Can You Be a Web Worker From a Small Town?
By Becky McCray
Part of the promise of working independently is to able to live and work where ever you choose. Getting away from the big city sounds great, but can you really work remotely from a small town? Can the technology support it?
The answer, of course, depends on the small town. Broadband is the most obvious issue, but isolation and general amenities are also worth thinking about. The advantages of small towns might just outweigh those problems, so let’s talk about it.
Broadband
Almost everywhere in the US, some form of broadband is available. It may not be affordable, and it may not be speedy, but it does exist. Between satellite service and EVDO on cellular networks, you can get something better than dial up almost anywhere. But that is different than having real broadband direct to your home that is capable of handling the intensive bandwidth of working remotely. Direct broadband access varies considerably, with huge rural areas still on dial up. Primarily, if you locate inside a small town, your chances are better. Small towns around in my area tend to have DSL, cable, and RF options. This is definitely something to check out before making a move.
Isolation
Another variable. Some small towns seem to be hotbeds of geekiness. In others, you’ll be the only technical-minded person. But no small town is going to have the same vibe and connection as a big city. You can’t just throw a Tweet-up and expect to get 20 people in Alva, Oklahoma.
Kind of like broadband, you can use technology to work around the issue of isolation. Staying connected on Twitter, Facebook, Skype, and other social networks can help you feel less alone. Attending conferences, workshops, and other meetings in the cities can also help. But at the end of the day, you’re still pretty isolated.
Amenities
Co-working options are severely limited. There probably isn’t a Starbucks to go work from, or even a Panera bread. If you are lucky, you may have a McDonald’s with wifi, but I’m sure that’s not the same. This is a trend that I’d like to see our local business incubators and economic developers take on. If every business incubator in a small town opened up some space for co-working, I think they would be surprised at the response!
Advantages
How could the advantages outweigh all of those problems? Well, let’s start with no traffic. That’s why you wanted to be a web worker in the first place, wasn’t it? Cost of housing is lower, usually much lower. People are friendly, helpful even. You won’t need that GPS navigator to get around town, either.
If you’ve gotten through the first step of moving your work to the web, then moving your physical location to anywhere you choose is a logical step. Hugh MacLeod, of Gaping Void, recently moved back into small town Alpine, Texas, and garnered a lot of attention. He wrote about living where you want, while building a global microbrand. His Notes from West Texas are worth a read, if you are thinking of jumping ship from a big city.
Becky McCray is a small town entrepreneur. She writes Small Biz Survival about small business and rural issues, based on her own successes and failures. She is the co-owner of a small town retail liquor store and small cattle ranch. She helps tourism related businesses from Oklahoma to Africa to maintain their web presence and helps rural nonprofits and governments with grant writing. Previously, she was worked as an antiques dealer, city administrator, nonprofit executive and newspaper reporter.
Becky is a noted speaker on small business issues, having made presentations to business associations at the state and national level.
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I am a small town web worker. I love it and I hate it.
I still have to meet with clients so I am not completely remote but it is about an hour drive for most of the client meetings. The thing that is interesting about that is most people spend more than an hour stuck in traffic anyway and my house was about 40% less than one 30 minutes closer.
Although If I could afford it I would be a web worker and still have a house in the city.
If you can get around some of the drawbacks you listed—internet access, isolation, etc.—I firmly believe that working in a rural or small town outweighs some of the hassles associated with living and working in a larger city.
Large cities require a higher cost of living, dealing with more people (and not always ones you like), and making compromises. I can always visit new places and enjoy the advantages of living and working somewhere smaller.
Internet access is ubiquitous now that two way satellite connections exist. There are even systems that can be installed in RVs that auto-locate the provider’s signal via GPS. I can get a signal in my fifth wheel from damn near anywhere in north america. Even when I’m far outside anything resembling cell phone coverage. And this is the same tech whether mobile or stationary. So go ahead and get that cabin in the woods.
