In response to Saul’s recent post, “Conversational Marketing and Language Barriers” and the subsequent discussion on internet culture, one of our readers, Mark Foreman, of aconnector.com asked if we here at Abraham Harrison LLC, are “typical Americans that expect the whole world to speak English”, the kind that “repeat the words much louder when the locals don’t understand you”. As I thought about how best to answer Mr. Foreman, it coalesced in my mind how amazingly international, cosmopolitan, and multi-lingual Abraham Harrison is, and thus, why it is so natural for us to communicate sensitively and effectively regardless of what internet subculture we find ourselves in conversation with.

We are a company of 15 people stretching across 14 time zones, and living in five countries on four continents. We are of four nationalities and six ethnicities.

Among us we speak not only English, but Spanish, Afrikaans, German, French, Hindi, Swahili, and Arabic. I don’t know all the countries that our people have lived in, but they do include the US, UK, Canada, Mexico, Guatemala, Liberia, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia, Germany, Spain, and Egypt. I don’t really know all the many countries our people have visited, but off the top of my head, I count 56.

In this highly international, intercultural, interlingual company that is Abraham Harrison LLC, we meet on the internet and operate primarily in English – and we live our daily lives both on and offline within the constantly morphing cultural boundaries that is our modern cosmopolitan world. It is our normal daily life that we order lunch in German while phoning with a client in English, then pause to ask a friend a question in Spanish – and navigating in real time the cultural switches that go along with communicating with an Austrian, a Canadian, and a Colombian within the span of 10 seconds .

Equally, and in a similarly cosmopolitan and adaptable fashion, we comfortably and naturally move between online communities of Ivy-League professors, Latino youth, snarky gamers, and growling no-BS New York businessmen – each of these groups has as unique an inside culture and as much protocol that we must carefully respect, as any culture defined by geographic boundaries or national language. It is this ability to comfortably, naturally, and sensitively move among cultures – both in the online and offline worlds – that make us here at Abraham Harrison so effortlessly able to communicate effectively wherever our clients need us to. We are cosmopolitans in the fullest sense, and the sensitivity and adaptability we employ in our daily lives and as we move around the globe for business, pleasure, or family, we bring to bear intuitively in our online conversation marketing.

15 people, 5 countries, 4 continents, 6 ethnicities, and 8 languages between us. That’s the team at Abraham Harrison. It makes me very proud of our company.

So, how do you deal with the quirks of having a virtual company. There are so many hidden problems and out front benefits. Some people say that it would never work – that you need the culture of the company that comes out of the face to face interactions of employee’s. i think this point alone has standing – there is always something gained from human interaction. But, it doesn’t have to be limited to work – perhaps we can have lives out side of work. Perhaps we our lives can somewhat dictate our work habits rather then the other way round.

I don’t understand German – but in the video of Mark Harrison one gets the point that it is a lifestyle that a company like this, AHLLC, offers that is hugely beneficial. It is nice to sit in your own garden, eat breakfast and do some work. Hell, who can argue with that.
Yet, there is this other side that comes from all the “flexibility” of a virtual company.

Discipline! It takes a type of person to get self motivated to do the work. It also takes a set of clear guidelines and requirements for your work to be most efficient and beneficial. You don’t have the benefits of the moment by moment interaction that you get in a live company.

I think this is part of the paradox. From the flexibility a type of discipline and self motivation is required. Perhaps most people aren’t used to that, perhaps it takes a certain passion.

What I do know is I love being home with my pregnant wife and being part of the daily existence. Rather than disappearing for 10 hours a day to another world that in no way interacts with this world. Work/Life. Life/Work.

You pick.

Die positiven Folgen der Prekarisierung?! Globalisierung und Flexibilisierung sind die Stichworte meiner Generation. Seit ich mich aktiv fuer meine Umwelt interessiere, wird sie von Katastrophen heimgesucht; Ich war 14 als die new economy zusammenbrach, am elften September 2001 war ich 15 und es ging immer so weiter. Arbeitsplatzabbau und die Hartz-Reformen, deren Message war; streng dich an, ein Arbeitsplatz ist keine Selbstverstaendlichkeit, du musst dich wahrscheinlich mehrfach umorientieren und den Wohnort wechseln, wenn es sein muss. Fordern und Foerdern.

