What's next for remote work and digital nomads?

I have been seeing a lot of posts related to where to go, how to do it… But I have also seen many many post about how to handle your insurances, your taxes, your residence/citizenship matters… Many of the resources are oriented towards the ‘where to’ and ‘how to’ once you get to a foreign country to work… But a lot of the nomads issues seem to be related to their own country or finding work once they are somewhere… I know this thought might look confusing… Put I think every country should actually have an help hub if you are from that country and need to know how to handle different matters while you go away. I have been thinking of moving abroad for a couple months for now so I am currently a ‘digital nomad wannabe’ but I have been doing my homework and reading a lot on the forum or online to find out what is the best way to proceed and I have to say it is pretty out to figure out the whole process you need to go through to have everything organized (your insurances, your taxes, your residence/citizenship matters… ). Maybe everywhere is too specific so it is hard to find that out but curated information on how to handle this on a citizenship perspective would be great!

So, in my view some patterns emerge here:

• the digital nomad bubble stills in its infancy, outside of a small circle. To really benefit from it, every nomad should “evangelize” about the pros and educate people outside the bubble. The more wide becomes the sector, the more jobs will be available

-geolocalization tools and resources. I think too many organizations try to profit from nomadism instead of solving real problems like housing, visa/legal

-we should form a startup working on the oddy path of easing pain points. something between an agency and a tool

I am quite new to DN community. But being a beginner I would love to see a career guidance website which can help you step by step on how to become a digital nomad. Especially for the ones who are stuck in non-digital jobs.

There is so much info that it becomes tough to identify genuine guys.

Adding to this - I have a remote company, but hiring nomads is hard because nomads all want to work as freelancers etc. Whenever you try to discuss a role or work they are like ‘let me send you my proposal’ etc. I feel that nomads have a mindset that they will be freelancers / entrepreneurs and not part of a team.

I’m taking from my experience helping setting up digital nomad retreats. I see there is a trend of experiencing the digital nomad lifestyle in traditional company through a [workcation]
(https://medium.com/@No.Location/workcation-in-bali-how-the-workplace-is-changing-f99cf49af58#.odysp0c0f).

Not every company is going to be able to be distributed or even wants to be distributed, in fact some rely on the team being present together or find that physical togetherness is essential to achieving quality. A workcation allows these kinds of companies to be location independent together, taking a certain amount of time during the year to move everyone to another location where they work like normal (work) but live in an exotic environment where everyone can be adventurous together (vacation).

So my company, No-Location, organized a workcation for a Polish android development company few months ago. They brought their entire 32 team members to Bali. The workcation and digital nomad retreats are very simillar: they lived together for a month, worked from a co-working space (or even made their own workspace in the villa), went for excursion on the weekend, and worked on their own project or personal development plan. Since we worked very closely with the team, we saw how much the team evolved and got benefit from just doing a one month workcation.

I personally think that more and more companies who hire people to work remotely will adapt the workcation as part of their team building activity, team member retention and also a strategy to hire new team member. And I guess this is the next step of remote work and digital nomadism.

First, I think there are different opportunities for co-living vs. co-working. In general, both might benefit from adding services that all participants need in the same way that cooperatives offer reliable wifi.
Let’s start by identifying what most DN’s see as pain points: shipping, storage, travel/medical insurance, visas, veterinary care (for those that travel with pets), laundry, computer repair, banking, transportation…
Next, is there an opportunity for multiple locations to band together to negotiate group discounts for DN’s? Or at least develop consistency from location to location?
Finally, maybe more co-working AND co-living spaces customized for specific demographics (ie over age 50) or special interest groups (ie foodies).

1. Make it easier to acclimate into a local place. It takes me a bit of time to get to know where’s what in the city; what style each neighbourhood is like; where are good local places to go out/eat/do jogging, etc. It’s not really difficult right now (it either just requires a bit of research on the internet, or requires you to go out and make local friends and ask them), but still it takes some time and brings a bit of stress to the whole process of ‘changing place’ every time.

2. Make it easier to build local friendships. That’s a broader subject of course. We have websites right now like meetup.com, DN events, language exchange clubs, but in many of them you’ll meet only small extent of the local population. Other option is to start doing some local activities (dance, sports for example); or just start approaching random people on the street ;> ; but I’d love to have some other ways for it.

The problem with Facebook is that it limits you to your own friends network. I’d love to see another platform like that, but instead of being focused on your friendships, be more focused on your interests and geographical location. Just the question is if people would actually use it.

Guys, I suspect a good bet would be office space sharing for nomads! Think Airbnb or even Couchsurfing for desks within non-DN companies. You travel somewhere and find a proactive local company (e.g. a creative agency) that has extra space. You pay them or trade favors (e.g. you help them design their new website) in exchange for access to their office space, WiFi and especially their workers. Think “crowdsourced coffee machine chit-chat”, in a way.

As a nomad, you get a semblance of teamwork with locals. The companies get someone that their employees could share ideas and perspectives, as well as some extra cash for space that is not being fully used anyway.

I don’t see this becoming mainstream, mainly out of security concerns (trade secrets, stealing equipment etc.). However, I bet you tons of progressive startups would be happy to give it a try: it’s all about the networking, after all, and who knows what perspectives could some creative from abroad bring to your business?
Whaddaya think?

I worked at both Google/Facebook. Two very modern, technology-driven, organisations. Although “older” than most people think and still with plenty of old-way practices. Still, interesting to observe that even these companies don’t really promote/support remote working. Offices aren’t quite dead. Photo realistic VR might start to make a dent.

There’s no way that remote work is even remotely close to being mainstreamed in the labour market. Maybe it’s the case with developers, but I don’t know a single person outside of the organisation that I work at that works remotely (and my organisation only shifted to encouraging remote work a couple of years ago because nobody wanted to move from Geneva to Nairobi).

It’s probably more of a supply problem than a demand problem, but there really isn’t much out there for editors and communications specialists.

Medium-term accommodation is still a pain point. Airbnb works fine for <1-month, and rental leases are typically 1-year. Difficult to find an economic 2-3 month option.

I see a gap for a collection of properties in common DM hotspots, much like Roam/Common/similar, but more humble and priced more like an Airbnb. Nomad House comes close, but I think the properties need to be company-run so that there is a consistent experience. Just needs someone to make it happen and there doesn’t appear to be a big enough upside to incite anyone.

Meeting people is easy enough. With this forum, DC, Facebook, and others, it just takes the person to be proactive. I don’t see a big need for a super DM social network, that said it would be a nice-to-have if there was a single destination with the network effect of being “the” place to meet who’s in a city, organise a meetup etc. Nomad Forum/Trips is best poised to make that happen.

One thing I’d like to see is a site like Airbnb with the listings curated and verified.

I think Airbnb are trying to do that with their business site but are not hitting the mark, eg. having a “laptop friendly workspace” is not the same as having a properly set up desk. It can mean a kitchen table or bench with a power outlet nearby.

I’d pay extra to know I was booking somewhere that was clean, had a smooth check in and had a functional/ergonomic workspace.

That’s a good question.

As for me, one of the biggest painful moments (which can be somewhat enjoyable if you’re into planning) in being a DM is figuring out the visas. Since I have a Russian passport it’s not so straightforward as it could be. At the same time, questions like ‘what’s the cheapest way to stay in Bali for a year, visa-wise’ are universal.

If there was a single organized, open-sourced website where you could find all the answers regarding visas, that would be awesome. It’s not sexy, though, so I doubt that it’s going to be the next big thing.