The term "telecommuter" is synonymous with an individual who works from home - plain and simple. But dissect the word, and what do you have? A person who uses telecommunications to avoid a commute into the office.

Well, that’s a bit dated. Telecommunications is the minimum a remote worker requires to be an effective and productive employee. They require any combination of e-mail, Internet access (broadband, please), mobile devices, mobile applications, access to databases and centralized applications, Web conferencing, video conferencing, audio conferencing, shared workspaces, blogs, wikis, and content-management systems.

What’s more, they may work from their homes, yes. But telecommuters also work from airports, hotels, customer sites, vacation spots, and coffee shops.

Plantronics wants to capture a new name for the telecommuter of the new millennium. The vendor points out that the term was first coined in 1973, and it’s time for an update.

How serious is Plantronics about this? The company is hosting a contest, in conjunction with National Work from Home Week, asking people to submit ideas for what to call today’s modern telecommuter through Oct. 24. Yes, there are some prizes for those who win (click here for details).

It is time for a new term to emerge that truly reflects today’s remote worker/mobile worker/teleworker/telecommuter/home worker. I often refer to these people as “micro-branches,” because, at least from the IT staff’s perspective, that’s what they are. A branch of one, but a branch that IT still must connect, monitor, troubleshoot, and manage. The individual? I call them “virtual workers.”

What do you think? How do you describe the individuals who make up micro-branches? I’ll leave that to you and look forward to Plantronics’ announcement next month.

Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research. Click  here for the newsletter archive.