But perhaps most relevant, whatever its merits, telecommuting and home-based work seems to be the inevitable wave of the future, whether corporate managers like it or not.

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Instead, we should explore less unpleasant ways to cut energy use though such things as incentives for decentralizing work, promoting home-based labor, more tree planning and effective insulation.

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Musgrove said Cisco's video-link products allowed employees to talk lag-free in high definition, but he said there was a need to strike a balance between "appropriate" home working and office-based interaction in genuinely collaborative work spaces such as Cisco's main campus in San Jose, California.

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Some people want to work part-time or be home-based so they can see their kids more.

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Support may include home-based and community detoxification programmes, counselling and group work.

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Ube's dimmer can be programmed to work with a variety of other IP based home devices as well.

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Yet more than half of working Americans work for a small business or own one. 52% are home-based and many have home office space.

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Based in New York, she believes more people will use the internet to work from home, either running their own businesses or teleworking for companies.

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