steve ellwood

100830 Brisbane Australia

Ah, early Monday morning in Australia! The quiet, the peaceful feeling one gets from knowing that everyone in the East coast of North America is just starting to think about Sunday evening dinner plans. A time when I know that no one wants to hear from me. A time I know, despite my life long obsession to get up early and get going every morning, that nothing is pressing.

Some people are 'early risers'. Me, I'd rather get up at 3:00am than go to bed at 3:00am. Before 4:00am is too early, after that...well sure up we get.

On this morning of quiet (at least in my mind - the garbage collection people don't seem to understand about Eastern Standard Time) I can reflect on the daily and weekly cycles I have, I realize now, come to see as permanent, even sacred. I guess, like everything else that might be considered sacred, (at least by me) it turns out - it's not.

I'm an entrepreneur, I work for myself and aside from our friendly and helpful bank (Hi Maria!) I only have my clients to answer to. I can select any hours I want to work in my virtual work space.

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100823 Brisbane Australia

Communication set ups are all about outcomes. You need to decide what you want to happen, set out your goals and then build the structure to accomplish those goals.

I want;

To be able to make calls to anywhere in Canada from anywhere in the world for so little money that I need not think about the cost.

To be able to receive calls from Canada (at certain times) from staff and business contacts without the caller knowing or caring where the call ends up.

I want to be able to use my iPhone in Australia without ringing up any 'roaming' charges slapped on by Rogers back home.

I want to always have email access available to me.

I want to be able to use my iPhone and iPad for accessing the web all the time.

I want to have Internet access for my Apple Macbook notebook.

In summary - to have the same communications abilities I have in downtown Toronto.


So this is what we did:

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100822 Brisbane Australia

In our house swap the nice owners have an internet connection that is freely available to us. Having ready access to the internet is absolutely essential if you are going to pull off the extended absence life.

I am traveling with a MacBook notebook, an iPad and an iPhone. But that stuff isn't really important.

What is important is that I have three separate ways to get connected to the internet.

The internet access here in the house isn't used to people that watch movies sourced on the spot from iTunes. We blew thru the bandwidth cap in the first 36 hours of our arrival. Once we used up the data plan the internet service was essentially shut off. 64K down - oh yeah! (Mom, that's like drinking a container of Vicks Vapo-rub thru a straw)

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100820 Brisbane Australia

Tales of my adventures as a working anywhere warrior

Saw the a temperate rain forest yesterday, visited a wonderful cheese maker, drank yet another great bottle of Australian wine... oh the pace!

There are some major (and minor) temptations to be battled for the work anywhere warrior. There are far more reasons to put off work out here in the great unknown than sitting at my desk home.

And after all if you didn't want to see the rainforest why did you come to Australia? Quite right too, you need to spend the time seeing the sites, enjoying time with family and living the life.

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100818 Brisbane Australia

What the world does not need now is another travelog. So stop reading, just to be safe.

Google says we are 15,037 kms and 14 hours on the timezone clock away from our beloved Toronto. 'Beloved' because we left it mid-summer rather than mid-winter.

We are here in Brisbane for a month for three reasons.

1. Family vacation - Will, our son, is 16 years old now and we wanted to get a big family holiday on the books one last time (maybe second last if we're lucky).

2. Lynn had the good sense to, long ago, gain sabbatical eligible employment at the University of Toronto and as such she has arranged to lecture and liaise with colleagues here down under.

3. And finally, I am putting my theory to the test. We have worked very hard over the last few years to create a work environment that is completely locationless. We are completely paperless, we provide remote access to systems and data via the web for all functions of the firm, our phone system is virtual and allows callers to connect to anyone in the firm wherever they are and how ever they want to take the call. So it falls to me to 'take my model out for a spin'.

So the travelog you have so foolishly decided to continue reading will focus on the work / life balance of a work anywhere vagabond. Good luck to you.

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