Today's post is from Maren Kate, an entrepreneur who blogs about starting a small business, living extraordinarily and escaping the 9 to 5.

I always hear the stand by "You shouldn't live to work, instead work to live". It's true, I guess, but it always confused me because I truly love what I do, so I have no interest in just working to live, instead I love to work. Now to some this is a sign of workaholicism - but I disagree. I feel like calling productivity a disease is kind of silly in the first place - I mean if you love what you do, are happy and not only aren't hurting anyone but you're adding to the world - how can that be wrong? It's like saying that Mother Teresa was a compassionaholic or that someone who loves to write day in and day out is a proseaholic. So loving-work-aholics, unite, it's our time to shine and to show the world that work doesn't always have to be tedious and with a little creativity & persistence it can actually be one of the best parts of your life.

How to Love What You Do

1. Do you do what you love?

It's a basic concept. If you hate numbers and you work as an accountant you're going to hate your job and most probably your life. If you love writing and you work as a blogger you're going to enjoy life and feel as if you're job adds value to your overall existence. So ask yourself, if I could do anything in the world & get paid a decent wage for it - what would I do? Then figure out a way, come hell or high water, to do just that.

2. Don't get mired in the things you hate within your business.

Too often entrepreneurs start a business based around what they love, but within a few months are hating their lives. The problem is that instead of doing what they love in their business they've tried to become everything to everyone. Thus the artist starts balancing the books, making sales calls and learning HTML when all she wanted to do was paint. Make sure that when you start a business you either A. love the admin side of things or B. find someone who can do that for you while you focus on what you love and are great at.

3. Love where you work.

I had a job as a receptionist over summer break when I was 18. It wasn't a hard job and for the most part I liked the answering phones and filing a bit, but I went home every night crying. Why? Because I hated (with a capital H) where I worked. It was a window-less, cubicle, cell of death, nothing but white walls surrounded me and the horrible lights above me made me literally ill. If I had been doing that same job next to a bright open window, with warm wood walls and a cool summer breeze blowing in - I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have minded it at all. Loving where you work is incredibly important, especially when you are work shifting from a typical 9 to 5 into a career or business where you have freedom of location. Choose wisely, pay attention to your inner aesthetic needs and you'll find yourself 100 times more productive and happy at work.

Making the shift

Shifting from living to work to loving to work isn't an easy one, that's why so few people do it. Most people won't leave their comfort zones or force themselves to truly consider what they would be happy doing. Call it fear, call it negative self image, call it whatever you want - the point is that it's prevalent in our society. So to be different, will be difficult. But the pay off is oh, so worth it. Think of it this way - if you love to work you'll be 5 to 10 times more productive, easily. So you could cut your 8 hour work day into a few hours and still have the same results when you start loving your work vs. when you live to work you'll try to put off your work as long as possible. So you can slave away in a 9 to 5 for the next 30 years, living to work and not be very happy - or you could take a year to figure out what would really make you love to work and do that for a fraction of the time for probably the same, or more financial reward. When you love your work your whole world gets better!

Today's post is from Josiane Feigon, author of the bestselling book Smart Selling on the Phone and Online, the sourcebook for inside sales. Her Cubicle Chronicles blog is voted among the top 25 sales blogs. She is founder and CEO of TeleSmart Communications, a 20-year veteran and thought leader of the industry, Josiane is recognized as one of the world's leading experts on inside sales team and manager talent, providing consulting, coaching, and training solutions for hundreds of Fortune 1000 companies. Visit Josiane's website: www.tele-smart.com to read her blog, purchase her book, and download her latest e-books and white papers.

Today's post is by Tracey Webb, a 25-year business veteran with a depth of experience in high-tech, health care, software, and financial services segments. Having worked for global enterprises like Xerox, IBM, as well as some of the largest international learning and development organizations, Tracey has a long track record of producing success for her clients. Currently, she serves as the Director of Consulting Services for Cox eLearning Consultants.

For those of us who have spent years pouring over training manuals, being master-trained, or serving as master trainers, the advent of the virtual classroom can present a horse of another color (to quote that wonderful line from The Wizard of Oz).  We spent countless hours making notes and creating visuals (flip charts and PowerPoints) to use with our students.  Our goal:  to keep our students engaged and to make certain that they learned the material.  

