Moving IT?

Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.

  Career Development  

So much has been written about pulling up stakes and moving to the boonies where the air is clean and the pace and lifestyle are slower and laidback. If you've lived and worked in a big city most of your life, it sounds idyllic.

Thanks to telecommuting, technical professionals on most rungs of the skill ladder--hardcore geeks to project managers--are finding it can be done.

While most employers still think telecommuting is a bad idea, a significant minority allow it for some of their employees. Whether they sincerely endorse the trend, from a PR perspective they are smart to go with it. The result is that each year thousands of adventurous lone wolves are opting to work far from the madding crowds.

Do you think you could do it? If it ever crossed your mind, find out what happened to six people who made the radical lifestyle move. It might shatter your fantasies. They included two software developers, two engineers, a technology consultant and a project manager.

They all made radical lifestyle changes by leaving big cities so they could telecommute from their homes in the country. The most expensive change was made by a software developer who moved hundreds of miles from the nearest city. He left the 24-hour tumult of Los Angeles for the serenity of the Nova Scotia wilds. Somehow he managed to convince his wife and teenage kids…

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