When I joined Poly on January 20th, 2020, audio and video solutions were already important, but not considered indispensable to every organization. Then, on my first day on the job, the US documented its first COVID case just outside of Seattle. Nothing could have prepared any of us for the two years to follow.

In 2020, we rose to the occasion of a global pandemic as every aspect of our lives was disrupted. In 2021, we realized that things were forever changing. The big question for 2022: Can we take all we’ve learned – and are still learning – and create a better version of how we work? We have a short window of opportunity to make things better. To reset. It’s incumbent on all of us to usher in better ways of meeting and collaborating. I’m up for the challenge. Are you?

Here are my top predictions for 2022:

All meetings will include a remote participant and a video component.

The pandemic made it second nature to gather via video, and there’s no turning back. As we get back to more in-person meetings, expect every gathering to include two things:

1. At least one remote participant.
2. A video component.

Companies that don’t plan for this reality will see a loss in employee productivity and lower overall satisfaction. In fact, they already are.

Organizations will plan workspaces around worker personas and conference room personas. 

Poly has long studied the personas of different work styles, and we refined those personas during the pandemic. Our customers want a similar understanding of the conference rooms themselves. What are the unique attributes of different types of meeting rooms? How can organizations design around not just the size of meetings but the type of meeting, the purpose of the meeting, the presence of remote attendees, industry-specific needs, and more? Expect more thought leadership – from us, certainly – when it comes to defining and outfitting the modern conference room experience.

Organizations will become more virtual than ever. 

The continuation of virtual meetings is a given, but organizations will expand their definition of what it means to be a virtual – perhaps even borderless – enterprise. Do companies really need a headquarters, for example? If so, what is their purpose going forward? And what should they look like as a result? The same goes for regional offices. All physical spaces will need to be reconsidered in terms of function in light of the growing presence of virtual meetings.

Travel will return – at a reduced rate – but it will look different. 

People are hungry for facetime with colleagues and customers in other parts of the world. With vaccinations more widespread, organizations will continue to loosen up restrictions and encourage travel again. But those trips will need to have a clear purpose, like accelerating an initiative, brainstorming, team building or problem-solving. Regardless, all of these meetings will be supplemented with task-specific, virtual meetings.

Hybrid work decisions will impact “The Great Resignation” – for better or worse.

The much-talked-about Great Resignation has companies doubling down on hiring and retention efforts. Unlike the past, the focus shouldn’t only be limited to salary and title. These efforts should concentrate on building a sense of wellness and belonging. Companies that go the extra mile to offer employees workspaces and technology that foster these goals – both in the office and in-home offices – will have an advantage when it comes to attracting and retaining top performers.

The pandemic and remote working forced us to reevaluate how we approach meetings. What aspects of the old ways of the meeting can we leave behind for good? What new lessons can we embrace and carry forward? Smart organizations will put more thought into creating meetings designed to let us do our best work—in a planning meeting, ideation session, QBR or training. To optimize these gatherings, think about three key levers:

• Preparation: Put more effort into preparing attendees before they arrive. Give them a proper briefing and deeper context. Get them noodling on important questions. Communicate your meeting objectives in advance. These up-front steps lead to meetings where people are truly engaged instead of passively staring at slides on a screen.
• Humanity: Build more connections in meetings. After months of seeing each other in our homes and enduring a world crisis together, we’re gotten used to sharing more of our personal lives. How do we build on that new comfort level, carving out opportunities within meetings to foster community, trust, and empathy?
• Purpose: Infuse more purpose into gatherings, whether in-person or virtual. Don’t fall back on old habits. Think carefully about the reason for getting together. Ask yourself if you can elevate that purpose. Carefully consider the best use of time. And find meaningful ways to energize, support and delight the team.

I wish everyone a happy, healthy and prosperous 2022!

Workplace designer Kay Sargent shares how the pandemic will reinvent the office experience

I recently interviewed Kay Sargent, a highly regarded workplace designer with HOK. We spoke about how COVID-19 presents an opportunity for us to redefine what the office looks like and how it serves workers. Watch the 20-minute discussion here.

Below are highlights from our exchange. But first, my key takeaways from this interesting conversation.

1. Think more about moving people and less about moving office elements

The modular office concept is old thinking. Companies should design fixed work areas for specific purposes—meeting, brainstorming, training, private conversation, etc.— and let employees move around according to their needs. It’s healthier and more practical.

2. Personalize the office experience in the spirit of the smart car

With fewer employees in the office, companies can offer those who do come in a more custom, high-end work experience that is tuned to their personal preferences and workstyles.

3. When thinking hybrid work, embrace the best of each and leave the rest

As we rethink enabling employees to work from the office, the home, the car, or somewhere in between, be sure to leverage the best of those scenarios. In designing our new hybrid work reality, we have the opportunity to leave behind for good the things that never served us in the first place.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM MY CONVERSATION WITH KAY SARGENT

Carl: We’ve proven with COVID-19 that work isn’t a place you go to, it’s a thing you do. At Poly, we’re paving the way for a hybrid work world where people can work where and when they want and feel well supported in different work activities. Give me your thoughts on this notion of hybrid working.

