X : When do you think people will be returning to offices?
Me : Some won't be, some companies will have adapted. The isolation economy (caused by COVID) was an accelerator of an underlying change not the cause of it ...
Me : Some won't be, some companies will have adapted. The isolation economy (caused by COVID) was an accelerator of an underlying change not the cause of it ...
... you didn't think that in the future as humankind spreads beyond the shores of our own planet that we'd be having face to face meetings as though we all lived in the same village with the same elder's hut? It's a throwback to the past, a constraint, a lack of vision ...
... even within the confines of our own planet we've been adapting and learning to work in a distributed fashion for the last few decades. Sure, traditions of the past are difficult to give up on but we've been heading that way slowly, reluctantly, with much stamping of feet ...
... the isolation economy just accelerated what was already there.
X : Did you see this -
Me : @Jacob_Rees_Mogg wallows in the past, he relishes it. Don't expect change or the future to come from him ... well, not willingly.
X : Did you see this -
https://twitter.com/Jacob_Rees_Mogg/status/1363776784370708480
Me : @Jacob_Rees_Mogg wallows in the past, he relishes it. Don't expect change or the future to come from him ... well, not willingly.
X : Last few decades?
Me : With the Internet. Of course, we did some of this before ... letters, telegraph, telephone etc ... each industrialisation of a communication mechanism changes how we work, how we organise. The process is slow, the isolation economy accelerated it ...
Me : With the Internet. Of course, we did some of this before ... letters, telegraph, telephone etc ... each industrialisation of a communication mechanism changes how we work, how we organise. The process is slow, the isolation economy accelerated it ...
... most of us know Execs that used to get secretaries to print out emails on paper for them because they couldn't "cope" with this "new fangled technology". The excuses varied but often cited the virtues of paper, how it made the email feel real ... it's just inertia ...
... it's just the same effect. In the future the idea of a physical face to face meeting will seem as quaint as a letter today - reserved for very special occassions.
X : But some will go back?
Me : Many companies will not have adapted and execs will miss their status symbols (top floor offices) and relationship power (reading signals, hand on shoulder, imposing a physical prescence) too much. Change is resisted by existing power structures.
Me : Many companies will not have adapted and execs will miss their status symbols (top floor offices) and relationship power (reading signals, hand on shoulder, imposing a physical prescence) too much. Change is resisted by existing power structures.
When someone says "in person" then you have to ask "isn't a zoom meeting in person, it seems pretty much face to face?"
One of my favourite work environments is virbela precisely because people stop trying to read signals, impose prescence and focus on the topic being discussed.
One of my favourite work environments is virbela precisely because people stop trying to read signals, impose prescence and focus on the topic being discussed.
It's amazing what can be achieved when people focus on the topic (I like Amazon's ritual of 30 min of silent reading before the meeting) rather than spending time trying to read the room, jostle for political position etc. It's also startling to see how quick some are exposed.
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