TeliaSonera is basically getting hit from two sides. Not only is the economic climate taking its toll on European operators, in some countries like Spain, people are even ditching their mobile phones. But even before the recession hit, most European operators faced the problem of saturation. Every man, woman and child has a mobile device – in many cases more than one — leaving no new customers to sell to.

That problem is particularly acute in TeliaSonera’s core Nordic markets. Finland and Sweden are home to Nokia and Ericsson and have long been hotbeds of mobile innovation and rapid adoption. It was in those countries that device penetration levels first topped 100 percent in the previous decade.

So TeliaSonera’s subscriber base isn’t growing; neither are its revenues. However, its costs are increasing as those subscribers do more with their devices. TeliaSonera was the first operator in the world to launch LTE, and mobile data traffic on its network has ballooned. Furthermore, customers are moving away from TeliaSonera’s traditional voice services to VoIP applications like Skype, cutting deeper into the carrier’s revenue stresses. That led to TeliaSonera’s controversial decision this summer to charge customers extra for using over-the-top communications services.

TeliaSonera CEO Lars Nyberg justified these new policies as necessary steps operators need to take to adjust to the new wireless world order. He said in the carrier’s earnings statement:

“Our customers’ behavior is changing rapidly and we must change our business models from being voice to data centric. As an example, we launched new subscriptions in Sweden in September where our customers can continue using Skype and other mobile IP-telephony services just like before. At the same time, we have adjusted our data prices to better meet the growing demand for data communication.”

In the next few weeks we’re probably going to see a lot of poor earnings reports from European operators, many of which are facing the same issues of poor economic conditions and market saturation.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user kaarsten

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Nor is the uptake of telecommuting speeding up, according to recent research. In fact, the rate of growth is slowing down, claims a recent post on the blog Workshifting:

The latest research from the Telework Research Network indicates that while telework is growing, it’s not increasing at the pace we might have expected. According to 2009 U.S. Census data, 61 percent more employees considered home their primary place of work versus 2005. But that number translates to only 2.3 percent of the total workforce.

When compared with a recent report from WorldatWork, which indicates that the overall number of teleworkers declined between 2008 and 2010, a trend emerges. The frequency of telework has increased, meaning fewer workshifters are doing more flexible work.

What’s behind this decrease in the number of teleworkers? Workshifting suggests a number of possibilities, including:

• Not everyone wants to telecommute
• Companies struggling to quantify the costs and benefits
• Inadequate tools and resources available to support the lifestyle
• Businesses still unsure how to manage people they can’t see

All of these are certainly hurdles to increased telecommuting, but a separate recent study suggests the slowdown in the increase in remote work may have a simpler explanation: the terrible economy.

That seems to be true in the UK at least, where communications company O2 has recently published a report looking at the future of work and flexible working. The poll of 2,000 workers found that two out of five feel pressured to be in the office because of the gloomy economy. O2 has dubbed the fear of prejudice against remote work “presenteeism” and says the condition is on the rise among Brits.

“With so many organizations facing economic uncertainty, our research suggests large numbers of businesses are missing out on the productivity gains, improved employee and customer engagement and efficient processes that such flexible working practices can deliver,” said David Plumb, O2′s general manager for enterprise.

At Net:Work in December, we’ll discuss the future of the mobile workforce and how managers can better manage remote workers. Get your tickets today.

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This question was recently posed in Fortune by Elaine Pofeldt, who offered some skepticism that coworking would continue to flourish if better economic times returned:

Of course, no one knows how long the party will continue for coworking spaces. The trend has been fueled, in part, by an economy where corporate jobs for the young are scarce. A survey of coworking spaces by Emergent Research in 2010 found that their desks and sofas are mostly filled by well-educated male techies who are under 40, with 55% working for small companies and 44% of them freelancers or sole proprietors.

She also quotes fellow skeptic Paul V. Carter, a senior vice president at flexible office space provider OfficeLinks, who said: “Do members of Generation Y and Millennials really want to be independent contractors when Google offers them a permanent position? How much do they like this lifestyle? I suspect it’s not as much as people think.”

