21st Century Work Life – Details, episodes & analysis

A very short episode where I (Pilar Orti) share the reasons why the 21st Century Work Life podcast is going on pause. Stay subscribed though, as you never know when new episodes might drop!
Thank you very much for listening and all the best for 2025. 

Get in touch: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us 

It's the end of the year, but we're not making any predictions - things are moving way too fast! Instead, Pilar and Maya review some of the issues that have been blamed on "remote".

For an extensive summary of the episode, check out www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/dont-blame-remote-work

You can message Pilar through the Virtual not Distant website: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us

and get hold of Maya over at Remote Work Europe: https://www.remoteworkeurope.eu/ .

In this episode Pilar talks to Justin Gignac, co-founder of Working Not Working, and Nicolina Jennings, the company's VP and Managing Director. Our guests share the origins and evolution of Working Not Working, and how what they've learned about engagement and belonging led to their new platform NTRNL. They make a strong case for increasing employee retention by creating an infrastructure that makes internal opportunities - and hidden talents-  visible to all.

You can find a summary over at www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/working-not-working

Check out Working not Working https://workingnotworking.com 

and NTRNL  https://workingnotworking.com/ntrnl 

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (virtualnotdistant.com), where we help people work better together apart.

Today's episode explores the themes of loneliness for the remote worker. This is an edited summary of a live talk with Dr Richard MacKinnon on loneliness and disconnection in remote teams back in July, as part of the Learning Lounge of the Emotional Intelligence (EI) Evolution.

The live EI Evolution event it's on October 12th, featuring the godfather of EI Daniel Goleman - you can learn more and book here, using code PILARORTI10 for 10% discount. 

Beyond the #watercooler

19.14 Self awareness 

27.44 Remote vs colocated work

34.30 Talking about emotions

You can find the full show notes over at: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/​​beyond-watercooler-loneliness

Today's episode explores facilitative leadership in remote teams, and how to successfully blend asynchronous and synchronous practices to help teams work effectively together.

Pilar Orti interviews Simon Wilson, co-founder of Wilson Sheriff, and certified master facilitator with the International Association of Faciliation (IAF). He's been working with the online space as part of his practice for many years, and co-authored Virtual Meetings a Practical Guide. 

Connect with Simon on Twitter, and online for more.

For the full show notes, head over to https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/asynchronous-collaboration-facilitation

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London (https://virtualnotdistant.com)

Today Pilar Orti and Maya Middlemiss explore topical themes and publications in remote work, including:

• Your Company Needs a Digital Nomad Policy (HBR)
•  Top CHROs Believe 'Flexibility Within a Framework' Is the Future of Work (Gallup, June 2021).
• What to do about "Global COVID Nomads", 

Let's remember, in all this talk of location-hopping, that flexibility as a principle is about much more than where you work.  Future Forum study of 10,000 knowledge workers shows that 93% want flexibility in when and how they work; more than half are open to a job change.

(Slack are taking care of our emotional wellbeing in an app update, and advancing their audio offering too).

New coworking adventures from the Virtual Not Distant team.

What about you? Don't forget to share your questions, ideas, links, and concerns, about the rapidly evolving remote work scene.

From Virtual Not Distant in London (https://virtualnotdistant.com), today's episode explores the use of the office and other environments for deliberate and mindful work in teams. We are joined by Justin Morris, Senior Customer Success Manager - Modern Communications, at Microsoft.

We discuss 'reopening anxiety', onboarding during lockdown, courageous and flexible leadership, and Microsoft's 3 pillar frameworkof people, place and process. The right policies, underpinned by the right cloud-based technology, can make this work for everyone - but it requires an agile and experimental approach.

Mindful teamwork is the way Justin describes it, and being able to nurture ideas from the spark to production means involving the right people at the right time. 

Our in-house Visible Teamwork framework structures this concept around a set of principles and practices which work effectively in long-term distributed teams, so here's a quick reminder of the 

• Deliberate communication - passing on the right information in the right way, from availability to ideas to soliciting input and sharing news. How and where do we share each kind of information, at the right time, and with the right people?

• Work visibility - from project management tools and dashboards to collaborative documents, we need ways (appropriate to what we do), to share what we're working on and the progress it's making - providing updates, seeking feedback, managing resources, and sharing ideas.

• Planned spontaneity - finally, we need ways to recreate the unscheduled, serendipitous communications and connections and possibilities, by creating environments and practices which support this. And yes, the shared office can be one tool we can use for this - but it is far from the only one.

For more on the Visible Teamwork framework, please check out the following articles and episodes:

Good bye "Working Out Loud"; Hello "Visible Teamwork"

WLP241 Visible Teamwork and Trust in Remote Teams

Applications of Visible Teamwork in Remote Teams — Virtual not Distant

WLP239 Match Your Visible Teamwork to Your Team Task Workflow

You can also download our free PDF guide by signing up for the newsletter in the box below, and learn how to put the ideas into practice in your own team via an in-house workshop.

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London, where we help people work together wherever they are https://virtualnotdistant.com

Today's episode is dedicated to coworking spaces, because we're all about choice and office-optionality - so we need to remember that remote work does not always mean working from home. 

3.18 Asia Hundley and Bree Caggiati from Shield GEO discuss the role that coworkings played in their pre-pandemic lives.

8:21 Bernie Mitchell, coworking and future of work advocate; European Coworking Assembly,  and what if everyone could walk to work? Connect with Bernie at Berniejmitchell.com, and sign up for his newsletter there too.

Meanwhile do check out our brand-new podcasting for connection service - and connect and share your feedback with us.

WLP278 What's Going On: Office Dilemmas and Virtual Watercoolers

Brought to you by Virtual Not Distant in London

(http://virtualnotdistant.com)

In today's episode Pilar and Maya explore 'what's going on' with an evergreen perspective, looking at issues about returning to the office, some new research, and more, including:

• Location-independent employment in Norway Regjeringen vil ha flere på hjemmekontor, som Guro Aanerød i Lofoten. Kan skape jobber i distriktet – NRK,
• Facebook are going to allow Irish staff work from other European countries,
• The 'Zoom towns' luring remote workers to rural enclaves. 
• 'You shouldn't feel pressured': Many Americans dread returning to the office.  
• A Field Experiment on Virtual Synchronous Interactions and Performance of Organizational Newcomers - data-driven contemporary research, looking at how well interns integrate and find long-term success in virtual teams, according to different 'virtual watercooler' protocols.
• You can now schedule messages in Slack
• Our LinkedIn question of the month:  In this current work environment, how can we help or encourage our teams and colleagues (and ourselves) to avoid burnout and too much computer time while still being productive?
• Pilar is doing a talk at The Inaugural Ei Evolution Summit+ - EI Summit, and also we have a discount code if you want to book for the main summit (PILARORTI10).