21st Century Work Life

To mix things up from our usual magazine format we have just one long substantive interview for you today, where we really dig into the detail about how one organisation manages their communications using Slack. We’re sure you’ll find it interesting to go really in-depth into this example, and reflect on how you select and use tools within your own organisation. And a quick shout out to listener Stephan for recommending our show to someone on Twitter, and in turn we recommend an episode in the show Reasons to be Cheerful, episode 55, (https://pca.st/0IN0) where they interview the founder of Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand, where they have been experimenting with the four day week (which we mentioned in episode 179 https://virtualnotdistant.squarespace.com/podcasts/values-driven-culture but didn’t talk to them directly). Why not let us know what you think, we’re easy to reach on Twitter, either @PilarOrti or @Virtualteamw0rk Meantime, on with the great big chat: 08.25 Voice behind the blog: Jamon Holmgren Jamon is the cofounder and CTO of Infinite Red https://infinite.red/, and author of the post “5 Slack Channels Every Company Needs.” https://shift.infinite.red/5-slack-channels-every-company-needs-dd0f103e0f9d With a team of 25 fully remote colleagues, Infinite Red have been building apps since forming from a merger in 2005. (We interviewed Gant Laborde earlier this year https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/wlp174-problem-with-remote-work about a great blog post he also shared with the world).  But Jamon remains conscious that their setup is unusual, that society is still not ready for remote universally – something those of us immersed in this space can easily overlook. So they had to find their own ways of getting things done, as they created their team and found ways to collaborate effectively. Infinite Red use Slack very extensively to segment their conversations, through channels which evolve organically (and get archived after use), and also guest channels for external collaborators - in fact, they insist that their clients use Slack, as part of their terms of operation, either in shared workspaces or via guest channels. Jamon and Pilar discuss how in a larger team, Slack can evolve from being an asynchronous collaboration platform to more of a real-time communication tool, with higher expectation in terms of response time. To manage this requires some forethought and alignment of expectations, such as use of threading to control the signal to noise ratio, especially in important channels – whilst other channels can fill the need for more casual chat. For Infinite Red this led to the creation of the 5 channels which were the subject of the blog post in question: 20.56 The 5 Channels Roll call: For checking in, rather than checking up on, saying “hi” when you arrive at the office. They use it for really brief greetings and signalling - it’s a little more personal and connected than just indicating through your status when you are working or not, or popping out for lunch or into a meeting. It creates a good snapshot of where everyone is at at any given moment, particularly in a team spanning multiple timezones. Kudos: For recognising the accomplishments of co-workers, in as authentic a way as possible. A good way to make different aspects of the work visible across the organisation (though private praise matters too). They also use to reward effort and endurance as well as obviously positive outcomes, and try to keep it spontaneous and genuine. Chitchat + Funny: These are actually two channels at Infinite Red, split from the default Slack ‘Random’ channel. Separating them in this way allows all employees join in chat without needing to dive down the rabbit-hole of memes and GIFs (and some ultra-geeky stuff that is really only funny to developers anyway) - and recognises that people bond over different kinds of content and humour. Announcements: Some things need a destination of their own, things which have an impact on the company as a whole: team updates, role changes, policies etc. Responses in here should be threaded, to allow for rapid skimming and updating of these important messages, without diving into the discussion of it. They advise everyone to have visible alerts for this channel, and people can check-off that they’ve read each item with an appropriate emoji.  Scheduling: For longer term scheduling type topics, eg discussing planned absences and use of shared resources, they have this dedicated channel for “determining how we’re going to spend our time as a company”. So as well as syncing plans, they work out loud at a high altitude in here - stating what they’re working on in any given week, to create that overview of the big picture for everyone on the team to see. Jamon recognises that he is the power user and evangelist when it comes to Slack, and that perhaps every team needs one, to keep the channel usages on track and consistent (whilst also being dynamic and evolving), leading by example at all times. Of course they do have other channels - so be sure to check out the article!   