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  14. <title>E L S U A ~ A blog by Luis Suarez</title>
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  16. <link>https://www.elsua.net</link>
  17. <description>A blog about working smarter, not necessarily harder, through social networking, digital technologies</description>
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  34. <title>Myth Busting &#8211; Does Office Small Talk Really Matter while Working Remote / Distributed?</title>
  35. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/10/03/myth-busting-does-office-small-talk-really-matter-while-working-remote-distributed/</link>
  36. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/10/03/myth-busting-does-office-small-talk-really-matter-while-working-remote-distributed/#comments</comments>
  38. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  39. <pubDate>Mon, 03 Oct 2022 16:48:07 +0000</pubDate>
  40. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  41. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  42. <category><![CDATA[Employee Engagement]]></category>
  43. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  44. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Management]]></category>
  45. <category><![CDATA[Learning]]></category>
  46. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  47. <category><![CDATA[Open Leadership]]></category>
  48. <category><![CDATA[Personal KM]]></category>
  49. <category><![CDATA[#socbiz]]></category>
  50. <category><![CDATA[distributed-work]]></category>
  51. <category><![CDATA[hybrid-workplace]]></category>
  52. <category><![CDATA[relationships]]></category>
  53. <category><![CDATA[remote-work]]></category>
  54. <category><![CDATA[social-capital]]></category>
  55. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3974</guid>
  56.  
  57. <description><![CDATA[Apparently, it does, but then again it may well be another myth that needs some busting when talking about the impact of remote / distributed work in shifting plenty of our mental models, behaviours and habits in terms of how work does happen nowadays. You see? Small talk hasn’t always had a good reputation. In &#8230;]]></description>
  58. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52331854654/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" style="float: left;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52331854654_a01ec9539a_z.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" width="640" height="480" /></a><br />
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  60. Apparently, <a href="https://ugmconsulting.com/why-small-talk-is-a-big-deal-in-the-hybrid-workplace/"><em>it does</em></a>, but then again it may well be another myth that needs some busting when talking about the impact of remote / distributed work in shifting plenty of our mental models, behaviours and habits in terms of how work does happen nowadays. You see? Small talk hasn’t always had a good <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/spare-yourself-from-tedious-small-talk-1495551562">reputation</a>. In fact, quite the contrary, it’s been considered a bit of <a href="https://hbr.org/2017/07/small-talk-is-an-overrated-way-to-build-relationships-with-your-employees">a drag</a>, to the point of having <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90477552/ive-worked-from-home-for-almost-20-years-these-6-tips-make-it-awesome">its own issues</a>, specially, in this so-called <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/05/19/myth-busting-the-hybrid-workplace/">hybrid workplace</a> environment in which we are, <em>literally, working from anywhere</em>. So, why the fuss then, you may be wondering, right?</p>
  61. <p>Why, all of a sudden, over the course of nearly three years now, <em>certain people </em>have been telling us, through different means, mostly mainstream news outlets and media interviews of high profile executives, they are <em>truly</em> missing the small talk while at the office. You know, the chit chat that usually happens just before that meeting starts, or while you are waiting to grab a cup of coffee / tea, or perhaps at the canteen, or even while walking down the corridor for your next appointment. All of that while, in reality, they just keep suffering from <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/06/24/myth-busting-office-vs-remote-distributed-culture/">the 11th floor syndrome</a>.</p>
  62. <p>Do we miss small talk then? Apparently, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/turns-out-we-miss-small-talk-jessica-r-methot/">we do</a>. However, I beg to differ. We miss the fact we no longer converse with our colleagues, as we have moved away from the traditional office. Before we used to do it via osmosis, of all things, nowadays, we are terrified of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mural/2022/01/20/planned-spontaneity-the-paradoxical-solution-for-a-placeless-workplace/"><em>intentionally </em>reaching out</a> to different folks, you know, <em>to just have a chat. </em>Oh dear. What’s happening to us and our <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1454452260348563464">deep conversations</a>? Where did <em>they </em>go? Where did <em>we </em>go?</p>
  63. <p>What’s wrong, seriously? I mean, small talk has got many <a href="https://qz.com/1134958/small-talks-positive-benefits-outweigh-your-fear-of-being-awkward/">benefits</a>, according to different <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/12/201202095156.htm">pieces</a> of <a href="https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1562798551885053952">research</a>, but at the same time it looks like we keep failing at identifying what we really mean with such informal exchanges of information, knowledge and experiences. It’s just as if we can only have small talk when we are all physically co-located, when, if you have been working long enough, either remotely or distributedly, you know that this is definitely not the case.</p>
  64. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
  65. <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Worth noting for virtual work: office small talk really does matter. Causal, dull chitchat fosters connection &amp; increases well-being at work, even though it is often distracting as well. Even people who prefer solitude can benefit. It is worth making time for small talk virtually <a href="https://t.co/KaWNQ1LzEw">pic.twitter.com/KaWNQ1LzEw</a></p>
  66. <p>— Ethan Mollick (@emollick)</p>
  67. <p><a href="https://twitter.com/emollick/status/1562798551885053952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 25, 2022</a></p></blockquote>
  68. <p>Like I was saying, small talk does have a <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/07/stop-asking-how-are-you-harvard-researchers-say-this-is-how-successful-people-make-small-talk.html">massive</a> <a href="https://www.euronews.com/culture/2022/09/05/why-making-more-of-an-effort-to-chit-chat-with-colleagues-can-reap-big-rewards">business value</a> <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/network-effects-how-to-rebuild-social-capital-and-improve-corporate-performance">proposition</a>, from helping you <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2022/07/how-to-fight-zoom-fatigue/670513/">build your own social capital</a> and <a href="https://tedbauer2003.medium.com/wfh-and-the-erosion-of-work-trust-5f004888a443">trust skills</a> within (and beyond!) the organisation, to <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90766622/the-art-of-staying-connected-with-a-remote-workforce-without-constant-meetings">building incredibly powerful networks</a> of both strong and <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/kzmb43/how-small-talk-with-almost-strangers-profoundly-affects-your-happiness">weak ties</a>. One conversation at a time. Yet, we keep getting trapped by the same false narratives, again, instigated by <em>certain people,</em> that try to undermine this brave new-normal of working distributedly that we’ve now both embraced and adapted to.</p>
  69. <p>Whether you’re working from anywhere, or at the traditional office, the truth is <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/03/remote-workers-need-small-talk-too">we all need small talk</a>. No matter how long, or how short, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/aug/31/four-minutes-of-small-talk-can-reveal-key-personality-traits-study-says">we all benefit from it</a>. To the point where I have always strongly believed it’s one of the most powerful <em>tools</em> we have in our possession to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/05/the-big-idea-why-relationships-are-the-key-to-existence">help us strengthen our (personal business) relationships </a>. Yet, why do we keep associating those informal exchanges as only exclusively available at a physical space, usually, an office, even <a href="https://twitter.com/I_Am_NickBloom/status/1565371407348879360">for socialising</a>?</p>
  70. <p>Take, for instance, this recent article published at HBR under the heading &#8216;<a href="https://hbr.org/2022/09/to-get-people-back-in-the-office-make-it-social">To Get People Back in the Office, Make It Social</a>’ with a rather provocative question I thought was while reproducing over here:</p>
  71. <blockquote><p><em>‘[…] So, the question becomes, what is a compelling reason to come into the office? When asked what would motivate them to come into the office, employees had a resounding answer: <strong>social time with coworkers.</strong></em>’ [Emphasis mine]</p></blockquote>
  72. <p>Oh, hold on, it gets better. <em>Much better</em>:</p>
  73. <blockquote><p><em>&#8216;Our latest research at Microsoft reveals the answer may lie in what I believe should be front and center for every leader: reconnecting employees.</em>&#8216;</p></blockquote>
  74. <p>Oh, you didn’t have enough with that one? Let me add another one then, please, if I may:</p>
  75. <blockquote><p><em>&#8216;It’s simple: People care about people.</em>&#8216;</p></blockquote>
  76. <p>Can I cry now? Maybe not. At least, not yet. Perhaps we would need to go through these statements first from the same article:</p>
  77. <blockquote>
  78. <ul>
  79. <li><em>&#8216;85% of employees would be motivated to go into the office to rebuild team bonds.</em></li>
  80. </ul>
  81. </blockquote>
  82. <blockquote>
  83. <ul>
  84. <li><em>84% of employees would be motivated to go into the office if they could socialize with coworkers.</em></li>
  85. </ul>
  86. </blockquote>
  87. <blockquote>
  88. <ul>
  89. <li><em>74% of employees would go to the office more frequently if they knew their “work friends” were there.</em></li>
  90. </ul>
  91. </blockquote>
  92. <blockquote>
  93. <ul>
  94. <li><em>73% of employees would go to the office more frequently if they knew their direct team members would be there.&#8217;</em></li>
  95. </ul>
  96. </blockquote>
  97. <p>Oh, dear, I am done. I can start crying now, ok?</p>
  98. <p>Where the h*ck have people been the last 18 years? I mean, in what other planet have knowledge (Web) workers been living in during all of those years after <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE&amp;t=57s">Web 2.0</a> (<a href="https://www.oreilly.com/pub/a/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html">2004</a>), then <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/3228431_Enterprise_20_The_Dawn_of_Emergent_Collaboration">Enterprise 2.0</a> (2006), then <a href="https://www.beingpeterkim.com/2009/01/social-business.html">Social Business</a> (2009) took the business world by storm? Am I the one who has been living in another planet and I just didn’t know it? Really?</p>
  99. <p>Gosh, I am starting to wonder …</p>
  100. <p>But wait, don’t rush into despair just yet, there is <em>still more</em> coming out of that article:</p>
  101. <blockquote><p><em>&#8216;Leaders need to intentionally use the office to rebuild social capital: the value workers get from their networks, like getting new ideas and inspiration, being able to ask for help or advice, or finding new career growth opportunities. Social capital isn’t a nice-to-have; it’s crucial so that employees can do their best work and organizations can keep innovating. […]&#8217;</em></p></blockquote>
  102. <p>You know where I am heading, don’t you? You know <em>exactly</em> what has been missing so far <em>everyone </em>seems to have been ignoring right from the start. What I haven’t mentioned just yet, what plenty of other people, specially, senior leaders / managers didn&#8217;t even seem to have in their vocabulary, right from the very beginning, because you know, why bother when we all know it will all disappear in just a couple of years from now (=then).</p>
  103. <p>I don’t know about you, but I am about to burst into tears just thinking about all of those <em>wonderful wasted years, </em>while those same executives / senior leaders offer us kindly three ways to lure us all back in the office to <em>get back to work </em>and re-build our social capital:</p>
  104. <blockquote>
  105. <ul>
  106. <li><em>&#8216;Strip away busywork</em></li>
  107. </ul>
  108. </blockquote>
  109. <blockquote>
  110. <ul>
  111. <li><em>Create new in-person rituals</em></li>
  112. </ul>
  113. </blockquote>
  114. <blockquote>
  115. <ul>
  116. <li><em>Whatever you do, do it with authenticity&#8217;</em></li>
  117. </ul>
  118. </blockquote>
  119. <p>Well, allow me then to share an additional way of how we can thrive with our orchestrated (=facilitated) serendipitous knowledge discoveries, small talk, social capital, building stronger personal business relationships, and what not; collaborating, cooperating, innovating, co-creating, learning, sharing more effectively, while we continue to <em>work from anywhere, </em>thank you very much:</p>
  120. <blockquote>
  121. <ul>
  122. <li><em><strong>Starting using an Enterprise Social Networking platform (ESN).<br />
  123. </strong></em></li>
  124. </ul>
  125. <p>(<i>You are </i>already 16 years too late! About time you talk AND do <em><strong>Social</strong>. And mean it.</em>)</p></blockquote>
  126. <p>Oooh, and, please, Yammer (or MSFT VIVA Engage) doesn’t count, I&#8217;m afraid. It&#8217;s <em>just </em>an Activity Stream of sorts. You&#8217;d need a <em>proper ESN</em> to work the magic. To properly understand what it is like becoming <em><strong>a Distributed, Socially Integrated Enterprise</strong></em>.</p>
  127. ]]></content:encoded>
  129. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.elsua.net/2022/10/03/myth-busting-does-office-small-talk-really-matter-while-working-remote-distributed/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  130. <slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
  133. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3974</post-id> </item>
  134. <item>
  135. <title>Myth Busting &#8211; Are You Working Longer Hours while Remote / Distributed?</title>
  136. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/08/30/myth-busting-are-you-working-longer-hours-while-remote-distributed/</link>
  137. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/08/30/myth-busting-are-you-working-longer-hours-while-remote-distributed/#respond</comments>
  139. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  140. <pubDate>Tue, 30 Aug 2022 15:35:53 +0000</pubDate>
  141. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  142. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  143. <category><![CDATA[Employee Engagement]]></category>
  144. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  145. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Management]]></category>
  146. <category><![CDATA[Learning]]></category>
  147. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  148. <category><![CDATA[Open Leadership]]></category>
  149. <category><![CDATA[Work Life Integration]]></category>
  150. <category><![CDATA[#socbiz]]></category>
  151. <category><![CDATA[Busyness]]></category>
  152. <category><![CDATA[distributed-work]]></category>
  153. <category><![CDATA[hybrid-workplace]]></category>
  154. <category><![CDATA[remote-work]]></category>
  155. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3968</guid>
  156.  
