Wherever I am

Circumstances have virtualised my entire working identity these last few weeks. My physical absence does not seem, however, to have been noticed by any but those with whom I normally share a bricks and mortar work space. It certainly hasn't changed the type or amount of work I have done or the people I have met, talked and collaborated with. What it has done is confirm my belief that working strictly 9-5 does not necessarily guarentee a good home-work life balance.

A BBCOnline news article takes my thoughts further as it ponders a future where we will wirelessly be virtual full time, not because we will be tied to PCs which will contain our lives but because our lives will be online all the time, hosted by other people through web-based programmes containing all that is important to us. We may be physically wherever we will (choose to) be and from wherever that is we will be wirelessly able to access whatever bit of us we want just then (in fact, just as we can do already with del.icio.us). Which leads me to wonder whether if I leave enough of me in different applications accessible online I might actually be able to fully automate the working part of me, make my physical me professionally redundent. I might then gain physical autonomy without losing the material advantages of paid employment...