Owen Johnson’s workday begins at 5 a.m., when the co-founder of Investment Instruments Corp. begins answering e-mails from software developers he employs in Romania. A couple of hours later, Johnson is at the studio he rents near his Providence home, where he spends much of the day instant messaging and videoconferencing with colleagues in Barrington, Boston and San Francisco.

Johnson’s company, which provides online resources to the real estate industry, is among a growing number of successful local technology firms that operate almost entirely virtually, with partners and employees spread across the country. Some of the companies don’t have any office space to speak of.

“There are a lot of companies that are moving toward a virtual model,” said Pamela O’Hara, president of BatchBlue Software LLC, a nine-month-old IT firm developing and marketing small businesses software services.

O’Hara and the company’s five other employees, who live variously in Rhode Island, Seattle and New York City, all work from home, videoconferencing,

e-mailing and speaking on the phone throughout the day.

Local executives at a handful of companies that run their business virtually cited several benefits: They eliminate the cost of a traditional office space. Colleagues distributed across the country plug the company into social networks and business opportunities where they live.

Some said working virtually enables them to balance daily work and family duties in a way that wouldn’t be possible were they expected to report to an office every morning. All said they decided to arrange their businesses virtually in order to work with colleagues whose lives had taken them elsewhere.

In 2005, Matt Grigsby and his business partner Joe Gebbia launched their sustainable industrial design consultancy, Ecolect, in Providence upon graduating from the Rhode Island School of Design. Months later, Gebbia decided to move to San Francisco. But neither partner saw Gebbia’s move as a reason to end the company.

“He really likes the vibe out on the West Coast,” Grigsby said of Gebbia. “We’re sort of a younger generation, so I guess we take it for granted in a way. It’s not such a big deal to pick up the phone or send an e-mail – it’s just part of the day-to-day routine.”

In many respects, the rise of virtual offices has been fueled by rapid innovation in mobile technology. Those who operate virtual offices use a variety of tools to communicate and get the work done, and each has a personal favorite.

Several said they rely on Basecamp, a Web-based, hosted project-management system, and Skype, an Internet telephony service. Johnson said he recently started using Go ToMeeting, a Web conferencing service. Grigsby is a fan of iPhone. Not surprisingly, O’Hara relies on BatchBlue’s new contact-management offering, BatchBook.

“It’s important to have all the tools that you can at your disposal and use the ones that you really like,” said Brian Jepson, a Kingston resident and an editor and programmer for O’Reilly Media, an influential, California-based technology publisher.

In many cases, virtual offices don’t keep traditional, 9-to-5 business hours. At BatchBlue, where most of the firm’s employees are parents of small children, the team typically works from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and reconvenes online at about 8 p.m. and works until 11 p.m., O’Hara said.

But working mostly in the virtual office environment is not without its challenges. At Ecolect, which has 12 full-time employees and freelancers in Chicago, Providence and San Francisco, Grigsby said keeping people on task and projects moving on schedule can be difficult.

All agreed to the importance of gathering the team in person as much as possible. Four of BatchBlue’s six employees live in Rhode Island, and they meet formally at least once a week and often work together in smaller groups at coffeehouses across the state, O’Hara said.

But she said it has been more of a challenge to integrate BatchBlue’s two employees in Seattle and New York City, who last week traveled to Boston for a company retreat that O’Hara organized in part to discuss the issue.

“When I talked to both of these guys today I asked them, ‘What’s hard about it?’ And they both said just the personal contact,” O’Hara said. “Not even the professional contact, but just that personal connection you make with people when you’re going out to lunch with them or sitting and telling them about your weekend.”

Jepson, who in 2006 co-founded Providence Geeks, a monthly networking event at AS220 in Providence for digital media and IT professionals, said the meetings allow him and other virtual-office workers to maintain personal connections.

“The trick is to get out of the house as much as you can,” Jepson said. “I mean, right now I’m in a Starbucks, a couple of days ago I was in an independent, local coffee shop. Whenever I go up to AS 220 for a meeting or a Geek dinner I try to get up there a little early to set up my laptop, use the Wi-Fi and get a little work done. But you also run into people and you get to chat.”

Many, including Johnson and Grigsby, rent studios to get out of their homes and organize their workdays. Both said they also benefit from having a space where they can hold an occasional meeting with clients or freelance employees.

“I couldn’t work at home and live there too,” Grigsby said. “I think I need that separation to keep sane.” •