But owners and managers of coworking spaces we spoke to think there are several good reasons a better business environment won’t put a damper on their movement. Noelle Stary, co-founder of Launchpad Creatives in New Jersey, for one, feels that the damage has been done and workers will no longer want to rely on big companies like they once did, even if the economy comes back.

“People are learning to brand themselves,” she says. “People seem to know that one big business is not going to keep them employed long term. So if people are looking to stay fresh and want to explore their entrepreneurial side these coworking spaces also offer late hours and weekends for the person trying to get another business off the ground while being employed full time.”

And Sam Rosen of The COOP in Chicago is also feeling confident that, while some very large spaces may face difficulties in boom times, his space can withstand an uptick in the economy. For one, it’s busier than it has every been, with interest also at an all time high. Plus, this interest doesn’t seem to be coming from economic desperation (or, at least at Rosen’s space, mainly from the Millennials Carter mentions in Fortune). The workers flooding the COOP aren’t driven their by financial necessity, Rosen reports, but by their desire for a better way to work.

“I get the feeling that coworking has become a lifestyle for people and a way of getting work done. I think that movement is growing and will continue to grow as the economy grows,” he says. “People are tired of working in cubicles and workspaces that don’t inspire them, so until that problem is fixed in big corporations, I think there will continue to be an exodus to more equipped, modular spaces.”

Craig Baute, owner of Creative Density Coworking in Denver, agrees that coworking is a genuine lifestyle choice rather than an option of last resort and feels that that technology and demographics are driving interest in this lifestyle. These strong fundamentals should support the growth of movement even after the economy improves, he believes. “Coworking is a movement driven mostly by technology, not the recession. If costs were the main factor than people would be working at home and possibly the coffee shop as cheaper alternatives.”

“According to the Global Coworking Survey 75 percent of coworkers have a college degree. The unemployment rate for college graduates is below 5 percent, far from the national average. Coworkers are also younger, under 40, and very comfortable with technology,” Baute points out, proving that coworking’s core demographic isn’t the one most affected by recession.

What do you think the fate of coworking spaces will be when the economy finally heats up again?

Image courtesy of Flickr user jonny goldstein.

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The reasons for the crisis are complex and many: economic, political, social and cultural. Some of them go back to the inception of the single European currency and even earlier. But faced with problems that have been laid bare in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the continent is now embroiled in a storm that George Soros has called “intractable.”

The potential collapse of the euro is a big deal for the technology industry — because it’s a big deal for everybody, full stop. And the threat of a currency collapse certainly puts things in perspective: Sometimes there are bigger things to worry about than which new features Facebook is launching.

But amid all the worry, is there anything that startups and technology companies can do? I spoke to a number of investors to find out what the crisis means for them, and for the businesses they work with. What — if anything — can they do to save themselves and their investments from being pulled down the drain? What will the impact be?

Mike Chalfen, Advent Ventures

Despite the difficulties of the European economy, it has been a strong year for Advent, which made four exits in the past year, including one, Fizzback, just this week. Interestingly, however, two of those were to businesses outside Europe. One was to a private equity buyer and only one was to a European corporation, Orange.

London-based Chalfen says that he thinks many startups were well-positioned to weather the storm — but that ultimately, there is only so much that they can do to protect themselves.

“We’re too small really to have any effect on a large scale: Technology’s not a GDP play,” he says. “Our companies have been growing throughout the credit crunch, but to be honest fundamental market fluctuations are less important to us than market share.”

“There are two ways to mitigate the risk here: Make sure you’re in a business where your costs and revenues are in the same currency, or invest in businesses that are highly global. In the age of frictionless distribution of digital products, it’s easier to find companies that grow that way. The really interesting point is that Europe is a good place for global businesses because they tend to be multinational from the start.”

Fred Destin, Atlas Ventures

Chalfen is optimistic, but Destin — a French VC, now based in Boston — sees things more bleakly.

“Let’s forget startups for a second and look at the bigger picture,” he says. “If the euro breaks, it’s going to be disastrous for a lot of people — we’re probably looking at a prolonged recession that may be worse than Argentina’s for countries like Greece: Life savings wiped out.

“Anyone who does not have concerns is disastrously self-centered in my opinion.”