  157. <description><![CDATA[Who knew? I guess people didn’t see this one coming. Apparently, ever since the pandemic started, we seem to be working longer hours. To the point of exhaustion. At least, that’s what we are being told consistently through different research studies, articles, publications and what not. But does it hold? I mean, for those of us who &#8230;]]></description>
  158. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52319308153/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img decoding="async" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52319308153_cf01cf6dba_z.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" width="640" height="480" /></a><br />
  159. <script src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script>
  160. </p>
  161. <p>Who knew? I guess people didn’t see this one coming. Apparently, ever since the pandemic started, we seem to be <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/has-wfh-become-work-all-the-time-4744073/">working longer hours</a>. To the point of <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/03/covid19-burnout-video-exhaustion">exhaustion</a>. At least, that’s what we <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/09/22/pulse-employees-wellbeing-six-months-pandemic/">are being told</a> <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/triple-peak-day">consistently</a> through <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90597677/report-one-third-of-tech-workers-admit-to-working-only-3-4-hours-a-day">different</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1392458483413528578">research</a> <a href="https://www.axios.com/2021/09/20/the-pandemic-made-our-workweeks-longer">studies</a>, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/triple-peak-day-work-from-home/629457/">articles</a>, <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/teams-productivity-work-hours">publications</a> and <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/longer-hours-equal-less-productivity-5353666/">what not</a>. But does it hold? I mean, for those of us who have been working either remotely or distributedly for more than a decade, at least, were we working longer hours before? No, we weren&#8217;t. We adjusted a long time ago to <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/07/18/myth-busting-no-work-life-balance-in-remote-distributed-work/">this brave new-normal</a> of <em>work from anywhere</em>. Yet, nowadays, we <em>all</em> got trapped. How? Why? Well, basically, due to inertia and our collective inability to adapt to new ways of working. We <em>still </em>pretty much think we are at the office and, as such, continue to behave accordingly. Even online.</p>
  162. <p>Over the course of the last 2.5 years we have <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/11/24/people-are-working-longer-hours-during-the-pandemic">read</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/how-can-you-turn-off-work-when-wfh-5804658/">heard</a> or <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/04/remote-work-longer-days/">seen</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/how-can-you-turn-off-work-when-wfh-5804658/">plenty</a> of <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/has-wfh-become-work-all-the-time-4744073/">helpful</a> and <a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2021/06/10/remote-workers-work-longer-not-more-efficiently">savvy advice</a> about how we can <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/does-wfh-mean-more-work-5363642/">juggle</a> with it all though. You know, the <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/08/the-endless-digital-workday">endless digital workday</a>. How we can take just one more hour, or two!, of virtual meetings to sneak in that extra piece of work. How can we <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-27/work-life-balance-excessive-collaboration-is-burning-out-workers">balance it all</a> with that <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/triple-peak-day">triple peak day</a> so that we can respond to the plethora of incoming emails, as well as instant messages, that, you know, they can’t wait till the morning. Who <a href="https://medium.com/atlassiandata/quantifying-the-impact-of-remote-work-on-the-work-life-balance-a0cdac965e3a">needs that work / life balance</a> <em>anyway </em>when <em>certain people</em> keep asking you to <a href="https://makeworkbetter.substack.com/p/talk-of-quiet-quitting-shows-that">work harder</a>, not necessarily smarter, because they just can’t see you anymore from their fancy office?</p>
  163. <p>Oh my! <a href="https://hbr.org/2015/08/the-research-is-clear-long-hours-backfire-for-people-and-for-companies">We already know</a> we are bound to fail, once more, because we have been here before many many times and we don’t seem to have learned much about it, apparently. Indeed, the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/busywork-dominates-the-working-day-4752361/">Cult</a> of <a href="https://medium.com/curious/people-who-brag-about-being-in-back-to-back-meetings-deeply-misunderstand-productivity-ed00701d3f69">Busyness</a> is rather strong and it looks like, if you are working away from the office, it reaches levels of <a href="https://twitter.com/GautamGhosh/status/1400313298101407744">toxic obsession</a>. The immediate result? We are all <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/06/burnout-epidemic-work-lives-meaning">burning out like crazy</a>, <a href="https://mck.co/2Qgk4SO">exhausted</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/GautamGhosh/status/1400313298101407744">overworked</a>, <a href="https://digitalworkplacegroup.com/2020/11/04/digital-workplace-overload-how-to-reduce-employee-technostress">extremely</a> <a href="https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/news/articles/employee-burnout-has-doubled-since-lockdown-ended">fatigued</a> and without <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/the-organization-blog/more-than-work-life-balance-focus-on-your-energy?cid=soc-web">much energy</a> left to carry on other than buying into another pernicious false narrative we’ve been told to embrace, so that we can justify our misbehaviours: <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/08/19/1117753535/quiet-quitting-work-tiktok">quiet quitting</a>!</p>
  164. <p>As if we didn’t have enough already, don’t you think? Thank goodness, <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant">Adam</a> <a href="https://adamgrant.net">Grant</a> has come to the rescue with <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1563164741987893248">a lovely tweet</a> I thought it’d be worth while embedding over here: </p>
  165. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
  166. <p dir="ltr" lang="en">&#8220;Quiet quitting&#8221; isn&#8217;t laziness. Doing the bare minimum is a common response to bullshit jobs, abusive bosses, and low pay.</p>
  167. <p>When they don&#8217;t feel cared about, people eventually stop caring.</p>
  168. <p>If you want them to go the extra mile, start with meaningful work, respect, and fair pay.</p>
  169. <p>— Adam Grant (@AdamMGrant)</p>
  170. <p><a href="https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1563164741987893248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 26, 2022</a></p>
  171. </blockquote>
  172. <p>
  173. <script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script>
  174. </p>
  175. <p>We will <em>definitely </em>talk more about this particular subject in an upcoming blog post, specially, about how we all have bought into its false and rather toxic narrative, while being inflicted upon all employees alike, and why we should stop doing that. Anyway, let’s carry on … You see? Not only are knowledge workers feeling overworked, burned out and pretty much exhausted, while adjusting / adapting to working distributedly, but also <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/357404/manager-burnout-getting-worse.aspx">managers</a> are <a href="https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1439856031941763076">burning out</a> at a <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2021/02/17/leaders-and-employees-are-burning-out-at-record-rates-new-survey/">faster</a>, more <a href="https://joshbersin.com/2021/03/overwork-is-not-a-strategy-for-response-to-the-pandemic/">rampant</a>, <a href="https://www.danpontefract.com/26-of-executives-are-depressed-40-overwhelmed/">pace</a> than ever before!</p>
  176. <p>Here is an example of what I mean: </p>
  177. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
  178. <p dir="ltr" lang="en">In my observation, burnout in tech is (finally) starting to hit managers, their managers, and their managers, hard. Quote from a VP Eng:</p>
  179. <p>&#8220;After 1.5 years of 15-20 Zoom meetings per day, I hit my limit and can&#8217;t do it anymore. I&#8217;m taking the rest of the year to recover.&#8221; (cont&#8217;d) <a href="https://t.co/nEOTs66PL2">pic.twitter.com/nEOTs66PL2</a></p>
  180. <p>— Gergely Orosz (@GergelyOrosz)</p>
  181. <p><a href="https://twitter.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1439856031941763076?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 20, 2021</a></p>
  182. </blockquote>
  183. <p>
  184. <script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  185. Ouch! So what can <em>we all</em> do about it then? </p>
  186. <p>Well, as a starter, we can try <a href="https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/fixing-the-overload-problem-at-work/">fixing the overload problem</a>. But, at the same time, we can also be a bit more ambitious and aim higher. The <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-25/hybrid-work-reduced-attrition-rate-by-a-third-new-study-shows">business value is right there</a> for everyone to grasp. We could definitely ditch (for good!) the typical mindset inherited from the Industrial Revolution about clocking a certain number of hours per week in order to get our work done. And, instead, we should starting focusing more on the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90728516/why-the-new-productivity-model-is-no-longer-about-watching-the-clock">outcomes, deliverables and outputs we can produce</a>, regardless of the time it may well take for us to achieve our business goals and objectives. </p>
  187. <p>That means we probably <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/09/23/opinion/covid-return-to-work-rto.html">need to work</a> <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/05/want-to-be-more-productive-try-doing-less">fewer hours</a>, while <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamMGrant/status/1453017635810123786">embracing leisure</a> plenty more, as an effective manner to trigger our creative and productive selves and do what we know best: <strong>work smarter, not necessarily harder</strong>. <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2016/12/07/stop-blaming-the-tools-when-collaboration-fails/">Remember</a>?</p>
  188. <p>However, I would also<em> </em>aim <em>even</em> higher than that. As I have mentioned over here a couple of times already, I have been working as a remote / distributed knowledge worker for over 21 years and I never felt I had been working longer hours. Not even since the pandemic broke out nearly 3 years ago. Quite the opposite, frankly!</p>
  189. <p>I know, how do <em>you </em>manage to do just that, you may be wondering yourselves, right? Here is the trick then. You may need to be a bit more stubborn and persevere a great deal; perhaps become even more patient than ever with your colleagues, customers and business partners, but you eventually need to <strong>influence a shift of how work happens and transition into not only #DigitalFirst but also into #AsyncFirst</strong>.</p>
  190. <p>Indeed, real-time, always on, glued to the screen 24x7x365, readily available to jump into that next Web meeting at ungodly hours using whatever the device you have within your reach, can only take you up to so far, before you eventually exhaust yourself and call it quits. Both physical and mentally. Instead, like I said, persevere, be patient, and show your peers what it is like doing <em>vast majority </em>of your work in asynchronous mode to then relay to them <em>the massive amount of time</em> you will be able to free up to carry on with your life and do other (much more interesting, or, even better, fascinating!) things. Intact.</p>
  191. <p>You see? To me, the <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/07/28/myth-busting-synchronous-vs-asynchronous-work/">transformational ah-ha moment(s)</a> when one can truly start to comprehend how we can work fewer hours, much more effectively and productively, without unnecessarily burdening ourselves with a place, nor a time, is when we all stop being always-on and instead decide to <strong>shift to working from anywhere, offline, in async mode.</strong></p>
  192. <p>How do we do that? Well, next time one your colleagues, customers, business partners, or perhaps even your own manager!, asks you to quickly hop on that short Web meeting for something real quick, ask them this simple question: </p>
  193. <blockquote>
  194. <p>&#8216;Can we please work asynchronously instead, through [their most preferred / favourite] social, digital tool(s)?&#8217;</p>
  195. </blockquote>
  196. <p>Then, wait for the magic to happen … And start savouring the delicious breaking free, at long last, from the busyness yoke!</p>
  197. ]]></content:encoded>
  199. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.elsua.net/2022/08/30/myth-busting-are-you-working-longer-hours-while-remote-distributed/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  200. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
  203. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3968</post-id> </item>
  204. <item>
  205. <title>Myth Busting &#8211;  Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Work</title>
  206. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/28/myth-busting-synchronous-vs-asynchronous-work/</link>
  207. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/28/myth-busting-synchronous-vs-asynchronous-work/#respond</comments>
  209. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  210. <pubDate>Thu, 28 Jul 2022 16:39:21 +0000</pubDate>
  211. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  212. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  213. <category><![CDATA[Employee Engagement]]></category>
  214. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  215. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Management]]></category>
  216. <category><![CDATA[Learning]]></category>
  217. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  218. <category><![CDATA[Open Leadership]]></category>
  219. <category><![CDATA[#socbiz]]></category>
  220. <category><![CDATA[distributed-work]]></category>
  221. <category><![CDATA[hybrid-workplace]]></category>
  222. <category><![CDATA[remote-work]]></category>
  223. <category><![CDATA[wirearchy]]></category>
  224. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3962</guid>
  225.  