42.40 Podcast Pilar and Jamon also discuss the podcast, Building Infinite Red https://building.infinite.red/ This project enables Jamon and his co-founders to work on something cool together outside of their client work, and share and reflect upon what they’re doing and how they make decisions. It lets them be quite straightforward and authentic, and develop their thinking out loud together – in the spirit of podcasting, as a conversation between people in a synergistic and fun way to evolve creativity. Season 2 launches soon (but there are already 13 to get stuck into from last time). Thanks Gant Laborde for tipping us off to this one.   47:25 Academy Finally, we also discuss their Academy.   It’s in Infinite Red’s DNA to share their learning with the world, as they’re all from an open source background. So the Academy offers online and on-site workshops and on-demand resources, and it’s all based on things they have tried and tested and used with their own clients acadmey.infinite.red  They also teach workshops at conferences  https://twitter.com/jamonholmgren (especially if you like jokes, apparently) Jamon@infinite.red            

A bit of a different show for you today. We share a glimpse behind the curtain, in the production of the 21st Century Work Life podcast, and also tell you about our new in-house podcasting service. 3.08 Helping organisations create their own podcast. Having an in-house podcast not only shares information and updates, it’s a great way to ensure continuity in connectedness and communications, making sure the teamwork flows at every level. It’s especially helpful when transitioning to a more flexible way of working.  It helps everyone learn about each other’s roles, and how we all respond to the same challenges and issues at work. And whilst there can be barriers to approaching people to chat for the first time over purely online tools, if you’ve heard that person’s voice it can really help with overcoming that.  Speaking is so much more rich and intimate than a typed chat message, and a podcast is also a great way to learn and keep up with information from the organisation, without always sitting in front of a screen. With help from Virtual Not Distant – at any level from initial consultation through to full management and production – you can easily design and create your unique in-house radio show.  (And if Maya can launch the Crypto Confidence Podcast https://www.blocksparks.io/category/podcast/, this is proof that anyone can learn this stuff and get it done. Not an in-house show, so if you’re curious about blockchain or cryptocurrency stuff, or Maya’s “other hat”, then do check it out) BTW special hats are not essential for creating YOUR podcast, and the entry-level hardware and software is very accessible. We’ll help you every step of the way. Learn more here. https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/inhouse-podcast/    15.20 Learning Out Loud – Creating a Podcast For Your Team If you really want to learn something, or simply to grow as a team and create something together, then why not make a podcast about it?  Sharing the process, improvising, having a go… It’s a great experience, and you can do it entirely remotely or in a colocated space, as you choose. The process of planning and chunking your content, of structuring the episodes and putting it all together, is incredibly insightful. And at the end of it, you’ll have a set of episodes you can use for training, on-boarding, or presenting your work externally. And of course Virtual Not Distant will be there for everything, from facilitating the initial discussion to helping you produce and share it however you like. Find out more! https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/learning-out-loud   24.40 Behind the Scenes: How We Create The 21st Century Work Life Podcast In this segment we are joined by Ross Winter, our very own Podcast Polisher, who helps us sound at our best every time. https://podcastpolishing.com/ As we’re all in different countries, we work through Trello, sharing checklists and links to content, so we all know what our different roles and deadlines are.  And once the recordings are in, Ross does his thing – cleaning up the audio and adjusting the levels, making sure we all sound like we’re in the same conversation. He gets rid of our clips and clicks, our hisses and pops, to make it all sound professional. And he also magics away the background noise, that always happens however carefully you prepare the environment – every room has echoes and reverb, laptops have fans, and so on. It makes the sound a lot cleaner and sharper, once all this is removed. Once he’s finally cleaned it all up, he can compile the episode itself, from all the different recordings and music/effects, mixing and editing to put it all together and create the finished podcast. It all ends up a single audio file which Maya then listens back to, in order to create the shownotes (that’s what you’re reading now).  