Moving to the country a cottage industry
TheStar.com - Moving to the country a cottage industry
ELLEN ROSEMAN
Art Caston is a self-employed consultant who spends half the year at his cottage near Port Carling, Ont.
"I'm living the life I wrote about in my book," says Caston, who with co-author Don Tapscott envisioned a world where you could work any time, anywhere, with the help of affordable, empowering technology.
Their book Paradigm Shift: The New Promise Of Information Technology, was published in 1992 by McGraw-Hill.
"I predicted it all, but I'm still amazed at how far we've come and how fast," says Caston.
For the past 12 years, he's run his own firm, Proact Business Transformation Inc., which specializes in a technology known as enterprise architecture. His only employees are his wife Penny and their two grown children.
He has an office in Aurora (a half-hour drive north of Toronto) but does his creative work — writing, product development, documentation of guidebooks — about two hours' further north in the Muskoka area, where he's had a cottage for the past 30 years.
He'd like to spend the entire year up north, but his work requires travelling to be close to his clients. And there's another issue: No access to high-speed Internet.
"I have dial-up at my cottage, which is totally frustrating," he said last week. "I'm in Aurora and delayed going up today because of the Web conferences I had to do with colleagues in Mexico City and San Francisco."
He can't use VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) for long-distance calls and teleconferences without a high-speed connection. And he gets frustrated sending e-mail because of the limited use of attachments.
Last year, Caston investigated a wireless provider offering high-speed Internet in his area. But he felt there was a security problem that could compromise the confidentiality of client information.
Bell Canada can't supply DSL (digital subscriber line) technology to his cottage. Cable TV can't get over the rocks surrounding him. And interactive satellite TV is in its early days and is very costly.
"Carriers are missing a real opportunity here," says Caston, who turns 60 next month.
"With computers, once you get used to higher capacity, you learn to fill it. I'm going to find a solution, even if it's wireless, because it's essential now."
Internet service is a major consideration if you're moving from the city to country and you want to work from a remote location.
It's especially important if you work in an Internet-related business, as John Bulloch does.
Bulloch moved to his waterfront home in Innisfil, just south of Barrie, when he retired as founder of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
He started an electronic learning business, Vubiz Ltd., with his brother Peter (who lived in Mississauga) and Jim Rapino (who lived in Thunder Bay).
Vubiz is no longer a virtual company, with 18 employees in Mississauga including Rapino, the president. Bulloch continues to live an hour's drive away and comes down once a week.
"I'm in daily contact with them and I do the strategic stuff, but I'm not needed every day," he says. "I'm becoming less important as the company takes off."
Being close to a medium-sized city has advantages, since Bulloch has access to high-speed Internet through Rogers Cable.
"The importance of broadband is the many e-services you can get, such as video," he says.
Now 70, he promised his wife Mary when he started the company in 1996 this would be his last entrepreneurial venture.
"I've done it six times," he says. "It's a big advantage for me to be able to combine retirement with doing something still socially significant."
Dennis Kwasnicki lives in Hillsburgh, a town of 800 people south of Orangeville.
He moved there with his wife Diana in 1997. Tired of renting in Toronto at $1,300 a month, they bought a house for just under $200,000 on a large lot (66 by 165 feet). They can walk to stores and the one bank in town.
"Here, our mortgage was $1,200 a month," he says. "We've now paid it off, which we couldn't have done in the city."
Diana commutes to Guelph, a half-hour's drive away, where she does marketing for a training company. Dennis, who has a sales and marketing background, is self-employed and sells automated cash machines to local businesses.
"I like the flexibility," Kwasnicki says of his work, which generates a six-figure income.
"If you're considering a move to the country, think ahead to how you take your skills from corporate jobs and apply them in small cities. Businesses here always need help with marketing."
While he spends more time in his car than before, calling on customers and making weekly trips to pick up his paycheque in Mississauga, he's not driving in rush-hour traffic.
The one thing he misses: "Jumping on the TTC to go to hockey games."
Now 53 and 45, Dennis and Diana had an easier time than many couples moving to a small town because they had no children living with them.
"Are the school-aged children prepared to make the traumatic loss of friends and the shift to a different school system, including the bus travel of about an hour each way, each day?" asks one rural dweller, in response to this Money 301 series.
"Don't forget to build that nice little unheated waiting shed at the end of the drive if you choose to live in a rural area — and don't forget the lack of after-hours recreational facilities."
Even if you have no kids to worry about, you may not survive the transition to rural life because you can't cope with the isolation of working from home.
Next week, we look at the pros and cons of telecommuting.
May 23, 2004 at 09:12 PM in Web lifestyle | Permalink
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