Simon Levene, Index Ventures

Levene was equally gloomy about the broader climate — he expects “at least one or two sovereign defaults, and a huge number of banks will be exposed to that debt as a result” — but suggests that things would be much tougher for entrepreneurs in countries such as Greece and Spain than elsewhere. In particular, it will be harder for those who are mainly selling into their own markets rather than across borders.

“It is going to restrict investment in the countries most affected, on domestic-focused businesses. But for those trying to address global markets? I think they’ll still be able to attract capital.”

But he says that good companies will be able to hustle through until things turn around. In fact, with other businesses failing, governments desperate for growth and more jobs badly needed, startups may be an important part of trying to turn things around.

“Right now venture capital is shrinking, but it’s shrinking to quality — not to zero,” he says. “We’re investing in long-term businesses — liquidity events in three to seven years. Hopefully the world will be the right way up by then.”

Jenga image used under Creative Commons license courtesy of Flickr user foolstopzanet

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Sara Sutton Fell, the founder and CEO of flexible and telecommuting job board FlexJobs.com, is in an ideal position to know. As the economy tanked and now waveringly rights itself, she has observed the quantity, type and behavior of both employers and job hunters on her site, sussing out the effects of the economic downturn on telecommuting. She spoke to WebWorkerDaily about her observations:

When I originally started the company a little over four years ago it was pre-recession. And that was a very different market. At the time my target audience was work-from-home moms, tapping into the idea that at least in the U.S. and probably in many other countries they’re one of the most under-employed audiences. Mainly because they’re highly educated women who have left the workforce because they can’t find something that offers them the flexibility, reduced schedule or alternative schedule that accommodates their commitment to their families. So that was definitely what I anticipated to be a large majority of our audience.

With the recession it’s very much evolved to be across the board. We’re maybe about 60/40, female to male. It’s everything from entry-level to executive level. I think the recession has raised awareness among people who were skeptical or previously wouldn’t have considered flexibility or telecommuting either in their hiring practices or their job-seeking practices. From the job seeker perspective, they’ve had to look out of the box because they haven’t been able to find the traditional, normal, full-time job that they would have looked for. The awareness has been forced by the recession, but has gained momentum both from the benefits telecommuting offers, but also from other trends that have been feeding into it for some time — technology supporting mobility, the environmental issues, things like emergency preparedness, bad weather. I could go on and on.

But it’s not just job seekers who have been forced to reevaluate telecommuting due to the dismal economic conditions. Employers have taken a fresh look at web work as well, says Sutton Fell.

It’s not how I would have wished it to happen, but I do think the recession has opened employers’ eyes to the fact that these opportunities are not just fuzzy, soft benefits for employees, but they actually offer quite a wide variety of benefits for them as well, including economic benefits, which is ultimately what it’s about.

IT and tech are the traditional sectors that utilize telecommuting, but during the recession organizations in a wide variety of sectors increasingly looked to web workers, according to FlexJobs data.

In telecommuting particularly we had an over 400 percent increase of jobs our researchers would find in the last three years alone. Our categories that have grown the most are medical and health. Sales has definitely been big. Education is a really big one with all the online education opportunities. Non-profit and philanthropy is an area that has been embracing the benefits, especially the reduced overhead benefit, and also the philosophical ones, especially with environmental organizations. IT and web and software development have always been big, but business development, account management, marketing, all of those areas have grown quite a lot in the last few years.

I think employers in all industries have been looking for ways to save money, and they’re exploring either reduced or alternative schedules or some level where they don’t having to hire a traditional, on site full-time employee.

Will a boost in awareness of the benefits of telecommuting among both employers and job seekers be the silver lining to the grim economy of the past few years?

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We recently sat down with Maurice Gunderson, senior partner at CMEA, who previously co-founded venture-capital firm Nth Power, to discuss his thoughts on the future of the greentech industry, and the how CMEA – and its portfolio companies – are prepared to thrive in the new economy. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

Q: How have your tactics changed in the recession?

