Location, Location, Lo...Never Mind

Where will you live the day that location ceases to matter in your work, career or educational choice? That day is coming, so start thinking about it.

I left Puerto Rico when I was 18, with exactly 2 checked in bags and the inspiration to attend college in what was then (and still is) one of the best Undergraduate Marketing programs in the U.S. So I went to University of Florida where to my surprise, some of the largest core courses in the curriculum were already recorded or streamed online so you would not need to attend the classroom. Upon graduation, I moved to a different town in South Florida to pursue what became my first marketing job, only to find myself moving (again) 2 years later to be with my now husband, who had just found a great career opportunity in Maryland. None of us had lived there before or knew anyone in that state but we figured it was a good move.

Three years later, now as a graduating MBA student, I see many on my peers taking off and making big moves across the nation and even the World to pursue their dreams: taking specialized positions in particular companies and industries. In fact, there is a chance that I may be doing the same soon, but that is not the point. The point is that in a few decades, this career-shaped-lifestyle of moving where the action is and that has popularized such terms as long-distance relationship, may come to an end or at least, a slow down.

The following articles and online resources may give you a taste of the future that I am talking about:

1) K-12 Education: http://www.fastcompany.com/1728471/change-generation-bill-gates-favorite-teacher-wants-to-disrupt-education

• Imagine a K-12 education turned up-side down. Lectures/lessons are taken at home (as homework) and class time is used for 1-on-1 tutoring and assistance with practice exercises. Since the lectures are online, they can be standardized across a state or even the nation so all children see the same teacher in front of the board via videos. What would that do to our All-American obsession to find THE best school district for our children? It may not disappear it, but may decrease its influence factor.

2) Higher Education: http://academicearth.org/

• What if you could attend Ivy League courses while staying in your hometown University? Would you be interested in the opportunity to save on living expenses, staying at home and telecommuting while participating of an equally prestigious curriculum? If so, what would that do to the large amount of higher education institutions out there and their mission? Would they form virtual consortium's or partnerships to share materials/resources, decrease expenses and focus on research and other activities? This is sort of a chain reaction type of thing, where we would have to figure out what the university of the future looks like.

3) Work: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/

• Sure, you can stay at home and work. In fact, for most office jobs today you could work from wherever you would like given the amount of collaboration and virtualization tools emerging. The trick is that you will also be competing for that job against people from EVERYWHERE, not just those willing to live in Maryland. In other words, you will have to be better than your neighbor and all those "other" guys sitting in Asia, Europe, Latin America, etc. We are already seeing this more and more, but it will only continue to grow and further influence how we perceive the job market.

So what will this mean? Among all sorts of macro-economic phenomena that can result from lifestyle virtualization (effects of decreased immigration and widespread outsourcing) we will see a new way of perceiving our communities and the places we live in. Cities will need to strive for much more than attracting office jobs and big companies. They will need to focus on creating healthy and attractive living environments for recreation and social life once education and work places become more flexible.

Obviously, not everything will change. You cannot virtualize agriculture, waste management, energy production, etc. However, for the rest of us sitting in front of a desk and a computer, life will never be the same. Where will you live the day your company/school stops influencing your geographic location?