Reality Check: Distance Working

Lise Strathdee and her Italian partner Claudio Annicchiarico work out of their adopted home of Kohukohu in the Hokianga. 

Brian McPhun and his wife, American wildlife artist Lindsay Scott, moved from California to the Matakana region once her name was established. 

Distance learning has been with us for a long time now. Whether it takes the form of extramural courses at university or correspondence lessons for country kids, it has become an accepted part of the New Zealand education scene. 

But distance working is a comparatively new phenomenon and one that will have a far-reaching impact on the pattern of home ownership in country and coastal areas in years to come. 

Due in part to the aging of the baby boomer generation, along with the appeal of a greener and cleaner life in the country and the growing availability of broadband, it is anticipated that more people will be exploring ways of working that liberate them from the city. 

Former London-based financial consultant Brian Reading now works among green fields just south of Auckland. 

"The web has made it possible for me to work here. I can download the information I need in minutes, produce what I need, then a web cast can be done, sent to London for editing and be with my customers by the next day. They wouldn't even be aware I wasn't sitting in my office in London." 

New Zealand's stable government and transparent legal system, along with its scenery and property prices, make it a desirable destination for distance workers. But Brian adds a note of caution: "To some extent successful distance working depends on the nature of the work and also on working with an already established client base. Once you have that client base it is very easy to service but it must be established with face to face contact. You can't do that part from a distance." 

Brian McPhun and his wife, American wildlife artist Lindsay Scott, moved from California to the Matakana region a few years ago. He points out it is not only computer linked activities that translate to distance working. 

"Our situation is perhaps fairly unusual because art can be created anywhere." 

Like Brian Reading he sees the essential stepping stone as having an established profile before making the move. 

"Before moving here we had spent long times on the road doing the shows in the US which made Lindsay's name. It would be cost-prohibitive to attempt to do that from a distant location. But now Lindsay can work while I deal with the logistics and it doesn't matter where we live - we headed here because I'm a New Zealander." 

Another high-flying refugee is Lise Strathdee, one-time fashion designer and design consultant, now senior contributing editor for Urbis magazine among other things. She sees her existence in the Hokianga as "downsized but not dumbed down". 

After near burnout in the pursuit of her career in Europe she took a "sabbatical road trip" to discover the New Zealand of her youth and bought what is now her home almost on impulse. 

"We needed to step off the gas - we didn't do it straight away but this is now our home full-time." 

She says the warmth of community in Kohu Kohu with its friendly fellow "refugee rats" contributed to the soft landing she feels they have made. 

"Most of the work I do is on-line or on the phone - putting people together, researching, interviewing - so I can do it from anywhere." 

But with the recent opening of her shop, Outpost, in Rawene and her Italian partner training in horticulture, she feels they have more changes to make. 

"We're changing skins as we speak - it's a wonderful thing we can now live in places like this and yet do what we do."