I attended a women’s college in the 1960's at the beginning of a different social revolution, the modern Women's Movement. At our college, there was a quandry as to how to define ourselves: girls’ school or women’s college?

Fast forwarding to today's business world, have you ever heard anyone say that organizations for women are just for “those women who are not really in business” because they are franchisers, or they don’t have employees, or because they work from home?

Until the beginning of the 19th century, nearly all business worldwide, including industry, operated from small offices in the home -- some businesses even incorporated home visits to clients, patients, customers. Cottage industry aptly described the blacksmith, the cooper, the seamstress, the tanner, doctor, and educator. At the onset of the industrial revolution, and particularly with the advent of automobiles, we began to travel to work, forgetting that Ford and Packard started their companies in their garages, as did Apple Computer and Yahoo (among others). Regardless, success was defined as leaving the garage office for the modern factory and gleaming office park.

Now, in the 21st century, with traffic jams, high gasoline prices, and major commutes, we are wondering how to take it all home again. With less focus on manufacturing products and more on manufacturing ideas, providing service and sharing knowledge, it is possible to build a significant business from a small office, often in the home -- a SOHO (small office, home office). The digital world, with its breakthroughs in communication, provides what the central office used to: a library, a conference room and phone, personnel support and even a personal assistant.

The SOHO is where more and more professionals and business owners are found today -- the technology revolution and the newly-reinstated green movement, as well as residual family benefits the 60's women movement created, has brought us full circle. According to the International Telework Association and Council, the number of Americans doing some kind of work from home rose from 11.6 million in 1997 to 24.1 million in 2004 (this is 18% of the adult work force). Major US companies employing home-based personnel include Office Depot, Jet Blue Airways, and UnitedHealth Group. So, the next time someone questions the seriousness of your small home-based business, your response can be “we are so forward thinking that we never left home.”