Lone Eagles are a varied species

The information superhighway is dramatically changing the way we live and work. Example: The distributed-work (people doing work away from the central office) and the small office-home office (SOHO) movement (a return to the pre-industrial model where most people worked at home or close to home) are the most rapidly growing segments of the business sector. Reason: New information technologies permit knowledge workers to live anywhere, and urban crime, traffic congestion and bad schools give them an incentive to move to areas where they can be safe and control the taxes, spending, police and schools that are so important
to their productivity and quality of life. Lone Eagles are one of the most interesting species of the SOHO movement and the more we talk to them, the more we find out about them.

Lone Eagles are typically knowledge workers, either entrepreneurs (people who are comfortable with risks and like to run businesses) or professionals (writers, brokers, analysts, lawyers, accountants, management consultants) who live by their wits and remain connected to the outside world by faxes, modems, express mail and airplane tickets.

We've found that Lone Eagles come in many sizes and shades -- including:

• Payrollers -- people tethered as full-time employees of a corporation, law firm or other organization typically providing professional or business services. Some payrollers work for virtual corporations (such as VeriFone, the credit card verifier whose corporate leadership and operations are spread all over the country) or firms with virtual operations, such as the "hoteling" arrangements used by Ernst & Young in Chicago. Many payrollers are telecommuters, employees who work off-site in order to enhance productivity, reduce distances for those who travel, or provide a non-wage benefit for a valued employee that management wants to keep on board. Payrollers often remain in the big city, though many are moving to small-town America and rural areas.

Other major types of Lone Eagles include Trustfunders, who live off the achievements and savings of their parents, and Gardeners, former employees of a large corporation who, as free-lancers, cultivate old relationships with their former employers. As many as one-third of corporate staff and middle managers who were laid off in the last recession ended up as consultants and advisers to their former employers.

However they make a living, Lone Eagles are a major new source of wealth for America's small towns and a force for economic diversification in rural and small-town America.