21st Century Work Life - Remote Working, Virtual Teams And Flexible Working

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 h

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  

Today Pilar explores the paths that a diverse range of leaders of remote teams have travelled, to reach their present roles. Journeys of learning, self awareness and personal growth… Some inspiring conversations, which we will share with you in full later in the year. But first... What’s going on? Our quick round-up of remote work news and conversations: Online meetings: A new series of articles curated by Judy Rees, and featuring many of our previous guests, as well as Pilar herself, discussing the social connection aspect of online meetings, and we’ll have Judy on the show to talk about all the issues that emerged. Minds at Work contact us about learning and development in remote teams, so we referred them to Buffer and their exemplary approach to managing and funding professional development - growth mindset, rather than training, for a start.  Breakout rooms - a feature of face to face workshop facilitation since forever, and so far limited to Zoom online. But you can hack MS Teams, or Skype, or anythi

For once we are truly working from home, because we’re recording this episode in Maya’s home office! Usually we record from different countries on Skype, but it’s quite fun and very appropriate to do things differently today.   This podcast is brought to you by Virtual Not Distant, a London-based consultancy helping organisations transition to successful office-optional working. What’s going on? Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker recently unveiled an $18 billion transportation investment bill that includes a tax credit that will give companies more flexibility in offering work from home perks to their employees - more on LinkedIn here. Employers are not supporting tech learning, at least not as much as their employees would like. This UK research in People Management was disappointing to read. The reasons why are not clear, but the expressed frustration certainly is. Leaving people to figure things out for themselves is NOT the way to implement effective digital transformation! WeWork have cancelled - s

In this episode, we hear from how different people are going about growing their companies. They have different customers, different recruitment processes and different ideas about the size and make up of their workforce. However, they have one thing in common: their employees are distributed over different geographical locations. What's Going On section links: Harvard Business School’s research summary “How Companies Benefit When Employees Work Remotely” Highlights from Flexjobs 2019 Annual Survey. ">Appear.in has changed its name. Find out why here: https://whereby.com/information/brand Judy Rees and Lisette Sutherland are running a series of workshops on Running Remote Meetings. Starting 18 Sept 2019, book here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/remotetogether/289398 Info Q is publishing a series of articles on Remote Meetings, and celebrating the series with a session on Mastering Remote Meetings, on 1st October! Details here. Finally, news from Virtual not Distant: Our online course Leading Remote Tea

Today we have such a detailed episode for you, that we’ve had to split it into two, for practical distribution reasons. This is part two of two These shownotes for both episodes are available at  http://virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/collaboration-dangers) -because it really is just one big conversation. Collaboration platforms - the dangers Too much information, vs “fear of missing out”? How do we stay on top of all the messages in our platforms, making sure we don’t get overloaded, while not missing anything vital? What if you get back from a holiday or an illness and there are 400 alerts…? Your team agreement needs to specify what to check, as opposed to what you can let go, or the best way to catch up on the conversation after a break. And your team agreement needs regular review to ensure relevance and that it’s continuing to serve you well.  Your team changes, and so does the tool (for example you might want to consider the appropriateness of animated emoji use, non-trivial for any users with dyslexia,

Today we have such a detailed episode for you, that we’ve had to split it into two, for practical distribution reasons. This is part one of two These shownotes for both episodes are available at  http://virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/collaboration-dangers) -because it really is just one big conversation What’s going on Buffer are looking at the introversion question too - and how to make this work when virtual teams meet up in ‘real’ life Ten reflections on Buffer's 10th team retreat. I am sure it helps if your CEO is introverted! But there are lots of good ideas in here for every team. Santander brews up the first uk work cafe for small businesses - is it a cafe, is it a bank, is it a co-working? An incubator? We’re not sure, but we like the idea and look forward to seeing how it develops, the more flexibility the better chance of everyone finding their perfect work space locally, and these days banks need to do more to connect with their communities. Formatting in Trello - yes you can italicise... but

  >Today’s episode is a solo show, as Pilar was part of two conversations she wanted to share with you straight away. And she also took the opportunity to ask the community managers at Minds@Work to tell you about their next event. The episode was prompted by a message that Pilar received from a friend of hers. His team is currently colocated, but some of the team members would like to go remote; plus he’s realising that the business might benefit from recruiting in other geographical areas. He’s wondering whether he should turn into a hybrid team, or a fully distributed one. The benefits of being a hybrid team, within an organisation:    You have a presence in headquarters as a team. Those staying in HQ can still have spontaneous interactions, which could be a point of connection for some team members. You might have a team member who acts as a connector, between remote and colocated; some people are really good at keeping everyone together, regardless. A lot of communication is electronic anyway, so