What are the parallels between teaching in the virtual classroom and delivering training in a brick and mortar setting?  There are an abundance of skills that transfer between both mediums.  First of all, instructors have to know the material "cold" as we use to say in the training medium.  There is nothing worse than listening to an instructor who is obviously reading from the training manual.  The same is true in the world of the virtual classroom:  it is obvious when a facilitator is reading from a script, even if there is no visual.

The key to avoiding the boring "talking head" syndrome is to become extremely familiar with the material by making the contextual connections that make sense to us as trainers.  We might not use this color commentary in the deliver, but it helps us make the material "our own" so that the delivery is more natural.  

The Post-it technique works wonders in the live classroom as well as in the virtual "room".  As you are reviewing the instructor's training manual, PowerPoints, or other medium, you use no more than three Post-its per page to summarize the three key points that you must convey from that section.  This forces the brain to synthesize the material.

The next skill that is equally useful in both the virtual and the non-virtual classroom is the art of building in points of interaction.  Where do you ask a question?  How can the question be phrased in a provocative manner to illicit interest, responses, and discussion.  No one wants to listen to a talking head without some variation in the delivery.  Involving the audience is one of the easiest means of breaking up the delivery modality.  

Modern virtual platforms allow for a great deal of interaction between the instructor and the student and among the students themselves, such as in separate chats or break out groups.  These are the same tools that instructors use in a live classroom when they ask the group to break up into smaller sub-segments and to report back to the group at large.   This skill is very useful in the virtual classroom as long as the instructor becomes very familiar with the technological attributes of the selected e-learning platform.

There are two major differences between facilitating an on-line session and teaching in a virtual classroom.  

1.    Voice pitch, tone, and diction become even more critical in an on-line delivery session.  We have to test our voices and delivery through recorded medium to ensure that we are varying our tone.  In fact, one very useful technique is to use Post-it notes of a different color than those used for summary points as described above.  This other note color is used sparingly to make notes about tone (indicated where to emphasize a point by raising or lowering our voice for example) and about verbal content ("tell a short story" here or "make an analogy here").  This "coding" helps us remember that we have to be verbally interesting otherwise the delivery will fail.

2.    Pause a bit more to allow transmission of the data so that you are not verbally "running into yourself."  There is nothing more distracting than an instructor who is moving too fast through on-line material--faster than the students can absorb it.  Remember, in the on-line world, when you put up a slide, people really do try and read it--or at least most of it because the visual distraction of the live presenter is absent.  They focus on the material.  

The key to successful on-line delivery and facilitation of training content is to be mindful of the benefits and the challenges with technology.  The successful instructor understands that presenting in cyber-space requires that their voice, word choice, and intonation carry the weight of the delivery.  In other words, their voice is a very important vehicle for influencing the outcome of the training.  They also have to spend considerable time melding the content with the technology to ensure that interaction, engagement, and interest are maximized.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: Mr Flip

Aside from the latest iPhone or gossip magazine, Millennials need instant information, instant communication, and of course instant stimulation.

As a Millennial, I had my first AOL Instant Messenger chat at 11, created my first blog at 15, and downloaded thousands of free songs from Napster (which wasted thousands of hours with my 56K connection) in high school.  My young adult life was filled with navigating the Internet for information I wanted, whether that involved making plans with friends or getting band recommendations from a music Website.  It was singular as well as collaborative, but it all involved the Web and technology.

My mouse-click away mentality shaped my perspective on how to get things done in the workplace and how to communicate with others.

I believe this is the case for most Millennials (those born between 1977 and1996).  We've taken our technology upbringing into the workplace as we balance cubicle life and social interactions.  Most of us work with our Facebook accounts open, Google Chats visible, Pandora stations playing, and Outlook emails flowing.  It's a multi-tasking, multi-browsing business world, and this is how we roll.