Lebenslange Vollzeitbeschaeftigung ist ein Relikt des 20. Jahrhunderts, welches denUebergang ins neue Jahrtausend nicht geschafft hat. Dem Sozialstaat geht das Geld aus, Leiharbeitsfirmen haben Hochkonjunktur und auf einmal tritt der Begriff des Prekariats auf; die neue, abgekoppelte Unterschicht!
Gewerkschafter beklagen die Tatsache, dass das unternehmerische Risiko auf den Arbeitnehmer abgewaelzt wird, er hat kein Sicherungsnetz mehr und das Klassenbewusstsein verabschiedet sich gleich mit.

Doch man kann auch ein anderes Phaenomen beobachten, die so genannten Selbstmanager. Sie sind gut ausgebildet, nehmen oft nur Projektvertraege an und verkaufen sich danach meistbietend an den naechsten Arbeitgeber. Sie sind die modernen Soeldner der Business Welt, hauptsaechlich anzutreffen auf den Schlachtfeldern der neuen und alten Medien. Sie verdienen genug, um eigene finanzielle Reserven fuer schlechte Zeiten anzulegen und mit jedem neuen Arbeitsauftrag vergroessern sie ihr eigenes Netzwerk, welches sie langfristig vor Beschaeftigungslosigkeit schuetzt. Der Selbstmanager ist in diesem Sinne kein Arbeitnehmer, sondern eine kleine Ich-AG. Er nimmt sich als eine oekonomische Einheit war und investiert wie ein Unternehmen, zum Beispiel in Technik (Handy, Laptop) Netzwerkpflege (der angenehme Teil; Partys) oder Bildung. Was Gewerkschaften ein Graus ist; die kurzfristige temporaere Bindung und die staendige Notwendigkeit zur Neuorientierung, bauen sie als ihren Vorteil aus. Sie sind mobil und haben kein Problem oefter den Wohnort zu wechseln. Er steht fuer eine Generation von jungen, erfolgsorientierten Leuten, welche die Globalisierung nicht als Gefahr, sondern als Chance begreifen.

Der typische Selbstmanager fuehlt sich nicht unsicher, sondern frei!

A number of companies have realized the advantages to allowing some of their employees to work remotely. Obviously, these companies save money by not having a workspace for these employees.

At Abraham Harrison, there is no office. Everyone is 100% remote, working from god knows where wearing god knows what. In order to be a successful telecommuter, one must be disciplined and diligent – there is no boss looking over your shoulder to keep you on task. As if being on a computer all day doesn’t offer enough distraction, once you go remote you add all sorts of new things to keep you from your work. Be it a the pool you’re sitting next to, something on television you didn’t know you wanted to watch until it became an alternative to working, your dog, what have you. Many “home offices” are not ideally suited to be a work environment.

On the opposite side of that argument, however, is that many people are actually more productive when they are able to create their own workspace and working hours. These people are usually more intelligent and driven, which we obviously aspire to recruit (and be) at Abraham Harrison. Often these people are hindered by multiple levels of management asking about their “TPS Reports” when they would have achieved more had they been left to their own work. The challenge of a 100% remote company is to identify and recruit people who have the traits required to be a successful telecommuter. We need people who can think on their feet and who can be trusted to do so with little or no oversight.

The 100% telecommuter company also experiences some communication errors, and there is no true interpersonal interaction. No amount of emails, conference calls, and instant messages can equal the efficacy of some face time. With a concerted effort on the parts of all involved, however, it is possible to achieve an acceptable level of clarity in communication.

Many telecommuters are happy to avoid the cost and stresses of an hour drive or train ride in the morning, but many also struggle psychologically as a result of isolation from coworkers. Whether you are alone in an empty house, or perhaps spending too much time with the significant other, there are distinct psychological challenges involved in working from home. It also is difficult to “get into work mode” if you do not shower/change/commute in the morning – or perform some kind of preparatory work routine. This problem is easily solved, if you can have the will power to stick to a schedule and “pre-work” routine. Showering, also, is probably preferential to anyone you might come into contact with, and just good hygeine.

Bottom line, telecommuting is convenient as hell, but it can give you a bit of cabin fever. Personally? I’ll take it, as long as my commute involves feet instead of miles.