Kay: When we create a hybrid, we need to make sure we leverage the best of all—not the worst of all. Sometimes a hybrid can be the worst of everything. If I could take the term “return to the office” and throw it away, I would. Why would we want to return to something that wasn’t working in the first place?

An emerging ecosystem is starting to evolve. First, you had the office. Then you could work from home. Then people started working at Panera’s or Starbucks but realized that wasn’t very professional. Co-working became the fourth place. And the fifth place is what we call “The Spoke”—a go-between. Because a lot of people can’t or don’t want to work from home, but they also don’t need to travel an hour to be in the downtown location.

It’s about creating places that are more professional or might have more amenities or better technology than you would at home. But you don’t have to go all the way downtown or to headquarters.

Carl: What are people thinking about in terms of employees returning to the physical office? How can organizations make these spaces friendlier for brainstorming, creativity, problem-solving, and collaboration?

Kay: Purpose of place—that is the key. Working from home, working remotely, or even the idea of the Spoke…those are not new concepts. Depending on what’s happening in your business cycle—or in the world—it can be very successful.

The Hub (i.e. the office) is often geared more towards gathering. But you still have space for individual, heads-down work. Because rarely do you just meet all day. Usually, there’s a meeting before the meeting, or there’s the debrief, or you’re preparing for the meeting. Very rarely do we just do gathering. What will make this place compelling enough for me to get up and commute? It could be the experience, the services that are offered, access to the best technology, or the whiteboarding or think labs. We see this as a kind of engagement center or innovation center. But it has to be well-balanced with places where people can still do work.

Carl: I read that people are reimagining their office spaces to look like cafes because people are comfortable with that.

Kay: Years ago, you might design a cafeteria and it was only used for 2-3 hours during lunchtime. For years, we’ve been saying that we have to create more dyadic spaces. They need to live throughout the course of the day—and they need to morph and change. A lot of companies have created working cafes on the first floor that are casual gathering spaces. We’ll see a lot more of that because visitors are not necessarily going to be allowed to go up into your space, or you may not want them to. So, lobbies of office buildings might look more like lobbies of hotels.

Carl: I assume people are thinking about space that can be recreated. On Mondays, it needs to be this way and on Thursdays, it’s something else. Are organizations thinking about how to make the office a modular space?

Kay: The correct answer is yes, but let’s talk about the realistic answer. How many times do people really move all that modular furniture or demountable partitions? It’s pretty rare. We talk about creating flexible spaces, but what is the most flexible thing in any environment? The people. We design space like people are potted plants and then everything moves around them. We flip that and say, “I’m going to give you a variety of work points and you get up and move to the one that’s right for you.” You may want to reconfigure space on occasion but fundamentally we need to stop thinking that we just sit in one place all day and everything adjusts to us.

Carl: You’ve said that it’s pretty bad that our cars are smarter than our offices. How do we turn an office into a Tesla?

Kay: In the auto industry, you can buy an economy car and a luxury car. But in the office, you can’t really say, “These are the economy work points and these are the luxury work points.” You have to be equal to all of your employees. But if you don’t have to have as many [people in the office], you can offer work points that truly are that luxury model. If I have fewer work points, they can be better and more intuitive.

When I walk up to a car, the FOB in my pocket alerts that car to who I am. Everything automatically adjusts to my preset preferences. We can do that to work points today. But we don’t, because we believe that we have to have one desk per person, and it’s got to be an economy model. We end up getting the worst of everything.

Carl: Is anybody getting creative or progressive around the home office? And are companies leaning in to help their employees to do that.

Kay: In the beginning, everybody said, “You’ve got to find a spot—the perfect place—and make it all tricked out for you.” I don’t encourage somebody to sit in one place at the office all day and I don’t want someone to do that at home. That’s horrible for us. We need to think about how we get people up, active and moving.

There are several companies that have offered their employees packages, anywhere from $500 to $1,250. They’re saying, “If you’re going to work from home, we want you to have the ergonomic set-up you need. We’ll give you a certain allowance. You can use it for Internet, a chair, or whatever you need.” But then you are also signing a waiver because if you’re working from home and that becomes your workplace, there is some liability if you become injured. So, there are lot of things that need to be worked out.

Carl: Have you seen companies take excess travel budget and put it toward helping people enable their home office environment? Those are funds you can redirect quickly.

Kay: A lot of companies have said, “Nobody’s traveling and we’re going to take all that money and put it into the AV or IT budget—because we have to support people in different ways.” Nobody planned for this.

Carl: At Poly, enable collaboration and virtual work. Are you seeing organizations use the tools and technology in interesting ways? Are people asking, “How do we do this more effectively?”

Kay: Everybody is asking that question. I don’t think we’ve ever had a time in which everyone was equal. I was on a call recently with South Africa and it was one of the worst calls I’ve been on. Because they were back in the office and there were three of them. They were socially distanced, so they were all six feet from the speaker. You could barely see their faces. It was challenging because half of the people were there, and half weren’t.

