Have you considered becoming part of the emerging drivable mobile office generation?

Yes, there has been a massive shift to working from home and 88% of organizations in the U.S. have encouraged or required their employees to work from home and 91% of teams in the Asian Pacific Region have implemented ‘work from home’ arrangements since the outbreak.

A recent Gardner study showed business endurance was a top concern for C-level executives with 71% worried about continuity and productivity during the pandemic.

However, remote work has done more than insure continuity, it’s had a positive impact on workforce retention, so much so that organizations should expect 75% of their staff to ask for expanded remote work hours in the future.

Managed correctly, remote work will dramatically boost productivity. Gardner concluded that remote workers are 35-40% more productive than people who work in corporate offices.

For the company, 77% of executives agree that it will lower operating expenses.

Because of this, remote work is here to stay and 74% of companies plan to permanently shift to more remote work as we move into the post-Covid era.

With these changes permeating business culture, workers are now being unleashed to explore far more exotic lifestyles by taking their work with them as they explore the world.

Developing Mobile Work-Life Strategies

For many, summer is the time to hit the road in a camper or RV, taking time off work to see the country from the comfort of a home on wheels.

But many free-spirited adventurers are now thinking summer never has to end. Taking advantage of the growing ubiquity of wireless Internet, the RV or camper can easily be converted into a drivable mobile office.

As of last year, 8.9 million American households owned RVs, and a smaller subset included roughly a half-million who lived full-time on the road. But it’s hard to know exactly how many of those full-timers and part-timers have actually learned how to work from the road.

After Covid-19, the nature of telework is making it easier than ever to work without a fixed physical location.

Naturally one of the critical components of having a remote office is good Wi-Fi. According to KOA CEO Pat Hittmeier, almost all 485 KOA campgrounds sites across the country have free Wi-Fi.

When Wi-Fi is not in range, those doing business on the go will turn to network air cards or satellite dishes.

We have seen a recent explosion of people opting to take their work in this fashion. A record number of RVs, motorcoaches, fifth wheel campers, and trailers are currently in the process of being converted into both office and living spaces.

If you ask why they’ve chosen to do their work from a recreational vehicle, many will cite the freedom that comes with a mobile lifestyle.

Whether they’re working from an RV park in Tuscan, a hotel room in Seattle, or their grandmother’s farm in Indiana, both their work-life and family-life will undergo a number of transitions along the way.

Establishing a Mobile Base of Operations

Mobile offices don’t need to be fancy, they only need to be functional! [/caption]People tend to forget the importance of their local traffic patterns, because where they go and people they meet with on a semi-regular basis is important.

For example, moving into a new city they’ll need to find good referrals for doctors, dentists, chiropractors, auto mechanics, and veterinarians.

While most interactions with bankers, accountants, and lawyers can be done remotely, getting an engine repaired, finding an electrician, plumber, or new tires will require adding a few new contacts to a smartphone.

Even coordinating the delivery of an Amazon package can be a challenge.

Those who are on specialty diets such as vegan, gluten-free, lactose-free, or vegetarian may have trouble finding restaurant options in remote locations.

Very few situations, however, will be considered serious show-stoppers for the determined traveler.

Mobile offices don’t need to be fancy, they only need to be functional!

Going Driverless

Driverless technology will invariably open the door to a whole new era of non-commuting vehicles, and one of the earliest examples we’ll see will be the driverless mobile office.

If you can imagine having an “office” pull up in your driveway, with dimmable windows, projectors, sound systems, 5G-enabled, with flexible, reconfigurable furniture that is perfect for both working alone and hosting meetings, you’ll get the picture.

Executives only need wireless access and the entire day can be managed from their mobile office, picking up people for each new meeting, and dropping them off before the next meeting begins.

Rather than working from an isolated home or a single office, mobile offices will add exotic new dimensions to every workday. But they can be far more than just an office.

A mobile office can also be working laboratories, tattoo parlors, manufacturing operation, arbitration court, zoning resolution station, police command center, mobile ER, fertility clinic, or pawn shop. Some will be owned by government agencies, some by businesses, but others will be part of a fleet and leased on a per-use basis.

Most importantly, these vehicles can operate as moving billboards, wrapped in branding slogans, with marketing messages emblazoned on every available surface.

In the not-too-distant future, driverless mobile offices will be common in most cities!

Final Thoughts

If you’re considering setting up a driveable mobile office, you’re not alone. But having the perfect office to fit your needs may be challenging.

Offices designed for a podcaster, videographer, graphic artist, programmer, script writer, jewelry maker, and movie editor will all require different toolsets.

In general, remote offices need a well-designed desk, good chair, great computer, ergonomic layout, solid internet connection, privacy, backup storage, and excellent lighting. You might also want to include extra video cameras, microphones, switchers, and backup plans for when things go wrong because things will always go wrong.

As the world emerges from the coronavirus, one nation after another will rise out of their collective cabin-fever. With lingering fears about social distancing and a possible return of the virus during flu season, travelers will most likely focus on drivable options.

