The closer we are getting to the end of our trip, the more I get back into working mode. Actually, I haven’t been really out of it, but the fact that there were only very few meetings scheduled during the three months of our tour, has obviously changed the working pace.
Nonetheless, my office has been traveling with me in my backpack. Basically, all I needed during the entire trip was a laptop and two smartphones, a German one and a US American one. On my first day in New York, while going on one of the very few runs I did on this trip, I entered a little Russian run computer shop and purchased a three months pre-paid all-inclusive contract from “Simple Mobile” which proved to be a decent and pretty reliable provider.
Except for the Indian reservations in the Pacific Northwest and some god forlorn places out West, I always had a pretty good coverage which made it easy to have a ready-set-go mobile office available pretty much at all times and when necessary.
In addition, most of the places, I dare say 99%, have Wi-Fi connections which make it easy to access the internet and to make calls VOIP, if there happens to be no cell phone service. Particularly advanced in this respect where the Canadian cities of Montréal and Québec City, who provide for free public Wi-Fi access in the centers of their cities.
As I am a digital immigrant (at best), I highly depend on the support of some people who actually now what they are doing. My personal hero and IT sweetheart in this regard is Alexander Schwager, who – together with my technological wunderkind partner Joseph – just wonderfully coordinates the IT architecture of our firm. I will never forget Alex stopping by at our house one day prior to our departure to the US on his electric scooter to do last set ups to my phones and laptop in order to equip them with all sorts of VOIP apps and so forth. I wish to express my deep gratitude to both him and Joseph for making this trip possible from the IT side of things.
The different time zones have proven beneficial in many ways. For me, as it gave me the possibility to really turn off the office in my head for some time, and for the clients, because we would be able to deliver some services at short notice, just to mention the assistance in the purchase of a vineyard in the South of France.
Certainly, my mobile office would not have been anything without the support from the entire team at the home base in Berlin. But that will be the subject of a post of its own.