This goes back to what I said in the beginning: Sometimes a hybrid solution is the worst of both. What we don’t want to go back to is people who are present and people who aren’t—with the inequity of that. We’ve had customers say, “Either everybody’s calling in—even if you are in the same building—or everyone’s going to remote in, or everyone’s going to be present.” Because the mix is a challenge.

Carl: I’ve been to a lot of places—pre-pandemic—and people around the world work very differently. I’m wondering if, in a post-COVID environment, people are coming back to work differently too.

Kay: This is playing out right now. In Asia, wearing a mask is something they’ve done forever. They look at us and they don’t understand why we have such an issue with wearing masks. And in Asia it’s harder to work remotely, as many people live in smaller units with multiple generations under one roof. In India, you are discouraged from working from home—and legally you weren’t allowed to pre-COVID. So, they’ve had to make a bunch of adjustments. In Europe, these socially conscious countries tend to be more willing to sacrifice for each other. Whereas in the US right now, we are experiencing, “I’m going to do what is right for me regardless of what that means for you.”

Carl: Difficult moments give us license to challenge systems and norms. When we think of workplace environments, how can we make the best of this difficult situation?

Kay: We have a unique opportunity right now. The entire world is saying “How should we work?” If this had happened ten years ago, it would not have gone as successfully. We wouldn’t have been set up tool-wise or infrastructure-wise. If all we do is address the immediate crisis at hand, we will have missed a golden opportunity. We need to change the way we work. I don’t want to say that it’s a silver lining within COVID-19, but it could be if we take advantage of it. If we don’t, this could be our industry’s Kodak moment.

Carl: Thanks for your time today and your thoughts. You live at a very interesting crossroads.

Kay: Thank you. Always happy to chat.

Watch the 20-minute discussion here. 

Applied Futurist Tom Cheesewright challenges leaders to widen their lens and time horizon in the face of COVID-19

I recently interviewed Tom Cheesewright, a respected applied futurist based in the UK. We spoke about charting a course through COVID-19 and how organizations should seize the moment to embrace ambitious ideas and take big swings. Tom recently contributed to Poly’s Hybrid Working Report which features insights from experts on the future of work, workplace design, cultural change, and explores how work will evolve as we emerge in the “next normal.” Below are highlights from our conversation. Don’t miss Tom’s practical advice at the end of the post for how leaders can apply futuristic thinking to their organizations right now.

Watch the 30-minute discussion here.

But first, here are my three biggest takeaways from the exchange with Tom:

1. Combine COVID macro-trends with industry challenges to spot intersections of opportunity.

Companies should triangulate their organization’s or industry’s greatest struggles with the bigger forces outside of their control—like climate change, aging populations, and immigration—to discover the high potential possibilities.

2. Be bold, harness change, and take the opportunity to move with greater speed.

With so much in flux, now is the time to make big moves. Companies can’t go backward—and many are more ready to embrace ambitious plans than they’ve been in years. There’s no way but through, so don’t push off what can happen now.

3. Break with cultural and management norms that no longer serve their purpose.

With so much up for grabs, use this time to redefine culture, management, and leadership practices– thinking carefully about how they can evolve with a changing work environment and workforce.

HIGHLIGHTS FROM MY CONVERSATION WITH TOM CHEESEWRIGHT

Carl: As an applied futurist, you talk a lot about finding the intersection between macro-trends and existing stresses within an organization or industry. Can you apply this principle in terms of COVID-19 and the impact on work environments as well as culture?

Tom: COVID exposed lots of pressures. Suddenly everybody has to work from home or remotely. The immediate pressures are the challenges of technology, user learning, user behavior, connectivity, and bandwidth. We know the technology is there, and it works. You get people over that small hump and get into issues of culture and privacy as well as presentation—being on camera for lots of the day and letting people into your home—and how that changes your behavior.

Then you get into the really interesting pressures around the culture of work. How do we assign work to people who are working remotely? How do we change our managing style? How do we collaborate in this environment? And how do we do challenging things, like on-boarding new staff members?

Carl: The burden is going to fall on the management team. They’re the ones who have to set the change in culture and expectations. Have you thought about the management team in terms of how they operate differently going forward?

Tom: In Future Proof Your Business, I wrote a whole section about how lots of organizations are sensing this need to be more adaptable and responsive to what’s going on. One thing I prescribe is to push more power, autonomy, and responsibility to the edges of the organization. We can’t use the old methods of management that came straight out of the factory. We’ve got to start accepting that our organizations are now lots of small units—even individuals—that have to take on responsibility for things. And we have to accept that they will return results.

Carl: With COVID, one of the bright sides is digital transformation. We’ve been talking about this for a decade and while some companies leaned forward into it, most hadn’t.

Tom:  The initial response from organizations was, “The office is dead—it’s going to be remote working from now on.” Now it’s more of an equilibrium position where people have recognized the weaknesses in that argument. Undoubtedly, there will be fewer offices and they are probably smaller. People are not going in day-in and day-out, but they are taking advantage of the things that the office offers.

We’re all having to get much better at handling our workloads. There is a role for leadership to say, “How do we allow people to work with maximum productivity but also maximum quality of life?” We want to set those two objectives and maximize both of them.