Rather than a transcript, these are intended to act as a kind of teaser for the show, as what we really want you to do is listen – for all the reasons above, the podcast itself is the aim of the game. It also has to work as a standalone bit of content for itself. We make sure those notes are tagged into the podcast syndication tool, as well as published on this website, for the date the podcast goes live. 52.27 Recommended tool: Alitu We welcome Colin Grey, to introduce this great tool for getting started with podcasting. Alitu https://alitu.com sounds like ‘Ross-as-a-service’  – an automated way of transforming your raw audio into a clean and podcast-ready file. Not everyone wants to learn to edit and produce their episodes, nor invest in professional outsourcing. And now there is a middle ground, which can help make podcasting truly accessible and affordable to anyone - you just need to get your content out of your mouth, and into a mic! Alitu will then do all the work to convert it to a finished show, even uploading it to your host of choice. Colin also runs thepodcasthost.com, where he teaches podcasting, from all the geeky technical stuff to extensive resources to help people learn about podcasting from choosing equipment to planning a schedule. There’s a free newsletter and a ton of great resources, so if you’re curious about this space at all, do check it out! @thepodcasthost          

Pilar shares her thoughts after attending a "jamming session" in London with other facilitators.  Reflections on how much to control the flow of conversation, the different expectations from an "online session", the imbalance that can occur between participants, moving the responsibility onto participants for staying engaged (if they want to be engaged!) and knowing why we're recording a session.  Let us know your thoughts over at www.virtualnotdistant.com

A packed show today, where we look at some of the issues concerned with leading and connecting over distances – as we must in the virtual workplace. Stay tuned for further developments, including our powerful new tool for ‘learning out loud’ – developing a team podcast together. Meanwhile, on with our own podcast! 3.07 The Voice Behind the Book: Kevin Eikenberry, The Long Distance Leader rules for remarkable remote leadership (coauthored with Wayne Turmel) Kevin and Wayne have been in the leadership business for 25 years (congratulations on the milestone anniversary!) – so they’ve seen many changes, in the way the workplace looks and feels. Acknowledging that some very senior people are now having to lead in a very new environment, where they don’t see their teams all the time, they wrote the book to explore the new skills and techniques this world demands… Whilst affirming that leadership in essence has not changed. Kevin walks the talk, his hybrid team is spread across the US, rarely all meeting in person. He and Wayne collaborated remotely on the book too.  And of course their work with clients is all remote, enabling them to identify common areas of conscious and unconscious incompetence in the remote leadership space.  Some great insights in this interview, about how we model everything as leaders, from use of technology to intentional communication.  Kevin has many new projects in the pipeline, so watch this space! Kevineikenberry.com, remoteleadershipinstitute.com –  ‘if you can spell my name, you can find me online’. 29.01 Recommended Tool: Proposify Maya’s latest shiny thing, is a tool for creating proposals. A bespoke app for compiling costs and deliverables quickly and effectively, and making them look nice.  Lots of great templates, but they’re fully customisable It’s a premium browser-based application with user access control, it also offers tracking and analytics – so you can see if your client has opened the document, even how long they spent on each section. And it has signature boxes, so you can use it for contracts and agreements – which would work well for internal use too. A final bonus is really good quality customer support. This tool does have a learning curve, but they do help you to get the most out of it.  Https://proposify.com   34.33 Oh No, My Team’s Gone Remote - How will team members know I value them? Appreciation can be hard to squeeze in to a busy and productive work environment. We manage what we can measure – outputs, sales, milestones… So the softer indicators of a thriving professional environment, such as pride and respect and affection, can get overlooked. Even in a colocated team, gratitude and acknowledgement might get squeezed into little looks and moments – and these can be too easily omitted from the kind of tools we use to get things done online. If you make them a part of your regular practice of ‘working out loud’, they’ll become part of your working day more naturally – check out  https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/wlp170-working-out-loud  For more on the implications of this. In this reflective piece, Pilar shares some practical ideas for making use of remote collaboration tools to express thanks, publicly and privately, for a job well done – and all that our remote colleagues bring to our working day. For more on this check out: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/blog/appreciation-in-virtual-teams And the tool, Canva, which Pilar recommends for creating visual ‘thank you notes’, is something we explored more fully here: https://virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/wlp173-publishing-books Please tell us what you think, why not tweet us at @Virtualteamw0rk and share your thoughts.     

