One of the best definitions of Distributed Work I've seen in a while:

The term "distributed work" describes the practice of working without regard to location by using a combination of modern communications and computing technologies. It includes:

• Working while truly mobile-in activities ranging from sales and on-site customer support or equipment repair to composing and submitting a product design while traveling;
• Working as part of a geographically dispersed project team-in activities such as research and report writing done largely without traveling to a common site; and
• Traditional telecommuting-carrying out activities such as responding to customers' telephone calls by utilizing a personal computer linked to a remote database while working at home or at a satellite work center.

Distributed workers can engage in these activities on a full-time basis, as might be the case for a distributed customer service operation. Perhaps more commonly, however, they may engage in the practice of distributed work on a part-time basis, such as spending a day per week contributing to a company-wide product evaluation.

This is from the 1994 report Research Recommendations To Facilitate Distributed Work published by the National Academy of Sciences. Even a quick scan of the executive summary shows how surprisingly little we've progressed since 1994 - ELEVEN YEARS AGO, egads! Here's a point I always like to emphasize when I get the chance:

"...technology itself is only an enabler of or constraint on change rather than a direct motivator of change."

5:17:22 PM    
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