Carl: Any predictions about how verticals like healthcare, transportation, and manufacturing are transforming? What are your thoughts around industries and how they are evolving?

Tom: Healthcare is facing this perfect storm where you have the pandemic combined with big issues around international migration. Lots of healthcare labor comes across borders in the UK and the US. That’s a real challenge for them. How are they going to find the labor in the next few years?

Combine that with the existing crisis around obesity and an aging population. We have this high pressure on our healthcare environment in terms of taxpayers contributing to the system—or insurance contributing to the system—versus people largely drawing on it. Those numbers are going to flip within the next 50 years. For years it was, “How do we do more for less?” Now, it’s “How do we build the maximum adaptability into the system.”

(on transportation)  

The COVID crisis created the impetus for looking again at how we build transportation infrastructure. How do we think about the daily commute? How do we plan for peak times? How do we think about whether and when people have to travel?

Right now, we overbuild transport infrastructure by 30% to 50% to cope with those big peaks. Can we leverage the technology that allows people to work remotely and flexibly? Can we time-shift peoples’ commuting hours so we don’t have to build so much infrastructure? We are probably 30 years out from fully autonomous vehicles and Class Five vehicles, but there’s lots we can do around the design and build of mass transit and individual transport.

(on manufacturing)

I had a conversation with the creator of WikiHouse—which is basically an open-source house—about this idea of “networked manufacturing.” You have these small local factories building different components, In this case for housing but it could be any sort of manufacturing project. These small factories can rapidly adapt to new demands, scaling up and down quickly. The digital-to-digital, machine-to-machine aspects of this communication technology allow them to move information, shift control, and automate control so much more easily.

Carl: You write a lot about the changing role of the city. How have the trends that were already in motion pre-COVID been accelerated or changed? I hear for example that people are trying to quickly exit New York or London because they want to get more space.

Tom: There is really interesting tension between people recognizing they can—and deciding they want to—get out of the city. That’s your demographic age group in their late thirties, forties, and fifties. Kids of school age. Careers are in the right place. Financially secure. And in jobs where they can work remotely.

Counter that with some of the big incoming challenges that are facing us, such as climate change. Living in a densely packed city is one of the greenest things you can do. You’ve got easy access to all of the amenities at your doorstep. You can use public transport very easily. We really need to be moving people into more densely packed city environments. This is challenging in a pandemic, but if we are to address climate change without dramatically cutting the population, that’s a big driver.

Then you pose the aging challenge. The global population is aging much faster than we thought. How do we ensure we can afford to care for these people? The only way to do it is to bring them into more densely populated areas where the healthcare services, amenities, and cultural amenities are right on their doorstep.

Carl: Today, we’re constantly tethered not only to the desk but to the screen. We’re always on stage with video. What is your self-care prescription for those who want to recharge versus just enduring through the process?

Tom: The first thing you have to do is forgive yourself. If you’ve been brought up in a 9-5 or 8-6 environment, get out of that mindset. Stop thinking about how much work you do and start thinking about how much value you add. Measure yourself purely on the value you’re adding—not the effort you’re putting in. Over-deliver if you can. But listen to your body, listen to your mind, listen to your brain, and your soul about what it is telling you it needs.

Carl: People use to take vacations to recharge but I don’t see people doing that today. What is your view of vacations in the current COVID world and how does that change in the post-COVID world?

Tom: We’re going to see quite a shift in the nature of holidays in the next few years. You could just go to work in a different place. They say a change is as good as a rest. Go rent a home on the coast for three months. You can still keep working but do it in a different place—with a different daily schedule, different environment, different food, different people.

We might see people taking fewer big holidays but taking longer ones. So rather than taking two weeks every summer, they’re saying, “I’m going to take three months every 2-4 years but I’m going to take a complete sabbatical and do something different.”

Carl: You say those who stay focused on the future are the ones who prevail. How do we do that in such an uncertain world? And what’s your secret to staying optimistic during COVID?

Tom: Take one percent of your time to focus on the future. One day every six months. We use a simple process to scan the near horizon. It’s not about jetpacks or microchips in your brain in 30 years. It’s about the biggest challenges or opportunities in the next five years.

1. Start by looking at the pressures you face today. What are the challenges in business? Talk to colleagues, partners, and customers. It’s really cathartic and people love to tell you.
2. Look outside of the organization at the big trends. What is transforming industries that look like yours, your competitors or peers, or similar industries in different parts of the world?
3. See where these big trends intersect with the pressures you’re facing. You’ll find five, 10 or 25 things.
4. Put them in an order of scale. How big is the impact going to be? How much better or worse is it going to get?
5. Pick the top five and deal with them over the next six months.
6. Repeat the process.

Carl: Tom, thanks for your time today. I look forward to following you as you go forward into the future.

Tom: My absolute pleasure.

You can watch our 30-minute discussion here and download Poly’s Hybrid Working Report here.

Daniel Newman of Futurum Research Predicts Innovations and Fallout from the Pandemic

I recently had the opportunity to interview Daniel Newman, founding partner and principal analyst with Futurum Research. We talked about how COVID is changing human dynamics and the role AI and other technologies can play to normalize our workspaces. Below are highlights from our conversation. Watch the 25-minute discussion here.

