Virtual HQs race to win over a remote-work-fatigued market

I personally think that an interesting opportunity is to better transpose online the spontaneity/serendipity of the interactions that people have at the office. Two good examples are Loom which enables workers to create videos with the least friction possible (more spontaneity), and Around which is doing what Loom did, but applied to video conferen... See more

Some will return to physically co-working with strangers, and some employers trapped in the past will force people to go to offices, but the illusion that the office was about work will be shattered forever, and companies that hold on to that legacy will be replaced by companies who embrace the antifragile nature of distributed organizations.

A flipped office would work the same way, knowledge work (the vast and blurry category most appropriate for remote work) happens from home offices and perhaps hyperlocal coworking spaces, while some meetings, workshops, and lighter work more easily done in a shared space, happens at the office.

The success of companies like Slack, Zoom, and Atlassian in challenging the dominance of Microsoft and Google’s productivity suites accounts for part of this interest, but the rise of remote and distributed teams is the most important secular shift driving the trend.

According to research from McKinsey & Company, more than half of survey participants prefer theiremployers to adopt a hybrid virtual-working model post-COVID-19. The Metaverse will enable new virtualoffice environments in which employees around the world will collaborate as if they were present in-person.

Correspondingly, we hope to see increasing employer focus on fostering a sense of fulfillment, connection, and support across in-office and remote workers alike. For companies expanding remote work optionality, what new systems will be needed to build and sustain community and culture across the organization?

People will struggle to structure their time now that virtual activities carry more social weight than they did in the past. IRL hangouts have more tangible controls and barriers to entry that prevent people from engaging endlessly, and physical anchors that help form habits and routines. Without that, people are going to either burn out or quickly... See more

How do you know when to break into a conversation in a virtual meeting without interrupting someone else? How do you re-construct the aimless but essential conversations that happen during a Friday casual demo hour with food? The esprit de corps of a well-constructed all hands that fires everyone up? And I’ve never seen anyone conduct a productive ... See more