Distance Learning & Education
Technology is not a panacea for education, but it can be a valuable tool, connecting teachers and students across time and location, making teaching and learning possible - anytime, anywhere. Lifelong learning is a survival skill for the next century, and information technology can make that kind of learning possible.

Telemedicine & Telecare
Telemedicine is increasingly being used as shorthand for remote electronic clinical consultation. Whatever the technology used, ranging from a simple telephone, to satellites, to state-of-the-art videoconferencing equipment, telemedicine has the potential to dramatically improve the delivery of medical services while simultaneously cutting travel time and costs. Telemedicine applications range from radiology, dermatology, diabetes care and clinical monitoring to psychiatry and speech therapy. Universities are even establishing postgraduate qualifications in remote health care.

Telecommuting
There can be no doubt that telecommuting is changing the way we work, and there are several good reasons:

1. Telecommuting Saves Money
Telecommuting is proven to increase employee productivity, but it also reduces absenteeism and employee turnover, which saves time and money in recruiting and training new employees. The County of Los Angeles saves more than $17 million annually through telecommuting. Consulting giant Ernst & Young says the use of such practices as hoteling, whereby employees reserve space when they need it, has cut the firm’s need for office space by 30%, freeing up about 1.5 million square feet of space and saving $30 million a year in real estate costs.

2. Telecommuting Improves Employee Morale and Customer Service
With the extra family and personal time so many workers today are missing, it's easy to see why employee morale and loyalty can be strengthened by telecommuting. Employees of the City of Los Angeles who telecommute have increased their effectiveness by 12.5% compared to non-telecommuters.

3. Telecommuting Permits Better Hires
In the search for affordable housing, people continue to move farther away from cities to remote, outlying areas. Through telecommuting, employers are coping with this trend and are still able to hire the top people in their fields, no matter where they live.

4. Telecommuting Can Overcome the Effects of Natural Disasters
The 1994 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles not only caused $20 billion in damage to homes and businesses, but also created the world's worst headache for millions of Southland commuters. Fortunately, for those companies with telecommuting programs in place prior to the quake, losses in time and productivity were negligible, if any at all. Among employees who began telecommuting as a result of the earthquake, 93 percent continued telecommuting after the recovery period.

5. Telecommuting Brings Benefits to the Community
Telecommuting eases traffic congestion, reducing pollution, helping local economies and creating safer communities.

There are excellent resources on the Web providing information and step-by-step direction on establishing effective telecommuting programs:

Telecommuting, Teleworking and Alternative Officing are presented on the Gil Gordon Associates web site. This site consolidates a wide variety of information from around the world, and from many different perspectives, on the subjects of telecommuting, teleworking and flexible work. Their objective is to provide a "one-stop service" for practitioners, researchers, policy-makers and others interested in this rapidly evolving field. The International Telework Association & Council is another good reference source.