But first, let me share my three takeaways from the exchange with Daniel:

1. Prevent relationships from becoming transactional

We have to guard against relationships feeling overly transactional as we make our way in this era of digital-heavy interactions. As people start venturing back out, we’ll need to make our infrequent face-to-face-meetings really count. This means finding ways to generate strong connections despite social distancing, masks, and other precautions.

2. Expect AI to play an Alexa-type role in office buildings

We will see highly imaginative applications of AI, especially when it comes to voice-activated commands that prevent us from touching surfaces in the lobby, conference room, or shared workspace. But there’s more. AI will also alert us to important information we can take action on — such as a huddle room that is exceeding its capacity or notification that a meeting is over so the room can be cleaned.

3. Companies will rethink how they use surplus office space

Companies are grappling with how much office space they’ll need post-COVID. Yes, more people will work from home. But will the need for employees to socially distance at the office absorb that newfound space? And, can employers repurpose extra space to create inventive environments that boost collaboration, group brainstorming, and team building?

Highlights from My Conversation with Daniel Newman

Carl: You’ve written a lot about this notion of seamless interplay between home and office. What’s going to be different about the home office in terms of the management, technology, and cost as well as the interplay back to the office?

Daniel: As the technology continues to proliferate, the ability to do work in either location will become more and more seamless. This is going to enable the home to really function as a full-fledged office. But I still think the one thing that’s underrated is the human condition.

We could have done conferences remotely for 20 years. And in the last 10 years, it’s become incredibly good and would have been much more economically favorable. But people like conferences. They like to have dinner with people. They like to walk around and talk to people. They enjoy the camaraderie, relationship building, and socialization.

That’s one of my biggest concerns in the wake of the pandemic. It isn’t just about the illness and the virus. It’s about people’s loneliness and connectivity. As we’ve slowly seen things unwind where we can have a beer with someone outside on a patio somewhere, you realize it’s just not the same. I think that will bring us back to a more balanced, hybrid experience than what we’re enduring right now.

Carl: I’m hearing the same thing. For the first 90 days, this work-from-home thing worked, but people are missing the in-person connection and what I call “unintended collisions.” They crave this in-person experience.

Daniel: There’s a different level of connectivity that takes place when you’re physically interacting. It’s a much more seamless, open, and less constricted experience that people tend to open up to. I’m walking to the cafeteria. I see someone in engineering and I’m in product management. We have lunch together and this great idea comes up. We didn’t plan that meeting. We just happened to bump into each other.

There’s always been a deeper level from that physical relationship. Do you remember the relationships you’ve built — whether it was golf days or going fishing with a customer or driving race cars? That’s gone, and I’ve noticed that some of the depth of customer relationships have changed. That creates more of a transactional nature. So how do we bring that back? That’s what those live moments were always really good for.

Carl: How do you see AI impacting the technology we use in the office as well as for work-from-home?

Daniel: We’re going to see the acceleration of conversational technologies (i.e., voice-enabled) that will lead to improved experiences and push vendors to do better. You combine the pandemic with the “virtual cooties” everybody has now. Nobody wants to touch stuff. Using AI, when you walk into a room you can do some automation and protection. You can talk to the room.

I love the demos of walking into a room and being able to talk to a system and say, “Call Carl” and it knows you’re the Carl I talk to the most and it’s able to engage me on that. I can say, “Turn on my video lighting mode,” and it knows what my video lighting mode is. It’s just starting to become much more natural, engaged, and more touchless.

A lot of people think of AI as robots walking down the hall, delivering our packages. Yes, there’s some of that. But it’s really about data. It’s about being able to process, capture, manage, enhance, enrich, and then utilize it to drive experiences. In the workplace, it’s going to be much more about that.

Carl: You hit on a number of things we are working on at Poly. I would add one more around management and analytics. With social distancing and COVID, rooms that, for example, were originally designed for 10 people can only have five people. And you’re going to see analytics that say, “Hey, did you realize there are seven people in that room and our limit is five?” They are going to alert somebody that there’s a problem.

The same thing goes for work-from-home. I’m sure you’ve been on calls where somebody’s bandwidth is a problem or somebody’s dog is barking. How can I understand what’s going on and either a) quickly put some kind of acoustic fence around that; or b) alert the person that their bandwidth is suffering so they can do something differently. We are working to manage that entire environment.

Daniel: Everything you mentioned is evolutionary utilizations of AI. We’ve been trying to better manage rooms for a long time. And we’ve got new challenges because of COVID — because of social distancing, spacing, enhanced acoustics, the desire for more intimate video, and wanting rooms to work more effectively. This means you have to think about the camera’s ability to follow voices and do it in a way that’s not distracting for the viewers.

Having said all that, I think these are going to translate in interesting ways to use cases beyond just meeting rooms. Poly’s partner, Microsoft, is doing interesting things with this technology and using it for the Internet of Things inside the retail environment. For example, how do you make sure people are socially distanced in grocery stores?

