I’m writing to you from Boston, where I’m visiting to attend a marketing conference. Apart from my bags being lost by the airline for 24 hours, I’ve been pretty much on track with work and projects since leaving home. Like many business owners I travel for business. This is my fourth trip to the US just this year. Not surprisingly, I travel with mobile devices – a laptop, a Kindle, a mobile phone and an iPad. Despite my (somewhat) excessive devices habit, what makes working ‘untethered’ to my business is that the technology on which the Australian Businesswomen’s Network is run is based in the Cloud (i.e. on the internet instead of on our servers or computers). That means I’m not stuck having to work in one place only. I am productive, no matter where I go. And, I have a sense of freedom and control.
The untethered business owner
Work however you want
On of the reasons most of us get into business is to work the way we want to – to live a flexible lifestyle.
Never before has it been so easy! Cloud computing (a fancy way to describe “the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer”) makes it easy.
Work where ever you want
Thank goodness, the days of being tied to an office are over, if you want them to be.
Today, you can work from home (and I know many of our community members do), from the local coffee shop – in this case the charming Thinking Cup in Downtown Boston, or, as happens often for me, from an airport lounge.
My team, most of whom are based in Sydney, can collaborate with me on projects using the many cloud-based solutions we subscribe to, while I’m on the road. And, when timezones clash (which is often) it makes no difference to my ability to be productive.
Just today I have:
- Jumped onto our blog to add a new article
- Saved files to Dropbox for one of the team to access
- Updated a procedure on a wiki for a new intern starting today
- Added notes to a shared document on which I’m brainstorming a new webinar with my co-host
- Checked our CRM (database) for responses to a recent marketing email
- Analysed the incoming data from a recent customer survey
Some of those tasks were done from my comfortable serviced apartment in downtown Boston and some from my mobile phone when I was grabbing a cortado (the equivalent of a great piccolo) from a cool coffee shop not far from here.
I love being connected while on the road.
You’re probably using the cloud right now — when you update your Facebook status, share a file via Dropbox, make a Skype call or access our database in Mailchimp.
But, you can also use it to:
- Check bank balances and issue invoices
- Run a virtual meeting with your office manager
- Record a new video for your YouTube channel
And, you can do all this cost-effectively and with the knowledge that your data is safe and secure. The cloud unleashes huge possibilities for you to have the freedom to work the way that you and your team want to. How can you use the cloud to make doing business from anywhere easier for you? How can you become an untethered business owner?
Read the ebook: 10 Ways The Cloud is Great for Small Business to learn how other small businesses are using the cloud to gain more flexibility in their work. Download the eBook, here.