Transitioning to an office-optional approach, creates new opportunities for everyone to contribute – including the vast talent potential on offer from people with disabilities.  Let us know what you think about this important topic, @Virtualteamw0rk, or our contact form https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us/  05.08 Interview: Jane Hatton, Evenbreak  Jane is the founder and director of Evenbreak, a job board founded in 2011 specialising in matching talented disabled candidates with inclusive employers.  In 2018 it remains twice as hard for a disabled person to find a job, as a non-disabled person – so Evenbreak are working hard to narrow that gap.  Being a small social enterprise employing only disabled people themselves in a team distributed all over the UK, they work with many large UK employers - who are able to attract candidates they might not reach via any other means, but also position themselves effectively as inclusive hirers.  They also work hard at education on both sides, making sure disabled people know about the potential opportunities, but also that employers appreciate the wealth of skills and resourcefulness evident in the disabled community. Jane’s book  "A Dozen Brilliant Reasons to Employ Disabled People" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brilliant-Reasons-Employ-Disabled-People-ebook/dp/B077YBF66J helps organisations start to appreciate everything disabled people have to offer. Our interview also discusses changes in apps and assistive technology, such as voice recognition tools like Dragon, which are helping to level the playing field for colleagues with disabilities. And of course we look at the role of truly flexible working in helping everyone access the right professional role –whatever their needs and abilities. Getting the culture right from the leadership level, is what is needed – to ensure motivated, productive wellbeing throughout an organisation.   Connect with Jane Hatton: Janeh@evenbreak.co.uk, Evenbreak.co.uk, 0845 658 5717   33.57 Recommended Tool: Mindmeister There are many mindmapping tools out there just now, and Maya has experimented with a lot of them – and right now she is spending a lot of time in Mindmeister https://www.mindmeister.com/, a good browser-based tool, that is good for collaboration. It has simple intuitive tools too – a mindmapping tool shouldn’t create any friction, just let you think out loud, and get down thoughts as they flow, so it’s important that the tool itself doesn’t get in the way. You can get more fancy with adding links and notes, but for quick brainstorming it’s easy to get started. And there are nice mobile apps too – it’s great on the iPad.  It also integrates with Meistertask, if you want to use it to assign to-dos and get creatively beyond ‘the list’ to generate your ideas (this can be liberating for writing types especially!)  Those integrations are paid options, but the free version lets you do quite a lot, and get a feel for whether it supports your own work.   38.06 Oh No, My Team’s Gone Remote! How are we going to cope with all this change? Change is hard for human beings -  in energy and time. And it affects different people in different ways, leading to a complex ‘emotional cocktail’. Concentrating on all the new things to do, as we transition to an office-optional way of working, can mean we forget to consider: what do we want to keep?  What is important to each of us about how we work and collaborate and relate to one another, that we want to ensure we don’t leave behind?  And what might we decide to STOP doing?  Being conscious about what we want, let’s us try out new things and create new rhythms for ourselves and our teams, instead of letting too much be emergent and unplanned. Remember that fear of change, is often worse than the change itself. Don't forget to let us know what you think.  https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us/  

Today’s episode brings you just two in-depth sections – we like to mix things up for you, and some subjects deserve a deeper dive. So we’re pairing a great interview about culture in a distributed organisation, with a discussion about the time we spend at work. What do you think about the format? Please tell us, in our listener survey! https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/hello 04:35 Work-life: Interview Robert Glazer Robert is the founder and CEO of Acceleration Partners, the global independent affiliate management /performance marketing agency.  Their business is ranked by Glassdoor on the 2018 Employees’ Choice Awards honoring the Best Places to Work for U.S. small and medium size businesses,  and in June, just before our interview, was named #2 top CEO for SMEs in the US!  His team made a very touching video testimonial as part of this: https://www.accelerationpartners.com/blog/robert-glazer-ranked-2-on-glassdoors-highest-rated-ceos-list.  