  226. <description><![CDATA[Working remotely, or distributedly, in an effective manner, is hard work. It always has been, no doubt. In fact, I would dare to state how, over the course of the last 2.5 years, since the pandemic started, we don’t seem to have learned much about it, because, time and time again, we seem to keep &#8230;]]></description>
  227. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Gran Canaria - Playa del Ingles Beach" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52238904267/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img decoding="async" style="float: left;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52238904267_5b0207074c_z.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Playa del Ingles Beach" width="640" height="480" /></a><br />
  228. <script src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  229. Working remotely, or distributedly, in an effective manner, is hard work. It <em>always</em> has been, no doubt. In fact, I would dare to state how, over the course of the last 2.5 years, since the pandemic started, we don’t seem to have learned much about it, because, time and time again, we seem to keep making the very same mistakes. Perhaps the most poignant is the one where, <em>collectively, </em>we have decided to replicate, <em>almost exactly,</em> the physical office environment, but… online. <em><a href="https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/psychological-exploration-zoom-fatigue">Zoom</a> <a href="https://newatlas.com/telecommunications/zoom-fatigue-video-exhaustion-tips-help-stanford/">fatigue</a></em>, <a href="https://marketoonist.com/2020/06/zoom.html">anyone</a>?</p>
  230. <p>I realise this blog post doesn’t have much to do with the whole series of articles I have been publishing so far on myth busting remote / distributed work, but I thought it’d be a good opportunity for me to reflect as well on some of the most fundamental mistakes we seem to have made trying to adapt accordingly to this brave <em>new-normal</em> of <em>working from anywhere. </em>That is, pretend we are mostly still in the (traditional) office where synchronous, real-time collaboration happens, usually, via osmosis, and without having to rely much on social, digital tools to get our work done. Instead, that’s what our notebooks, pens, body language, behaviours, habits and preseenteism culture would do for us.</p>
  231. <p>Don’t worry. I don’t intend to write <em>another </em>article on how <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/adigaskell/2021/04/08/are-zoom-meetings-reducing-our-collective-intelligence/">pernicious</a> and <a href="https://techcrunch-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/techcrunch.com/2021/04/21/this-is-your-brain-on-zoom/amp/">obnoxious</a> <a href="https://marketoonist.com/2022/02/meeting-overload.html">meetings galore</a> can <a href="https://talentculture.com/wfh-burnout-zoom-fatigue/">become</a>, specially, when you are <a href="https://jarche.com/2020/05/zoom-is-not-the-problem-meetings-are/">working away</a> from the <a href="https://paulitaylor.com/2021/03/05/the-productivity-paradox-and-zoom-fatigue-why-technology-wont-solve-our-problems/">traditional</a> <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-future-brain/202103/stanford-professor-zoom-fatigue-and-how-prevent-it">office</a>. There are already hundreds, if not thousands!, of articles out there. We <em>even</em> invented a concept for it that’s just so pervasive that <em>everyone </em>knows <em>exactly </em>what you are referring to when you say it out loud: i.e. the above mentioned, <a href="https://news.stanford.edu/2021/02/23/four-causes-zoom-fatigue-solutions/">Zoom fatigue</a>.</p>
  232. <p>Instead, I would like to talk about one of the fundamental shifts that needs to happen, <em>IF</em> we would want remote / distributed work to thrive. That is, the transition from synchronous to asynchronous work. Understanding we would <em>still </em>need to rely on real-time, synchronous, on-/off-site work <em>contextually</em>, but it won’t necessarily mean that <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>all</strong></span> of our interactions and conversations would need to happen that way. In fact, it would be rather the opposite. Vast majority of our work should <em>always </em>be happening asynchronously and for a very good and simple reason: <strong>documenting one&#8217;s work (with others) through co-creation / co-learning processes and emergent business practices that rely quite heavily on social, digital tools. </strong></p>
  233. <p>The troubling thing is that <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/12/remote-work-should-be-mostly-asynchronous">everyone</a> <a href="https://www.reworked.co/digital-workplace/one-simple-practice-change-could-remove-hybrid-working-stress">seems</a> to <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/61a9b2cf-c9d1-4aac-aeef-0669c31d651d?segmentid=acee4131-99c2-09d3-a635-873e61754ec6">acknowledge</a> the <a href="https://simonterry.com/2020/10/03/next-seven-work-more-effective/">many benefits</a> and <a href="https://medium.com/gigaom/work-week-focus-and-asynchronous-communication-d8724a0168df">additional perks</a> from <a href="https://www.cmswire.com/collaboration-productivity/synchronous-or-asynchronous-that-is-the-collaboration-question/">working</a> <a href="https://digiday.com/marketing/asynchronous-working/">asynchronously</a>, yet the reality is different. <em>Much different. </em>There is just such a <a href="https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/blog/asynchronous-communication-mindset">massive cognitive</a> <a href="https://getlighthouse.com/blog/synchronous-vs-asynchronous/">disconnect</a> between all of that <a href="https://www.thoughtfarmer.com/blog/asynchronous-communication-what-it-is-and-how-it-benefits-the-hybrid-workplace/">wonderful</a>, <a href="https://webexahead.webex.com/toward-a-working-equilibrium-the-pace-layers-of-work/">inspiring</a> and <a href="https://worklife.news/spaces/people-are-looking-for-ways-to-work-together-asynchronously-tech-providers-rush-to-meet-needs-of-hybrid-workplaces/">thought-provoking theory</a> and what really gets practised on a daily basis that one would <a href="https://www.reworked.co/collaboration-productivity/can-asynchronous-collaboration-survive-our-always-on-workplaces/">need to start wondering</a> why is it so hard to <a href="http://blog.idonethis.com/asynchronous-communication/">make that shift</a> happen, eventually. What’s <em>really </em>stopping us? Well, to me, it’s pretty much down to a couple of key concepts exerted by <em>certain people</em>: <strong>Control</strong> and <strong>Trust</strong>. Or, better said, the so-called lack of it. </p>
  234. <p>And then, on top of all of that, there is this rather troubling <em><strong>corporate amnesia, </strong></em>driven by <strong>inertia,</strong> going on poignantly that makes me question what have we been doing at work over the course of the last 15 to 20 years in the first place?!? I mean, let me use a clarifying example to explain what I mean. </p>
  235. <p>Apart from all of the links I have shared above (Amongst many more out there, I am sure!), have you noticed anything else missing from all of the different <a href="https://thenextweb.com/news/asynchronous-messaging-beats-real-time-messaging">blog</a> <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90405453/this-is-how-to-make-the-slow-work-movement-work-for-you">posts</a>, <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/05/how-to-do-hybrid-right">articles</a>, <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/11/our-work-from-anywhere-future">publications</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/chris_herd/status/1391021353126481924">tweet</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/shl/status/1222545212477599751">storms</a> etc. etc. out there that would be really much related to both control and trust while working offline? Or perhaps how <a href="https://blog.doist.com/humanizing-async-work/">plenty</a> of <a href="https://blog.doist.com/async-first/">those</a> <a href="https://www.float.com/blog/why-we-choose-asynchronous-remote/">organisations</a> that are <a href="https://www.salesforce.com/blog/meeting-fatigue/">trying to adapt</a> to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/automattic-tc1-remote/">working</a> <a href="https://futureforum.com/2022/07/07/what-is-brainwriting/">asynchronously</a> don’t even mention it? At all? Or how even <a href="https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/yammer-blog/introducing-viva-engage/ba-p/3571377">IT vendors</a>, despite the many years gone by, <em>still</em> don’t <a href="https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-viva-blog/announcing-microsoft-viva-engage/ba-p/3571382">have a clue</a> about them and they even <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bersin_enter-microsoft-viva-engage-a-real-social-activity-6956664323268108288-Dk63">show</a> it <a href="https://joshbersin.com/2022/07/enter-microsoft-viva-engage-a-real-social-network-for-the-enterprise/">proudly</a>?</p>
  236. <p>My goodness! Where do we start with it all, right? Of course, I am talking about the most self-empowering and impactful digital enablers for working asynchronously: i.e. <strong>Enterprise Social Networking platforms</strong> (a.k.a. <strong>ESNs</strong>). Where are they in all of these conversations people are having about attempting (and failing miserably at it, by the way!) to shift to working offline in an effective manner with digital tools that haven’t even been well designed for that purpose in the first place, like Messaging &amp; Chatting Apps, for instance?!?! Where have we all been in the last 15 to 20 years?!?! Jesus!</p>
  237. <p><em>W-a-k-e U-p! </em></p>
  238. <p>Seriously, that obnoxious, intoxicating, luring and rather depressing corporate amnesia is <em>literally</em> going to kill us all in the end, IF we don’t put a stop to it. So, perhaps this blog post does belong, after all, to the series of myth busting articles I&#8217;ve been sharing about demystifying remote / distributed work. You see? When <em>certain people</em> may confront you with that thought that they can’t trust their employees while working away from the physical office, which is why they still very much prefer to exert control over both their personal and work lives through a rather toxic meetings galore corporate culture, maybe, <em>just maybe</em>, you could just engage back in the conversation with this open question: </p>
  239. <blockquote>
  240. <p><em>‘Where were you, over 15 to 20 years ago, when ESNs were first taking the corporate world by storm, demonstrating </em><em>how employees</em><em>, through daily practise, could get their work done more effectively, working asynchronsouly, while still building strong social capital skills to trust one another?&#8217;</em></p>
  241. </blockquote>
  242. <p>In a nutshell, perhaps we could put it in other words:</p>
  243. <blockquote>
  244. <p><em>‘Where were you, 15 to 20 years ago, when ESNs enabled organisations to transition from traditional top-down, command and control, rigid hierarchies to dynamic, networked and hyperconnected wirearchies?&#8217;</em></p>
  245. </blockquote>
  246. <p>Oooh, hang on for a minute, you never heard about <em><a href="http://wirearchy.com/what-is-wirearchy/">Wirearchy</a></em>? That networking and organising principle my good friend <a href="https://twitter.com/jonhusband">Jon</a> <a href="http://wirearchy.com">Husband</a> coined back in 1999 and that pretty much demonstrates how working asynchronously happens <em>naturally,</em> through hyperlinks, in all of these social, digital tools known as ESNs? Oh, dear, allow me then to take the liberty of reminding you about what you&#8217;ve been missing for the last 23 years and still going strong, apparently: </p>
  247. <blockquote>
  248. <p><em>‘Wirearchy: a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority, based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology&#8217;</em></p>
  249. </blockquote>
  250. ]]></content:encoded>
  252. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/28/myth-busting-synchronous-vs-asynchronous-work/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  253. <slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
  256. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3962</post-id> </item>
  257. <item>
  258. <title>Myth Busting &#8211; No Work / Life Balance In Remote / Distributed Work</title>
  259. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/18/myth-busting-no-work-life-balance-in-remote-distributed-work/</link>
  260. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/18/myth-busting-no-work-life-balance-in-remote-distributed-work/#comments</comments>
  262. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  263. <pubDate>Mon, 18 Jul 2022 19:20:22 +0000</pubDate>
  264. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  265. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  266. <category><![CDATA[Employee Engagement]]></category>
  267. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  268. <category><![CDATA[Learning]]></category>
  269. <category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
  270. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  271. <category><![CDATA[Open Leadership]]></category>
  272. <category><![CDATA[Work Life Integration]]></category>
  273. <category><![CDATA[#socbiz]]></category>
  274. <category><![CDATA[distributed-work]]></category>
  275. <category><![CDATA[hybrid-workplace]]></category>
  276. <category><![CDATA[remote-work]]></category>
  277. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3959</guid>
  278.  
