21st Century Work Life - WLP211 Planned Spontaneity

WLP211 Planned Spontaneity

10/24/19 • 60 min

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd - head over to our detailed shownotes for more depth on the main discussion, as well as links to all our other episodes, services and content.

Today’s episode is all about planned spontaneity. But firstly our regular news round-up:

01.30 What’s going on

Owl Labs has released their ‘State of Remote Work 2019’ report. It highlights a huge variety in the meaning and scope of remote work, a reminder that we should not assume it means the same thing to different people
On the other hand, research from Airtasker published by Yahoo tells us that remote workers work more and have poorer work-life balance, and paints a very different picture to the report above. But that just goes to show how hard it is to compare like with like in this fragmented space. What do you think? Here’s the link to the original research.
Co-working - apparently the best low-cost option in San Francisco is a parking space - and why not! It might not work quite so well in London... Lots of interest here, including the idea of co-working becoming unaffordable in city hotspots, and the human connection of this ties in nicely with today’s theme of spontaneity
New co-working options like And Co (UK), and CoCo (US/International) are seeking to reclaim work space on a more flexible and fractional way, so maybe this will be the future? More grassroots and user-centric than the WeWork corporate top-down stuff, maybe that’s what we need to get back to...
Slack released a load of updates this week, including a tool to invite up to 1000 users to a channel. Do we want to be in Slack channels with thousands of users? Well, these tools continue to evolve in response to users, and they’re replacing intranets in large organisations. Let’s hope everyone knows how to manage their notifications!
Looking ahead to an upcoming episode on social change, and the general idea that ‘remote work is the future’, we do need to make sure we’re not excluding whole industries or categories of work. Remote may be the future for knowledge workers, but let’s be careful not to generalise and create divisions. The future is blended and flexible, rather than specifically ‘remote’.

26.44 Planned Spontaneity

Please see https://virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/planned-spontaneity - or simply enjoy the conversation.

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd - head over to our detailed shownotes for more depth on the main discussion, as well as links to all our other episodes, services and content.

Today’s episode is all about planned spontaneity. But firstly our regular news round-up:

01.30 What’s going on

Owl Labs has released their ‘State of Remote Work 2019’ report. It highlights a huge variety in the meaning and scope of remote work, a reminder that we should not assume it means the same thing to different people
On the other hand, research from Airtasker published by Yahoo tells us that remote workers work more and have poorer work-life balance, and paints a very different picture to the report above. But that just goes to show how hard it is to compare like with like in this fragmented space. What do you think? Here’s the link to the original research.
Co-working - apparently the best low-cost option in San Francisco is a parking space - and why not! It might not work quite so well in London... Lots of interest here, including the idea of co-working becoming unaffordable in city hotspots, and the human connection of this ties in nicely with today’s theme of spontaneity
New co-working options like And Co (UK), and CoCo (US/International) are seeking to reclaim work space on a more flexible and fractional way, so maybe this will be the future? More grassroots and user-centric than the WeWork corporate top-down stuff, maybe that’s what we need to get back to...
Slack released a load of updates this week, including a tool to invite up to 1000 users to a channel. Do we want to be in Slack channels with thousands of users? Well, these tools continue to evolve in response to users, and they’re replacing intranets in large organisations. Let’s hope everyone knows how to manage their notifications!
Looking ahead to an upcoming episode on social change, and the general idea that ‘remote work is the future’, we do need to make sure we’re not excluding whole industries or categories of work. Remote may be the future for knowledge workers, but let’s be careful not to generalise and create divisions. The future is blended and flexible, rather than specifically ‘remote’.

26.44 Planned Spontaneity

Please see https://virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/planned-spontaneity - or simply enjoy the conversation.