His take on distributed teams and local hubs was fascinating, and the win-win for team lifestyle needs meeting the business case for addressing client needs, makes total sense.  It was also really insightful to learn about their hiring and onboarding process – refined over 10 years – for recruiting great new colleagues and bringing them into the team with systematic intentionality, when you can’t rely on some of the ‘osmotic’ processes which happen in the colocated space. He has written about how their core values drive hiring and contractor choices, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-create-positive-environment-so-employees-can-prosper-glazer/, and he attributes much of their success to living their core values – and cutting them down from 7 to the really fundamental 3: Own it Excel and improve Embrace relationships Find out how they use them in every stage of management, and also how Robert’s personal values inform and are fully congruent with those of the organisation he leads, and then you can also check out their leadership tools such as Friday Forward http://www.fridayfwd.com/ (weekly newsletter avaialble), and his own site https://www.robertglazer.com/, where updates for the new book (working title: ‘Outperform: building capacity in yourself and others’) will be forthcoming. You can also read what Entrepreneur.com thought of Acceleration Partners https://www-entrepreneur-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.entrepreneur.com/amphtml/317460 and Harvard Business Partners https://hbr.org/2017/09/as-your-company-evolves-what-happens-to-employees-who-dont.   33.15 Discussion: time at work – international experiments Long-hours culture is broadly acknowledged as a bad thing, but different organisations around the world are looking at different ways to shake this up. Japanese executives are being encouraged to take a lie-in on ONE morning a month – ‘shining Mondays’ – a government initiative, being trialed with public sector employees… In a country where ‘death by overwork’ has its own word. Let’s hope this carries over into the wider working environment too – but uptake of this and similar initiatives seems to demand broader cultural change, in a country where people can get fined for taking 3 minutes extra over lunch… And in Australia and New Zealand, experiments with 4 day work weeks are yielding great results – when people have the freedom to get their work done in a more compact working week, their stress reduces and productivity increases. Closer to home, in Sweden – they’re looking at compressing into a 6 hour day: creating shorter shifts for hands-on nursing care, one industry where this really does cost the employer more directly in more shifts… But being offset by more preparation work, and less sickness absence, as well as public sector gains like job creation. The article was inconclusive in the end - but I know I’d rather be cared for by a nurse who has had enough rest first.   Links: https://www.eurofound.europa.eu/publications/report/2017/working-anytime-anywhere-the-effects-on-the-world-of-work https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/aug/03/japan-overworked-employees-monday-mornings-off https://www.sciencealert.com/this-4-day-work-week-experiment-went-so-well-company-keeping-it-perpetual-guardian-engagement-balance https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38843341    

This week the tide is turning. We're talking ‘bout a revolution – bring on remote work! It’s making the world a better place. Don’t forget to tell us what you think, at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/hello - and we really enjoyed your feedback on the previous episode, continuing the great ‘home-workers dress code’ debate… Are you Team Pyjamas, or vehemently opposed to such a travesty?  Have your say – Tweet us with your views, (but please do fill in the survey too!) As online meetings are such a vital part of working from anywhere, we talk about that too, reflecting a great discussion at Virtual Team Talk – where we cover everything from tools to tech to body language.  What do you think? 12:57 The Voice Behind The Book: John Elston John Elston is the author of The Remote Revolution (and has joined us before to talk about gig teams). The subtitle of the book is “How the Location-Independent Workforce Changes the Way We Hire, Connect, and Succeed”, which John felt better resonated with the values and content of his writing, and speaking directly to the decision-makers in work location policy – to help them identify the qualities of a great remote employee. John has truly walked-the-talk as a location-independent team member, drawing inspiration from the rich variety of places he has lived and worked for decades. He shares his journey through the practicalities, the concerns and the pace of change… And how 21st century workers can leverage this to create a work-life style unique to them, whether that means telecommuting from a home office or travelling the world.  