So what has the last post about the city of Linköping to do with running a business. Well a lot actually. We are becoming more and more unphysical in our work- and business life. We are, daily, interacting with people and places outside where we live. It is now possible more than ever to choose to live where you want and work from there. We no longer have to move to where the jobs are.

Image by TIO.

Everytime I meet new people in an online environment we talk a about how and where we live/work. This is important since we have no physical place to refer to other than the place where we live. In the traditional set up you will love or hate the actual building or the office you work in, but since those no longer exists good and bad things will be attributed the place you live. It is crucial to us that we live in a place where we enjoy life and work and the city must realise that.

More and more I hear people working in a traditional set up talk about how important the place of living is rather than the perfect office, more and more I hear them demanding a non-physical office as an alternative to the traditional face-time set up.

If the city realises that the international PR, to some extent, is in the hands of the people working online then people from all over the world will notice.

A small town has huge opportunities to stir up a buzz internationally by meeting and take advantage of the way people are working today. It does not take much; free city wifi, “workstations” spread out in the city is two examples. The “workstations” has to be no more than a small tablet/bench where you can sit and place you laptop. With these two it won’t be a biggie working, hosting a tele-conference or anything else from a park, the river or any other nice spot in your city.

The free city wifi is too often, by the city, refered to as sometning “extra”, something fun for people to play with. But it will be extremly important for how people experience the city. Earlier everything was focused on getting people out of their homes during evenings and weekends, but with such a simple thing as the city wifi will get people out into the city during workhours. We in the nordic countries will benefit even more from that since we are in our offices during the best hours of the day and we leave for home when the darkness comes. If you could work more outdoors and in different locations we would be happier and more healthy.

A city visitor is no longer travelling business class or stops by the tourist office. A visitor today might get in and get out of a city in an hour or two but still be in, say, Barcelona and the only spokesperson for the city is the online-coworker. Tons of visits might happend everyday, and the people running the city does not know, cos they are too focused on measuring everything physical.

If the city realises that the international PR, to some extent, is in the hands of the people working online and if the city is meeting the needs of the people and organizations then people from all over the world will notice. I mean, if you ask someone about Carsonified a majority will think of Bath, Paul Boag is promoting Dorset, the boyos at 37 Signals is pushing, well a lot of places.

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