A: The question is how do you keep small companies covered and lay out a financing plan from beginning to exit? Certainly we’ve had to be creative and make lots of adjustments to our operating plans. In general, people are looking for more capital efficient investment opportunities and are figuring out ways to scale back or be smarter about how to grow the size of the business. You don’t get to have a long run if there’s no short run. We’re generally looking at plans that require less cash than if we were looking in 2008. And we’re a lot more flexible about where to look for capital.

Q: What do you see as some of the long-term impacts of the industry focus on Washington?

A: Wall Street has not moved to Washington. It’s moved to the emergency room, which happens to be in Washington. But it will move back to Wall Street in a more rational way. The thing about government is it’s very helpful, but it doesn’t require the same kind of returns that we do. With the feed-in tariff in Germany, if you were a solar producer when it started, you could sell all you could make, and it didn’t matter if you were a low- or high-cost producer. That was a good thing.

But [as the tariffs decline] and the market goes back to normalcy, high-cost products go away and low-cost products thrive. It’s the same thing here. If you invest in a company that doesn’t have a path to grid parity, the only way it can survive is through subsidies. But if it has a path to grid parity and subsidies help it grow, cool.

Q: One difference is that the feed-in tariffs in Germany declined steadily to help make renewable electricity competitive, while the stimulus programs are short-term. How will that impact the industry?

A: Feed-in tariffs in Germany were designed to stimulate the market over a preset period, while the government subsidies we’re seeing now were designed to avoid the second Great Depression. We certainly wouldn’t want to slow it down. Everybody’s got to realize this is explicitly a short-term thing. You’ve got to design your strategy accordingly.

Q: If companies are changing their business plans to take advantage of government programs, could that backfire once the programs disappear?

A: Yes, this distorts people’s business plans. It’s an extraordinary situation. To take advantage of this, companies had to change their business plans and maybe distort them. If the stimulus and the reaction to it has the effect of hatching a lot of clean-energy companies that wouldn’t be there anyway, it’s not a bad thing if there’s a little distortion. If you’re going to take advantage of a short-term thing that was not [available] before, yes, you’ve got to change tactics.

Q: Does this mean we’ll see a dip once the stimulus funding ends?

A: You bet. Entities that were propped up by it will go away and those that were incubated by it will survive.

Q: What are some of the biggest potential future opportunities?

A: I see three big breakthroughs in the future that will change everything about the energy landscape. No. 1 is fusion, which is the farthest out there. If we get fusion to work, we don’t need solar or other renewable generation. But it requires fundamental breakthroughs and it’s a harder challenge than humankind has ever taken on – it makes Apollo look like a weekend project. Say it’s 100 years off.

No. 2: grid scale storage. New chemistries that enable bulk storage on the same economic footing as power generation would turn renewables into dispatchables, which triples the value of the power. It also says we can build all we want because we don’t have to worry about grid balancing problems. That would probably make a 10-to-1 difference in the amount of wind we could develop and use. It’s huge, and it’s 10 – 15 years away.

No. 3, the nearest term, is cheap nuclear that lets us get off coal — and that’s now.

Q: Many companies are developing energy storage for the grid today. Why do you believe it’s still 10 – 15 years away?

A: People are trying warmed-over chemistries and are making a lot of incremental advances, but the technologies don’t have the economics and don’t have the life [needed for bulk storage]. I haven’t seen one yet that really could solve this problem, but I know of several breakthroughs coming in the 10-15 year time frame.

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You may need to help the younger ones with homework or teach them study skills. You may need to switch into chauffeur mode to get the kids to sports, music lessons or club activities. Everyone has different needs and situations. With that in mind, I’ve come up with a list of suggestions of things that you can do to keep your kids happy and meet your deadlines:

• Sign up the kids for after-school programs: Some schools have a program on campus. Many nearby daycare centers send vans to pick up the kids.
• Hire a student: Some high schoolers finish school early enough to hang with your kids and help with homework. It helps if the high schooler can drive so they can come to your place and take the kids to the park or the library. This approach worked well for me last year. If it appeals to you, check your local colleges as well. Colleges may have a bulletin board or some other job notification system where you can advertise this kind of work.
• Make a schedule: This is the approach I’m now using, and so far, so good. When the elementary kids arrive home, they have about 30 minutes to chill and eat snacks. Then one hour of homework, quiet and reading time. That time frame removes the temptation to rush through homework to go outside or do something fun. If they finish homework early, they still have to wait the full hour before playtime begins.
• Take turns with other parents: Find other work-from-home parents to take turns in watching the kids. That way, you can get a couple of afternoons to yourself.
• Pay another parent to help: When I still had a corporate job and my son needed to be somewhere right before I got off work, a good friend took him for me while I picked him up. Though we do things for each other all the time, this regular carpooling warranted a little extra.
• Treat the afternoon as family time: Give yourself a break and enjoy spending a few hours with your kids, preparing for dinner and helping with homework. Finish your work in the evening after they’ve gone to bed. Instead of lunch breaks, take late afternoon breaks. But still, walk away from the computer for at least five minutes several times a day for health’s sake. Oh, and be careful not to get food and drink on the keyboard.
• Set aside time on the weekend: If your situation doesn’t give you enough time during the week, pick a time on the weekend to do your work. It helps to have a home office so the kids know not to disturb mom or dad while they’re working, unless it’s an emergency (note that a kid’s definition of “emergency” will probably not be the same as yours, so you might want to discuss that beforehand). No home office? Create a work area that signals to the kids that mom or dad is at work.

Web working gives parents the flexibility to be there for their kids and put family first. They don’t have to explain themselves to coworkers and bosses when they need to take care of family business. I love working out of my home office as it provides a well-rounded life.

How do you manage your family around your web working career?

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Between April and June of this year, online accounting service FreeAgent surveyed its users. The result is “The Freelancer Report,” an in-depth study of 535 freelancers and small businesses. Though the respondents were mainly based in the UK and the Netherlands, and the survey was primarily intended to understand the impact of the global recession, it provides some indications of trending behaviors and make for interesting reading.

• More than half of responders describe themselves as freelancers, with a minority using terms such as “consultant” and “contractor,” while “small business” is the smallest category. Does this represent the triumph of personal branding for freelancers?

• Unsurprisingly, the bulk of surveyed freelancers are working in technology — from IT and consultancy to design and development. Curiously, journalism is also quite prominent, suggesting that the implosion of the newspaper industry is perhaps encouraging talent to go it alone.

• Most respondents have been self-employed for under three years, suggesting that the recession isn’t hurting independent workers.

• Freelancers seem to be servicing large and small clients quite evenly, indicating that it’s a mode of work with which that most clients are comfortable.

• It’s heartening to know most freelancers are paying a lot of attention to actually running their businesses — from accounting to invoicing — suggesting most aren’t surprised by the overheads of operation, and are not just simply delivering the work.

• Surprisingly, most don’t seem to have felt the full effects of the recession, and although cautiously optimistic, many anticipate lower earnings in the immediate future.

The report goes on to rank “indices of optimism,” “expected earnings” and the degree to which various industries are feeling the downturn.

Overall, it seems freelancing is particularly a robust and optimistic mode of work, even in a meltdown. This is perhaps a reflection on the agility of small businesses in a turbulent marketplace and being able to maintain a portfolio of opportunities.

Has the recession impacted your freelancing business to the extent that you thought it might?

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China’s Solar Roller Coaster: Most major Chinese suppliers of polysilicon feedstock and photovoltaic equipment in the solar industry have reported negative first-quarter earnings this month. But Chinese solar companies have been among the strongest performers in recent weeks, and they may end up acquiring less fortunate counterparts based in Europe. — Greenwire via NYT

Senate Republicans Heart Nuclear: Nuclear power proponents, including several Republican Senators, are ratcheting up their rhetoric and calling for a huge buildout of nuclear power plants. — WSJ’s Environmental Capital

How to Get Noticed by Quercus Trust: David Gelbaum’s Quercus Trust is famously stealthy. Want to get on the firm’s radar? Then publish a paper in a peer-reviewed journal, troll the 21Ventures web site and be a small, publicly traded company. — Greentech Media

Cool Options Pulled for UK Prius?: Just-announced prices for the upcoming third-generation hybrid are pretty much the same as the second-generation for the UK market, but possibly without some of the gadgets and features available in other markets. — AutoblogGreen

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