  279. <description><![CDATA[Continuing further along with the series of blog posts about busting myths with regards to remote / distributed work, I thought I&#8217;d cover today what has been one of my pet peeves from over the course of the last two decades and that, somehow, throughout the pandemic, it’s become perhaps a bit more poignant and &#8230;]]></description>
  280. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Continuing further along with <a href="http://www.elsua.net/tag/distributed-work/">the series of blog posts about busting myths with regards to remote / distributed work</a>, I thought I&#8217;d cover today what has been one of my pet peeves from over the course of the last two decades and that, somehow, throughout the pandemic, it’s become perhaps a bit more poignant and disappointing altogether in equal measure. I thought we had learned a thing or two about it over the years, but, then again, it doesn’t seem to be the case. Of course, I am talking about the <em>so-called</em> work / life balance and how if you happen to work either remote or distributedly, you’re bound to no longer have a life, but just work, work, work! My goodness! What a bunch of boll*cks! Yikes!</p>
  281. <p>By now, I am pretty sure you may have been exposed to <a href="https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-relatable-cartoons-covid-life-before-after-irina-blok-part-7/">this particular cartoon</a> that seems to have been making the rounds out there for a good few months already and that, I suppose, it still resonates with plenty of people who may have just gotten started with remote / distributed work as a result of the pandemic itself: </p>
  282. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
  283. <p dir="ltr" lang="zxx"><a href="https://t.co/aw973aXDlv">pic.twitter.com/aw973aXDlv</a></p>
  284. <p>— irina blok (@irinablok)</p>
  285. <p><a href="https://twitter.com/irinablok/status/1384322192230420480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 20, 2021</a></p>
  286. </blockquote>
  287. <p>
  288. <script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  289. Well, the harsh reality is a bit more nuanced than that, I am afraid. In fact, we may need to break down for good a couple of myths in here, because this one in particular is causing a lot more harm than helping out, to the point where remote / distributed work are both gaining plenty of bad, and <em>totally </em>underserved!, reputation. Allow me to explain further … </p>
  290. <p>As a starting point, that false narrative we have been taught to believe over the last few decades by <em>certain people </em>about striking a good work / life balance in order to keep our own sanity intact was a lie. Nothing but a lie. In fact, it <em>still is</em> a lie. We all bought it as a given. The thing is that there has never been such balance. It just does not exist. Why? Well, because <em><strong>work always wins</strong></em><em>. Always. </em>No exceptions. Work will adamantly insist on eating up our lives. One hour at a time. Week after week, month after month, year after year. To the point of exhaustion or, simply, no longer having a life. <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2016-12/11/content_27635578.htm">Literally</a>. </p>
  291. <p>Remember the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/china-blasts-996-overwork-culture-4511281/">good old</a> <a href="https://old.capitalwatch.com/article-3770-1.html">hustle model</a> of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/technology/china-996-jack-ma.html">996</a>?</p>
  292. <p>I started blogging about the deceptive and misleading narrative of striking a good work / life balance over 17 years ago. I have never been a huge fan of it. In fact, quite the opposite. I discovered, early in the game of my professional career, how pernicious and damaging to one’s health it can become, if you let it rule your entire life thinking, ‘<em>You’ve</em><i> got it!&#8217;</i> No, you don’t. I went through that nasty experience myself twice and had to learn the hard way how to stop focusing on it and do something else instead.</p>
  293. <p>Nowadays, what I do focus on is something I have also written about extensively over the years: <a href="http://www.elsua.net/categories/work-life-integration/">Work / Life INTEGRATION</a>. In the context of remote / distributed work, that is, to me, where the magic really is: <strong>understanding both work and life are inseparable</strong>. In fact, if anything, <strong>work is just <em>one other thing</em> you do in your life</strong>. As such, it needs to integrate into everything else you already do. Never finding a balance, but <strong>finding </strong><em><strong>its place</strong>. </em>Understanding the shift from keeping work &amp; life separate to, instead, blending both as one and the other. Together. As they should be. A single entity that doesn’t need separation, but integration into your whole self.</p>
  294. <p>How do we achieve such work / life integration then, you may be asking yourself, right?, at a time when we seem to always <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/08/04/remote-work-longer-days/">be connected</a>, <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/11/24/people-are-working-longer-hours-during-the-pandemic">always on</a>, constantly <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/triple-peak-day">glued to our screens</a>, <a href="https://www.economist.com/business/2021/06/10/remote-workers-work-longer-not-more-efficiently">working</a> <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/04/triple-peak-day-work-from-home/629457/">longer hours</a> (Ready to respond to that incoming chat message, or email, at an ungodly hour or perhaps jump into that next Web meeting), as we transitioned to either remote or distributed work as the new-normal. Well, in a nutshell, it’s about having the choice (<a href="http://www.elsua.net/2010/02/11/its-all-about-work-life-integration-its-all-about-you/"><em>Your</em> choice alone!</a>) to <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2012/04/12/engineering-life-work-integration/">reengineer such work / life integration for yourself</a>. <em>On your terms</em>. And this is where social, digital tools are key towards effecting such massive shift.</p>
  295. <p>Back in 2012, I wrote this blog post on how &#8216;<a href="http://www.elsua.net/2012/09/07/social-business-accelerates-work-as-a-state-of-mind/">Social Business Accelerates Work as a State of Mind</a>’. In that article, I explained the much needed re-focus away from presenteeism, from the hours clocked in as a fabricated measure of your productivity, from the social pressure of going to the office every single day of the week so you don’t miss out on the daily gossip, or from the perpetuation of the <em>Cult of Busyness</em>. Instead, the focus should be on the results, outcomes and deliverables you provide while<em> working from anywhere</em>.</p>
  296. <p>Essentially, <strong>focus on the impact you make (both individually AND collectively) with the social, digital tools at your disposal. </strong>And enjoy the many benefits … </p>
  297. <p>Oooh, and talking about benefits, perks and business value of either remote or distributed work, allow me to shared with you all a <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90593744/the-office-as-we-know-it-is-over-and-thats-a-good-thing">good number</a> of <a href="https://makeworkbetter.substack.com/p/harvard-professor-work-from-anywhere">articles</a>, <a href="https://voxeu.org/article/working-home-too-much-good-thing">blog</a> <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90655710/the-unspoken-reasons-employees-dont-want-remote-work-to-end">posts</a>, <a href="https://qz.com/2079942/the-next-wave-of-remote-jobs-will-transform-the-economy/">publications</a>, <a href="https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/how-companies-benefit-when-employees-work-remotely">extensive</a> <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/283985/working-remotely-effective-gallup-research-says-yes.aspx">research,</a> <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/12/27/does-working-from-home-make-employees-more-productive">relevant studies</a>, and what not, that have been <a href="https://hbr.org/2020/08/research-knowledge-workers-are-more-productive-from-home">conducted</a> over the course of the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-remote-working-good-you-everyone-else-rowena-hennigan/">last couple of years,</a> <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurelfarrer/2020/02/12/top-5-benefits-of-remote-work-for-companies/">demonstrating</a> how not only have we become more <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/352949/employee-engagement-holds-steady-first-half-2021.aspx">engaged</a> <a href="https://joshbersin.com/2020/04/covid-19-may-be-the-best-thing-that-ever-happened-to-employee-engagement/">at work</a>, but how we are incredibly more productive AND effective at what we do, while in the midst of the worst healthcare emergency for the last 100 years. Not too shabby, right?</p>
  298. <p>Over time, I&#8217;m hoping to revisit this topic, as I know it will be a recurring one. All in all, as an effort to continue doing a bit of myth busting with regards to remote / distributed work and that work / life <s>balance</s> integration by sharing a good number of additional good business practices, lessons learned, hints &amp; tips and whatever other extended research on the topic I may have been curating over time. But, for now, I&#8217;ll leave  you all with one of my favourite benefits that allows me to remain <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2012/09/07/social-business-accelerates-work-as-a-state-of-mind/"><strong>an engaged, distributed knowledge (Web) worker</strong></a> … in 2022: </p>
  299. <p><a title="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes at Sunset" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52190921515/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52190921515_39a913d077_z.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes at Sunset" width="640" height="480" /></a></p>
  300. <p>Remember, it’s a choice. Life is just too short to let <em>certain people </em>decide for you what <em>your </em>work / life integration should be like.</p>
  301. <p>It’s <em>your</em> choice, and yours alone!, to make. After all, <strong>we all have got a single life to live</strong>, but many jobs to enjoy and excel at&#8230;</p>
  302. <p>
  303. <script src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
  304. ]]></content:encoded>
  306. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/18/myth-busting-no-work-life-balance-in-remote-distributed-work/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  307. <slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
  310. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3959</post-id> </item>
  311. <item>
  312. <title>Myth Busting &#8211; Innovation Can Only Happen at the Office</title>
  313. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/13/myth-busting-innovation-can-only-happen-at-the-office/</link>
  314. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/13/myth-busting-innovation-can-only-happen-at-the-office/#comments</comments>
  316. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  317. <pubDate>Wed, 13 Jul 2022 10:03:13 +0000</pubDate>
  318. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  319. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  320. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  321. <category><![CDATA[Innovation]]></category>
  322. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Management]]></category>
  323. <category><![CDATA[Learning]]></category>
  324. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  325. <category><![CDATA[Open Leadership]]></category>
  326. <category><![CDATA[#socbiz]]></category>
  327. <category><![CDATA[distributed-work]]></category>
  328. <category><![CDATA[hybrid-workplace]]></category>
  329. <category><![CDATA[remote-work]]></category>
  330. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3956</guid>
  331.  
  332. <description><![CDATA[Apparently, innovation can only happen within the four physical walls of an office. Who knew, right? Or, at least, that’s what we have been told by certain people, once more, as another false narrative that demands we all get back to work, i.e. back to the office, if we would want to continue pushing for innovation to &#8230;]]></description>
  333. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Gran Canaria - Playa del Ingles at sunset" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52204796458/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="float: left;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52204796458_12a46e01df_z.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Playa del Ingles at sunset" width="640" height="480" /></a><br />
  334. <script src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  335. Apparently, innovation can only happen within the four physical walls of an office. Who knew, right? Or, at least, that’s what we have been told by <em>certain people</em>, once more, as <em>another </em>false narrative that demands we all get back to work, i.e. back to the office, if we would want to continue pushing for innovation to thrive. Gosh, as if the last two and half years have not proved, <em>repeatedly, </em>how, if anything, we’ve been innovating all along, <em>while away from the office</em>, in the midst of the worst healthcare emergency in recent decades!</p>
  336. <p>Hasn’t there been enough proof yet?</p>
  337. <p>Why do <em>we</em> still keep believing the lies, the fabricated half-truths, the dirty efforts to mandate certain behaviours and habits upon us all that, if anything, keep damaging our ability to do our best, most creative and productive, work while not necessarily being at the office? <em>Why?</em></p>
  338. <p>The reality is innovation is a whole lot more nuanced than just stating the obvious: i.e. you need to be in the office, rubbing it with each other, smelling one another, throwing ideas on the table as loud as you can, put together a bunch of fancy sticky notes on a wall no-one will ever do anything about with, move on to the next meeting, etc. etc. You know, <i>innovation </i>with a small ‘I&#8217;.</p>
  339. <p>The thing is <a href="https://adamgrant.bulletin.com/no-you-don-t-have-to-meet-in-person/">research</a> has <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/2022/04/cover-science-creativity">proved</a> <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/operations/our-insights/how-virtual-work-is-accelerating-innovation">time and time again</a>, <em>even before the pandemic started, </em>that we can pretty much <em>innovate from anywhere</em>, as long as the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04643-y">right conditions</a> are provided. And it <em>definitely</em> is not a discussion of choosing between one option (= distributed) or the other (= office), but a healthy and balanced combination of the two. Eventually, it’s about having a choice. <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em>Your and your team’s choice</em></span><i><span style="text-decoration: underline;">.</span> </i><strong>Negotiated, contextualised and fit for purpose</strong>.</p>
  340. <p>In a way, it reminds me of <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/elsua_digitaltransformation-innovation-remoteworking-activity-6823634643850543104-J8nE/">this LinkedIn post</a> I shared over a year ago, in which I was referencing a superb article (&#8216;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/work-from-home-destroy-creativity-david-rock/">Work from home will NOT destroy creativity</a>&#8216;) published by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-david-rock/">David</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/davidrock101">Rock</a>. If you would allow me, and seeing how volatile LinkedIn can be sometimes, I am going to take the liberty of adding over here the same quotes I thought were (still are!) rather relevant from the article itself to, finally, help bust that myth that innovation can only happen at the office:</p>
  341. <blockquote>
  342. <p><em>‘[…] Just because something feels good doesn’t mean it is better. Often, this is a type of expedience bias &#8212; where we go with what feels right, as opposed to really considering all available data.’</em></p>
  343. <p><em>‘[…] getting together in the office, while it might feel good, doesn’t increase original, creative thinking. If anything it reduces it, and increases incremental thinking or expanding on what you already know. It turns out, to increase actual creative thinking, you need something rare in a busy office.&#8217;</em></p>
  344. </blockquote>
  345. <p>Hold on, it gets better. David is on fire with this other particular quote I also referenced:</p>
  346. <blockquote>
  347. <p><em>&#8216;One of the reasons those engagement scores went up during COVID is because there was naturally more autonomy. The nature of being at home, or co-working, and sometimes being surrounded by family or children, created stress in pockets, but it also meant you could spend 45 minutes on eating lunch with your spouse, walking your dog or doing yoga, and still get your work done. <strong>Decades of research has shown that giving people more autonomy or control over a situation can be a powerful stress reliever, and driver of positive emotions.</strong> In short, control over one’s schedule and one’s day was powerfully engaging.’ [Emphasis mine]</p>
  348. <p></em></p>
  349. <p><em>‘[…] companies condensed literally years of innovation into weeks, as they reinvented how they researched, designed, marketed, sold, and delivered just about everything in the commercial universe. 2020 was perhaps the most innovative year since WWII and perhaps since a lot longer’</em></p>
  350. </blockquote>
  351. <p>In case you may not have read just yet, or may have missed, David’s fantastic article, I’d strongly recommend you do so. It will be worth the time and effort to dive into and digest all of the brilliant research articles and references included in it. But I can imagine how, at this point in time, you may be wondering whether I could talk about a practical example regarding what I mentioned above as <em>innovate from anywhere</em>. </p>
  352. <p>Yes, I do, I, actually, have got a couple of them to open up your appetite on what’s possible. Both of these examples have been taking place since way before the pandemic. Thus, it’s nothing new. Perhaps just another typical instance of <em>corporate amnesia </em>on what we once had that we are still practising big time nowadays, but that we refuse to open up both our eyes and minds to it. Innovation you say? Here we go … </p>
  353. <p>Remember the good old <a href="https://www.ibm.com/products/innovation-jam">IBM InnovationJams®</a>? The first one took place back in 2001 (Yes! You are reading that correctly, not a typo! 2001!), as an experiment in which thousands of us participated in a new, <em>innovative</em> (pun intended!) platform to massively share and collaborate on each other’s ideas. Openly and transparently, over the course of 72 hours, all online, an opportunity with which everyone of us had a voice and could be heard. Loudly and clearly, while interacting with others, co-creating and co-learning with everyone else.</p>
  354. <p>From there onwards, we had <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2006/07/27/global-innovationjam-is-now-over/">many more</a> <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/ilearnw8/innovation-and-networks/-8-case-study-collanoration-ibm-jam">Collaboration,</a> <a href="https://www.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/innovationjam/">InnovationJams®</a> touching base on different subjects, whether they were business related or not, from which we all seized the opportunity of seeing innovation in a different way than whatever we had traditionally experienced so far while in the office. Scale and reach with no boundaries such as time zones, offices, locations, countries, regions, job roles and what not. All <em>purely </em>online. <em>One conversation at a time&#8230;</em></p>
  355. <p>Then you have <a href="https://corporate.evonik.com/en/company/research-development/entrepreneurship-award-112848.html">Evonik’s own Innovation Jam</a>. A yearly event for all employees that thrives on combining the best of all worlds: share and collaborate on the ideas submitted through <a href="https://www.hcltechsw.com/connections">an Enterprise Social Networking platform</a> via different online communities of practice to then celebrate innovation via various face to face gatherings at different sites throughout the year to then converge in a single location where hundreds of people gather not only to celebrate innovation but also to witness first-hand the final outcomes from such innovative exercises that have happened throughout the year, as they get proper funding to make it into final product(s) to sell to their customers. </p>
