As the weather turns cold, you might be thinking of the rather snowy winter we had last year. Not only was there a lot of snow, but it always seemed to hit during rush hour. I clearly remember walking home on Liberty and seeing cars getting stuck in the snow trying to make it up that hill towards Stadium.

That’s why I wanted to point your attention to the wonderful world of telecommuting. Telecommuting lets you do work from home, which is helpful when the snow piles up outside.

We’ll be discussing telecommuting at an upcoming Commute Chat. There are also tons of resources on our website to help you create a telecommuting program at your organization.

But for all of the benefits telecommuting provides, it also brings with it all sorts of concerns.

If you want to learn more about the real benefits from telecommuting from an academic perspective, check out this article on the good, bad and unknown of telecommuting. This article examines 20 years of research on telecommuting and actually finds that there is much to like about telecommuting.

But for a more local perspective, I thought I’d interview a telecommuter in our own community. There are all kinds of telecommuters out there, from moms that telecommute in the evenings so they can watch their kids, to workers who want a day of quiet time away from the office.

Then are folks like Les Orchard (pictured here). Les lives in Michigan (Livonia to be exact) and telecommutes for Mozilla (located in California). He’s been doing this for 6 months now. I decided to interview Les to learn more about his (tele)commute:

getDowntown (gDt): Why did you decide to telecommute for Mozilla?

Les (L): My wife and I had moved out to Silicon Valley in the summer of 2006 so I could take a job at Yahoo! to work on del.icio.us. But, as it turned out, the distance from family and old friends—as well as the horrendous Bay Area house prices—all turned out to be too much. We decided to move back in the spring of 2008, and a search for work back in Michigan started from there.

Luckily, I knew a few people at Mozilla, who helped me find a good match there. Overall, it’s turned out to be a great opportunity that has synched up well with my career goals and our quality of life goals.

gDt: What is it like to work for a company that is in one state and you in another?

L: The time zone difference of 3 hours between MI and CA seems like it would be a problem, but it usually isn’t. Mozilla has people spread across the planet, so the time differences mostly amount to everyone being flexible about working hours and meeting schedules. Taxes and benefits mostly work out fine, which I think is a function of Mozilla’s experience at being so distributed.

The big upside for me is that I still really like visiting California and participating in the Silicon Valley hacker culture, and Mozilla gives me enough travel opportunities to do so. In the meantime, we get to live near our family and friends in Michigan, and can afford to buy a nice house with good neighbors without entirely breaking the bank.

gDt: How exactly do you telecommute for Mozilla? Did they set you up to do it, did you do it yourself, what’s the deal?

L: For the most part, I can telecommute from my laptop wherever there’s an internet connection. My team communicates largely through email, IM, and a constant presence in IRC chat rooms.

We’re also given extensions on an Asterisk-powered office phone system that works via VoIP, so my laptop also serves as my toll-free office phone. Meetings are held through the phone system, and it’s pretty easy to dial up whenever a chat is needed. Beyond group chats and calls, my manager also makes sure to get a hold of each of us in one-on-one chats on a weekly basis to make sure everything is running smoothly on an individual basis.

gDt: What do you like about telecommuting? What don’t you like?

L: I really like the flexibility afforded by Mozilla’s style of telecommuting. Since my only prerequisites are a laptop and an internet connection, I can work anywhere from my basement to coffee shops in Ann Arbor to the Corner Brewery in Ypsi. I can also duck out to attend lunch gatherings like Edward Vielmetti’s A2B3 whenever my schedule is otherwise clear.

What takes some getting used to, though, is that there’s no forced social interaction like there’d be in an office setting. It’s very easy to never leave the house and fall into being a hermit. I find that I need to develop habits that take me out of the house regularly to keep in contact with people locally.

gDt: What do you think is the biggest myth about telecommuting?

L: One concern I’ve heard from employers and others is that telecommuters can’t be productive without constant scrutiny.

But you know, most of us are adults, and we can even be responsible for our own efforts as professionals. That might not be true for everyone, and thus telecommuting isn’t right for everyone—but the rewards in flexibility and quality of life more than make up for the effort to develop the discipline, work ethic, and employer trust required to make it work. From the employer side, I’d assert there’s potential to get a higher quality of work from happy telecommuters who can control their own working conditions and have the flexibility to take care of family or other life concerns.

gDt: Now for the fun part. Please share any interesting info about yourself.

L: My wife Alex and I have just bought a house in the Old Rosedale Gardens neighborhood of Livonia, a few blocks from where she grew up.

I grew up an hour or so away on the water in the smaller town of Algonac. Our house is kind of a small zoo with two spotted Ocicats and two dwarf bunnies.

Alex works as a designer at JSTOR in downtown Ann Arbor. And beyond my work as a web developer for Mozilla, I have also written a few tech books and hope to write more. We both love video games and have a small collection of new and retro gaming consoles. And, now that we have a nice house with a nice kitchen, we’re hoping to make the most of it in the coming months.

gDt: Anything else you’d like to say about telecommuting or sustainable commuting in general?

I am of course biased, but I think knowledge work and telecommuting are the future for areas like Michigan, where manufacturing and other physical industries are in a downturn. With the availability of internet technologies that enable a wide range of communication and collaboration tools, geography and distance really can be minimized or removed as a blocker to work and employment.

There’s no shortage of great places to live in Michigan, and the quality of life here can be amazing. So, if you can get hooked into an industry where telecommuting is an option, it really is possible to have your cake and eat it too.