Many places are already documenting an increase in camping and outdoor activities in areas where the current coronavirus hit earlier than the U.S., namely in Japan and Korea, where families are pitching tents rather than staying in hotels.

As air travel limps back into operation and most public transportation systems around the world are operating on drastically reduced schedules, people are re-imagining new ways to travel in a post-pandemic world.

Road trips are poised to make a resurgence as travelers shy away from international destinations requiring long flights and walking through crowded airports. They’re looking to travel and enjoy all the wonders of the world in ways that they feel are safe and comfortable.

For these reasons, we are witnessing a powerful new trend where the idea of working from a drivable office takes center stage.

Coworking spaces like WeWork may soon have a new kid on the block to worry about.

Driverless technology will invariably open the door to a whole new era of non-commuting vehicles, and one of the earliest examples we’ll see will be the driverless mobile office.

If you can imagine having an “office” pull up in your driveway, somewhere in the range of an 8’ X 12’ space, or perhaps an 8’ X 24’ conference room, with dimmable windows, projectors, sound systems, 5G-enabled, with flexible, reconfigurable furniture that is perfect for both working alone and hosting meetings, you’ll get the picture.

Executives need only Wi-Fi in, plug in their calendars, and the entire day can be managed from their mobile office, picking up people for each new meeting, and dropping them off before the next meeting begins.

Rather than working from the isolation of home or a single office, mobile offices will add exotic new dimensions to every workday. But they can be far more than just offices.

Mobile offices can also be working laboratories, tattoo parlors, manufacturing operations, arbitration courts, zoning resolution stations, police command centers, mobile ERs, fertility clinics, or pawn shops. Some will be owned by businesses while others will be part of a fleet and leased on a per-use basis.

Most importantly, these vehicles can operate as moving billboards wrapped with giant branding and marketing messages emblazoned on every available surface.

Turning Every Day into a Mobile Work Day

New products require new approaches to doing business. Sometimes it’s a different way of approaching sales, branding, manufacturing, marketing, or finding new vendors. In each of these situations, businesses need to develop fresh thinking and form new relationships. What better way to tackle these new demands than to turn each day into a dynamic mobile experience where forward progress is not only a motto, but also a common way of doing business?

Here are seventeen scenarios designed to explode your thinking and help you reimagine your entire business strategy:

1. New Housing Development Office

A young couple has just put down a deposit for a semi custom home and your job is to show and upsell possible upgrades for the soon-to-be-constructed home. With a complete showroom filled with everything from countertops, to exterior rock and brick, and elaborate audio/visual displays, you pick up the couple, travel to the construction site, and accompany them to other homes under construction, allowing them to touch and feel the difference of every decision.

Will there be a driverless mobile cooking school in your future?

2. Cooking School

Every morning the cooking school travels around town picking up its students, with unique tastings, conversations, and learning moments happening in between each stop. Once everyone is in place, the experience starts with a stop at a local garden where fresh herbs and vegetables are picked and added to the ingredient list. The mobile kitchen is designed to make virtually any type of food and the on-board chef(s) are always quick to improvise and match the type of training to the audience they’re working with. And the ever-changing views outside will make it a fascinating experience to remember.

3. The Investment Pitch Office

Investors, sitting in distant offices surrounded by fellow investors, often lose perspective on the true nature of startups and the type of working laboratory needed for newbies to succeed. By forcing the investors to meet directly with the entrepreneurs on their home turf, they will have a far better appreciation for the time and effort being exerted by the startup team, and the nuanced “little things” that can make a huge difference in the overall success formula.

4. Speed Dating

When was the last time you stepped out of your house r local coffee shop to go on a speed date? Never, right? In the very near future, the cure for loneliness is only a few clicks away. And next-gen AI will connect you with people you may actually care about meeting. Each 5 minute speed date, where you are literally speeding around town during the encounter, can lead to as much or as little as you want to have happen.

5. The Click-on-Me Marketing Model

Over the next few years a large percentage of consumers will be wearing smart glasses. In this era, many forms of retail will transform into more of a performance art as location and real estate take a back seat to product models who spend their day trying to get people to “click and buy” whatever they’re pitching. People who are good at attracting attention will naturally be drawn to this line of work, as every new day will have them searching the next great location. As models, each of whom will become intimately attached to their products, will be constantly refining their approach, using various forms of music, percussion, dance, rhythmic chanting, mime, and comedic gesturing to gain both the trust and respect of their audiences they find themselves performing for. Naturally, they will learn new techniques from each other as they travel from one stop to the next.

6. The Experiential Classroom

For both kids and adults, the amount of learning we take away from any experience is directly proportional to the number of micro learning moments our mind is actively exposed to. When we switch from a static classroom to an ever-changing backdrop, our minds are naturally switched into a high level of alertness. However, the highest value learning happens when attentiveness, place, emotion, technique, and demonstration all intersect into one super memorable moment. While a mobile classroom does not instantly make all these things happen, it does improve the likelihood it will.

7. Group Coaching

As most coaches know, the value of their advise improves exponentially when a third party can directly validate a key point with a personal experience. In today’s world, where the irregular cadence of everyday business makes group coaching problematic, placing it into an AI-managed join-on-the-fly process, where every pickup and drop-off schedule can be synced to fit with your timetable, the true value of involvement will become far more spontaneous and potentially far more therapeutic as the best coaches learn to ride the wave of each and every transition.

