In the era of unparalleled work mobility, individuals now have the power to redefine their professional journeys across three distinct archetypes within the Digital Nomad Matrix. Understanding the unique benefits of each archetype can empower you to align your workstyle with your lifestyle. Take a moment to explore these archetypes and find where your professional compass points.

The Digital Nomad Matrix: A Path to Design your Lifestyle and Workstyle

1. Mobile Workers:

Mobile Workers are defined by two key characteristics:

1. Highly developed skill sets.  
2. A desire to make a permanent or long term move to a new location. 

Differing from Digital Nomads, who are in a transient state of perpetual movement, Mobile Workers seek opportunities for more extensive stays in a new environment. They are looking to put down roots in a new location. As such, an understanding of visa, residency and work permit requirements is essential for this archetype of location-focused worker. While connecting with local educational institutions to get the appropriate certifications and upskilling might be required depending on the industry in which you work and the regulations in the new location to which you have moved. 

You are a prime candidate to become a mobile worker if you possess a skill set that is in high-demand in other markets. 

• Highly skilled professionals in areas like Health Care and Education are great examples of areas of expertise that lend themselves to work mobility. 
• While many communities also face gaps in many of the skilled trades, like carpentry. 

When I graduated from Teacher’s College in 2010, there were pretty much no school boards who were hiring in Ontario. However, through a friend who graduated the year prior, I learned that there was a supply teacher shortage in London, UK. So, I secured a Youth Mobility Visa, which allowed me to move to the UK to work and live for up to 2 years. I moved to London in January 2011, where I worked my first supply teaching gig for 10 months, while enjoying the adventure of living in a new country. This is a great example of leveraging skills to embrace work mobility as  means of progressing your career. 

Identifying where your skill set might be most needed can be a challenge, but it’s one that we would love to support you with. 

We will be highlighting in-demand skill sets for various regions in Canada in upcoming articles, while in our upcoming Digital Nomad 101 session, in partnership with Pictou County Partnerships and Ignite Atlantic, we will be highlighting the specific skills that are in demand in Pictou County Nova Scotia, as we highlight why this coastal region is primed to become a hub for workforce mobility.

2. Remote Workers:

On average, working 35-40 hours per week across your entire career means you will spend over 80,000 hours of your life at work. 

Where do you want to spend 80,000 of the best hours of your life?

For Remote Workers, the flexibility to choose where those precious hours are spent is everything. 

Remote Workers are all about having the freedom to sever work from the workplace. In that way their focus is more location-centric than their movement-obsessed counterpart, the Digital Nomad. While remote workers might choose to occasionally blend travel and work, their lifestyle design is not centred around travel, but around flexibility. 

Remote Workers have a digital skill set, or a digitally-enabled skill set, which allows work to be done anywhere with sufficient internet access and the right toolkit. Most service providing freelancers have the ability to work remotely, while some full-time roles have shifted to hybrid, or fully remote models. 

Organizations now have an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting and retaining top talent by creating work environments that empower high performing remote workers who value lifestyle design and flexibility. Shopify’s Destination 90 program is a great example of forward thinking policies that empower today’s mobility-obsessed workforce. 

Ultimately for individuals, remote work is about lifestyle design and the appeal of working remotely lies in its versatility. 

• Some opt to permanently change locations in search of a lower cost of living, the tranquility of nature, or other attractive amenities. 
• Some want to be able to work from anywhere outside of a traditional office, whether that’s a coffee shop, or a co-working space.
• Some seek the freedom to be at home with their families.

I've been working remotely for 5+ years, and have found levels of flexibility and freedom that past versions of myself could never have imagined. Those years of building a business that could be operated remotely opened the door to opportunities to design a life that embraces not just flexibility, but the freedom to enjoy more frequent movement. Next up on the Digital Matrix…

3. Digital Nomads: 

Since the first personal computers were introduced in the early 1980s,  people have dreamt of working from faraway destinations around the world. 