A study by Mr Youth and Intrepid, "What your company will look like when Millennials call the shots," highlights the distinctive work style and digital dynamic that my generation brings to the future of business. Key aspects include:

• Saying goodbye to the boardroom - Millennials choose a roundtable environment versus an authoritative approach.  Over half of Millennials surveyed said that decisions should be made by consensus.  Open meetings can be held through an online meeting platform or in-person, as both allow for flowing communication and the ability to share documents and information freely and in real time.
• Technology has feelings too - The integration of technology and human interaction has changed the way Millennials communicate.  Think about it: as a Millennial, what was the last interaction you had with your best friend?  Was it a text, an email, a Facebook message?  And for those older than the Millennials, what was the last form of communication you received from a Millennial?
• Conversations are not one-way - No one likes to be talked down to, and for Millennials this means no one likes to be talked at.  Since the inception of instant messenger, blogs, and other social networking sites, the style of communication and selling has changed.  Marketing a product is no longer done by holding up a sign; it involves a social strategy that will initiate and influence a conversation to engage a response.  Millennials understand this innately.
• Move or be smushed - In the world of technology and business, nothing stays the same.  Workers are more mobile than ever, with 75% of the U.S. workforce projected to be working outside of the office by 2013 (IDC).  With this forward momentum, companies need to move - movement in the type of technology they employ and movement in the way they think about business strategy and processes.  Technology like GoToMyPC allows access anywhere, which fosters agility and forward-thinking.

Work and technology evolve just like the latest shoe fashion.  The penny loafers of the past will soon be the Converses of the future.  It's not about the style, it's about the utility and ability to keep moving forward

What do you think?


Photo Credit: Vancouver Film School

Today's post is from Jennifer Marcus Newton, a freelance writer located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She routinely works from all the usual workshifting haunts--cafes, park benches, airports--and also maintains a tidy writing studio and messy home office. Her most remote work location was among the yaks in Shangri-La. Work/life balance for her means using both a Mac and fountain pen. Contact her at fidhlear@gmail.com.

Did you know that since 1963, the U.S. President has declared an official National Small Business Week every year? This special designation is a way to "recognize the contributions of small businesses to the economic well-being of America," as stated on the National Small Business Week Web site.

Contributing to the economic well-being of America is a tall order and, quite frankly, an extremely critical task. From Boston to Berkeley, an estimated 27.2 million SMBs in the U.S. conduct business, create products and provide jobs and services every single day. It's difficult to fully appreciate the enormity of a number like 27.2 million.

While we're talking numbers, consider this:
 

• "More than half of Americans either own or work for a small business. They also create 60 - 80 percent of new jobs in the country. Small businesses drive innovation, create 21st century jobs and increase U.S. competitiveness."
  

• "Small businesses are major contributors to the strength of the American economy."

  http://www.nationalsmallbusinessweek.com
  

As the 2010 National Small Business Week kicks off, Citrix Online is abuzz with the topic of SMB mobility and productivity. In a recent survey, Citrix Online polled SMB employees on their work habits. Survey findings paint an intriguing disparity between mobility and access to productivity-enhancing tools. In the last 5 years, the majority (54 percent) of survey respondents have become more mobile. Yet, 60 percent of those surveyed report that their current employers do not provide mobile tools and resources to increase productivity.

That's kind of appalling, especially when you consider IDC's predictions about the mobile workforce: "The U.S. is expected to remain the most highly concentrated market for mobile workers, with 75.5 percent of the workforce mobile by 2013." Mobility has certainly taken root in the U.S. workforce, and the demand for greater mobility will only continue to grow in the near future. So, too, will the demand for productivity-enhancing tools.

This week is an ideal time for SMB organizations to think about how to strategically address the mobility and productivity needs of their current and future employees. There's no denying that the economy is showing signs of recovery. Companies of all sizes - including SMBs - will be looking to hire top talent in the coming months. In the candidate pool, there will be plenty of Gen Y workers, a group increasingly identified by its attraction to workshifting.

Indeed, SMBs (all 27.2 million of them) play a critical role in the economic recovery. And to make the greatest possible contribution to the well-being of America, mobile SMB employees need the right tools to be as productive as possible.

What do you think?


Photo Credit: ThinkPanama

Today's post is from Rebecca Morgan, CSP, CMC, an internationally sought-after management consultant, speaker and bestselling author specializing in creating innovative solutions for workplace effectiveness challenges. She's appeared on 60 Minutes, Oprah, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and USA Today. She's authored twenty books and co- authored five more.


I wrote my first book, "Professional Selling: Practical Secrets for Successful Sales" on a Toshiba laptop in airports, airplanes and hotel rooms -- in 1988. I've worked from a small island in Indonesia to an Indian city where the electricity went off every day from 1-4 p.m.  I've created seminars, sent client proposals, updated blog postings, and written over 20 books from Brunei beaches to a ship in the mid- Atlantic, to Canadian forests, to an Italian villa.