8. Mobile Chiropractor Office

Doctors, dentists, and chiropractors all get bored being inside the same walls day-in and day-out. For chiropractors, making house calls may be the best marketing tool ever, especially for people who have severe mobility issues, or recent back issues. This could also be true for physical therapists, trainers/coaches, and massage therapists.

9. Mobile Retreat

As mobile offices and mobile events gain traction, we will also be reinventing other kinds of opportunities that are not intuitively obvious. Taking people out of their normal office setting, and grouping them with others, who they would not normally meet, has been gaining acceptance as a proven model for experiential learning. However, by adding a mobile component, where every destiny and learning experience becomes part of each day’s soon-to-be-revealed mystery, has the potential for adding excitement and involvement that is currently missing in today’s business retreats.

10. Mobile Dentistry

The idea of performing a root canal on a squeamish patient while traveling down a bumpy, pot-hole infested stretch of highway does not instill confidence in most would-be dental customers. But the actual dental work would be much more refined that that. Making stops at each new client, as a way of insuring a full schedule without the dreadful waiting room experience, and having the actual finely detailed dental work performed in a stationary vehicle, makes sense. But between those times the operation would be fully mobile.

11. Industrial Training

Every existing industry will be introducing new tools, techniques, software, procedures, and policies over the coming years, and managing the ongoing training and education side of the business will become far more challenging as the rate of change accelerates. For this reason a number of mobile training services will begin offering “we’ll-come-to-you” instruction and training packages designed specifically to match the needs of particular businesses.

12. 12-Step Meetings

Those who frequent a local 12-step meeting like AA, NA, MA, or GA can finally emerge from the basements and backrooms and feel like they’re reintegrating with society. And transportation issues will no longer be an acceptable excuse for not being there. In fact, a drive through the problem areas of a city may garner additional recruits and may make the groups themselves less introspective and more proactive.

13. Mobile Gaming Salon

In just a few years, the stereotypical basement-dwelling game fanatic will be a thing of the past. In addition, games themselves will transition from today’s couch potato button-pushing marathon to more of an aerobic workout. At the same time, the advent of mobile salons will open the door to location-specific gaming experiences that are tied to hyper-local cultures and the neighborhood people and street-level architecture that exemplify them. Mobile gaming will open the doors to radical new game designs, business models, tournament play, and entirely new entertainment styles.

14. Personalized Retail-Manufacturing Shop

As we move into the era of hyper-individualized products and services, we will begin to see a wide variety of both mobile retail and mobile manufacturing operations spring up. Whether its shoes, guitars, dinnerware, candles, sweaters, or smart home devices, customers will have the option of sorting through styles, materials, colors, and features before hitting the purchase button. Some items will require a body scan, others will need installation, and still others will involve training. But whatever the product or service demands, having a mobile team arrive in style will make you feel like you’re part of the process.

15. Group Therapy/Counseling Center

– 90% of what happens in life, happens from just showing up. And when the “showing up” part has been reduced to walking out your front door and stepping into a session, it’s hard to find a valid excuse to say “no.” Group therapy has long been the social “push” to both correct your thinking and adjust your approach to the issues you’re dealing with.

16. The Volunteer Center

If you’re the volunteering type, every day begins with you checking alert messages about possible topics or events where you can join forces with other like-minded volunteers to tackle the project of the day. As soon as you click “ok,” you will receive an ETA for the mobile volunteer office that will pick you up and whisk you off to the job site. But in this setting, you’ll be able to meet the other volunteers beforehand and learn about the challenges ahead before you arrive.

17. Mobile Daycare

Young people who have to wrestle through the demands of getting themselves and their kids ready each morning, before making the commute to a daycare center and then to work, know all too well the taxing nature of this morning ritual. However, if the “daycare comes to you,” suddenly the 8-10 phase changes you make each morning, suddenly seem far more doable. Mobile daycare also opens the door for more road trips and adventures for the kids. Childhood never seemed more exciting!

The options are as limitless as our imagination

Final Thoughts

The key thing to remember is that even though driverless technology will make our roads and highways operate far more efficiently, it doesn’t mean less traffic. In fact, just the opposite.

Autonomous vehicles will unleash new thinking for all kinds of non-commuting and utilitarian vehicles that currently don’t exist.

Naturally the true spectrum of opportunity will depend on pricing. But keep in mind, as the labor cost associated with driving disappears, and rather than spending a boatload on an expensive office in the high rent district, the mobile office may indeed be more affordable than you first think.

The original idea of having a traveling office was to give people slightly more control in their lives, and an ever-changing backdrop to lighten the tedium of business. With this arrangement, owners can run their business as many hours as they want, and simply park it when they’re done.

In the past, businesses had set hours, and storefront operations were very rigid and inflexible. But mobile businesses don’t require either the real estate investment or the staffing necessary to cover the hours the business community expects of them. Everything about mobile offices has a way altering traditional thinking.