With the right boss and the right broadband, these tech workers relocated to
paradise destinations
Nine years ago, Francie Tanner was working at a technology consulting company in Dallas when she received an email that began, “Dear Sir or Madam, I manage a bank in the country of Anguilla...”
She hit “delete.”
“I knew there was no such country as Anguilla,” she says.
Eventually, the mix-up was straightened out, and Tanner was on a plane to Anguilla – which turns out to be a British territory in the Caribbean – to spend 10 days in a “concrete bunker” helping the bank set up a small hosting center.
“There was no beach time, nothing,” she says. Well, there was one thing. When she arrived at the island, she had an overwhelming sensation of belonging, she says.
“Which made no sense,” she adds. “I had lived in Texas for 14 years by that time, with a house, four kids, and a job in Dallas.” And she was originally from Switzerland. There was nothing in her background to indicate an affinity for tropical islands.
“So I did what any sane human being would do,” she says. “Which is nothing. And I went back home.”
Four months later, she was sent back to Anguilla to help the bank set up a Blackberry server. And the feeling was still there.
Two months later, she sold her house, her car, packed up all her belongings, her kids and their stay-at-home dad, and moved to Anguilla.
Why the rush?
“If you actually think these things through, and look at the details, objectively, you're going to talk yourself out of it,” she says. “There's no way you're going to do it.”
And there were a lot of details. She hadn't seen the house where she was going to live. Didn't know if there was a school for her kids. Didn't know that there was no water system, half the roads weren't paved, electricity was unreliable, and medical care was dicey. “But if human beings are put in a situation where they don't have a choice, amazing things can happen,” she says.
Luckily, when it came to the Internet, Anguilla was a late adopter, so the infrastructure was new and very good. Tanner got 4Mbps download speed when she first moved to Anguilla, and the connectivity has continued to improve since then.
“If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't have been able to do this,” she says.
Her boss was supportive and, for the first nine months, she continued to telecommute to her old job. Then there was a change of management, and she became an independent consultant until she was hired by Panagenda four years ago. Austria-based Panagenda offers enterprise software that provides monitoring, upgrade and management capabilities for IBM Connections, Lotus Notes and Sametime.
Today, Tanner travels about once a month to speak at IBM conferences and the rest of the time works remotely.
“We at Panagenda are huge believers in telecommuting as it allows us to hire the highest quality people, without requiring relocation,” says Panagenda CEO Florian Vogler.
The company uses IBM Notes 9, IBM Connect, Jira, Skype and GoToMeeting as its main collaboration tools, he says. The company also holds twice yearly in-person meetings. “There are some challenges telecommunication presents, especially as we grow, but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks,” he adds.
For Tanner, island life offers a particular set of challenges. Power goes out sometimes, though usually with no loss of cell phone coverage, she says. If it happens, she takes her laptop to a beach bar.
“Anguilla has free Wi-Fi all over,” she says. “And if I'm in the mood, I'll call my teammates on a video call and rub it in.”
And there's the weather. “We're first in line for the hurricanes,” Tanner admits. But they usually haven't reached their full growth yet when they hit Anguilla. Over the past eight years, there were only two major storms, which knocked out power for a week, she says. And tropical islands aren't unique in having adverse weather events.
“Everybody deals with natural disasters in some way or another,” she says. “I just happen to be dealing with hurricanes. Right now [early June], my colleagues in Austria are dealing with horrible floods.”
Other downsides include the lack of chain stores, car dealerships, supermarkets – if it's not for sale at one of the small island grocery stores, it has to be shipped in, which takes a lot of time, and money. As a result, Tanner buys multiples of everything she really needs.
Foreign countries – and this includes most of the islands in the Caribbean – love getting tourists and retirees, who just come to spend money. But they are more hesitant to accept working-age adults as permanent residents, since they might compete with the locals for jobs. It is usually easier for a telecommuter to create a brand new company that they own, and get a self-employment visa, than to get a work visa.
This is what Tanner did so she could work in Anguilla. “There's legal paperwork that has to be done, and has to get renewed every year,” she says. “But it is doable.”
The process varies by country, and can become time consuming – and expensive. Eventually, countries will probably figure out that telecommuters aren't competing for local jobs, but are instead bringing in spending money, networking opportunities, and high-tech skills to the places where they settle. Instead of making it difficult to relocate, they should be actively trying to attract telecommuters, they way they now market to vacationers and retirees.
Virgin Islands: No passport needed
Until then, however, if your Caribbean destination is a U.S. territory – like Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands – then you can avoid all the paperwork.
“It's part of the United States, so you don't even need a passport to go there – you just need a driver's license,” says Matt Bauer, co-founder and director of St. Croix-based ConnectSpace.vi and president of BetterWorld Telecom in Reston, Va. “It's like moving to another state.”
Bauer, who splits his time between the island of St. Croix and California, says the cost of living on the island is a bit higher than, say, in a rural town in the midwest. But there are supermarkets, K-Mart, Office Depot, even an accredited university – the University of the Virgin Islands.
Best of all, St. Croix is one of the 10 most concentrated places for Internet traffic in the world, since two major Internet pipelines meet here. Local authorities are currently putting in about $300 million worth of new infrastructure to expand local connectivity to these pipelines, paid for with U.S. stimulus grants and private business investment.