  356. <p>Back in September 2019, I had the privilege of sharing the stage with my good friend <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tipalemar/">Rainer</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tipalemar">Gimbel</a> (At one of the <a href="https://letsconnect.world">Let’s Connect</a> user group events) to talk about how exactly <a href="https://speakerdeck.com/letsconnect/how-to-engage-13-dot-000-colleagues-in-online-ideation-at-evonik">they have been conducting such massive online / offline ideation events with thousands of participants</a>, blending the best of both worlds, through async and synchronous collaboration. Best part of it all? How a couple of months earlier, I had the true honour of celebrating innovation together with them, on-site, as they announced the winners. What an <em>incredible experience</em> with far too many fond memories to treasure on what’s possible, once you decide to unleash and <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2010/08/06/collaborative-culture-on-reinventing-the-social-enterprise/">free the human batteries</a>! </p>
  357. <p>In case you are curious, and would want to learn some more, I have now taken the liberty of embedding <a href="https://speakerdeck.com/letsconnect/how-to-engage-13-dot-000-colleagues-in-online-ideation-at-evonik">the slide deck we used</a> at that user group event, so you could quickly dive in and learn more how it actually works for them, year after year: </p>
  358. <p style="text-align: center;">  <iframe class="speakerdeck-iframe" style="border: 0px; background: padding-box padding-box rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1); margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border-radius: 6px; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2) 0px 5px 40px; width: 560px; height: 314px;" title=" How to Engage 13.000 Colleagues in Online Ideation @Evonik " src="https://speakerdeck.com/player/dc0155517dd441f5bc37052f00e48d77" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true" data-ratio="1.78343949044586"></iframe></p>
  359. <p>In summary, innovation can (and should!) happen <em>anywhere</em>, <em>whenever</em>, not necessarily within the constraints of the four physical walls of an office. What is important and relevant here for all of us to remember and take into account next time we are exposed to that false and unjust dichotomy is that we all have a choice to decide for ourselves how we would want to do it. Sometimes, at the office with the rest of our teams and colleagues, when we all feel we just need to get together. And some other times innovation happens anywhere we may well be at the time. <em>On our terms. </em></p>
  360. <p>You see? I have been working myself distributedly for over 21 years. Does that mean then that in all of that time I have never been able to innovate at work? <em>At all?</em> Just because I was not at the traditional office jamming along with my colleagues?</p>
  361. <p>You tell me. You decide. </p>
  362. <p>[I <em>already </em>know…]</p>
  363. ]]></content:encoded>
  365. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/13/myth-busting-innovation-can-only-happen-at-the-office/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  366. <slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
  369. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3956</post-id> </item>
  370. <item>
  371. <title>Myth Busting &#8211; Can&#8217;t Build Social Capital with Remote / Distributed Work</title>
  372. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/04/myth-busting-cant-build-social-capital-with-remote-distributed-work/</link>
  373. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/04/myth-busting-cant-build-social-capital-with-remote-distributed-work/#comments</comments>
  375. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  376. <pubDate>Mon, 04 Jul 2022 16:17:33 +0000</pubDate>
  377. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  378. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  379. <category><![CDATA[Employee Engagement]]></category>
  380. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  381. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Management]]></category>
  382. <category><![CDATA[Learning]]></category>
  383. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  384. <category><![CDATA[Open Leadership]]></category>
  385. <category><![CDATA[Personal KM]]></category>
  386. <category><![CDATA[#socbiz]]></category>
  387. <category><![CDATA[distributed-work]]></category>
  388. <category><![CDATA[hybrid-workplace]]></category>
  389. <category><![CDATA[relationships]]></category>
  390. <category><![CDATA[remote-work]]></category>
  391. <category><![CDATA[social-capital]]></category>
  392. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3951</guid>
  393.  
  394. <description><![CDATA[Remember when Social Capital was cool back in the mid-90s at the same time Knowledge Management (KM) was in fashion? Remember when we decided to kill both just a few years later, as we purposely defaulted to focus, almost exclusively, on business processes and technology, leaving behind the people component from the good old KM &#8230;]]></description>
  395. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52095889901/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="float: left;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52095889901_76040932fd.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" width="500" height="375" /></a><br />
  396. <script src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  397. Remember when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_capital">Social Capital</a> was cool back in the mid-90s at the same time Knowledge Management (KM) was in fashion? Remember when we decided to <em>kill both</em> just a few years later, as we purposely defaulted to focus, almost exclusively, on business processes and technology, leaving behind the people component from the good old <strong>KM pyramid</strong>: <strong>People, Process</strong> and <strong>Technology</strong>? Well, what comes around, goes around… Fast forward to 2020 and social capital came back with a vengeance, except that, once again, we were fooled by yet another false narrative: &#8216;<em>you can’t build social capital unless you are at the office. So time to get back to work!</em>&#8216;</p>
  398. <p>So, I guess it’s time to debunk another myth about the office vs. remote / distributed work. This one in particular is perhaps a bit more poignant in itself, because it reaffirms the corporate amnesia we seem to have been suffering from over the last few years and how easy <em>certain people </em>seem to forget some things, specially, when those might present a threat to their power, influence, status AND incentives.</p>
  399. <p>Over the course of the last couple of years we have heard / read about <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56192048">numerous</a> <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/technology/news/story/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-says-he-is-tired-of-work-from-home-1730321-2020-10-10">senior</a> <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/427851">leaders</a> within <a href="https://twitter.com/I_Am_NickBloom/status/1532019543622635520">large</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jun/01/elon-musk-return-to-office-pretend-to-work-somewhere-else">corporations</a> who have claimed, all along, and since the start of the pandemic, how the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90700878/remote-work-has-a-downside-heres-why-i-want-to-go-back-to-the-office">sudden move</a> towards <a href="https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/figuring-out-social-capital-is-critical-for-the-future-of-hybrid-work/">embracing</a> and <a href="https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/reimagining-the-office-for-immensely-human-interactions/">adapting</a> to working away from the <a href="https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/what-happens-if-absorbing-by-observation-disappears/">office</a>, either <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/05/16/differences-between-remote-and-distributed-work-all-about-power-symbols-and-rituals/">remotely or distributedly</a>, has <a href="https://hbr.org/2021/03/what-a-year-of-wfh-has-done-to-our-relationships-at-work">clearly damaged</a> our innate ability to <a href="https://thriveglobal.com/stories/human-connection-key-hybrid-work-future-relationships-resilience/">build</a> our <a href="https://hbr.org/amp/2021/03/remote-workers-need-small-talk-too">social capital</a> skills <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jun/03/the-empty-office-what-we-lose-when-we-work-from-home">via proximity</a>. To the point where the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/wfh-imperils-work-friend-prospects-5642834/">impact</a> may well be <a href="https://theweek.com/feature/opinion/1009874/companies-are-trying-to-figure-out-the-future-of-work-but-has-anyone-asked">irreparable</a>. Oh dear, where do <em>we</em> start with <a href="https://www.cmswire.com/employee-experience/lack-of-social-interaction-tops-remote-work-challenges/">this one</a>?</p>
  400. <p>Let’s see. Before I go on busting this myth I am going to recover <a href="https://twitter.com/ValdisKrebs/status/1488179360792301576">a tweet</a> shared by <a href="https://twitter.com/orgnet">Valdis</a> <a href="https://t.co/fZnke9feBN">Krebs</a> that would allow me to put things a little bit into perspective:</p>
  401. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
  402. <p dir="ltr" lang="en">The glue that holds organizations together is not necessarily the physical office space, but it is the strength, resilience and inter-connectedness of the network of employees. Design your reopening strategy around them.<a href="https://t.co/3tECWMUkCd">https://t.co/3tECWMUkCd</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/rto?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#rto</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/returntooffice?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#returntooffice</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/hybridwork?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#hybridwork</a></p>
  403. <p>— Valdis Krebs <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f33b.png" alt="🌻" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> (@ValdisKrebs)</p>
  404. <p><a href="https://twitter.com/ValdisKrebs/status/1488179360792301576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 31, 2022</a></p></blockquote>
  405. <p><script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  406. Valdis himself published a white paper, back in 2008, with a rather suggestive title: ’<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/264324297_Social_Capital_the_Key_to_Success_for_the_21st_Century_Organization">Social Capital: the Key to Success for the 21st Century Organisation</a>’ that would help everyone understand the key value AND need to build one’s social capital skills at the workplace, but it doesn’t necessarily mean all of that needs to happen in the context of <em>being at the office</em>. In fact, with the emergence of social, digital tools over the last couple of decades, specially, Enterprise Social Networking Tools, a.k.a. ESNs, nurturing, building and sustaining our social capital doesn’t necessarily need to happen just at the office. Actually, <em><strong>it can happen anywhere and everywhere!</strong></em></p>
  407. <p>Back in early 2006, I wrote a <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2006/01/26/weblogs-as-conversations-what-is-the-deal/">couple</a> of <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2006/01/19/how-and-when-to-respond-to-conversations-managing-your-own-virtual-water-cooler/">blog posts</a> in which I referenced, for the first time, social tools, specially, blogs, as <em>the virtual</em> water cooler. At the time, more and more of these emergent social, digital tools started to take the corporate world by storm to eventually complement quite nicely what was happening at the office, but on a global scale in which you could start <em>a conversation with anyone, everywhere, any time. </em>Remember the good old <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enterprise_social_software">Enterprise 2.0</a>? That was 16 years ago!</p>
  408. <p>As you can see, building your social capital skills is not new. Despite what <em>certain groups of people </em>may be telling you, it was not invented as a result of the pandemic from the last couple of years. And it’s <em>definitely</em> something that doesn’t happen only within the four physical walls of the traditional office. Why do we still buy that false narrative from senior leaders as, yet again, <em>another, rather desperate, persuasive mandate</em> to return to the office, so we can resume our social capital, through on-site conversations, after this unfortunate short interim? That still beats me, frankly, but then again, it shouldn’t. <em>I know.</em> <em><strong>We all know</strong></em>. It’s just a matter of asking, out loud, a simple question:</p>
  409. <blockquote><p><em>‘As a (senior) leader within your organisation, where have you been over <strong>the last 16 years,</strong> when ESNs came into the workplace, showcasing how <a href="https://wtfeconomy.com/conversations-and-narratives-are-the-new-documents-256ebcd3d37f#---182-305">conversations</a> have become not just the <a href="https://eskokilpi.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/lean-interaction/">new documents</a>, but also how we got work done, how we learned to relate, connect and share </em><em>with one another, </em><em>while away from the traditional office? <strong>Where were you then?</strong>&#8216;</em></p></blockquote>
  410. <p>Pause for a minute. Add some more drama. Then watch and listen to their answers, before you can move on.  It is not too late though. You see? The reality is that we have got plenty of time ahead of us to embark on that bandwagon that keeps returning over and over again. Despite of what you may have heard, or read, ESNs are not going away any time soon. And if there is anything we have learned throughout the pandemic, as the key accelerator it has become, is that these brave new conditions under which we are now operating applying plenty of #DigitalFirst <em>mindflex </em>are not going away. Quite the contrary. So how can we <em>still </em>make the most out of them eventually now that we all know working distributedly is here to stay for good as the <em>new-normal</em>?</p>
  411. <p>If you have been following this blog for a good while now, you would remember how I have already written about ESNs and their business value / potential a good number of different times over the course of the last 16 years and counting. But this time around I am going to do something different for you. I’d like to point you to a couple of fantastic articles published by three of my favourite people, who not only have written about this topic for well over a decade, but they have also walked the talk extensively helping their organisations make the most out of ESNs, not just as <em>the virtual water cooler</em>, but also where work happens… Even more so nowadays … A decade plus on…</p>
  412. <p>Take a look into ‘<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-value-enterprise-social-network-leader-harald-schirmer/">What is the value of Enterprise Social Network for a Leader?</a>’ (Read the German version <a href="https://harald-schirmer.de/2019/06/18/was-bringt-mir-ein-soziales-netzwerk-esn/">here</a>) and also ’<a href="https://harald-schirmer.de/2022/04/27/the-power-of-digital-collaboration-networks/">The power of digital collaboration networks</a>’ by <a href="https://harald-schirmer.de">Harald</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/haraldschirmer">Schirmer</a> (<em>Continental</em>). Both of those <em>superb</em> articles would also be rather appropriate for managers and (senior) leaders to dive into and explore more about what they have been missing over the course of these last 16 years till today, if they haven’t gotten started embracing and adapting to ESNs just yet. Highly recommended reads for sure!</p>
  413. <p>Then take a good look into this fantastic article published by <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tipalemar/">Rainer</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/tipalemar">Gimbel</a> (<em>Evonik</em>) on ‘<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/our-enterprise-social-network-story-bees-trees-networks-gimbel-1c/">Our Enterprise Social Network &#8211; A Story about Bees, Trees and Networks</a>’ to help you test the waters to then confirm they are actually lovely. Read the article and you will see what I mean with regards to ESNs as <em>the ultimate social capital builder</em>, i.e. the glue, within (and outside!) organisations, regardless of place, location, time zone, business unit, job roles, hierarchical structures and what not. It’s <em><strong>the hive</strong>.</em></p>
  414. <p>And, finally, if you find yourself a bit lost and somewhat confused with the proliferation of different collaborative tools within the digital workplace, perhaps not knowing where to start, here’s another excellent read to help you understand better and position each and everyone of them with regards to ESNs. They are not the same and you should be able to tell the difference. This particular piece is coming from <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernd-siewert-28078812b/">Bernd</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Bernd_Siewert">Siewert</a> (<em>Vitesco Technologies</em>): ‘<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/outlook-microsoft-teams-slack-yammer-connections-what-bernd-siewert/">Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Slack, Yammer, Connections and what you didn’t know about it</a>’. It will help you gain more clarity in terms of identifying what is what and what you can do with each and everyone of these social, collaborative tools.</p>
  415. <p>All of those blog posts I have referenced above from my good friends Harald, Rainer and Bernd are quite rich and meaty on their own. I know. They need to be. They are <strong>an essential read</strong> to get you started. But they are also fit for another purpose. That of busting another myth with regards to remote / distributed work and social capital. Yes, you <em>certainly </em>can nurture, build and sustain, over the years, your social capital skills through making the most out of ESNs at the workplace. One conversation at a time. <em>Anywhere and everywhere. Whenever. </em></p>
  416. <p>PS. Oooh, and in case you may be wondering about the robustness of building your social capital through social, digital tools, vs. just while at the office, I’d like to add a short addenda: I have known Harald, Rainer and Bernd for well over a decade. I have only met Rainer face to face a couple of times throughout all of that time. I have <em>yet </em>to meet in person both Harald and Bernd. But, you know what? <strong>I trust all three of them dearly</strong>, because of the conversations, the sharing of stories we could all relate to, the learnings, the interactions, etc. etc. that we’ve had online through various social tools throughout all of those years, together with other 2.0 advocates / believers and hard-core practitioners I’ll be writing about plenty more over time, I am sure.</p>
  417. <p>We are still going rather strong, in case you were wondering about where we were all hiding. We weren’t. We aren’t. We are still <em>right here</em>, waiting for everyone else to jump on board, once again, the 2.0 bandwagon before we depart one last? time into this brave new world of distributed work …</p>
  418. <p>You decide.</p>
  419. ]]></content:encoded>
  421. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.elsua.net/2022/07/04/myth-busting-cant-build-social-capital-with-remote-distributed-work/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  422. <slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
  425. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3951</post-id> </item>
  426. <item>
  427. <title>Myth Busting &#8211; Office vs. Remote / Distributed Culture</title>
  428. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/24/myth-busting-office-vs-remote-distributed-culture/</link>
  429. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/24/myth-busting-office-vs-remote-distributed-culture/#comments</comments>
  431. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  432. <pubDate>Fri, 24 Jun 2022 16:27:11 +0000</pubDate>
  433. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  434. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  435. <category><![CDATA[Employee Engagement]]></category>
  436. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  437. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Management]]></category>
  438. <category><![CDATA[Learning]]></category>
  439. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  440. <category><![CDATA[Open Leadership]]></category>
  441. <category><![CDATA[Work Life Integration]]></category>
  442. <category><![CDATA[#socbiz]]></category>
  443. <category><![CDATA[culture]]></category>
  444. <category><![CDATA[distributed-work]]></category>
  445. <category><![CDATA[hybrid-workplace]]></category>
  446. <category><![CDATA[presenteeism]]></category>
  447. <category><![CDATA[remote-work]]></category>
  448. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3947</guid>
  449.  
