The Economist has a special report on the rise of digital nomads. It's fascinating to think that the concept of an office in the 20th century might be on its way to becoming as quaint a notion as a 19th century factory. Yes, factories still exist and offices will too, but it may turn out to be that the dominant work space paradigm in the coming years will have more to do with bandwidth and less to do with a single physical location. Of course, much of the world may end up being denied knowing the joy that is living in a cubicle farm. Yeah, like that's a bad thing.

Sadly, most of my adult life has been spent under fluorescent lights, and the thought of cutting ties with the cat-5 cable that connects me directly to the router in the data center in the next room is something that feels vaguely uncomfortable. I know that a lot of people are doing this now, from young urban adults who grew up with the internet, to people all around the globe, for whom mobile communications have opened up a lifeline to markets that would have been unimaginable 20 years ago. But what about those of us who came of age when the network was something that only existed in a closet where only the geekiest of geeks was allowed to enter? What are the chances that we'll be able to cut the cords that make us so comfortable, basking in the artificial glow?

I think we can make the adjustment, especially if you look at the benefits.

I have worked with people on different continents for years, but until recently, I had never been that person doing their work from thousands of miles away. Seeing it from the other end showed me that yes, you can be productive away from your desk in ways that you could never be behind it. You can do your work while meeting people you could never meet in your office, seeing things you would never see from a cubicle.

One of the things that was interesting to me was the notion that nomadism reinforces your existing societal ties and make your relationships with your close colleagues much tighter. You have to rely on them to keep up their end of the bargain, so the interdependency creates more trust. Makes sense. Nomadism can't work very well if you're working around the clock and your co-workers are calling in to meetings from the beach or golf course. What was confusing to me was that people are concerned that your relationships with society would suffer. I think this would be true in a strict telecommuting environment where you kept to yourself in a home office, but not if you work a good part of the time out in public. I would think that this would lead to a greater overlapping of societal spheres, and a better understanding of everyone around you rather than just those who sit closest to your desk.

The technology that makes digital nomadism such a viable option continues to evolve. Recently, Zoho announced improvements to their online spreadsheet as well as a partnership that will bring their tools to China. Google's online apps are constantly being revised. Yesterday, I was able to use one of Mac OS X's Leopard features for the first time, Back-to-My-Mac. (Ironically, I had to boot into Mac OS X Tiger in order to update my router in order to take advantage of this Leopard feature.) I can now access my home system from my laptop from any wifi connection (barring interference). Now, my whole backlog of files and useful little doodads are available to me wherever I go. This is not just insanely cool, but also insanely useful to the digital road warrior.

What other technologies are being brought to market that enhance our ability to move desk work out into the real world? I'll try and take a look around and bring some of the more interesting pieces out of the shadows over the next few weeks.

Coming from a geek like me, the question of 'who needs a computer?' might be a bit disingenuous, but hear me out. I may not be ready to give up my silicon on a regular basis, but it just might be possible now to run a company without dedicated computers - as long you have access to cyber cafes.

Google has  been working on making it possible to ditch MS Office in favor of online applications. They bought Writely last year, and it's a pretty decent word processor. I'm not a big fan of spreadsheets, but other than not working with Safari, the Google Spreadsheet seems to do the job that most people will need it to do. Rounding out the suite will be presentation software - though there isn't a release date yet. Google has bought both Zenter and Tonic Systems so I would expect a bit of time will be needed to integrate the two. And, of course, a productivity suite wouldn't be complete without email and calendar functionality, which Google also offers.

Another option comes from Zoho. They came to my attention as a result of having an iPhone app for their services. In addition to having word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation apps, they also have database, CRM, group collaboration, web conferencing, mail and more. Most of their offerings are free, with some upgraded functionality being fee based. I've just started playing with the site and had one small bug show up when exporting a document, but it looks very promising. I'll dig more deeply and let you know what I think in follow-up posts. They've also just started to add the ability to go offline as well. Definitely something to keep an eye on.

I would be remiss in discussing online office tools if I didn't mention 37 Signals. They don't have an online MS Office replacement, but they do have BaseCamp, a great project management tool and Highrise for CRM, and a few other apps. Definitely worth checking into if you need a bit more robust toolset for a remote or geographically dispersed workgroup.

Last but seemingly not least is Jooce. Why run apps remotely when you can run a whole OS? Interesting concept, though the thought of running an entirely Flash based OS is a bit worrisome. Once they are out of Beta I'll definitely be checking it out. I like the idea of sitting down at any computer and logging in to my own workspace. I thought this would happen via Apple's never/not yet implemented "Home on iPod" feature, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.