Previous Episode

WLP210 Thoughtful Thursday: Conferences that Make a Difference: Nomad City

A Thoughtful Thursday bonus episode, no music, no intro, no segments, just a conversation between founder of Nomad City Ignacio (Nacho) Rodriguez and our host, Pilar Orti. Some of this conversation will be included in episode 212 on Remote Work and Social Change, but just in case you want to get to a very diverse, thoughtful conference covering many aspects of remote work, and designed for a range of remote workers, we wanted to introduce to you Nomad City, which runs from 7-9th November 2019 in Gran Canaria. https://www.nomadcity.org/ Nacho explains why the conference was set up, how it's linked with Gran Canaria's broader aims and then he describes the event itself. You can get in touch with Nacho over at LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ignaciorodriguezcastellano/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/IGROCA

And of course, say hello to Pilar on Twitter https://twitter.com/pilarorti and visit our website www.virtualnotdistant.com

Next Episode

WLP212 Remote Work for Social Change

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant Ltd.

There’s more to remote work than improving life and work for those exploring its potential. Remote work can be a tool for social change - and today’s episode explores different ways that remote work can have broader impact, with a diverse range of stories and approaches.

One quick update before we meet our expert interviewees: Pilar has a new podcast with the International Association of Facilitators - so if you’re interested in stories from the frontline of facilitation and learning and meetings, then do check that out and enjoy.

Now, onwards with the social impact of remote:

04.13 Chris Slemp

Chris Slemp is a Customer Success Manager for Modern Workplace, at Microsoft UK, and long-term friend of this show (joining us in episodes 123, 144 and 202)

I asked Chris how remote work can help us build and be part of our community (wherever we want to build that, rather than necessarily at work)?

He reminded us that commuting culture put responsibility on the workplace to provide ‘community’, and hubs like WeWork strive to provide everything the worker needs apart from sleep. But we have options now, and employers can dial it down a bit - Chris after all introduced us to the term ‘office optional’, and participating in office cultural activities (as opposed to work activities) should be optional too, freeing people to engage in their local communities as appropriate.

Chris takes a fluid view of location-dependency and work, reminding us how flexible things can be, and that we all have a right to extend that optionality at other times. We can advocate for that flexibility for all workers, to take advantage of the technology now available to us.

Chris also talked about the way remote work is affecting how and where people choose to live, and the social impact of this, a moving target for the future.

Connect with Chris on LinkedIn (and tell him we said hi!).

Remember that remote does not always mean flexible, and vice versa... check out episode 21 of My Pocket Psych for more on this point, while we meet:

17.06 Mandy Gardner

Mandy is the managing editor of Working Mums and Working Wise (specialising in employment for over 50s), and joined us way back in episode 74. So she’s been working with the idea of flexible working for years, since Working Mums started in 2006 (now joined by Working Dads as well as Working Wise, to advocate for and promote best practice around working flexibly for all).

They work with employers to help them improve their recruitment and hiring, and has seen many changes in the flexible working agenda over that time. Employers are more open to the concept now, as the evidence is in to support flexibility. But there are still misconceptions (eg flexible = part time) among bigger less nimble organisations. Career progression remains an issue, as does being explicit about remote in recruitment advertising.

Mandy sees flexibility becoming increasingly normalised into the future, as life grows ever more complex for parents, carers and all of us.

34.01 Nacho Rodriguez

Nacho is the founder of the Nomad City conference run from Gran Canaria - a region working hard to attract remote workers, initially as digital nomads and now increasingly as employees. We talked about the conference with Nacho in episode 210, and we’ll have an update soon from Nomad City 2019 (in progress as this episode drops!).

Revitalising traditional tourist areas with remote opportunities brings new blood and fresh ideas, as well as creating opportunities for local people to get involved, and the conference has evolved over its 4 year history to embrace ideas ranging from economic development to onboarding remote colleagues to collaboration tech, as well as an invitation-only summit for experienced advocates and consultants.

On the social impact front, the event includes a job fayre to connect local people with remote employers - opening up new opportunities for all.

Lorraine Charles

Remote means no borders - and Lorraine Charles is