  450. <description><![CDATA[Culture. That’s a fully loaded word, isn’t it? I mean, pretty much on the same level as the other two ‘Cs’: Collaboration and Community. I bet, when asked, we all have a definition for it. I suspect it’s also a different one for each and everyone of us. However, when thinking about Office Culture, there is a single keyword, &#8230;]]></description>
  451. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52089269554/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="float: left;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52089269554_0bb0627fc7.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" width="500" height="375" /></a><br />
  452. <script src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  453. Culture. That’s a fully loaded word, isn’t it? I mean, pretty much on the same level as the other two ‘Cs’: <em>Collaboration</em> and <em>Community. </em>I bet, when asked, we all have a definition for it. I suspect it’s also a different one for each and everyone of us. However, when thinking about <strong>Office Culture</strong>, there is a single keyword, if you ask me, that comes to mind to describe it pretty accurately: <strong><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presenteeism">Presenteeism</a>. </strong>Shall we bust then that myth about how you can only build a company culture if you show up at the office daily?</p>
  454. <p>Over the course of the last couple of years, I am pretty sure you have all read a good number of articles, blog posts and whatever other publications about how a certain collective within the workplace (i.e. senior management / leadership) is pretty much desperate about that corporate mandate to go back to work, i.e. back to the office. Otherwise organisations will suffer irreparable damage in their corporate culture(s).</p>
  455. <p>As you may have noticed, I am not going to link to any of those disappointing write-ups in this post, as the mainstream news media has done a fantastic piece of work in trying to frame us all up with that false narrative that we need to save the industrial<em> </em>corporate culture by showing up at the office. You know, we will all, once again, get impregnated with it via osmosis. Oh dear, good luck with that! I suppose vast majority of those people haven’t heard much about <strong>the 11th floor syndrome</strong>.</p>
  456. <p>Anyway, you would remember how a few weeks ago I started a series of blog posts with the intention of busting plenty of the myths we’ve been told to believe <em>religiously </em>about what remote / distributed vs. office work is all about. I first wrote about the <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/05/16/differences-between-remote-and-distributed-work-all-about-power-symbols-and-rituals/">subtle and nuanced differences between remote and distributed work</a>. I also broke up the <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/05/19/myth-busting-the-hybrid-workplace/">myth of the hybrid workplace</a>. Today is the new chapter in that series in which we will talk a little bit more about that other myth you can only build a company’s culture in a traditional office. Period. Everyone back to work, no matter whatever you have done over the course of the last 2.5 years, in the midst of a pandemic, <em>working away from anywhere.</em></p>
  457. <p>The <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e241f776-0e3d-403a-9462-df017af7edd2">reality</a> is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-12-20/employers-want-workers-in-the-office-for-the-company-culture-not-productivity">organisations</a> are <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-05-17-gartner-says-hr-leaders-are-struggling-to-adapt-current-organizational-culture-to-support-a-hybrid-workforce">struggling a fair bit</a> in understanding <em>what is culture</em> <span style="text-decoration: underline;">exactly</span> and how to get the most out of it. To quote the link I just shared above from a recent study conducted by Gartner: </p>
  458. <blockquote>
  459. <p><em>&#8216;For a culture to truly succeed, employees must be aligned and connected to it. Culture alignment means employees understand and buy into the culture of their organisation, while culture connectedness encompasses employees identifying with, caring about and belonging within their organisation’s culture&#8217;</em></p>
  460. </blockquote>
  461. <p>Perhaps those same organisations, and the senior leaders who manage them, that continue to struggle to understand what culture is should be <a href="https://medium.com/the-post-grad-survival-guide/we-dont-care-about-your-precious-office-culture-you-can-keep-it-bf811bd25c76">paying more attention</a> towards the <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90639348/why-workers-are-calling-bs-on-leaders-about-returning-to-the-office">needs</a> and <a href="https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/technology/Pages/Viewpoint-Why-Remote-Work-Doesnt-Have-to-Dilute-Your-Companys-Culture.aspx">wants of their employees</a> to then begin to comprehend what <a href="https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-05-17-gartner-says-hr-leaders-are-struggling-to-adapt-current-organizational-culture-to-support-a-hybrid-workforce">intentional and purposeful culture</a> has always been about right from the start: <strong>The people.</strong></p>
  462. <p>So, you may be wondering, how do we get to bust that myth that you can only build, foster and nurture the corporate culture of an organisation by being at the office with your fellow colleagues and, instead, help open things up a fair bit in order to start shifting the current toxic narratives that if you are not heading to the office <em>every day</em> you’re doing a disloyal service to the organisation, its culture and everyone else working there. Talking about fully loaded, nauseating sentences! Yikes!!</p>
  463. <p>Well, it can be done pretty easily with a single question you can pose to anyone who vehemently asserts that the only way to build a corporate culture is <em>doing office time</em> rubbing it with your colleagues. Like in the good old times. Here it is though: </p>
  464. <blockquote>
  465. <p><em>‘Are you saying then that our corporate culture, within our own organisation, can only be found within the four physical walls of the office? Is that all? Corporate culture is just a physical space we don’t control, nor have a say about it? Really?’</em></p>
  466. </blockquote>
  467. <p>Then, pause for a minute. Add some drama. Pause again. Let them think. Observe. Let them repeat to themselves mentally what they have just said to you. Watch them collapse. Collect the pieces. Move on… </p>
  468. <p>You may be wondering, what is culture then, right? Like I said, I suspect we all have got a definition for it and perhaps we may all be right, at least, with some of its elements. However, for this particular blog post I am going to stick around with a definition my good friend <a href="https://t.co/gTM3t6K7ID">Dave</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/snowded">Snowden</a> shared across in a single tweet over 4 years ago:</p>
  469. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
  470. <p dir="ltr" lang="en">The better phrase is that culture is an emergent property of multiple interactions of time. It cannot be designed. But that is where we started.</p>
  471. <p>— ᗪᗩᐯᕮ SᑎOᗯᗪᕮᑎ <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f3f4-e0067-e0062-e0077-e006c-e0073-e007f.png" alt="🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f1ea-1f1fa.png" alt="🇪🇺" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> (@snowded)</p>
  472. <p><a href="https://twitter.com/snowded/status/953138030507974656?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 16, 2018</a></p>
  473. </blockquote>
  474. <p>
  475. <script src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  476. You see? &#8216;<strong><em>An emergent property of multiple interactions of time</em></strong>’. Notice the subtle difference here? Within that definition, there isn’t a single notion, nor mention, <em>of</em> a physical space, the traditional office, to realise it. To me, when thinking about <strong><em>interactions</em></strong> the first thing that comes to mind is <strong>the habits, the behaviours, the (business) practices</strong> AND <strong>the conversations we have with one another</strong> that constitute the grounding work towards <em>co-building a culture. </em>But, once more, Dave comes to my rescue developing the whole concept with a series of brilliant blog posts on <a href="https://thecynefin.co/culture-the-subject/">Culture</a> where this particular quote resonates with me big time to add some more about what I have just mentioned above: </p>
  477. <blockquote>
  478. <p><em>&#8216;Culture is a fluid concept, it has (sic) to be cultivated and can’t be engineered. Cultivation starts with an understanding of your local climate, soil conditions and so on. Understanding the here and now is more important than imagining a future; not that imagination is not important but we don’t start a painting with the colours’.</em></p>
  479. </blockquote>
  480. <p>For those folks who may have been following this blog for a good few years already, doesn’t the above remind you of something we used to say about the power AND potential social, digital tools (i.e. Enterprise Social Networking platforms / ESNs within the workplace) had (and still have!) in terms of helping co-build a company’s culture, <i>one conversation at a time, </i>regardless of the space, whether physical or digital?</p>
  481. <p>There you have it. BOOM!</p>
  482. <p>Next time someone challenges you with the argument senior leaders can only build a company culture at the physical office while being surrounded by their employees, do me a favour, ask them:</p>
  483. <blockquote>
  484. <p><em> ‘Where have you been for the last 15 to 20 years when two-way <a href="https://wtfeconomy.com/conversations-and-narratives-are-the-new-documents-256ebcd3d37f#---182-305">conversations</a> in social tools became the <a href="https://eskokilpi.wordpress.com/2018/03/11/lean-interaction/">new currency</a> from each and everyone of us in amplifying our, till then physical, collective corporate culture?’</em></p>
  485. </blockquote>
  486. <p>Pause for a minute. Wait for their response. Help collect the pieces and jointly move on … We still have got a lot more of myths to bust with regards to remote / distributed work.</p>
  487. <p>Next!</p>
  488. ]]></content:encoded>
  490. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/24/myth-busting-office-vs-remote-distributed-culture/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  491. <slash:comments>5</slash:comments>
  494. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3947</post-id> </item>
  495. <item>
  496. <title>Flickr &#8211; The Last Refuge</title>
  497. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/20/flickr-the-last-refuge/</link>
  498. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/20/flickr-the-last-refuge/#comments</comments>
  500. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  501. <pubDate>Mon, 20 Jun 2022 15:03:34 +0000</pubDate>
  502. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  503. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  504. <category><![CDATA[elsua]]></category>
  505. <category><![CDATA[Employee Engagement]]></category>
  506. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  507. <category><![CDATA[General Interest]]></category>
  508. <category><![CDATA[Learning]]></category>
  509. <category><![CDATA[Life]]></category>
  510. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  511. <category><![CDATA[Photography]]></category>
  512. <category><![CDATA[Productivity Tools]]></category>
  513. <category><![CDATA[Tools and Gadgets]]></category>
  514. <category><![CDATA[engagement]]></category>
  515. <category><![CDATA[flickr]]></category>
  516. <category><![CDATA[web2.0]]></category>
  517. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3945</guid>
  518.  