Being truly nomadic is not for everybody – but knowing who you are and what you need for personal fulfillment, has a deep impact on what you bring to your work.  And he reminds us clearly that none of this should scare the HR department either – because when you liberate your teams to take responsibility for their own choice of workplace, you are rewarded by loyalty, synergy, and productiveness. Drawing on his own experience of this epiphany as a CEO illustrates the transition very powerfully, the kind of transitions that we work through with our consultancy clients at Virtual Not Distant. https://www.johnelston.com/ (John also references Basecamp’s Jason Fried’s classic work in this space, “Remote”) 38:44 Recommended tool: Zoom How would we manage at Virtual Not Distant, without Zoom? Well, we’d use another video meeting tool, there are many out there, but we love Zoom for some of its unique features: Firstly breakout rooms, really help mirror the face to face experience when delivering workshops – it’s great to be able to put people together in groups and switch up the energy. The ‘hide yourself’ feature is also cool – we don’t usually sit in meetings with colleagues in front of a large mirror! So the ability to hide your own camera feed whilst talking to others, is a nice touch. Overall, it’s just a nice easy user experience, where everything simply works, smoothly and intuitively. A typical freemium model, but, you get all the features right out of the box for shorter meetings – you only pay when you want to use it for longer. No, we aren’t sponsored by Zoom either! We just know what we like. https://zoom.us/  43.23 Oh, No! My Team’s Gone Remote! And once everyone starts to work from anywhere, it's going to be a disaster… Does the idea of ‘working from anywhere’ conjure up all sorts of concerns, from concentration to communication?  Will we get too dispersed and fragmented, and as a manager will that mean a lack of control? Perhaps there’s an underlying sense that, to be a true “remote revolutionary”, you should be able to do any kind of work, from any location, at any time… but choice can be daunting: Where should I do my work today? That’s already used up some of my concentration and decision-making bandwidth. But the reality is that transitioning to an office-optional work policy is all about finding the best fit, for each individual, in terms of how people can best do their work. We talked about this back in episode 169 Asking whether your task needs concentration, contemplation, communication and collaboration might help (along with this blog post)  

Pilar is taking flexible working to the shores of Eastern Spain this week! A good viewpoint from which to reflect on facilitation, and the differences involved in this practice, from training and coaching. We hope you agree, and we’re always curious to hear your feedback, but right now we’re asking you about it especially in a survey – please could you spare 5 minutes, to check out http://virtualnotdistant.com/hello.   07.12 21st Century Work-life: Andi Roberts PCC, CPF The letters after Andi’s name stand for Professional Certificate of Coaching, and Certified Professional Facilitator (Pilar met Andi at an International Association of Facilitators meeting – so the networking is great, in these supportive professional communities, but more importantly they benchmark competencies and experience in both cases).  He explains that the expertise of the facilitator is to manage the process, of the meeting or project – not to be a subject matter expert, but to really understand and make the most of the human dynamics. His skills in training and coaching are valuable to combine and offer in combination, to ensure a client’s complex needs are comprehensively addressed.  Listening, asking powerful questions, and knowing how to give feedback, are overlapping skills which can be engaged. Andi has some great reflections about the different attributes of online and face to face facilitation engagements, and how to plan and make the most of hybrid projects – supporting change management over time, and making flexible use of emerging collaboration tools.  We also really enjoyed his thoughts about how leaders grow and develop changing skillsets within a team, and how the facilitation and coaching needs evolve with those different levels. Check out Andi’s website at http://masterfacilitator.com/, and especially the Leadership Development model at http://masterfacilitator.com/leadership-development/. And of course you can connect with Andi at https://twitter.com/andi_roberts, where he is very active and engaged, demonstrating amazing networking skills in the new economy. You can also explore the organisations behind Andi’s professional accreditations here: https://www.iaf-world.org/site/ and https://www.coachfederation.org.uk/.    27.09 The Voice Behind The Blog, Richard Chapman https://thefieldoffacilitation.wordpress.com/about/.  