.

February 20: Maggie Jackson

Making Homes Wherever We Go:
The Car, Office, Second House and other Places as "Home"

The second home is more and more a part of the American dream for families, retirees, even 20-somethings. Americans "live" in their cars - eating meals, doing office work, watching movies on the road. The office is a place to shop, eat, socialize, find spouses and exercise.

As technology loosens the boundaries of place, Americans literally are becoming more at home in the world, making "homes" wherever they go. Why? Are they growing more nomadic and becoming at ease in a boundary-less world? Or are they searching for the refuge they can no longer find in their primary homes, which have become busy, permeable centers of work and communication.

As the Associated Press national Workplace columnist for five years, Maggie Jackson helped pioneer U.S. media coverage of work-life issues. Her award-winning column "On the Job" ran in newspapers around the globe, and she has lectured widely on workplace and work-life issues. She now contributes to National Public Radio, The New York Times and other publications. As well, Jackson's first book, What's Happening to Home? Balancing Work, Life and Refuge in the Information Age, will be published by Sorin Books in February 2002.

Hailed as an "adventure story" by Families and Work Institute president Ellen Galinsky and as a "serious pleasure to read" by Roger Rosenblatt, Jackson's book explores the changing nature of home in this mobile, technological age. Jackson argues that our struggles with work-life balance will not be resolved until we begin updating and redefining the meaning of home today.

A graduate of Yale University and the London School of Economics with high honors, she lives in New York City with her husband and two daughters, ages nine and five.