Last month I was lucky enough to meet another person who I’ve been working with for approaching a decade but who I have only known over the phone and via email. This time it was Anne Jordan who has been with ClickNwork for about seven years – you can read a little about her here; more recently she provided some thoughts about her work with us and other companies in a blog entry.

Anne seems to be a poster child for remote working. She could easily bag a high-powered job in London running a global research team or similar (she’s done that sort of thing before, with experience at top companies, including Goldman Sachs, Mitchell Madison Group and Marakon Associate), but she puts more store in managing her own career and time so she can pursue things she’s passionate about.

She has a portfolio approach, juggling a range of projects from a handful of clients that include regular assignments and ad hoc tasks all managed so that she has enough time to focus on something that lights her fire – researching Lady Colin Campbell (1857-1911), who she recently wrote a book about that she is now promoting.

Working remotely means she has more time in her day (no commuting, meetings, office politics…) and since she is a researcher she is able to work as effectively from her home as an office. Anne lives in Devon, close to her family and working at-distance also means she can invest time in this rather than work colleagues.

Our meeting was unfortunately short – I was en route to Cornwall – but it was enjoyable all the same and it surfaced some things we have in common, like an interest in how people are making remote careers work for them; how research provision is changing; why existing newsletters are flawed and so on, and I expect it will lead to longer conversations down the line. These are things that don’t as easily surface in virtual relationships and giving them a chance to surface is a real benefit of actually meeting up.

Oh, and the research on the side? We met at Darts Farm, an award winning organic and local food retailer named ‘Best Local Food Retailer’ in BBC Radio Four’s Food and Farming Awards. Some of the work we do is tracking food trends and seeing great local food retailers is great field research.