While "workshifting" may be a new buzz word, some of us have just called it "work," no matter where our bodies happened to be. It's allowed us to integrate our personal and business lives seamlessly, so we put in a load of laundry while we finish that important presentation from our bedroom. Or clear our heads from that gnarly proposal by gardening or taking a bike ride before returning to our work with a new insight.

What I've seen change in the last few years is the enthusiasm for workshifting. Not only have entrepreneurs embraced it, but employers have too. As a result, old paradigms are being busted about how we perform nearly every element of work life.

I've seen dramatic changes in my specialty of helping companies grow their key talent. In my first 25 years in business, nearly all of my services were delivered face-to-face via speaking at managers meetings, conferences, retreats or trainings. However, around 10 years ago I started conducting teleseminars and Webinars to provide my services to clients with remote employees or preferred to save costs by having attendees sit at their desks instead of traveling.

This remote delivery of information and training has rattled the people-development field to their core. Fewer and fewer companies are engaging speakers and trainers to do stand-up training. Some have cancelled all but a few in-person training courses and have gone to nearly all virtual training.

Of course, there are many reasons to still have in-person events. 

There is no substitute for interacting face-to-face. However, the benefits of place-shifting and in many cases time-shifting one's learning has its advantages. Unfortunately, most training providers have no idea how to use this "new" format effectively and most drone on narrating to boring PowerPoint slides, just as they did in person.

Learning to provide stimulating presentations -- whether in person or virtually -- takes rethinking how you can best provide your service. I once had a training with 10 people in the room, 4 people together in another room at a distant location joining us via video conference, and another 6 dialed into a phone-only conference. I had to creatively design how to engage all attendees in dyads and small group exercises. If I'd just lectured the whole time nearly everyone would have zoned out and the interactivity would have been lost

Distance learning is not the wave of the future; it is very much the present. If one has not embraced how to get their own development needs met through virtual presentations, they will be left in the dust.  And if you offer any training, you must learn how to use the technology -- and how to present engagingly through it.

For an in-depth look at Workshifting trends, view Rebecca's recent Citrix Webinar, "Workshifting Trends from a 20-Year Veteran."


What do you think?

Photo Credit: Jace

Today's guest post is by Diane Stegmeier is founder of Stegmeier Consulting Group, a consultancy focused on workplace change management. She is author of the book Innovations in Office Design: The Critical Influence Approach to Effective Work Environments, which was ranked the #1 Favorite Workplace Strategy Book by Amazon readers.


I recently had an invigorating conversation on a flight home from a client engagement. After the preliminary exchange of questions with the 50-something business executive sitting next to me ("Flying out or returning home?"; "Business or personal trip?"), we began chatting about our respective jobs. He asked, "So, what do you do?" Ordinarily, when I give my standard answer of, "I am a consultant in workplace change management," the reaction I observe is the classic 'deer in the headlights' look. It's frustrating, but I've become used to that being the end of the conversation because many people don't understand the shift to a more flexible workplace. Imagine my surprise when his reply was , "My company is considering an alternative workspace environment. Do you feel that Web commuting has become mainstream?"

Wow, I knew right away that the conversation would be a breath of fresh air. But the truth is, more frequently I'm standing face-to-face (or having a virtual discussion in this "work is what you do, not where you do it" business world) with senior business leaders who think they need to decide whether or not to allow staff members to work outside of their assigned workspaces. Employees are already conducting their work in a variety of places.

In fact, Stegmeier Consulting Group's workplace research has revealed that the average employee spends 63 percent of his or her business day working anywhere but their dedicated workspace.

A big struggle for executives is not knowing how to move off dead center...where to begin in developing a workshifting initiative. The challenge is creating the appropriate infrastructure--technology, security, policies, behavioral protocols, performance management, etc. -- to best support the distributed workforce in how, where, and when they perform their jobs.

It may seem a daunting task, but it is well worth the effort. With a strong business framework for workshifting, companies can benefit from both cost savings and the maximum level of employee productivity and satisfaction.


Benefits of a workshifting policy:
When I'm working with clients who are creating new workplace strategies, I draw from the findings of Stegmeier Consulting Group's 10-year research study of 140 organizations in 24 diverse industries. Applying best practices in developing and implementing workshifting initiatives ensures the client will significantly reduce workplace costs and improve employee productivity. Powerful ammunition, indeed!

