Jessica Lipnack our Special Guest on the Next “Talking About Tomorrow” conversation on February 14

/in , /by

The next “Talking About Tomorrow” open mike conversation will be on Thursday, February 14, at 9 AM Pacific time. Participation is free but advance registration is required.

[Update as of February 1; this event is already oversubscribed. However, we will be happy to put you on a waiting list in case any current registrants have to cancel. And we will be holding another conversation – with another guest – on March 21]

And I am thrilled to announce that our special guest for the day will be Jessica Lipnack, the CEO  of NetAge. [continue reading...]

What are the best examples you know of workplace innovation?

/3 Comments/in , , , , , , , /by

There are two things we know for sure about the future of work:

  1. It will be more distributed and mobile; and
  2. It will be more collaborative

Those two trends create some interesting and important tensions; they are not incompatible, but they do point in different directions.

I’m gathering examples of innovative workplaces and work programs for a talk I’ll be delivering in March to a group of senior workplace executives. [continue reading...]

Is the Future of Work Focused on Staying Home?

/2 Comments/in , , , , /by

I was recently asked a question that I hear all too often:

You have been studying today’s most favored methods of working for many years. What are the big headlines about that? Just where are we going? Or rather, are we all going to stay home and work from there all the time ?

No, we’re not all going to “cocoon” and never leave our home offices! [continue reading...]

Mobile Workforce Survey 2012

/1 Comment/in , , , , /by

We are pleased to announce that the Executive Summary of our 2012 Mobile Workforce Survey is now available for free at this link:

http://thefutureofwork.net/assets/Mobile_Workforce_Survey2012_Exec_Summary_Final.pdf

The survey was conducted over the last several months; it reflects the work patterns and preferences of over 200 mobile professionals and managers.

Here are the basic headlines:

  • Mobile work is the new normal.
  • Work is collaborative.
[continue reading...]

The 2012 Workforce Mobility Survey

/8 Comments/in , , , /by

How often do you work outside of your office (e.g., in a café, at home, or at other off-site locations)? Chances are you are not tied to your desk 100% of the time even if you go to a corporate office every day. We all know that the nature of work, including where and when it gets done, is changing dramatically. [continue reading...]

Great Story About Distributed Work in the Financial Times

/in , , /by

FT Logo imageI was thrilled today to discover that Maija Palmer’s latest article about the “new world of work” in The Financial Times actually uses me as a case study.

You can read the story (“So Near and Yet So Far“) online at this link:

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/57387a98-58d6-11e1-b9c6-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1nnLTUqqX

(free registration is required to access the article)

The story is actually about the new venture I’m working on with partners Paul Carder (based in the UK) and Marcus Bowen (in Hong Kong).

Read more

Have we gone too far with “open office” landscapes?

/1 Comment/in , , /by

What’s the right mix of private space and collaborative space in an office? Does organizational creativity go up or down when the workforce is distributed? These are critical workplace strategy questions…and the answers may not be what you think, or what the “conventional wisdom” suggests.

Susan Cain, author of the forthcoming book  Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, thinks organizations today have put too much emphasis on collaboration and not enough on solitude as a source of innovation and creativity.

Her article, “The Rise of the New Groupthink,” which appeared in the New York Times on January 15, is a must-read for all workplace professionals. In it she suggests that the modern-day emphasis on teams, teamwork, and collaboration spaces may actually be hurting organizational innovation. She makes a strong argument that we should be providing more private space, and time, for individual innovators to work “in solitude.”

Read more

Please contribute to a survey on working from home

/in /by

Kate Lister, from the Telework Research Network, has asked me to help circulate the news about an important survey of telecommuters/home workers.

The 8-10 minute web-based instrument was developed by Solomon Nyaanga, a professor at U.C. Berkeley and a PhD candidate from the Stevens Institute of Technology. Your answers to the questions in the survey will offer new insights into who’s actually telecommuting, how often they’re doing it, their attitudes about their jobs – often the most contentious subject of teleworker productivity – and much more. [continue reading...]

White Paper: “Flexible Work: Rhetoric and Reality”

/in , , , , , , , /by

[click here to download a pdf version of the full report]

White paper sponsored and originally published by Citrix Online in December 2011

FlexibleWork Rhetoric and Reality

Old habits die hard. Even with all the hype, publicity, and discussion about how we’re now living in a world where people can work “any time, any place,” our research suggests that reality for many knowledge workers continues to lag well behind that vision of ultimate workplace flexibility. [continue reading...]

White Paper: “The Future of Business Collaboration”

/in , , , , , , , , , /by

[click here to download a pdf version of the full report]

Sponsored by Citrix Online; published in November 2011

The Future of Business Collaboration

There are two things we know without question about the future of work:  it will require significantly more collaboration, and it will be dramatically more distributed. But what really matters is that these two trends are in direct conflict with each other. [continue reading...]