In 1983, American freelance writer Steven K. Roberts, a self-styled Technomad, sold his house, and spent the next 8 years cycling and working across the United States with the help of early portable technology. He pioneered a digitally enabled nomadic lifestyle (captured in his book, Computing Across America).

The term Digital Nomad first formally popped up in 1997, as the title of a book by Tsugio Makimoto and David Manners. They had the foresight to predict: 

“Early in the next millennium, technology will deliver the capability to live and work on the move... In time these tools will become cheap enough for everyone, and for the first time in 10,000 years the choice to live nomadically will become a mainstream lifestyle option.”🤯🤯🤯

As we head into 2024, there are roughly 36 million digital nomads around the world.

Digital Nomads are travellers who work remotely. 

Some Digital Nomads have a central homebase, and design their lives around having regular work-travel experiences throughout the year, both domestically and internationally.

A step further on the Digital Nomad Matrix are those who are perpetually in motion, without a central homebase. For these folks, the journey is home, and they might spend many months, or perhaps even a year, in a given location before moving on to the next (depending on Visa requirements).

Awareness of things like visa-requirements and tax implications are a must for Digital Nomads, while finding community and combating isolation in new places are definite challenges, but the opportunity to grow through new experiences is profound for those who choose to pursue a life that blends work with perpetual travel. 

These transient digital nomads can add value to communities as working tourist consumers. However, in cases they can also form meaningful relationships with local businesses in the communities they visit, which can extend their impact within communities beyond the scope of their stay. 

While transient by nature, Digital Nomad-ing can also be used as a precursor to more permanent movement. With the announcement of the Digital Nomad Visa in Canada, many folks with whom we have connected during our discovery process seem to be looking to leverage the visa to spend multiple months exploring several provinces in Canada, with the goal of being able to make a more informed decision about their ideal location to which they will immigrate. For communities, this presents a unique opportunity to build a talent attraction funnel that leverages the digital nomad visa as a stepping stone to attracting international talent to immigrate to their community.

Do you crave a lifestyle designed around perpetual movement? If you're a digitally skilled worker seeking a blend of travel and work, then the Digital Nomad archetype might resonate with you.

Discover Your Workstyle:

Which archetype of the Digital Nomad Matrix is most aligned for the workstyle and lifestyle you want to design? 

Take this short quiz to identify where you sit on the Digital Nomad Matrix:

1. What is most important to you?

a) Finding a place to put down roots, where my skill set is in high demand.

b) Having the flexibility to control where I work every day.

c) Having the freedom to design a life that blends work and travel.

2. What type of workplace environment do you prefer?

a) I like an on-site or hybrid work environment, in a location where my skills are most needed.

b) I like to work from home, or at one of a few other locations in my city/region. 

c) I like to be on the move frequently, working from different destinations.

3. What best describes the work that you do?

a) I have a skill set that mostly requires me to be in a specific location to perform my work.

b) I have a skill set that can be enabled with the internet + the right digital skill set, and my work is time zone dependent and relatively fixed to a 9-5 schedule.

c) I have a skill set that can be enabled anywhere, and while some work might be time zone dependent + done during a 9-5 schedule, I have a high degree of control over my day-day schedule. 

Quiz Results:

• Mostly A's: You align with the Mobile Worker archetype.
• Mostly B's: You resonate with the Remote Worker archetype.
• Mostly C's: You embody the Digital Nomad archetype.

As you re-imagine your relationship to work and the workplace in pursuit of designing the life you want, we are here to help! 

Check out our latest free session: Digital Nomad 101! Whether you're a seasoned remote worker looking to relocate to a destination that aligns to your lifestyle, or a new digital nomad who is just starting to explore new levels of freedom and flexibility, this webinar is your comprehensive guide to unlocking the full potential of your work mobility journey.

Join us on December 7th and get started on your work mobility journey: https://pictoucountypartnership.com/do-business-2/digital-nomad/