By Johna Till Johnson, Network World, 09/12/05

The past few years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of "virtual workers" - individuals who work in different geographic locations from their managers or peers. Virtual workers aren't necessarily telecommuters - you can be a virtual worker at a headquarters office, with your team distributed across remote or branch offices. (Telecommuters are, of course, virtual workers by definition.)

Nemertes has benchmarked a ninefold increase in the number of virtual workers over the past five years. Moreover, the number of employees working away from headquarters locations has been holding steady at 90% for the past several years. In other words, today's organizations are more virtual, and more highly distributed, than ever before - and they're becoming even more so.