Malaga / Ecology – One day I went with my family to downtown Malaga (Spain), due to the “day without the car” celebration. Surprisingly, I saw more traffic on that particular Sunday than I had other weekends at that same time.

 

But what hurt me the most was seeing that I myself had used my car (this declaration is a public amend and a mea culpa), when I could have used the bus, which on top of everything, was free. I’m all words and no action; I’m not an example to follow. I’m sorry.

 

Since then, I’ve been thinking about the issue of reducing the number of vehicles and I’ve been reading everything that’s been said in the media: whether buses, whether commuter rail, or the underground, or the tram, or urban toll, or making parking a difficulty, or open commercial centers, etc.

 

Every solution I’ve read about has its positive and its negative angles. The ideal solution would be teletransportation: you’re at home, concentrate and bingo!, you’ve arrived at your working place, unless there are traffic jams and problems of the sort: hey! Get a move on, can’t you see that those in the other sphere are putting up a notice board and they’ve cut off the accelerated particles road! in this hypothetic circulatory teledimension. I bet that’s what’s going to happen, at least in the medium term.

 

My light bulb lights up again: I’ve been working at home for a couple of days carrying out the financial and economic analysis of an entrepreneurial group for a possible fusion, without budging! The information I need was sent to me by e-mail and I use Messenger for the domestic video-conferences I hold with the law firm that hired me for the job (thanks buddy, for your confidence. I’ll be discreet, fear not).

 

I come to the conclusion that another possible solution to the traffic issue could be the meaningful incentive of telejobs by the Public Administration. Why do I say “meaningful”? Because in my humble opinion, the applicable legislation is scarce (redrafting texts, labor contract and not much else) and I’m not aware of the existence of aids, subsidies, important incentives that motivate the entrepreneur to chose this alternative form of production.

 

I believe we have the necessary telematic tools and I’ve no doubt that if this option were adequately promoted, technology and telecommunications specialists would get down to business and develop new solutions which would be light-years away from the ones available today.

 

I have a number of friends who are carrying out their work through telework (journalists, lawyers, economists, translators, computer specialists, etc.) but I also feel that this range of professions and jobs could widen considerably.

 

Personally, I’m interested in teleconsulting and telemanagement. The administrative officer can carry out his job in a different professional frame and with different kinds of relations, and this can also be less expensive for the company.

 

I increasingly see more and more announcements of consultancies and agencies, etc., in web pages, and I have the feeling that they use telework as the productive achievement in order to provide their clients with the service they advertise (I can think of no other way), making it possible for the teleworker (in this case the teleadministrative officer) to have an —I hope— increasingly larger niche.

 

Of course there will be “setbacks”, but we’ll deal with that some other day, teleblogger, because I have to catch up with the report about the fusion (this is a possible negative effect, you can let your mind wander with other personal issues and suddenly you’ve run out of time).

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Manuel Velasco Carretero. Economist, holds a degree in Commerce, Real Estate Administration and a diploma in Marketing and Commercialization, among others, having carried out the Doctorate in Strategic Direction (1991-1993) and taken part in several courses and specialization seminars and professional recycling in several business schools. Article published in www.articulo.org and in the author’s blog, www.blogdemanuel.com.