Imagine being able to live anywhere, either working for yourself running your own business, or working for someone else, but still able to live anywhere and set your own work schedule. More and more people are doing this. You can too! In this lesson we'll take a first look at where you might go to learn how. Later lessons will explore additional directions for you to explore the ideal of total economic independence. Can you think of anything more "American" than becoming a true Lone Eagle?   Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have never been more attainable due to the opportunities the Internet puts at your fingertips.

Some Lone Eagles are webmasters, creating web pages for local businesses. Others are photographers, writers, or graphic artists. Some Lone Eagles work for companies that allow remote telework such as insurance underwriters, medical transcriptionists, and freelance journalists. New jobs are being created all the time. There has never been a better entrepreneurial support system than the Internet, but most people don't yet know this. You do, and that's a big advantage you can begin to apply immediately!

Becoming a successful independent entrepreneur, particularly in a rural location, typically requires careful attention to developing contacts and sustaining relationships of all kinds. If you're a quilter, you might associate regularly with other quilters, locally and globally, sharing marketing strategies and even co-marketing as a virtual community or industry cluster.  If a quilter receives an order for more quilts than one person can provide, then this cluster community becomes a distributed manufacturing network with short-term partnerships which benefit everyone.

Online collaborative tools make it very easy to support others with convenience and efficiency. Supporting others in a service economy is fundamental to successful Ecommerce, as is providing online training. Developing skills for creating and sustaining effective online relationships is vital at all levels. You'll learn how by reviewing the collaborative innovations of your competition. In the hands-on activities you'll see instructional entrepreneurs selling Virtual Assistant Certifications and Skills.

It is easy to feel that all the good ideas have been taken and that being in a rural location you're out-of-the-loop regarding being able to lock onto real entrepreneurial opportunities. But, this is actually far from the truth. Through the Internet you literally have the world at your fingertips: If you so choose, you can easily peek in on an unlimited number of innovations and resources.

Knowing where to go to find cutting edge Internet entrepreneurial applications, although essential, isn't as hard as you might first guess. Many exciting entrepreneurial training resources already exist, and because the Internet is so new, there are still an unlimited number of genuine opportunities waiting for you. What is working in one rural community just might work in your community, too. Keep an eagle-eye out for these specific opportunities. Cultivate an outgoing positive attitude and be continually exploring. Often, you won't know what you're looking for until you find it. That's serendipity!

Consider how your new part-time job will allocate a specific amount of time per day or per week to specifically explore entrepreneurial training resources and find stories about successful Internet entrepreneurs. Your Innovative Tenacity must keep you in a proactive mode - getting out and about - to stay current. Don't let frustration from information overload inhibit your outreach and exploration activities.

Much of what's out there is old news, anyway, and as you gain more experience, you'll recognize this for yourself and will feel far less overwhelmed. Everything on the Internet is in a state of constant change. New opportunities are created daily.  Tuning into emerging trends is a specific strategy for unlocking new opportunities.

Self-directed Internet learning is an essential skill for employability.   Many of those employed in computer and Internet-related jobs had no formal training. They just developed their ability to use computers and the Internet for just-in-time learning as needs arose. When asked if they thought they could learn something new, they responded "Yes, of course!" and were hired. The world is rapidly changing. Many good jobs require employees to be able to learn what's needed, when it's needed, and won't know until the time arrives what exactly needs to be learned.

The hands-on activities for this lesson will lead you to entrepreneurship training resources at a variety of learning levels - from very easy to more complicated. Collect those at the level most appropriate to you. Since the better resource sites have spent much time and money creating quality current listings of related resources, you're advised to take advantage of their hard work by realizing that at many such sites their BEST resources will often be their listing of "Other Resources."

The quality of this listing will say a lot about the sponsoring site. If resources are skimpy and/or not kept current, this reflects poorly on the sponsor. On the other hand, since they don't necessarily want to encourage you to leave their site for what might be considered competitive sites, often the listing of other resources is not emphasized, no matter how extensive it may be. Be aware that though they may sometimes be difficult to find, listings of other resources are present at most sites. If you create a hotlist of links to the best "Other Resources" listings that are kept current on multiple sites, then you'll benefit from someone else keeping your best-of-the-best listings up-to-date. Try it. It works!

Instructional entrepreneurship is a growing trend related to how people can quickly learn the most beneficial new skills with the least investment of time and effort. In the Hands-on Activities for this lesson you'll discover how to find free online tutorials and lessons on nearly anything you might want to learn. Best of all, you'll see multiple businesses selling knowledge and skills in competition to provide you with the best benefits for the least investment of money, time and effort.

Entrepreneur's Edge
http://edge.lowe.org
"Championing the entrepreneurial spirit! Learn how to be a successful entrepreneur! From the Edward Lowe Foundation. Select "Start-up Resources" for the motherlode.

