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Spectacular story in the Financial Times this morning about Blackberry – more specifically, about how if the markets had been fluctuating like this ten or fifteen years ago, the majority of the bankers would have canceled their vacations. Now, with the Blackberry, they don’t have to.
Been saying that for a while. Between my Berry and my laptop and my mobile phone, I could be pitching from a forest and clients and reporters would never know it. Which, to be honest, is kind of the point. We have the ability, thanks to email and technology as a whole, to make our lives geographically independent. It doesn’t matter where we are. I’ve got two clients I’ve never met. One’s in Seattle, and one’s in Montreal – I’m sure I’ll meet them eventually – but that hasn’t stopped me from doing great work for them. For all they know, I could be a three-foot midget elf sitting under a desk in the control room at Al-Jazeera. As long as I’m getting my work done, checking in on my conference calls, and responding to my emails in a timely fashion, who cares where I am?
In addition, having a spectacular intern helps as well – Who’s to say that he’s not back in my office sending out product samples while I’m working from a beach in Phuket?
In fact, who knows where I’m writing this from? No one. And therein lies the beauty. You don’t have to know. It doesn’t make any difference. It would matter if I datelined it Baghdad and I was actually reporting from Basrah, but since I’m not reporting, and I haven’t told you in the first place, then who cares?
Someone told me they were able to keep up with me by analyzing the backgrounds that were shown behind me when I do Fox News. Someone actually picked up that I was broadcasting remote a few weeks ago from Chicago, as opposed to New York. I found that just awesome, if not a little stalkerish. So if I have them change the background, I can fool you all! Ha!
In the end, it doesn’t matter. And like most things that don’t matter, the simplicity in itself is the beauty.
So for that, thank you, RIM, and thank you ThinkPad, and thank you Verizon, and thank you T-Mobile. I’m very fortunate – not only because I’ve built myself a career in which I CAN work from anywhere, but because I’ve been able to figure out which tools allow me to do it, and can use them well. So with that, I bid you adieu for the day.
And happy Saturday to you, wherever you might be, be it Basrah, Brooklyn, Boston, or Barcelona.