Cost Reduction:

• Operate more productively with fewer resources.
• Analyze workspace utilization and refine workplace strategy based on actual usage.
• Establish business continuity strategy.
• Offer low-cost employee perks to offset reduction in company-paid healthcare coverage.
• Reduce energy consumption through corporate-wide Green initiative.
• Enhance security and control to prevent costly compromise of data.
• Implement productivity-enhancing technology and provide 24/7 support without increasing IT staff.
• Eliminate up-front costs of purchasing hardware and installing software by adopting browser-based solutions

Performance Improvement:

• Increase productivity through teamwork and collaboration despite the location.
• Improve employee morale.
• Provide staff more choices and control to balance work-life.
• Create a workplace to attract, inspire and retain talent.
• Accommodate the needs of the multigenerational workforce.
• Enhance employee access to company information where and when they need it.
• Challenge managers and supervisors to focus on the results, rather than on the tasks of their direct reports.
• Reinforce the corporate values of trust, teamwork and customer centricity.

How to Begin:
In one particular company, the senior business leaders struggled with how to begin creating a workshifting strategy. The executives knew the enterprise could benefit from enabling a greater level of workforce mobility, but were hesitant to jump headfirst into a new workplace strategy they felt could disrupt business operations and distract employees from their work. By developing and implementing a pilot workshifting program, rather than starting out by instituting a major enterprise-wide initiative, the client could focus on clearly understanding how to best support a manageably-sized group of 67 mobile professionals, refining the model and reaching informed decisions prior to launching a more formalized mobility program to other individuals within the company.

To prepare members of the workforce who were selected to participate in the pilot study, Stegmeier Consulting Group conducted a series of training sessions focused on company-specific issues and requirements called "From Resistance to Results: Guiding Business Leaders on Managing in the New Workplace™" (for senior managers and directors), "Mobile Workforce Management™" (for supervisors and managers) and "MobilityWorks™" (for individual contributors).

A conservative approach was also reflected in the amount of time people could work outside of the corporate facility. Individual contributors were given the flexibility to workshift two-to-three days per workweek. Managers were given the option to workshift two-to-three days as well. Supervisors, hesitant in trusting their direct reports who were out of sight, helped set the pilot program guidelines for their own job category and committed to workshifting at least a half day per week. Senior managers and directors, who ordinarily traveled on company business three-to-four days per week, agreed to spend some of their non-travel time working in the open, collaborative spaces in the pilot work area.

Hard Benefits:
Stegmeier Consulting Group conducted work-time studies prior to the initiation of the pilot workshifting program to establish baseline metrics for employee productivity. We repeated the work-time studies approximately six months following the pilot launch and discovered strong improvements in several critical areas:

• A 37.6 percent reduction in the length of staff meetings
• Managers had an average decrease in interruptions of 43.2 percent
• Individual contributors saved an average of 6.3 hours per week in commute time
• Individual contributors re-invested an average of 4.5 hours back into their work tasks
• Supervisors logged an average increase of 90 minutes of planning, goal setting and strategizing per week

While this client eased into a pilot workshifting trial period, once the cost savings and performance improvements were evident, the senior leadership team had a high level of confidence to quickly expand the program to leverage the many benefits of workforce mobility. Within 18 months, the organization had nearly 250 people enrolled in its workshifting program, when originally only 67 individuals were enrolled.

Over the years, I've struggled with how best to describe my work. The next time a person sitting next to me on an airplane asks what I do, I'm going to test a very simple answer--"I help our clients significantly reduce workplace costs while improving workforce productivity." Perhaps, the 'deer in the headlights' look will be replaced with a green light for continued conversation.

Listen to this podcast to learn how to present a business case for workshifting, or for a more in-depth look, read, "The Business Case for Web Commuting: How to Reduce Workplace Costs and Increase Workforce Performance."


What are your thoughts?
 

Two business researchers have a study coming out that suggests that many workers are afraid to speak out lest they be mocked by their peers and bosses. According to an HBR blog post, "we relentlessly work to avoid 'image risks,' ... In an analysis of responses from 425 employees in a variety of U.S. businesses, Yuan and Woodman found that worries about image risk significantly diminish employees' innovativeness."

In other words, people think shutting up is smarter than speaking out. And, in their workplaces, they may be right--which underscores the need for a broad culture shift to ignite innovation.

