Firefox. Hosting. The Long Hallway. You’ve heard of the long tail and the long walk home.
Now, for all those micro design firms looking to grow to the next level, there’s the long hallway—the distance between the physical working spaces of the individuals that comprise virtual companies—which may be as short as a few miles across town or as long as thousands of miles across continents and oceans. In the past five years, due to the ever-increasing speed and wide availability of broadband data pipes, the virtual company has grown in popularity as an organizational strategy for businesses in tech-centered fields. The virtual company structure allows employees to integrate their work and lifestyles as they see fit, living where they want and working when they want. This is not a new trend. Big companies have been doing it for years.