Richard recorded this segment for us to introduce the excellent set of resources he has created and shared on his blog, The Field of Facilitation, based on his more than 20 years of experience working with teams. This comprehensive toolset is free to use under creative commons licence, reflecting Richard’s passionate belief in the importance of effective conversation and conversation to drive change, and the vital role of facilitation in enabling this. It is a dynamic resource, and Richard welcomes feedback and suggestions to keep it updated and valuable to the community.   30-32  Article review: The First Rule of Working from Home: Never Wear Pyjamas!   https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2018/apr/11/rules-working-from-home-never-wear-pyjamas Maya and Pilar discuss this article from a fashion(!) editor at The Guardian… Whilst overlooking the mild irritation at the way working from home still has to be singled out as quirky and strange – even requiring its own dress code and instructions apparently – we enjoyed chuckling over this article, especially the lady who puts on party dresses to work from home to make herself happy. Because, why not! The reality here at Virtual Not Distant is often more ‘webcam smart’ – as formal as you need to be from middle up! But of all the things to think about when planning an office-optional approach, this is probably not a big deal to get hung up about.

Really connecting with our core consulting work at Virtual Not Distant, today is all about virtual teams – we talk about the idea of ‘virtual distance’, and how there are many ways that distance and closeness can be created. Also coming soon, look out for Pilar’s book, Online Meetings that R.O.C.K. – expanded and advanced and taking longer than expected due to fantastic insightful feedback from beta readers, find out what changed about the ‘C’! It’s going to be worth the wait. 07.15 What do you mean by that: Virtual Distance, with Dr Karen Lojeski  We really enjoyed this conversation with Karen Lojeski, founder and CEO of Virtual Distance International, and author of The New Rules of the Virtual Workplace. Virtual Distance describes what gets lost, when the human is translated through a machine. Karen’s original research found out that this could be measured and understood – and that it definitely impacts on relationships and collaborations to a measurable extent. But it is NOT dependent purely on physical distance – that is merely one dimension in a complex system, involving operational and affinity distance as well.  When virtual distance is high we damage innovation, trust and performance. And it doesn’t only apply at work… After all these are human factors, the technology is much less important. As Karen explains, "We often mix up the notion of the computer as a tool with the computer as somehow being smarter than the person and it just couldn't be further from the truth."  We are so much more complex and significant and interesting, the machines don’t come close. Check out both of Karen’s inspiring books on virtual team leadership.   39.05 Recommended tools: Voicedream A little while ago in episode 173 we discussed the medical affliction we affectionately described as ‘homeworkers bum’, a syndrome exacerbated by work which involves lots of reading and research.  It’s not easy to read whilst doing anything but sitting down, but Voicedream is an app which reads written text aloud. It’s not perfectly ‘human’ of course, but this is a technology which is rapidly evolving and will surely improve. But for now this is a nice app which can sync with Pocket (which we discussed in episode 172), so it helps you get through your reading queue more quickly, even when you’re out for a walk.   42.36 Oh No, my team’s gone remote, and I know we’ll grow more distant, but I don’t know how! Instead of our usual talking head format, Pilar gives us a little exercise to complete, to help us plan or reflect upon the virtual distances within our teams – and perhaps lead to improvements in how you work together. Here’s the diagram you will need, to work through the exercise whilst thinking about YOUR team.  You can find Pilar’s diagram for this at https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/virtual-distance. How do the different expectations and behaviours impact on your work, and how interdependent are your activities? You can score yourself on the many different dimensions of virtual distance, to see how you’re doing. If you do this as individuals within a team, how do your ratings compare? How do you think they will evolve over time, if you are transitioning to new ways of working? And can you see how little of the whole picture has to do with physical distance? Remember to review, reflect and learn, from your exercise into virtual distance. Please let us know how it went for you, and make sure you’re subscribed for future episodes.  

