You call this a plan?

Susan Straub and I have both lived in Europe before. As parents of the beautiful Mirella CaJacob, all of 15 months old, we talk often about finding some way to live there again, beginning with a long visit to do some site selection and so on. My work has been very busy, so taking several weeks of vacation isn't feasible.

For most of my 23 year consulting career I've been on the road almost every week. Over the past year or so, more and more meetings have been on the telephone, and I've had to travel much less. This has happily coincided with the birth of the little one, so she has seen much more of me than did either of her sisters, Denise or Elena.

It ocurred to me that if a call center can be "off-shored" to India because of telecommunications, it might be possible to do that with my work as well. The criteria: communications must be as clear as from my Oregon office, I must have all the same technological tools (web meeting, conference calling, etc.), and clients must not pay any penalty. And, I must be prepared to travel to meetings in the states when necessary.

We had a short list of countries. Italy was always a contender. My old friends Becky and Gino Isla live near Varese, in the north of Italy, near the Swiss border. Becky had some contacts, she told me about a friend who has an apartment to rent, Susan has many frequent flyer miles from her days of travelling from Oregon to Atlanta once a week. After that, we decided if not now, when?