No computers in sight … just lots of room for clear thinking, strategizing, and future planning. Being able to lay out my thoughts on paper with a nice pen in hand is a key part of my strategy for productivity. So in the future when you and I get to talk, either by email or Skype, this is where I’ll be. I’m looking forward to it. Tags: MikeSampson,, Foldera,, NewZealand,, Collaboration,, Guru |
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