  519. <description><![CDATA[I just can’t believe I have written the above as today’s blog post title. Really? Flickr? As last refuge? Is it still around? Do people use it? I don’t know about you folks, but I can confirm vast majority of my social networks from over the years don’t. They are nowhere to be seen in there &#8230;]]></description>
  520. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Gran Canaria - Pico de las Nieves" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52112934460/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="float: left;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52112934460_b117b4b59e.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Pico de las Nieves" width="500" height="375" /></a><br />
  521. <script src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  522. I just can’t believe I have written the above as today’s blog post title. <em>Really?</em> Flickr? As last refuge? Is it <em>still</em> around? Do people<em> </em>use it? I don’t know about you folks, but I can confirm vast majority of my social networks from over the years don’t. They are nowhere to be seen in there and I suppose, at this point in time, they can’t be bothered with it either. Yet, it’s been <em>the</em> place I have spent a significant amount of time myself over the course of the last couple of years. Main reason why? <strong>A escape of sorts</strong>.</p>
  523. <p>A escape from both the tyranny of the manipulative algorithm(s) we are plagued with all over the place (even at the workplace!) and today’s ugly reality. In a nutshell, <strong>a celebration of the unfiltered beauty we experience on a daily basis, but without <em>intermediaries, </em>showing me / us there <em>is</em> still hope for Web 2.0.</strong></p>
  524. <p>I deleted my Facebook account about 12 years ago. I did pretty much the same with my Instagram handle about 5 years ago. I never warmed up to TikTok and <a href="https://gizmodo.com/tiktok-china-oracle-bytedance-1849078477">I frankly don’t think I’d ever do</a>. Same would probably be for any other short-form video apps. I have also moved away from Spotify a few months back. I hardly use any of the rather popular <em>messaging &amp; chatting apps</em> plenty of people seem to be obsessively hooked up with (WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Discord, etc. etc.). And, at the moment, it seems I am having a bit of a <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/06/13/twitter-is-where-my-conversations-went-to-die/">colourful</a> <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/06/15/things-i-terribly-miss-in-twitter/">relationship with both Twitter</a> and <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/06/17/how-to-stop-linkedins-toxic-algorithmic-manipulation/">LinkedIn</a>. So, in a way, it <em>does look like Flickr has become my last refuge</em> in the space of the so-called Web 2.0 social, digital tools.</p>
  525. <p>Ironically, Flickr <em>is</em> my first social (media) tool. I started using Wikis back in 2000 with different communities of practice, and a couple of years later I had my first blog. Fast forward to April 2005, I created <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr">my Flickr account</a> and to this day I am using it nowadays more frequently than ever before&#8230; 17 years later! Whoaaah! Crazy, huh!? </p>
  526. <p>I <em>love </em>photography. I am not a professional photographer though, more of an <em>aficionado. </em>Yet, Flickr has allowed me to discover the world of both professional and amateur photographers and enjoy every single bit of the beauty they create on a daily basis and which they share graciously with those of us who decide to stop  by for a few minutes to marvel and be wowed <em>repeatedly</em>. Those glimpses, those fond memories, those stunning captures, those amicable and inviting conversations that spark a form of escapism for the ugly realities we are exposed to on a daily basis. </p>
  527. <p>If you ask me, a breath of fresh air I try to enjoy to the fullest every single day.</p>
  528. <p>The reason though why I heart Flickr to bits is that back in 2004 it showed us the huge potential behind Web 2.0. An online space where we could enjoy our shared tidbits of <a href="http://www.disambiguity.com/ambient-intimacy/">ambient intimacy</a> with others through photography. Helping connect the dots, i.e. each and everyone of us, around a topic we were all very passionate about, whether we’d be talking about professional or amateur photographers. <em>Everyone is welcome</em>. You just need to show up and share openly those pearls of beauty that are floating around you with a community of folks who <em>truly </em>care about the subject: you and <em>your passion for </em>photography, regardless of how good you were at it!</p>
  529. <p>All of that happening in the context where you are always in control of your Flickr timeline, of your own networks built up over there throughout the years, of the groups and galleries you are co-curating together with everyone to create amazing slideshows in which everyone has chipped in and showed up accordingly <em>on their terms</em>. No intermediaries, no obscure, private and manipulative algorithms dictating what you should see, or not, based on what they think they know better about you. Yay! No, thanks! Not happening in Flickr, I am afraid. See why it now feels as my / our last refuge of what the Web 2.0 promised us all back in the day? We are still realising it … big time! </p>
  530. <p>As you can see, it all starts to feel like I am back in time to what I used to enjoy and love very much with regards to social, digital tools: <strong>a strong sense of community, of belonging, of connection through a common topic we are all passionate about</strong>. An opportunity to connect, share and learn with other peers about the stuff that’s in our mind that we feel it is worth while sharing across to contribute into advancing the overall conversations. In this case, about photography.</p>
  531. <p>The crazy thing, for me, is to think we could <strong>pretty much have the very same thing, but in a work context. </strong>However, we have consciously decided to lure ourselves to walk away from it while we enjoy that <em>lovely </em>selfie about each and everyone of us heading back to work! <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f922.png" alt="🤢" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> Oh, gosh, what a missed opportunity! </p>
  532. <p>Either way, I am pretty sure we will be talking plenty more about that <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/391922/employee-engagement-slump-continues.aspx">conscious decision to not wanting to make work better for each and everyone of us</a> and the <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/357710/next-global-pandemic-mental-health.aspx">massive toll we are all paying for it</a>. I was hoping for an opportunity to invest our time, effort and energy in rebuilding a thing of beauty to rejoice, re-engage and re-involve ourselves with back again, but, I guess, we will need to wait for another opportunity at some point in time. </p>
  533. <p>I can wait. I am not in a hurry, frankly. I know it <em>will </em>be happening eventually. Just a matter of time, really. For now, though, <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr">I will just keep enjoying Flickr</a> as my last refuge, waiting for a better time, while I muse further along, keep getting constantly reminded of how good we had it with Web 2.0, then Enterprise 2.0, to finish off with Social Business and we let it all slip back into oblivion, because, you know, change is hard. Yes, it surely is, but it is also inevitable, and, with it, to think it can also be a beautiful thing.</p>
  534. <p>And <em>that</em> is the constant reminder I get every day whenever I spend a few minutes in Flickr. Never to be forgotten but to celebrate what it has meant all along for those of us heavily involved in the 2.0 space over the course of the last few years. And still going strong, regardless of what other people may tell you&#8230;</p>
  535. <p>Now, you know <em>where else</em><em>,</em> besides this blog, you can find me. At my <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr"><i>last refuge</i> … Flickr!</a></p>
  536. ]]></content:encoded>
  538. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/20/flickr-the-last-refuge/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  539. <slash:comments>2</slash:comments>
  542. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3945</post-id> </item>
  543. <item>
  544. <title>How to Stop LinkedIn&#8217;s Toxic Algorithmic Manipulation</title>
  545. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/17/how-to-stop-linkedins-toxic-algorithmic-manipulation/</link>
  546. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/17/how-to-stop-linkedins-toxic-algorithmic-manipulation/#comments</comments>
  548. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  549. <pubDate>Fri, 17 Jun 2022 14:59:22 +0000</pubDate>
  550. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  551. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  552. <category><![CDATA[Employee Engagement]]></category>
  553. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  554. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Management]]></category>
  555. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Tools]]></category>
  556. <category><![CDATA[Learning]]></category>
  557. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  558. <category><![CDATA[Open Leadership]]></category>
  559. <category><![CDATA[Personal KM]]></category>
  560. <category><![CDATA[Productivity Tools]]></category>
  561. <category><![CDATA[algorithms]]></category>
  562. <category><![CDATA[conversations]]></category>
  563. <category><![CDATA[engagement]]></category>
  564. <category><![CDATA[fuck-the-algorithm]]></category>
  565. <category><![CDATA[Linkedin]]></category>
  566. <category><![CDATA[social-media]]></category>
  567. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3943</guid>
  568.  
  569. <description><![CDATA[I am grateful LinkedIn has, finally, managed to open up my eyes and leave behind the lab rat race it’s become over the years. I am grateful it has pushed me over the edge and facilitated, for good, my return to this blog. It only took me 4 years to realise it’s no longer the &#8230;]]></description>
  570. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Gran Canaria - Playa del ingles (Playa del Veril)" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52148302198/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="float: left;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52148302198_1a32256298.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Playa del ingles (Playa del Veril)" width="500" height="375" /></a><br />
  571. <script src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  572. I am grateful LinkedIn has, finally, managed to open up my eyes and leave behind the lab rat race it’s become over the years. I am grateful it has pushed me over the edge and facilitated, for good, my return to this blog. It only took me 4 years to realise it’s no longer the powerful networking tool for hard working professionals we were promised nearly 20 years ago, but just one other manipulative <em>media tool </em>to keep us entertained by nasty and malicious algorithms in the midst of our miserable and rather depressing work lives. Frankly, <em>why</em> bother with it? </p>
  573. <p>That’s the main question I have been asking myself lately and for which, more often than not, I am failing to come up with a good reason to even justify my active presence in there. It’s not the first time I give up on LinkedIn. <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2014/05/06/why-i-too-killed-my-linkedin-account/">It has happened before</a>. In fact, I remember how I only came back to it over 4 years ago, because plenty of my close social networks were telling me that’s where they were hanging out at the time to have some pretty amazing and insightful conversations with other people on the topics we are all truly passionate about. So they, eventually, enticed me to sign up for it and give it another try. 4 years later, <em>another</em> failure.</p>
  574. <p>I have tried. Over and over again. Relentlessly. I have <em>really</em> made an effort to make it work. To contribute into different conversations that were happening in my networks adding my two cents’ worth of commentary. As always, on the constructive side of things. Co-learning together. No exceptions.</p>
  575. <p>I<em> </em>made an effort, <em>rather often,</em> to share fresh and relevant content without tooting my own horn by promoting either <em>my</em> services or products too much. You know, respecting the golden 80% &#8211; 20% <em>rule.</em> I <em>genuinely</em> wanted to build and sustain, over time, my own social networks in there by applying plenty of curiosity and an open mind about what people were sharing and conversing. I tried resisting the temptations and obnoxious practices by LinkedIn’s own borked algorithms trying to entice my ‘engagement’ through plenty of manipulative practices while eventually neglecting the true hard code element in building one’s network: <strong>the conversations</strong>.</p>
  576. <p>In the end, I realised it was a lost battle. No matter how hard I would be trying to have a <em>decent LinkedIn experience</em>, trying to contribute into the overall effort of having a really powerful and inspiring networking platform for professionals, I <em>always</em> got punished by the stupid LI algorithm when it kept pushing down those posts in which the conversations were just incredible, but the ‘engagement’ rather low. You know, those posts that didn’t have too many <em>Likes</em>, or photos, or surveys, never mind the selfies &amp; groufies, badges, new job announcements, and whole plethora of <em>snacking-around time-wasters</em> LinkedIn has favoured all along. Yikes! It sucked!</p>
  577. <p>However, the defining moment for yours truly was when more often than not I would be spending a significant amount of time, energy and effort reading and writing into a (longish) LinkedIn post reflecting on a specific point of view, specially, with regards to working distributedly in the context of the Social Business journey and, lo and behold, the punishment was just around the corner about to hit me.</p>
  578. <p>Either the disappointing imposed character limit, or being sent into oblivion by the algorithm pushing that post to the bottom of the ‘pile’, if I were lucky, but more often not even showing up on my contacts’ timelines, as I was capable of confirming dozens and dozens of times. How fundamentally flawed can you be as a networking tool, if your main goal is to either hide or stop the conversations people could be having in your platform by consciously manipulating the content they share in your favour, not theirs? I mean, how on earth have we allowed <em>that </em>to happen? <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f92c.png" alt="🤬" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>
  579. <p>No, thanks! I&#8217;ve had enough with it. I&#8217;ve had to stop putting up with the farce LinkedIn has become, because, if anything, it was starting to damage my own presence and participation, if I were to buy into its modus operandi: that is, entertain an audience with useless content to reflect upon and not learn much, but give them feel-good  ‘engagement’ to lighten up a little bit their already miserable workday. </p>
  580. <p>You see? That’s perhaps one of the several things I have learned to loathe and detest the most from LinkedIn itself over the years in terms of what it does with the content you share across in the platform. It incentivises you, pretty much like a lab rat, to live off the <em>good vibes </em>(In Spanish there is a word to describe it pretty nicely as well: ‘<b><i>buenrollismo&#8217;</i></b>) by rewarding you with ‘engagement’. ¡<em>Look here, look at what I am doing. I am cool!</em>’ <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f922.png" alt="🤢" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /> But, in reality, what it is doing is essentially granting you, in the midst of a miserable day at work, a feel-good moment, so you can keep coming back when things get direr at your workplace and LinkedIn becomes just what it fosters: <strong>a form of false escapism into a mindless void of no return.</strong></p>
  581. <p>Can you imagine? If we were all believing everything that everyone keeps posting in LinkedIn, my goodness!, today&#8217;s workplace would be such a wonderful, inspiring and refreshing experience that we wouldn’t want to leave it any time soo! We would all be glued to our offices exhausting ourselves out of pure joy unregretfully.</p>
  582. <p>Alas, <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/393395/world-workplace-broken-fix.aspx">reality</a> <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/391922/employee-engagement-slump-continues.aspx">keeps</a> <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/389594/leaders-communicate-change-burned-workforce.aspx">telling us</a> <a href="https://www.gallup.com/workplace/388481/employee-engagement-drops-first-year-decade.aspx">otherwise</a>. Yet, LinkedIn has made <span style="text-decoration: underline;">a conscious choice</span> to give you those gratifying moments of ‘engagement’ as an opportunity to keep you entertained, well fed and with plenty of sky-through-the-roof good vibes installed permanently in your brain. Are you numb yet? In a nutshell, snacking around to no end, instead of working hard your way towards preparing AND enjoying a wonderful full meal. <strong>A better workplace for us all that we can co-create together.</strong></p>
  583. <p>I am grateful LinkedIn has finally managed to show me it’s not the place in which I&#8217;d want to heavily invest my energy, effort, intent AND conversations from here onwards towards aiming for a better workplace. Somehow, I feel the magic for that shift to take place is elsewhere and I&#8217;m now, finally, ready to play and explore it, away from the brainless toxicity LinkedIn exudes. </p>
  584. <p>Social, Digital Tools<em> were, </em>still are!, meant for something else. A different journey altogether for each and everyone of us. Not just the few usual suspects. If you remember, all along, it’s the journey towards becoming a <em><strong>Socially Integrated Enterprise</strong></em> having already <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2010/08/06/collaborative-culture-on-reinventing-the-social-enterprise/">freed the human batteries</a>.</p>
  585. <p>That&#8217;s <em>never </em>been LinkedIn’s purpose, but <i>ours and ours alone. </i></p>
  586. <p>Let’s not forget that, shall we?</p>
  587. ]]></content:encoded>
  589. <wfw:commentRss>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/17/how-to-stop-linkedins-toxic-algorithmic-manipulation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
  590. <slash:comments>4</slash:comments>
  593. <post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3943</post-id> </item>
  594. <item>
  595. <title>Things I Terribly Miss in Twitter</title>
  596. <link>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/15/things-i-terribly-miss-in-twitter/</link>
  597. <comments>https://www.elsua.net/2022/06/15/things-i-terribly-miss-in-twitter/#comments</comments>
  599. <dc:creator><![CDATA[Luis Suarez]]></dc:creator>
  600. <pubDate>Wed, 15 Jun 2022 14:15:53 +0000</pubDate>
  601. <category><![CDATA[Collaboration]]></category>
  602. <category><![CDATA[Communities]]></category>
  603. <category><![CDATA[Employee Engagement]]></category>
  604. <category><![CDATA[Enterprise2.0]]></category>
  605. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Management]]></category>
  606. <category><![CDATA[Knowledge Tools]]></category>
  607. <category><![CDATA[Open Business]]></category>
  608. <category><![CDATA[Open Leadership]]></category>
  609. <category><![CDATA[Personal KM]]></category>
  610. <category><![CDATA[#PKMastery]]></category>
  611. <category><![CDATA[#WOL]]></category>
  612. <category><![CDATA[community]]></category>
  613. <category><![CDATA[conversations]]></category>
  614. <category><![CDATA[engagement]]></category>
  615. <category><![CDATA[networks]]></category>
  616. <category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>
  617. <category><![CDATA[wirearchy]]></category>
  618. <guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.elsua.net/?p=3940</guid>
  619.  
