Thursday, June 9, 2011

A Student Project "Digital Nomadism: Freedom or Slavery?"

Yesterday evening was remarkable.

The group of students working on the project "Digital Nomadism: Freedom or Slavery?" presented the fruits of their hard work in class, which is part of the Intensiveseminar organized by Amerikanistik for the "creams" of our student body. For four weeks Alina Guender, Benjamin Zich, Kristina Stapels, Marina Piatkov and Martin Graebe have been working on a documentary for the class. The raw three-hour film had to be cut, of course. But I do hope the longer version of the film will be available on YouTube or any other video-sharing social network on the Web.

Martin Graebe started the presentation with a quest for definition: "Who is a digital nomad?". The definition the group provided was as follows:
A digital nomad can either change places or not, s/he has the freedom to decide when and where to work, s/he is place-independent, but always dependent on the digital world.

Basically, from the very beginning the group pointed at the ambivalence of the phenomenon: the construct defined as a digital nomad is a liberated and entrapped individual at the same time. I absolutely agree with this approach to studying digital nomadism.

Alina Guender proposed that digital nomads is a not a homogenious group. The first group of digital nomads adopted a new lifestyle as an inevitable and ESSENTIAL way of doing business. These freelancers and employees do business differently. Benjamin Zich has provided an informative overview about this trend in the contemporary bussiness world. Big companies like BMW, AOL, Silicon Valley, Google, SAP, Deutsche Bank , etc. compete for professional workforce and attract top-specialists by letting them choose where to work. However, this is a pragmatic decision as well: by working at home, companies save money, which could have been spent on a reular office. There were occasions when employees had no other option but working for the company from home. As for the freelancers, from an episode from the film prepared by the students for this presentation, the class could see that these digital nomads come from creative industries: music industry, architecture, design, IT, etc.

Kristina Stapels took over the "invisible mike" :) and provided a very well-structured overview of the "nomadic" trends in education. The second group of digital nomads is a priviledged group of the educated individuals: students and teachers occupy this very vast niche. Kristina raised questions about using the applications useful for students and teachers (the so-called "web 2.0 tools"), and proceeded with a discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of studying on-line. The discussion turned out to be a success: students, course instructors and even the Dean of the Department shared their opinions in class. Some students appeared as very open to the "possible" or "inevitable" change, while others expressed scepticism about "universities going on-line". The discussion raised such issues as generation gap, gender equality and postcolonialism.

Meanwhile the avid users of social networks were put into the third box. The third group of digital nomads is represented by bloggers, on-line gamers, Facebook junkies, etc. This group is far too diverse and could be broken into more groups. Unfortunately, few research in general has been done about these individuals. The group working on the project for this class and I classify these individuals as digital nomads in their heads or, as the students put it, in their minds. These people are not necessarily high-tech overloaded travellers. These digital nomads are carried away by a matter of clicks. And there you go, they travel spaces while sitting on a chair in a bedroom. We insist this is also digital nomadism, but of a different quality. There is no exhaustive study of these journeys so far. There is some metaphysical literature about this, though. My dissertation touches upon this topic. Hopefully, my outstanding students will address this issue in their future projects, research papers, dissertations, etc.

The culmination of the presentation was a summary of the findings to the question whether digital nomadism is a triumph of freedom or just another manifestation of slavery (dramatic binary opposition, isn't it?:). From beginning to end, Alina, Benjamin, Kristina, Marina and Martin tried to show the complexity and ambivalence of the phenomenon of digital nomadism. Flexibility, choice to decide who you work with, how and when, establishment of your own organization, independence from your working place---all of these are advantages of adopting the digital nomadic lifestyle. But what are the costs of this lifestyle?

In the very beginning of the presentation, we encountered technical problems. Once the students figured out the problem, suddenly there was a loud skype call in class! We used a laptop of one of our students. He did not log off from Skype, his mother saw her son was on-line and decided to skype him while he was about to deliver a presentation. The student was embarassed. Though it was not planned, the situation served the purposes of the presentation! :) One of the costs for the digital nomadic lifestyle is that the barriers between your private and academic/work life are blurred (at times, deliberately destroyed). The "liberating" gadgets and applications, at times, turn against us, though we wanted to use them to take control over our lives and freedoms. One of the students listening to the presentation shared her personal story, when her father's company kept calling while the whole family was, actually, on holiday. The company expected him to be avaialable: "Not picking up the mobile phone would appears as unprofessional."

Technologies accelerate our lives, promise faster solutions to the problems standing on our way to "pursuit of happiness". But that also means we burn out physically and mentally much faster. As the students pointed it out, we find ourselves isolated because, for example, the cozy atmosphere of a coffee shop or a long list of Facebook friends do not necessarily make us more sociable and happy. One of the students from the audience said he feels forced to use Facebook. He is clearly aware of the disadvantages and dangers of having a Facebook account; he pays a high price for the sake of staying in touch with his friends.

In class, students complained about addiction to social networking. Some were open about the uselessness of the time spent Facebooking: "I wish I did not waste so much time, and spent it on doing something more useful instead." However, the abstinence from social networking can result in anxiety because the social networking junkie feels s/he is not participating in the social life of her/his friends and will miss important news.

The conclusion of the presentation was constructive. Marina Piatkov introduced the class to a possible solution to the problems occuring as a result of leading digital nomadic lifestyle: "Co-working--a new way to work." Marina explained how co-working spaces like the one in Dortmund brings together digital nomads from creative industries. She showed episodes from the interviews with the satisfied customers, e.g. digital nomads who used these spaces. Basically, these spaces look like normal offices. But you can rent a place at the table, the whole table, a small room, a large room and so on whenever you need it for a day or two, a week and longer. If you are a freelancer without an office and want to meet with your customers, renting a table for one day and meeting customers there would make much sense. Or if you work on a project while being away from your office, which is located in another city, renting a "creative space" could be a much better alternative to working in your hotel room. Co-working space is not an ultimate answer to the problem of leading digital nomadic (business) lifestyle; however, it might be a better and even healthier alternative (digital nomads working in creative spaces are more motivated to clean their teeth and brush their hair, right?).

I want to thank Alina Guender, Benjamin Zich, Kristina Stapels, Marina Piatkov and Martin Graebe for choosing to work on this project (the students taking the Internsiveseminar were asked to choose the instructor to work with and the project to work on in class). You are hard-working and creative, and I learned from you a lot. It was awesome to be a part of your project. I hope, you enjoyed it as well. :)

1 comment:

  1. just linked this article on my facebook account. it’s a very interesting article for all.


    Student Project

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