Can workshifters form the vanguard of this new movement?

This isn't an idle question. I was working on my own long before workshifting was a word and telecommuting was an acceptable business practice. I've found that workshifters innovate every day by trial and error, from testing new markets to tweaking our bookkeeping systems to something as mundane (but critically important) as figuring out the best way to recharge multiple devices on the go.

And we have one more big thing in common: we dare to be different.

Does workshifting make you fearless? If so, why?


Photo Credit: Man's Pic

Like most of you, I travel ... A TON.  Last year, Melissa and I traveled about 55% of the year.   I absolutely adore traveling! We purposefully built our business this way.  However, one of the very difficult elements about traveling so often is being able to effectively manage your bookkeeping while on the road.  During the course of our travels last year, we became very serious about finding the best online tools to help us with this incredibly annoying problem. 

On Saturday, we are departing for a very long 62 day workshifting trip that will take us through three continents.  I thought it might be helpful to post a little video on what we use to keep our accounting in order while we are on the road.

If you can't view this video, head over to my Vimeo channel.

The three applications that I discussed during the video are:

• Shoeboxed
• LessAccounting
• FreshBooks

Are there other apps that you use?  What are some of your favorites?

Photo Credit: The Shifted Librarian

This is a guest post from Deb Brown, an internet workshifter and small business owner of www.debworks.com

An Internet Workshifter in the Hinterlands

In my county of 10,000 people, I'm a workshifter.  I bring my business to you.  I teach small businesses how to determine a social media plan that works for them, then I help them get it started and we work together to grow it. 

I meet in the local coffee shop with a client, determine what kind of assistance they are looking for, work with them to match my services with their needs and make the appointment for our first on site visit.  The coffee shop does not have internet service.  It does have a group of local people that show up there regularly for coffee.  We all know each other and believe in supporting our local businesses.  

My client wants to know how to use social media.  Should they blog?  Or create a Facebook account and reach out to the community?  We've devised a plan based on what they need, and what they can commit too.  They are not sure what kind of computer they have, but are pretty sure they have cable.  (There's my first clue.)

Are You Ready for the Surprises?

I show up on time at their office or store, with my lovely Dell Inspiron, ready to hook up to their router system.  Except they don't have one.  They have a desktop running Windows 98 in the back office.  The desktop hooks up to the phone line.  That would be dial up.  You know what internet service they use - yup, AOL.

You know the desktop has no real memory, moves slower than molasses in January in Iowa and is not equipped to work with photos, doesn't have Word - and was only really designed to be used to read email and maybe look at a site or two.  Mac?  That's the cousin who lives in Missouri.  Not a known animal in the hinterlands. 

This happens.  If you're not smart, it will happen to you a lot.  Don't give up on these rural small businesses.  They have been doing the best they know how to do with what they have.  It's YOUR job, local workshifter, to show them the way. 

Listen, Really Listen

I learned quickly to start interviewing my clients before making any kind of agreement for work. I ask a lot of questions.  I listen to the answers.    I know when I walk into that office or store exactly what kind of computer, what kind of internet service, what kind of hook up they have.  I keep The Computer Guy on speed dial.  That's our local man that provides computer repair service, new hook up service and new computers for sale.  He can be at my location within 20 minutes - ready to service the client.  He will also bill them and work with them on payment.  Who does that?  We do that in a small community.
 

A Commitment to the Community

Workershifters in a rural community have a great challenge.  We are asked to bring our friends and families into this century.  We choose to do it, because it needs to be done.  We have stepped up to the plate and expect to hit the ball out of the park.  Because that is what people in rural America do - we help each other.
 
Score.org gives these statistics for small businesses in the rural economy:
 

• Since 1969, the number of self-employed persons in rural America has increased over 240 percent to 5.3 million.
• There are more than 1.2 million rural, small businesses. 
• In the rural economy, small business comprises almost two-thirds of jobs and 90 percent of rural establishments.
• In the service sector, rural firms are particularly important where they account for 64 percent of rural jobs and 89 percent of rural establishments.
• It is estimated that by 2015, one in three persons in rural America will be self-employed in some capacity.
  

We have a commitment to the community.  This workshifter is determined to work with the small businesses where she lives to keep our community vibrant, exciting and growing.

Photo Credit: David Michael Morris