The 'E' in Me",
http://www.ait.net/products/e_in_me/
Select the link to Online Resources for a rich listing. Hosted by  the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, http://www.emkf.org/ 

Entreworld 
http://www.eventuring.org
Select Media Resource Center, then Entrepreneurship Quick Facts

Business@ Home
http://www.gohome.com
Making a life while making a living. Select "Resources" for a directory of home-based business support organizations listed by state and country.

Home Office Association of America
http://www.hoaa.com
SoHo (Small Office/Home Office Resources;) Excellent! See their resource links!

E-Team Ebusiness Training Resources
http://www.ext.msstate.edu/srdc/e-team/
Sponsored by four regional rural development organizations, site includes resources to promote research and outreach education associated with electronic business issues. Click on the Sector Specific Resources, and the Basic Curriculum in addition to "links." From "Americans Communicating Electronically" http://www.ace.org
A USDA Economic and Development Systems initiative.

Netpreneur.org
http://netpreneur.org
The best regional entrepreneurship site in the country, from Washington DC - the most electronically wired, educated, wealthy, and politically charged community in the world. Here are sophisticated and advanced resources for learning how to grow an online business. See the Research Desk at http://netpreneur.org/Resources/researchdesk.html

CEO Express; Business Resources
http://www.ceoexpress.com/default.asp
Designed by a busy executive, for busy executives. A portal for keeping current.

Center for Entrepreneurship - University of Colorado
http://bus.colorado.edu/centers/entrep/home.htm

More at  http://lone-eagles.com/entrelinks.htm and http://lone-eagles.com/entrelinks2.htm

FreeAgent
http://www.freeagent.com
Free tutorial on becoming a free agent, and many exciting related services. Robust resources to learn how you, too, can become a free agent "knowledge worker!"

Janet L. Jordan, Master Virtual Assistant
http://www.DallasMVA.com
http://www.VirtualAssistanceU.com
http://www.VACertification.com
"I am a master virtual assistant, certified by VACertification.com, with a very successful VA practice and five years of training experience prior to starting VAU. My passion is to help others launch their own home-based VA practices. It is a labor of love and not money-driven. The cost of our 16-week program is very affordable ($750) with most participants qualifying for 50% partial scholarships. Feel free to contact me should you have any questions. My tollfree number is 1-866-362-4548."

Virtual Support Services
http://vsscyberoffice.com
Training offered by an Alaskan entrepreneur for becoming a virtual assistant.

Assist U - Learn to be a virtual assistant
http://www.assistu.com
Training offered by anentrepreneur for becoming a virtual assistant. Expensive - $2500.

Fatbrain
http://www.fatbrain.com
Upload your writings for sale via this cooperative marketing and profit-sharing model.

Self-Directed Learning and Adult Literacy Web Tour
http://lone-eagles.com/webtour7.htm

Free Learning and Other Freebies Web Tour
http://lone-eagles.com/freebies.htm

Online Courses and Learning Pathways
http://lone-eagles.com/self.htm

K-12 Online Courses
http://lone-eagles.com/courses.htm

Internet Training Resources
http://lone-eagles.com/training.htm

        2. Find Free Online Tutorials on Nearly Any Topic

To find tutorials on email, search for: email AND tutorial* The asterisk (*) is a truncation character which means items will be retrieved which have anything that begins with the core prefix before the asterisk (*); for example: tutorial and tutorials, etc.

Substitute any word for email and you'll be surprised on what you'll find. Try substituting the words lesson and/or course for the word tutorial. Experiment with logical variations.

To look for genealogy tutorials...

Try this:    genealogy AND tutorial*

Try again substituting tutorial* with class*, then course*, then lesson*

Learning advanced searching allows you to do all of these at once. Try: genealogy AND (lesson* OR tutorial* OR course* OR class*) Note: Include the brackets.

The more you noodle around and experiment, the more you'll learn.

      3. Cut-and-Paste Your Own Collection of the Best-of-the-Best  from
           reviewing the "Other Resources" listings for several of the sites in the web tour presented in this lesson.

Consider posting your web tour on the web to share with others at one of the sites offering free webpages. If you don't know how, it’s easy. Experiment with the sites presented in Lesson 3 and see what you can learn. (You're becoming a self-directed Internet Learner!)

Read each article without clicking on the included supporting web addresses.
Then return to explore those links that interest you.

The Future of Community Development - Make the Living You Want Living Wherever You Want
http://lone-eagles.com/comdev.htm 
Published September 2001 in "Future Courses - A Compendium of Thought about Education, Technology, and The Future" by Jason Ohler. Published by Technos Press http://www.technos.net

Lone Eagles Learn to Teach From Any Beach
http://lone-eagles.com/eagle.htm
Published in Technology Horizons Journal, Nov. '99 Related to the entrepreneurial potential of being able to teach anyone, anywhere, anything, anytime.

Review briefly the resources at

Community Internet Empowerment Resources for Rural Idaho Communities
http://lone-eagles.com/ruralempowerment.htm
Articles and resources to support rural community visioning for sustainability. Read the last two pages.

Level Three - Communicating and Working Together (The Power of Building Learning Communities Through Internet Collaboration)
http://lone-eagles.com/ecommerce-email.htm