Can we really work from anywhere in the world?
The recent article In Praise of Spikes in FastCompany.com examines whether, in today’s global market, we can really work from anywhere in the world.
The conclusion: The idea that location no longer matters is “a compelling notion–but it’s wrong.”
The article claims that, even though we are highly mobile, we still benefit greatly from being in certain spots around the globe. To clarify, it’s not saying we all need to sit together in a room to innovate and be successful. This brief article caught my eye with its theory of “spikes” and “valleys”. It says there are highly concentrated areas of innovation and economic growth around the world and that people in these areas are connected to and benefit from other innovation pools around the world; people outside these areas can have a hard time tapping into the same resources.
“People in spiky places are often more connected to one another, even from half a world away, than they are to people in their own backyards. This peak-to-peak connectivity is accelerated by the highly mobile, global creative class, about 150 million people, who migrate freely among the world’s leading cities–places such as London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.”
When I worked for IBM, they definitely supported mobility and let us work from all over, but I probably wouldn’t have gotten my cushy mobile options if I hadn’t spent several years proving myself out in Silicon Valley and Research Triangle Park. Sure, our team was spread all over the globe. But just as the article pegged, the majority of my teammates lived in major world cities like Toronto, Boston, and Tokyo. A few lived in smaller towns in the US and in Italy, but those were usually temporary situations lasting one or two years.
As someone who lives in the “spiky” area of New York City, I often ponder whether it’s necessary to pay the higher prices to live and work in the center of it all. If I follow this article’s thinking, I should hold off a little longer before moving to a ranch in Montana–or better yet, some remote island in the South Pacific.
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