What you’re doing in these rooms is not only going to be done for collaboration. This is going to become part of that normal and a really good application for computer vision. I know it’s a sensitive topic right now with facial recognition. So, how are we using this data to create great experiences without invading people’s personal data and information?

Carl: Do you see companies or industries that are more likely to be disrupted now vs. pre-COVID?

Daniel: I think we will see a really big disruption in terms of the traditional workplace. Our offices will never be quite the same. At this point, companies have identified that at least 10% — and in some cases as much as three quarters — of their real estate is unnecessary. That doesn’t mean companies will never go back to work. It doesn’t mean the commercial real estate market is dead. But it means that it’s going to have to be rethought, repurposed, and reapplied in order to recapture hearts and minds.

I’ll give you one more that might be a bit of a contrarian view. I think that the importance of retail was largely minimized leading up to COVID. People’s desire to go out and shop — after spending three months never going into a store that isn’t a grocery store — has been realized. People love the experience of shopping.

I pondered why Amazon was buying Whole Foods. Why they were opening Amazon Go stores. Why are they investing in physical retail — when they had nailed the remote e-commerce, high-margin fulfillment strategy. It was because when people shop for exercise equipment, automobiles, and mattresses, they want to go into a store.

But the business model has been horrible. This is going to be that perfect time, with inexpensive real estate and big tech companies with huge capital availability. I could see Amazon getting into a whole bunch more physical retail businesses that are experientially driven.

Carl: Daniel, I appreciate your engagement today and your thoughts. Thanks for your time.

Daniel: Thanks, Carl. I really appreciate you having me.

Watch the 25-minute discussion here.

The “next normal” is hybrid working—flexible, productive, and spanning multiple locations.

There are a number of ways in which organizations around the world are going “back to work.” Many are planning to safely and effectively transition some or all employees back to the office. Some are reducing office space as they reevaluate real estate requirements. Still, others are extending their work-from-home policies until 2021 and beyond. While the right path forward varies for every company, there is one thing we can all agree on: very few organizations will go back to the way things were at the start of 2020.

During this historic time, we see customers moving through three phases in order to survive and thrive despite the pandemic: Respond, Redesign, and Reinvent. Our recent report, Hybrid Working: Creating the “next normal” in work practices, spaces, and culture, lays out these phases in detail.

Respond Phase: Prioritize Business Continuity

The Respond Phase—the first wave in response to the pandemic—focused on mitigating challenges and ensuring business continuity. Organizations of all kinds had to “flip the switch” almost immediately, whether that meant moving every employee to a work-from-home environment, equipping teachers with tools for effective virtual learning, or enabling healthcare first responders to manage drastically increased call volumes. Bottom line, everything had to be done fast.

In many cases, this led to hurried, makeshift home environments with a mix of employer-provided and personal technology, such as headsets and web cameras. These DIY approaches may have done the job at the time, but that quick fix proved to be inadequate long-term.

Redesign Phase: Become Digital First

As organizations stabilized basic operations, they moved into the second phase: Redesign. This phase—where many companies are today—is all about reimagining workspaces, business models, and ways of working. The end goal: Companies are working to future-proof their organization by becoming a digital-first company.

This new path looks different industry by industry:

• Financial services companies are exploring remote banking interactions and ways they can improve the in-branch experience with on-demand experts available to customers in the bank
• Manufacturers are focused on streamlining production, improving visibility into the supply chain and understanding real-time inventory levels
• Automotive companies are concentrating on improving communication and collaboration across stakeholders, including design, engineering, manufacturing, and sales
• Pharmaceutical companies are looking at ways to accelerate clinical trials and how they can provide home health and personalized medicine
• Professional services companies are considering new ways to give clients access to experts wherever they are

Reinvent Phase: Digital Transformation as a State of Mind

In the third phase, Reinvent, we expect companies will embed digital transformation into the fabric of their organization. The notion of digital transformation has circulated for a decade, but there was always this question of when it would become a reality. Based on conversations we are having now, digital transformation is more central to strategy than ever. And companies in a Reinvent mode will commit to pushing the limits of what’s possible to prosper long-term.

Redefining Work Itself

Today we have a great opportunity to redefine what work means. It isn’t a place you go, but a purpose that is powered by collaboration and workflows. The “next normal” of work is what we call hybrid working, a blend of office, and remote work. It allows workers to seek out purposeful workspaces tailored for different needs. For example:

• The office environment is the best setting for innovation, problem-solving and serendipitous interactions as well as for building connection, trust and culture
• The home environment lends itself perfectly for individual work projects as well as coordination, planning, and reviews
• The third space environment—be that a cabin, the backyard or a simple walk with the dog—offers much-needed moments of reflection, creativity, inspiration, and restoration

It all comes down to empowering employees to be productive no matter where they work. It’s about listening to their needs and creating environments that accommodate their individual workstyle so they can do their best work.

Give employees a choice of places to collaborate, think, create, or simply check in with others. Review the idea of purposeful workspaces and enable customized, fit-for-purpose spaces for different needs. Provide enterprise-grade equipment for home offices for both personal focus and group collaboration. And complement that with office spaces that encourage innovation, problem-solving, and moments of connection.