In today’s busy episode we look at the networks and constellations that surround us in our work, the human kind and the virtual respectively. Some great guests and conversations come your way, as we connect with unique expertise in the remote working space.   And special thanks to previous guest Gant Laborde for sending us some great new connections, as well his own podcast Building Infinite Red - we love to hear your feedback, so please connect with us over at Virtual Not Distant! 3.04 The Voice Behind the Book – David Burkus It’s always a pleasure to talk with David Burkus, award-winning speaker, business school professor, and author of “ Friend of a Friend: Understanding the Hidden Networks that Will Transform Your Life and Your Career”. David is an old friend of this podcast, and joined us back in episode 137. His latest book looks at the fundamental principles of network science, based on 50 years of experimental evidence, to analyse universal truths you can make use of in any setting. It’s definitely not yet another book about how to ‘do’ networking – but by better understanding the principles in play, you can enrich the way you connect with others and grow your social capital, whilst maintaining authenticity in your interpersonal relationships. And as we keep saying, it’s not about the platform or the tool – but you can use various modes of technology to supplement your networking. Getting out of your comfort zone matters too – truly effective networking is always unscripted. Finally, you need to know that David is a past master at networking a book launch, building a great marketing ecosystem and bonus product selection around the content, and being very clear about how people will benefit from it. (Sign up on the title link above, to observe this in action). And as he does point out, writing a book about networking is a great way to grow your network! Make sure you check out David’s website for more information, and his TEDx talk, ‘How to Hack Networking’.   27.17 Satellite, Cluster and Nebula Teams: What do you mean by that? And again it’s great to welcome another returning guest (from episodes 77 95 and 117!); our good friend from Virtual Team Talk Mark Kilby is an agile coach and author, and explains he needed better ways of describing different configurations of team set-up. Satellite teams revolve around a central hub – like a main office, where most are colocated. Clusters happen in larger organisations, with groups coalescing in different locations. Clusters may be near (perhaps even by floors in a building), or far distant from each other, perhaps by many time zones. Nebulas are truly out in space – genuinely diffuse clouds of people, remote, collaborating and communicating completely virtually. Mark and Joanna Rothman will explain more in their upcoming book “From Chaos to Successful Distributed Agile Teams”, and we’ll welcome then back to be future ‘voices behind the book’ to hear more.   33.19 Tools: Linoit Lino.it is one of the simplest online planning tools, completely browser-based and no account necessary (though there is a mobile app). The beauty is in just being able to share a link and have everyone jump in and start collaborating. It’s very simple and frictionless to use. It’s great for brainstorming, thought-dumping, idea capture – using virtual post-it notes, which you can move and pin and cluster at will, with intuitive drag-and-drop ease. And it’s free – what’s not to like? 36.10 Oh no, my team’s gone remote... And I’m afraid we’ll lose visibility within the organisation! Just as it’s important to stay visible to each other as you transition to an office-optional setting, you may also need to initiate and engineer opportunities for connection and collaboration between your team and the rest of the organisation, indeed, your wider industry and world.  You can become more conscious of your networks and connections, and use the tools and opportunities you’re given, both to make your own team’s activities visible, but also to pick up on what else is going on, and further potential for collaboration.  How can you map your network, and see who is already connected to whom, formally or informally? As with much in the remote working world, intentionality is important. It’s all about relationships and networking after all. Celebrate your accomplishments, intentionally bridge the distances, and keep your networks and constellations strong.