  620. <description><![CDATA[As a result of this blog post, a good number of you folks have been asking me, over the last couple of days, whether I still see the value of Twitter or not. Frankly, if I had discovered it just about 7 years ago, my answer would have been a resounding ‘No!’ And yet? You &#8230;]]></description>
  621. <content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a title="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/lsr/52143310894/in/dateposted-public/" data-flickr-embed="true" data-context="true"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" style="float: left;" src="https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/52143310894_923cab5fbc.jpg" alt="Gran Canaria - Maspalomas Dunes" width="500" height="375" /></a><br />
  622. <script src="//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script><br />
  623. As a result of <a href="http://www.elsua.net/2022/06/13/twitter-is-where-my-conversations-went-to-die/">this blog post</a>, a good number of you folks have been asking me, over the last couple of days, whether I <em>still</em> see the value of Twitter or not. Frankly, if I had discovered it just about 7 years ago, my answer would have been a resounding ‘<i>No!’ And yet?</i></p>
  624. <p>You see? I don’t perceive any value in being part of the manipulated media tool (via algorithms) Twitter has already become. All in all, as a result of over-exposing both our internal rage and visceral, irrational fears. No, thanks!</p>
  625. <p>Yet, <em>I know better</em>. I still remember vividly the Twitter experience I fell in love with back in 2007, when I first signed up for it, so you may be wondering why do I linger around anyway, checking my Twitter Lists every day, waiting for perhaps better times, right? What are the things I dreadfully miss from one of my favourite and most self-empowering <em>Personal Learning</em> Networks out there?</p>
  626. <p>There are, of course, plenty of things I truly miss from Twitter. I suppose I could write multiple blog posts about each and everyone of them, but if I were to select the Top 5 I have enjoyed the most from over the last 15 years, it would probably be the listing I am going to focus on for today’s blog post.</p>
  627. <p>Now, I am fully aware it’s going to be a bit of a challenge seeing all of these coming back at some point, more than anything else because it won’t just depend on me, but on <em>all of us</em> to want to return to what we once had and that we let it slip thinking it would be there forever. Well, no, it won’t. Just like your own social networks. They require lots of constant, regular, hard work to sustain the effort, the energy and the intent. That’s why I am quite happy to wait for all of that to come back. Because, you know, <i>they always come back. </i><em>We all</em> come back. It’s just a matter of remembering fondly what we once built with it over the years … </p>
  628. <p>Thus, without much further ado, here are the Top 5 things I miss from Twitter in no particular order of importance. To me, they all are at pretty much the same level, because, if anything, you could still enjoy each and everyone of them at the same time!</p>
  629. <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>No more <em>live tweeting</em> at conference events</strong></p>
  630. <p>Back in the day, live tweeting was one of my favourite massive learning experiences. Since it’s almost impossible to attend every conference event about whatever the topic, Twitter made it possible <em>just to be there. </em>Even, if virtually. Plenty of people in my networks (along with myself, of course) would be travelling around to attend those conferences and we would all be sharing tons of tweets about what we were learning at those events. It was just a brilliant sense-making exercise; being able to tune in to our <em>live notes </em>and co-learn along the way through different conversations and interactions we would be having with other folks also attending the event and then with the rest of our networks, virtually. </p>
  631. <p>Fast forward to 2022, we still have a plethora of both virtual and face to face events, but people have just dropped live tweeting altogether. It’s rare to see anyone sharing their insights and observations about what they are learning at those events and, frankly, if you see someone live tweeting nowadays it’s mostly <em>paid advertising </em>either by conference organisers or by vendors sponsoring the event. Or they are trying to sell something to you. Usually, themselves by <em>pretending </em>to be smart. </p>
  632. <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Open questions &amp; answers by 2.0 practitioners</strong></p>
  633. <p>I remember fondly the good old days when a bunch of us, Web 2.0 practitioners, used to flock to Twitter on a daily basis to ask <em>openly</em> a good number of questions about the things were were doing at work to help accelerate the adaptation process to all of these social, digital tools as part of both our individual and collective #SocBiz journeys. We knew <em>the other side</em> would always answer back, not only with some really helpful insights, but also with an opportunity, and an invitation, to connect further so that we could continue co-creating and co-learning with our mutual working experiences. No hidden agendas, no nasty answers, no toxic assumptions, just purely connecting to help others advanced further, <em>getting better together</em>.</p>
  634. <p>Try now asking an open question about something you are struggling with at work and you’d either get an obnoxious and condescending response, if at all, as in, <em>you should know better by now, </em>or a multitude of consultants and niche firms wanting to sell you their souls and services. </p>
  635. <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>From Working Out Loud to Hiding Away</strong></p>
  636. <p>There used to be a time when a whole bunch of us escaped our mundane, routined and rather dull work chores and fled to Twitter. Then, all of a sudden, a window of fresh air would open up, right in front of our eyes, as we were all transported (and transformed!) by the wonderfully thought-provoking environment of plenty of other 2.0 practitioners who were very keen on sharing their good practices, lessons learned and other work experiences as they themselves were trying to help accelerate a shift towards the so-called <em>Socially Integrated Enterprise. </em></p>
  637. <p>We just couldn’t wait to dive into our Twitter streams to see <em>what else</em> was new out there for us to learn about, based on how plenty of other people, and ourselves, were narrating our work, working out loud one tweet, one conversation at a time, perhaps not knowing that in doing so we were also building massive online communities and clusters of social networks that would glue us together for good. <em>No matter what. </em></p>
  638. <p>Nowadays, unless we would all want to be enraged and fearful about something we can’t do much about in the first place, we avoid Twitter like the plague and head back to work, even if it is not the most exciting period of our lifetime when vast majority of organisations have now given up on their #SocBiz journeys. And to think we’ve just gone through all of that over a short period of 7 to 10 years?!?! Ouch! That hurts. My goodness!  </p>
  639. <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Lack of two-way open conversations</strong> </p>
  640. <p>This specific activity is perhaps one of my all time favourite ones. These Top 5 all are, frankly, but this one in particular is quite special, because, in a way, I suspect Twitter introduced everyone to the concept of living in a <a href="http://wirearchy.com/what-is-wirearchy/">wirearchy</a>. Anyone could reach to get in touch, and converse of a specific work related topic, with everyone else and shortly afterwards engage, for certain, on an open two-way conversation we all got to enjoy and chip in accordingly, if we were inclined to do so or even if we weren’t directly involved with it. <strong>Curiosity ruled Twitter</strong> back then, to the point where we were all exposed to some pretty incredible events and had the unique opportunity to converse with those folks who were <em>right at the heart of it all</em>. It was just mind-boggling! <img src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/72x72/1f92f.png" alt="🤯" class="wp-smiley" style="height: 1em; max-height: 1em;" /></p>
  641. <p>I am pretty sure, if I were to ask you, you would all have a pretty inspiring story to share about how Twitter helped you make that totally unexpected connection, perhaps find your dream job through your networks nurtured there, or keep up with a trusted network of acquaintances that over time turned into really good friends or maybe have a rather fond story that would bring a smile to your face when you would share it with your offspring in the near future. </p>
  642. <p>Fast forward, again, to 2022 and ask yourself, when was the last time <em>you </em>had such amazing conversations in Twitter that lasted more than a tweet or two, before you (or them, or both!) would move on to other things … When was the last time <em>you</em> wished Twitter would be <em>different? </em></p>
  643. <p style="text-align: center;"><strong>No more community, folks! Thanks a lot for all the fish!</strong></p>
  644. <p>Finally, let’s talk about what, to me, is perhaps one of the most poignant things I surely miss from Twitter in the last few years. It’s about something that has been dear to my heart for a good while now and I suspect one of the items I see Twitter no longer being able to recover from <em>graciously</em>.</p>
  645. <p><strong>People have forgotten to build community </strong>in Twitter and, instead, they have decided they just want to <strong>build <em>a</em> <em>followship</em></strong>, i.e. an audience to entertain, grabbing, at all possible costs, its attention while seeking the 15 minute useless fame of those willing to waste their time following along with no interactions whatsoever. Just pure ego-centric entertainment to showcase how important they / we all are, when, effectively, we just aren’t. But, hey, we caught and hook up your attention, didn’t we?</p>
  646. <p>Twitter showed us different. Ever since its first stages back in 2006 and 2007, it demonstrated <em>effectively</em> it had the power to help us all build community, to understand each other, to connect, learn and share with one another, to have a common purpose to pursue, to make a difference in the work we all do, to eventually leave a mark in us all that <em>we</em> could change the world one tweet, one conversation, at a time. In a nutshell, it helped us build who we were back then, <strong>a massive <a href="https://cynefin.io/wiki/Human_sensor_network">humane sensor network</a></strong>, as my good friend <a href="https://twitter.com/snowded">Dave</a> <a href="https://thecynefin.co">Snowden</a> would say, capable of representing the <strong>Global Pulse of the World</strong> across different regions, geographies, cultures, languages, customs, narratives and what not. </p>
  647. <p><strong>It just gave us purpose to be AND to do better</strong>. To be humanE ourselves while fully immersed in a giant cluster of networked fellow twitterers, co-building community on a daily basis, wanting to help build a better (work) world than what we could possibly have today, because it taught us all <em>we could do it</em>, if we put together our collective energy, effort and intent. </p>
  648. <p>Now, <em>that is the Twitter I miss. </em>That is the Twitter I am willing to wait for to resurrect and bring us back to where we left it, so that we can carry on working hard on making the workplace a better place for everyone, including future generations. </p>
  649. <p>Not too shabby of a purpose, don’t you think? Well, that is the Twitter I learned to love and treasure to bits back in the day. That’s the Twitter I am hoping to re-engage back in with soon enough! </p>
  650. <p>And <em>you</em>? Will <em>you</em> also wait? Or have you moved on&#8230;?</p>
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