Inevitably, new winners will emerge during this period of disruption—and legacy industries are sure to be reborn out of necessity. Because in uncertain times, innovation naturally surges. As humans, we show our amazing ability to adapt and problem-solve. As we gain clarity about what matters most, we summon the insights and creativity to shape a better future.

A free-ranging conversation with Ray Wang of Constellation Research

I recently had the great pleasure of interviewing “Ray” Wang, principal and founder of Constellation Research, on the evolution of work spaces, practices and culture in the COVID-19 era and beyond. Below are highlights from this illuminating conversation. Watch the 25-minute discussion here.

But first, here are my three takeaways from the conversation with Ray:

1. Create purposeful workspaces

Companies must be purposeful about the use of different workspaces. They have to:

• Reimagine offices for innovation, collaboration, connection and trust
• Make sure employees’ home offices are conducive to individual work as well as planning and coordinating with team members
• Encourage employees to identify a third space for think time, ideation and inspiration—a backyard, a cabin in the woods or a simple walk around the neighborhood

2. Engineer moments of serendipity

We all need to get more creative about engineering opportunities for serendipity—or “unplanned collisions”—into our remote work life. The virtual happy hour is a good start, but there’s so much more to be done to trigger those magic moments when an idea sparks or an important connection is made.

3. Reinvent tired industries

Organizations’ response to the pandemic cannot stop at business continuity. They must push further, aligning around becoming a digital first company and, ultimately, embracing digital transformation as a state of mind. 

Highlights from My Conversation with Ray Wang

Carl: Your Post-Pandemic Playbook talks about how companies can adapt as the world re-opens. One of the things defining success is this notion of embracing digital transformation. How can companies cultivate a culture and a transformational mindset to adopt and accept digital transformation?

Ray: We’re living digital transformation. For a lot of folks that have been working from home, the quick change was the fact that it was okay. The hardest part, though, was the fact that everybody’s working from home. It used to be one or two people and then another person might be going to a physical location for work. This shift has actually transformed how we think about work and workspaces. That’s going to be one of the most important things that we look at.

We learned that 70 to 80% of the work we do can be done in a remote setting, using collaboration technologies and embracing a different spirit of digital transformation. There are some things that still have to be done in person. And people are going to work through those when that makes sense. But we’re going to see a bunch of hybrid models emerge for how we work from home and from remote locations.

Carl: We’re having conversations with customers about hybrid work environments. It’s about this notion of working from home versus when you return back to the office—and having a purpose for why you are going to the office. What’s your view on hybrid working?

Ray: We’re learning to think more about purposeful work. When I go into the office, what does that mean?

• Is it a social visit?
• Are we trying to collaborate on an idea that we can’t do in a remote environment?
• Are we in a freeform brainstorming session?
• Do we need a certain fidelity that’s required to build trust?

Carl: Let’s drill down on that. We’re having fewer moments of serendipity around innovation. Ginni Rometty of IBM said they are envisioning the office as much more of an innovation hub, and you’ll go to the office with a purpose. When we get back to the office workspace, will it be just a brainstorming and collaboration space?

Ray: Great point. We’ve been spending time talking about why some digital events don’t work and why certain digital technologies aren’t helping. It’s because we’re not designing for serendipity. That sounds oxymoronic when you say, “let’s design for serendipity.” But it’s that casual conversation. It’s that comment in the hall. It’s bumping into somebody you normally don’t see. We don’t build those into virtual interactions.

We’re not able to do that right now. That’s why we need some of those in-person meetings. We need to build those innovation labs. We need to build those creative spaces. And when we do get together, it’s about being able to build or rebuild those connections and spur sparks of innovation.

Carl: Do you see different remote working personas with different needs? How can we think intentionally about these personas?

Ray: Part of going to work is the social interactions that occur and the social structure. That’s part of building trust and being part of a team. Those have to be recreated in the digital sense. Because some individuals and personalities are feeling lonely at work. Other individuals don’t know when to stop in terms of how much work they’re doing. Another set of individuals are not getting the mentorship they’re used to getting. Some folks absorb those kinds of conversations in person much more than they do online.

Carl: How should we adapt our interactions with customers and prospects in this environment? I find that for customers where I have a relationship, it’s fairly easy to continue and extend that. But for new ones…I go back to these unintentional collisions.

Ray: A good friend of mine calls them random collisions. It’s so important to create those. We believe there’s a way to create customer and prospect events. They are a little bit more intimate—20 to 30 people. Invitees actually bring a friend so there’s some level of familiarity. What you do is you take cheese, wine, coffee or tea and you create a tasting session. It’s a way to gather. You bring a sommelier, a cheesemaker or some other master craftsman to share along the way. You have a great conversation. You get to meet everybody in a smaller group, share some information and then jump into an activity.

Carl: What are your thoughts on certain industries that are leaning forward at this critical time? And are you seeing industries that may be disrupted because they are not? I believe that times of major change are when the biggest disruptions happen.