Provided that you can get decent broadband in the small town, many small rural towns will have long vacant retail storefronts or over store spaces that could be turned into a co-working office for pretty cheap. It’ll take a bit of elbow grease to turn that 25 yr vacant drug store into your own quaint version of the Google campus, but it’ll be cheap.
Well it really depends on your companies requirements. If you have to take phone calls over a PBX system, you can forget satellite. Sometimes an EVDO connection will be sufficient, but at peak times they aren’t as reliable as latency increases.
I personally live in a very rural area, with only one stop light in the whole town. I am fortunate enough to have a 6mbit DSL line, and work remotley from home for a company that provides Windows & OS X support for all kinds of EVDO products! I couldn’t ask for much more, especially with gas prices these days!
Feel free to check out our store, 3Gstore.com
I did a lot of Web work from the town of Lander Wyoming (pop. 7800) from my RV where I lived for almost a year, half the year parked in front of my friend’s double-wide and the other part of the year in a campground.
I had to use dialup – and connections would be sketchy on windy days – but at that point, I had didn’t usually have high speed dialup so didn’t feel deprived.
Even though there wasn’t a Starbucks for miles, I could still access wifi at the locally-owned cafe and even get online at the local library (pretty much all libraries in Wyoming are wired).
For me, isolation wasn’t an issue not just because of online communities but because I was connected to an amazing network of women through the SBCD & it wasn’t uncommon for us to meet to discuss business over a good merlot and steak dinner.
Totally do-able to be a Web worker from a small town – AND from an RV either parked or on the road. I did the Web working thing from my RV while driving to 40 of the 50 states over the course of a year. Back then, I used to use a primitive gadget called a “Cellular Modem.”
Ah, those were the days.
As someone who moved from The Windy City, a mecca of hot geekiness, to a small town in MS last year, this post spoke to me.
In my small town, there is broadband, many local restaurants offer WIFI, and just last summer a small coffee shop opened up with WIFI.
I actually MISS the hustle and bustle of a big city, and will definitely be back in my lovely Chicago, but with todays technology just about anywhere is workable for todays mobile entrepreneur.
I love it. Thank god for technology.
I think everyone should move to a small town (atleast once in their life) and experience life from a different perspective, it really is eye opening to see how others live on a slower pace.
Missy.
P.S. For those in small town MS, feel free to follow me on Twitter: m38967.
for the last 17 years i have been living on top of a hill in the scottish highlands. my nearest neighbours are farmers and gamekeepers living half a mile and more away.
i have always worked fully on the internet. in the last 3 years i have had broadband. apart from my friend who does my books, all my business associates are scattered across the globe: Ukraine, USA, India, South Africa.
the biggest discovery i made when working full time online is that the way relationships are developed and sustained is completely different to face-to-face working. not only different, but qualitatively different. i would almost venture to say “better”.
so while the challenges of working completely online are not trivial, the rewards, once one gets the hang of it, can be quite substantial, in terms of both financial and personal growth.
I’m a “sort of ” web worker, doing Service design in a small Scottish Highlands place called Cromarty. There’s also a web design company, an ISP, and a couple of coders.
It’s very viable when you have broadband, and it’s much greener – and cheaper for the clients – to do things via conference calls/online conferencing.
When I was freelancing, it was nice because I was able to up and move whenever I wanted. I had clients that were with me through four moves and never knew the difference. I think as long as you are willing to make the trip for a face-to-face visit periodically, the work can successfully be done from anywhere.
On a lighter side, I ride motorcycles so the first thing I think of when someone says “fifth wheel” is one of the white “boxes on wheels” with the entire back that opens up into a ramp (http://www.tommystrailers.com/MotorcycleEnclosedTrailer.htm). when DVS said he “can get a signal in my fifth wheel from damn near anywhere in North America”, the first thing that popped into my head was Dilbert sitting in side of a two-bike enclosed trailer surrounded by computer equipment.