The New Nomads

The New Nomads

The fusion of mobile phones and internet has blurred the distinction between the two and given rise to voice over internet telephony and mobile internet. The resulting culture of mobile communications has taken to the concept of the virtual office to a new level. The culture of self employment gave rise to the explosion of modular space/service flexible business centres during the 1990's. However mobile internet is enabling a growing number of both employed and self employed people to do away with the office almost entirely. Consultants, sales people, designers and marketing executives are all using the portability of laptops and especially mini-laptops combined with mobile internet to work from cafes, literally on the go. This has the triple advantage of reducing costs (coffee is cheaper than monthly floor rental), ensuring employees are connected and exposed to surrounding trends and provides greater autonomy and mastery at the individual level.

Usually this new class of nomadic executives meet with one another and their office bound support staff/suppliers in a physical office on a regular basis. However, there is no reason to think that even these meetings will continue forever. The theory that getting together to maintain the construct of a corporate identity is important does not actually require such a meeting to take place in an corporate building. Why not simply meet in a coffee shop, hotel meeting room or similar environment? When companies want to get innovative or thoughtful they often go outside their normal place of business anyway. Indeed the freelancers are leading the way again, as more and more of them have no real physical office to speak of, beyond their mobile phone and laptop. Many, including myself, are meeting their clients, associates and suppliers (accountants, lawyers, consultants) at their offices or increasingly in coffee shops.

The shift to a nomadic culture of work is a radical one. Although it may free us from the strictures of office politics it places much greater pressure upon individuals to take responsibility for the structure and use of their own time, whilst also creating a more atomistic world. The nature of team work is likely to be far more adhoc, cross functional, project based and unstable as a result. Whilst the face to face connections that have historically been central to teams may become more limited by greater use of electronic meetings (Skype, Gizmo, Google Chat, etc.) and social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo Messenger, etc.). It also accords greater value to those people with strong networking and relationship skills, that Belbin would describe as resource investigators and Chris Rose would describe as Prospectors and Pioneers¹. Whilst those who need stability and certainty are simply being left behind²

Freedom from routine for some may be liberating, but for others is likely to be a test of loneliness. Unless some means of providing a common bond that reaches beyond the extrinsic there will simply be fewer and fewer reasons to come together physically. In short, unless some meaning to common enterprise can be found above and beyond profit and bonuses the glue of the contemporary corporation will simply melt away. We are already seeing the beginnings of this process as companies open source their innovation. Effectively shifting large parts of the R & D function out to a nomadic tribe of freelancers and small firms existing, to all intents and purposes, on the internet.

This new nomdaism clearly requires a powerful blend of both relationship management skills and knowledge. However, what distinguishes nomadism from previous era's is the need to unite these two skill sets in one person. A person who may not be able to produce and deliver all the solutions, but who is able to cluster resources around innovative ideas, without the boundaries and resources of a corporate structure. Execution or delivery may well simply be oustourced, as, for example, Apple have done. Leadership thus becomes far more significant and simultaneously more complex. Gone are the days of having a pre-defined tribe of employees to lead. In the new world followers must be found, motivated and energised without the leverage of a salary contract, or the certainty of a large support department. The ability to provide a vision and effectively communicate across geographical, corporate and technological boundaries is becoming far more important to commerce than the ability process and administer data. The days of acquiring bureaucratic competence to climb the corporate ladder are gone. Success is at once both harder to define in objective terms, more fleeting and critically dependent upon a willingness to embrace the complexity that new nomadism brings.

1Rose, C., What Makes People Tick: The Hidden World of Settler, Prospectors and Pioneers, Leicester, UK: Matador, 2011.

2Taylor A. & Bronstone A., People, Place & Global Order: Foundations Of A Networked Political Economy, London: Routledge, 2019.