Nine years ago, Francie Tanner was working at a technology consulting company in Dallas when she received an email that began, “Dear Sir or Madam, I manage a bank in the country of Anguilla...”
She hit “delete.”
“I knew there was no such country as Anguilla,” she says.
Eventually, the mix-up was straightened out, and Tanner was on a plane to Anguilla – which turns out to be a British territory in the Caribbean – to spend 10 days in a “concrete bunker” helping the bank set up a small hosting center.
“There was no beach time, nothing,” she says. Well, there was one thing. When she arrived at the island, she had an overwhelming sensation of belonging, she says.
“Which made no sense,” she adds. “I had lived in Texas for 14 years by that time, with a house, four kids, and a job in Dallas.” And she was originally from Switzerland. There was nothing in her background to indicate an affinity for tropical islands.
“So I did what any sane human being would do,” she says. “Which is nothing. And I went back home.”
Four months later, she was sent back to Anguilla to help the bank set up a Blackberry server. And the feeling was still there.
Two months later, she sold her house, her car, packed up all her belongings, her kids and their stay-at-home dad, and moved to Anguilla.
Why the rush?
“If you actually think these things through, and look at the details, objectively, you're going to talk yourself out of it,” she says. “There's no way you're going to do it.”
And there were a lot of details. She hadn't seen the house where she was going to live. Didn't know if there was a school for her kids. Didn't know that there was no water system, half the roads weren't paved, electricity was unreliable, and medical care was dicey. “But if human beings are put in a situation where they don't have a choice, amazing things can happen,” she says.
Luckily, when it came to the Internet, Anguilla was a late adopter, so the infrastructure was new and very good. Tanner got 4Mbps download speed when she first moved to Anguilla, and the connectivity has continued to improve since then.
“If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't have been able to do this,” she says.
Her boss was supportive and, for the first nine months, she continued to telecommute to her old job. Then there was a change of management, and she became an independent consultant until she was hired by Panagenda four years ago. Austria-based Panagenda offers enterprise software that provides monitoring, upgrade and management capabilities for IBM Connections, Lotus Notes and Sametime.
Today, Tanner travels about once a month to speak at IBM conferences and the rest of the time works remotely.
“We at Panagenda are huge believers in telecommuting as it allows us to hire the highest quality people, without requiring relocation,” says Panagenda CEO Florian Vogler.
The company uses IBM Notes 9, IBM Connect, Jira, Skype and GoToMeeting as its main collaboration tools, he says. The company also holds twice yearly in-person meetings. “There are some challenges telecommunication presents, especially as we grow, but the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks,” he adds.
For Tanner, island life offers a particular set of challenges. Power goes out sometimes, though usually with no loss of cell phone coverage, she says. If it happens, she takes her laptop to a beach bar.
“Anguilla has free Wi-Fi all over,” she says. “And if I'm in the mood, I'll call my teammates on a video call and rub it in.”
And there's the weather. “We're first in line for the hurricanes,” Tanner admits. But they usually haven't reached their full growth yet when they hit Anguilla. Over the past eight years, there were only two major storms, which knocked out power for a week, she says. And tropical islands aren't unique in having adverse weather events.
“Everybody deals with natural disasters in some way or another,” she says. “I just happen to be dealing with hurricanes. Right now [early June], my colleagues in Austria are dealing with horrible floods.”
Other downsides include the lack of chain stores, car dealerships, supermarkets – if it's not for sale at one of the small island grocery stores, it has to be shipped in, which takes a lot of time, and money. As a result, Tanner buys multiples of everything she really needs.
Foreign countries – and this includes most of the islands in the Caribbean – love getting tourists and retirees, who just come to spend money. But they are more hesitant to accept working-age adults as permanent residents, since they might compete with the locals for jobs. It is usually easier for a telecommuter to create a brand new company that they own, and get a self-employment visa, than to get a work visa.
This is what Tanner did so she could work in Anguilla. “There's legal paperwork that has to be done, and has to get renewed every year,” she says. “But it is doable.”
The process varies by country, and can become time consuming – and expensive. Eventually, countries will probably figure out that telecommuters aren't competing for local jobs, but are instead bringing in spending money, networking opportunities, and high-tech skills to the places where they settle. Instead of making it difficult to relocate, they should be actively trying to attract telecommuters, they way they now market to vacationers and retirees.
Virgin Islands: No passport needed
Until then, however, if your Caribbean destination is a U.S. territory – like Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands – then you can avoid all the paperwork.
“It's part of the United States, so you don't even need a passport to go there – you just need a driver's license,” says Matt Bauer, co-founder and director of St. Croix-based ConnectSpace.vi and president of BetterWorld Telecom in Reston, Va. “It's like moving to another state.”
Bauer, who splits his time between the island of St. Croix and California, says the cost of living on the island is a bit higher than, say, in a rural town in the midwest. But there are supermarkets, K-Mart, Office Depot, even an accredited university – the University of the Virgin Islands.
Best of all, St. Croix is one of the 10 most concentrated places for Internet traffic in the world, since two major Internet pipelines meet here. Local authorities are currently putting in about $300 million worth of new infrastructure to expand local connectivity to these pipelines, paid for with U.S. stimulus grants and private business investment.
