A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet

A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Internet
Tips for working in the global cyberspace
By David Leonhardt


"Where do you work?"

"Planet Earth."

Sound familiar? No? Well, it should. More and more people are working from home on the Internet, and there are two things you should know about your office when you work on the Internet.

First, your office will be very, very small and very, very lonely, as I chronicled in my hermit trilogy.

Second, your office will be very, very big and full of many, many people from every corner of the planet, mostly trying to sell things to each other. That is because when you work from home, Planet Earth is your office and theirs.

For instance, would you believe that a man on the Internet in the Ukraine delivers the local weather forecast in Sydney to Chicago? So much for sticking your head out the window.

I have a client in the UK who sells machine parts through his ball bearings website to every country in the world ... except the UK, of course. Doesn't that make the local hardware store redundant?.

With so many clients crowding into my office, I could use some stress relief tips around now.

Office Politics in the Global Office

My clients live on almost every continent, and the only thing that occasionally gets in the way of seamless communication are time-zone differences. (If Columbus would have minded his own business, we wouldn't face even that challenge!)

What's more, my clients are not always English-speaking, and neither are all of my clients' websites. Can you say netzwerk