We have two interesting guests for you to meet today, and our first conversation is an excellent example of some of the things you might not obviously know about people when you work with them remotely, as we delve into some of the non-work things which make our associates into whole people. But we do talk about creativity, 21st century careers, and content marketing too and the way everything is evolving. We’re making lots of changes to our content at Virtual Not Distant - have you checked out the website lately?  Plenty of new things to see, we would love to hear what you think about all of it, and changes in the podcast too... including our new section: 03.49 What’s going on! This will be a regular round-up of news, events and issues in the remote space. Right now: Pilar is discovering the joys of unplugging, and going properly ‘out of office’ - which you still need to do in remote. Just because you can stay in touch constantly, it doesn’t mean you have to, and stepping out of the conversation for a while

Maya and Pilar have always enjoyed discussing a range of conversations and ideas about remote work and collaboration, but it’s great that we’re increasingly noticing more fragmentation and variation in the public discourse around this subject.  The opening up of niche communities and content in the remote world is encouraging us to transition this podcast towards a tighter focus on remote / virtual /distributed teamwork as the conversation proliferates, and gives us more to dig down into and discover with each episode. We love to hear what you think, via our contact form, and also on Twitter (@Virtualteamw0rk) At Virtual Not Distant we are all about a deep understanding of the world of remote and how to make it work well. Experimentation is good, but oversimplification is not - and can lead to quickly concluding that ‘remote didn’t work for us’, a lose-lose outcome. So many variables, not least between companies which start as distributed teams versus those who transition to a more office-optional situation f

Welcome to episode 202 of the 21st Century Work Life podcast from Virtual Not Distant, where today we’re revisiting the roles of tech - particularly chat-based platforms - in teams, and the relationship between tech and strategy… Interestingly much of which also applies nowadays within organisations we don’t think of as ‘remote’, and depends a great deal on how we agree to use the tools at our disposal (including our expectations regarding speed of reply) Don’t forget to come and say hello to us on Twitter, @VirtualTeamW0rk and @PilarOrti… we love to talk to our listeners, and we talk about all sorts of interesting things, like a new feature in MSTeams which Pilar had a strong reaction to… Maybe there are some situations where text is better than a call, even when it’s urgent? Do join in and tell us what you think.  And please bear with us as our website is being updated, we’re bringing you a refreshed look and feel and some great new content - in particular look out for more about our self-paced learning pr

  A special episode today and, let’s be upfront about it: a promotional one. Thinking Remote: inspiration for leaders of distributed teams is a book for those of you managing, leading, or championing your remote team, or transitioning, or considering transitioning to an office optional approach. The book is a collection of articles written by Pilar Orti and Maya Middlemiss giving an overview of different aspects of leading remote teams. And at the end of each chapter, there is a set of leadership reflections, which are questions to help you think through what you have read - or listened to, if you go for the audiobook - and help you take the next steps. The best way to support people at a distance, we believe, is by adopting a coaching mindset, and that is exactly what we've done with this book. And for some readers it has worked! If you want to read about how, I encourage you to read Teresa Douglas’ thorough review over at her site . She covers what she took from three of the chapters and ends with a sente

Today we’re going global! With two great guests, collaborating remotely between the Netherlands and New York. Don’t forget to check out everything we do, over at the Virtual Not Distant website (including our new podcast guest submission form, and new formats in which Thinking Remote is available). Thank you for all the feedback on our milestone celebration episode all about celebrations! Shout-out to Jeremy and everyone in our community who commented and chatted and twittered about this one, we are so glad that this topic resonated (and we have a related blog post on celebrations ready for you now too). 06.30 21st Century Work-life - Theresa Sigillito Hollema and Surinder Kahai Theresa is the Director of Interact Global, a Netherlands-based consultancy supporting multicultural virtual teams and the organisations they belong to, and no stranger to the 21st Century Work-Life podcast.  Surinder is a Professor at the Binghamton University, in upstate New York. They met through online discovery, Theresa was draw

We have reached episode 200! We are celebrating… and we invite you to celebrate with us. Many of our listeners and guests responded to our call for contributions for this episode, and it’s wonderful to reflect the diversity of teams and people working in various ways virtually and remotely and flexibly, as expressed in the variety of ways we celebrate together. Because 21st Century Work Life is about choice and the way you want to do things. Maya and Pilar may have celebrated this milestone by connecting with listeners and how they celebrate. Sometimes it’s the smallest things - like the way emojis can convey so much emotion, in so few pixels.  (And if you’d like to communicate more with fewer words, send us your favourite emoji as a celebration of this episode!) Larger teams might create more formal ways of using their regular communications channels to celebrate in a slightly more structured way, such as Morgan Legge (interviewed in Episode 146) at Convert.com who sent us a screenshot of their Slack, where