Ray: We just wrote about density business models. If your business model is built on density, it’s dead. You’re going to have to rethink it. What do I mean by density? Think about retail’s focus on revenue per square foot. Think about live events and the focus on packing as many people in one place as possible. Airlines and transit are in the same boat. Those density models are dead. We have to rethink our digital monetization models. Digital goods, digital services, membership, subscriptions and advertising—those are the five big models.

Carl: A certain coffee shop company did very smart branding a few years back about the “third space.” We had the office, the home and the third space, which they thought was the local coffee shop. Is that idea still alive? And is there going to be a new third space?

Ray: I think the third space is what you create. It’s whatever you need to actually get work done and bring people together. The original concept still makes a lot of sense. But I think what’s going to happen is it’s going to evolve. It might even be an augmented reality room or virtual room where you’re actually sitting. There may be a fourth space. I’ve done enough podcasts and interviews from my car because I know it will be quiet. Hook the microphone up and we’re good to go.

Carl: Last question. Tell me something I don’t know that I should know.

Ray: One of the big things that’s happening is new digital business models built on five important concepts. The first is massive membership models. The second is multi-sided networks. The third is exponential technologies—cloud, video, AI, big data and edge computing all coming together. The fourth is decision velocity—helping people make quicker decisions and helping systems automate those decisions. The fifth is companies with a long-term mindset—not planning for the next quarter, but planning for the next decade.

Carl: Thank you, Ray. I appreciate your time and encourage people to follow you on Twitter. There are always some good nuggets there.

Ray: Thank you, Carl.

Watch the 25-minute discussion here.

The Coronavirus is sure to have a lasting impact. When it comes to how we work, educate, govern and live—there’s no going back to “business as usual.” As people grow accustomed to work-from-home practices and remote interactions, it will be hard to put the genie back in the bottle. Financial advisor and commentator Josh Brown said it best: “The nature of work has been a secular trend in hiding all this time. It just took the coronavirus for everyone to realize it.” Bottom line, the coronavirus has been a catalyst for massive adoption of remote working.

The coronavirus has also been a great reminder that as humans our well-being is connected. As we all hunker down, we’re realizing how much we need and value one another. Technology that makes that connection possible is more important than ever.

Yes, it’s vital that leaders get through the crisis. But they can also use this time as an impetus for innovation. The Great Plague forced Isaac Newton to leave Trinity College and “work from home.” That year produced some of his greatest scientific breakthroughs. It’s a great reminder to fight the urge to simply survive. Innovators choose to thrive.

At Poly, we have a unique view into the world’s dramatic move to remote working. We provide some of the key elements that make remote working possible, so we see organizations around the world stepping up to not only navigate through the coronavirus but to consider what it will mean for how they operate in the future.

Keep employees productive with high quality remote experiences

If there were ever a time to think outside the building, it’s now. Give employees the tools they need to work smoothly from home. Companies are flocking to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Slack and other cloud-based tools to empower their employees to be productive remotely. They are also equipping them with the cameras, headsets and laptops to make virtual meetings as lifelike as possible. 

Many are going to great lengths to foster interactions that allow for human connection. They recognize the role of facial expressions and body language—something that email simply can’t deliver. Organizations large and small are offering guidance and encouragement on everything from online meeting protocols to physical space and lighting tips to virtual coffee breaks and happy hours.

Customers are also using video communication to keep employees informed, motivated and secure. Leaders understand that their employees need to see and hear from them right now, and not just via email. High quality virtual interactions—be they one-on-one sessions or virtual townhalls—allow for greater presence and transparency, both of which are key to allaying fears and inspiring confidence in the future.

Identify activities where virtual collaboration can be applied

Remote collaboration isn’t just for employee interactions. We have many healthcare customers using virtual sessions to meet with patients to support social distancing measures. We see country leaders using video conferencing to connect with each other to make critical decisions for their constituents. We have business customers leaning into these capabilities to create virtual customer briefing centers, host conferences in virtual settings and provide customer support. And just as learning institutions are moving students to virtual settings, organizations are educating employees without gathering them together in one place.

Consider your new place in the world, post coronavirus

It’s a difficult period and resources are limited, but carve out time to envision your organization’s future, so you can inspire your teams to get there. What are you learning during this time of retrenching that you might apply to the future? Make this moment matter—it can be a driver for creativity and innovation.

• Look for new business models that weren’t practical before.
• Revisit contingency and business continuity planning measures.
• Consider optimizing real estate and workspace investment strategies for collaboration.
• Look at employee work patterns and possible changes to work from home policies.
• Reevaluate travel policies and the criteria for justified travel.
• Think about how you want to foster better meetings and collaboration.
• Determine whether to adopt a more distributed supply chain.

Lead teams to a new future

As organizations move through tough times, they learn new things about themselves and their stakeholders. Those insights can provide a roadmap to where you need to move. Leadership now will define your organization—to your employees, customers and stakeholders. It’s times like these when we see what we are made of. Some organizations will rise to the occasion—empathize, innovate and emerge through this crisis stronger than ever.

Show leadership at this critical time of uncertainty. Make smart short-term decisions about how you keep connected and productive. And take the opportunity to envision a new future, grounded in learnings from this challenging time.