WHITE PAPERS
Sharing our Research and Strategies- The Story of TCR

In 1992, a group of business colleagues came together to discuss the impact of technology on community- and particularly on rural communities. After many months of discussion it was clear that this issue was both important and unmet. The group created Tele-Commuter Resources (TCR) as a 501(c)3 organization. That first year of scanning led to the conclusion that telecommuting was the key and that economic regions would be the context for TCR's activity.

TCR is driven by a few basic principles:

• Take the initiative whenever possible; follow the mission- not the money.
• Use what is best for "community" as the fundamental criteria (which translate into the pursuit of the logical, the possible and the sustainable)
• View government as a catalyst and partner in developing sustainable initiatives and not as an operating entity,
• Create both a supporting context and a critical mass of participants, and
• Develop the work plan based upon our survey and forum results.

Rather than being a collection of documents, each page within this section tells the story of how these principles have led to TCR's current position. The Communities in the Information Agepage looks at the evolution of the Distributed City Model; the The Concept of Telecommuting page describes how focusing on community has led to the TAPP, TDP and RTAP programs. Realizing the similarity of process in developing business continuity and telework programs, led to the incorporation of Continuity Planning within TAPP. As the costs of the traditional approach continues to rise without significantly impacting the problem, the negative impacts of congestion and related emission issues adversely impact our families, our employers and, if the trends continue, or economic competitiveness. Therefore TCR has targeted Travel Demand Management as a a major deployment partner. Not only is telework a more cost-effective option than traditional TDM modes, it also provides numerous secondary benefits and it has a huge market potential if our policy makers (public and private) would allow it to develop.

Increasingly the choice is clear, in a global economy U.S. employers must cut costs.
The question is: will they do it by sending jobs overseas or will they apply telework to reduce their overhead, improve the productivity of their US work force and help their communities?
Community leaders have a stake in the answer but...will they use their influence with the policy makers?

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E-mail: Info@telecommuter.org Copyright © 1994-2003 Tele-Commuter Resources, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Patent Pending

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