A special episode bringing you a bit more of our fascinating conversation with Justin Morris, because despite being overscheduled with amazing content for our regular fortnightly show for the next few weeks, we really wanted to look beyond the whole ‘Ethical Walls’ story to explore Justin’s work at Modality Systems, and his unique overview of online collaboration. Justin and his colleagues help people provision and adopt MSTeams, so that they get the most out of it, and transition to the new more collaborative space which MSTeams represents. It’s fundamentally a change management process, with a data-driven approach to successfully drive adoption. Indeed the level of tracking and data available within MSTeams is surprising, but as Pilar pointed out this could be perceived as over-intrusive surveillance. Justin explains that these analytics are also available to the user, and as such provide a lot of insight into how we manage our time and productivity. If we can make the fundamental mindset shift from suspect

Nearly 200 episodes in, we have seen plenty of our own transformations both at Virtual Not Distant and the 21st Century Work Life podcast - and today we explore how organisations are adapting and changing, as the digital landscape does the same. First, a quick follow up from previous episodes - we found this great article about one of our frequently-used collaboration hubs, so make sure you check this out: 30 incredibly useful things you didn’t know Slack could do. And Pilar has been tweeting a lot lately, which was how she connected with today’s guest Euan Semple via his book Organisations Don’t Tweet, People Do. Within this book she found many resonant quotes, including “where possible sharing as much as you can when you are able to do so means that people are more likely to respect you when you say you cannot share some information,” and “Blogging can help people to understand themselves and their work better and by doing so help them to change at a profound and fundamental level” - these words were writt

In this episode, Maya and Pilar call for a halt to some of the remote madness! Where’s that ‘reset’ button... But first to follow up on the ongoing Twitter conversation from our last episode, about whether remote is suitable for everyone - thank you Bart and everybody who joined in, and do check out Maya’s recent article about this idea of challenging your own assumptions, on Medium - because it all relates to today’s theme on the flipside: while some people cannot imagine working out of the regular office, those of us who love remote work are in danger of becoming so evangelical about the benefits that we can risk losing sight of the potential downsides. So we need to talk about some of the pitfalls out there. Don't forget to check out our book Thinking Remote or sign up for the email series https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/books Starting with conversations - 5.50 Synchronous and Asynchronous Conversations Most of the tools and apps we use in remote collaboration offer us the ability to communicate in a

Welcome, from the team at VirtualNotDistant.com Can you contribute to our 200-episode anniversary show? We’d like to hear about your celebrations, within your team/community… Please send your words or even audio to Pilar so we can celebrate celebrations together!  We love to hear from our listeners and bring multiple voices and points of view onto the show whenever we can. We have some great conversations on Twitter too, like this one where we discussed changes in Microsoft Teams, some of which concerned us - like the introduction of ‘ethical walls’, to separate people in different teams and prevent them from using the platform to collaborate. What do you think?  We were thrilled to get a reply from Justin Morris who helps people professionally with adoption of Microsoft Teams, and he even made a video reply - which definitely helped us to understand the potential compliance and conflict of interest issues. Pilar has also been guesting on the Distant Job podcast with Luis Magalhaes, where we had a great con

It's Friday and we are Fickle! Pilar shares her conversation with Theresa Sigillito Hollema on creating task interdependence in virtual teams. Check out Theresa's culture cubes: http://www.interact-global.net/category/working-across-cultures/culture-cubes/ Over on Twitter, at @Virtualteamw0rk thanks to Tim for his feedback https://twitter.com/planetburgess/status/1116813859627520001 on Maya's article on accessibility in remote teams https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/blog/enabling-remote-accessibility Thanks also to Teresa for her contribution to our discussion of the article on the health dangers of hot desking: https://twitter.com/teresamdouglas/status/1120413880289771521 And finally, Pilar reminds us that loneliness is not always the result of a lack of human contact: "I’m never lonely when I’m on my own, but I feel lonely when I’m with people I don’t connect with." And thanks to Brie for her interaction too! https://twitter.com/PilarOrti/status/1123649055542927366

21st century work-life has many differences from the traditional paradigm, and one of these differences is the many ways we can use technology to make our work visible to others.  Even when we’re working remotely the internet can remove the walls, and we can decide consciously whether and at what point our work will be of value to others if we choose to share it.  It’s all about visible teamwork – and the way this has evolved from ‘working out loud’, to become something far more deliberate and conscious. We are used to this as an internal concept, how we share with one another (and we’ll explore this in far greater detail when we bring you our special series on ‘Thinking Remote’ and our upcoming training course). But what about how we share publicly, when our sharing becomes part of our brand expression and content dissemination? Even when we’re recording our podcast, we’re talking about our work with an awareness that there’s an audience, a third party to the conversation, which brings qualitative difference