Future Of Work - Howard Gray

Baby got Bach

Our baby’s not sleeping much at the moment. The only thing that seems to help is classical music: Brahm’s lullaby, or a bit of Bach. But the rest of the world is leaving classical behind. Why? Today, there’s no conductor or setlist. The roles and instruments aren't

Future of Learning

The Mailroom 2.0

Working in the mailroom is often seen as being at the bottom of the ladder. But as CEO of my first company I was desperate for it. Sitting alone in the office on a Thursday evening or a Saturday afternoon, I knew that grinding it out in the mailroom would

Future Of Work

“This call may be recorded for quality & training purposes”

For a long time, this kind of automation was incredibly expensive and complex to set up. Then, for most companies, it got affordable. Now, in a Zoom world, it’s incredibly easy for anyone with an account. But very few of us choose to hit record: whether we’re at

Resources

18 elements of the Zoom revolution (remix)

In the latest instalment of his ‘Akimbo’ podcast, Seth Godin switched it up. On the surface, nothing was different. As always, there were no guests. Very little editing. The episode was the usual 20 minutes or so. So, what changed? This one was a listicle (or whatever the name is

Education

Building the 10 key skills for 2020

We all know the world is changing quickly, and that we all need to build and develop new skills to stay relevant and on top of what’s coming around the corner. The World Economic Forum [https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/01/the-10-skills-you-need-to-thrive-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/] earmarked the following 10 skills as

Future of Learning

The important thing before on-boarding

It’s not just about what happens once they’re on board and the vessel is setting sail. It’s not just about the on-boarding rituals that occur once they’ve arrived at the place of departure and they’re beginning to assimilate into the culture of how we do

Mind The Gap

The Rotation

Menlo Innovations is a software company based in Ann Arbor. They’ve become well known for staying true to their innovative title – not only in the work they produce but in the way they do the work. One example is in pair programming. This isn’t anything extraordinary on its

Stage Left

Cross Training: The ChefTender and The KitBar

Last week I was facilitating an education program in Herndon, Virginia. Herndon is an interesting little place – sat right next to Washington Dulles Airport an hour drive from the city, it’s the DC home to perhaps a dozen large companies, yet is in a completely different state to DC

Mind The Gap

Beyond the 1 hour meeting

The 1 hour slot has long been the default meeting duration – whether team gatherings, introductory coffees, or job interviews. While the times are indeed a changing, the 1 hour slot is largely still the default setting. Here’s another method to try when you’re meeting a fellow human being.

Future of Learning

Your Dunbar number

Dunbar’s number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships. Although it varies, the number is generally accepted to be around 150. Those who are proponents of Dunbar’s number believe that groups in excess of 150 often need

Future Of Work

Location Arbitrage

* Go back 15 years or so and this was only a serious day to day consideration if you were an international trader looking to take advantage of fluctuations in currencies and demand for particular goods. For the rest of us, it may have come up as something to think about

Future Of Work

Build, Buy, Borrow, or...

A few weeks ago I was teaching a course at the HQ of one of the biggest and well-storied companies in the US. During the lunch break I started chatting to one of their senior HR execs. Within a few minutes we’d got into everything from Chinese innovation to

Future Of Work

Demo Night

Taking my career building project Fondo out of the studio for the first time. New York City’s Canal Street is one of the main arteries in Downtown Manhattan (and until the 18th century was an actual canal). Cutting west to east, in its centre it splits the main parts

Future Of Work

If Jobs were Houses

Last week a bunch of us were chatting about how searching and applying for jobs operates right now. For me it helped to think about houses. Some houses leave the front door wide open. Others keep it on the latch. A few of the houses at the end of the

Portfolio Career

Lowercase skills

You may be familiar with concepts like T-shaped or I-shaped people to help simplify the way we think about skillsets in people. Here’s another that’s even simpler, and based on concepts most of us learnt when we were 4 or 5 years old. Capital and lowercase. [1] It

Portfolio Career

3 elements for making deals as a freelancer or consultant

Today my pal Tom [http://www.tomcritchlow.com]came over to my place for lunch. [1] Tom is a digital marketing & strategy consultant, and has lots of interesting thoughts about the practice of independent consulting (in fact he’s writing a book about it – for a primer check out this

From Zero

Company Name* (required)

We see this all the time. On event registrations, job applications, and the contact forms where we’re encouraged to get in touch. Fill out your company name, it’s mandatory. But what if you’re a company of one? A freelancer? Someone who’s part of many rosters? You

Future Of Work

Signal vs ability, illicit activities, and the future of work

This Twitter thread from Josh Wolfe caught my attention earlier this week. > 1/ Here are some REALLY interesting findings from a controversial empirical paper asking: *WHY do some people become ENTREPRENEURS?* Of the many findings + hypotheses, a few stand out -SIGNALING theory -REJECTING a system that REJECTS them… — Josh Wolfe

Mind The Gap

Social proof in the world of work

When we think about work, there are generally two types of social proof at play – short and long. It’s worth considering which way you’re going, and where you may need to adjust the distance of your vision to help you get to your destination. A brief introduction to

Future Of Work

8 workspace trends for 2018

Think about co-working in 2017 and one of the first names on your mind is likely to be WeWork. The company is valued at $20bn and is about to become London’s biggest private office tenant [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-06/wework-bets-london-s-costly-offices-won-t-be-bitten-by-brexit] . Bear in mind WeWork only launched

The Tension

Transfer Market or Academy?

Gareth Bale in the early days of his journey from Southampton’s academy to Real Madrid When you’re identifying new talent in your line of work, what are you looking for? The marquee signing from a big-name team, a solid performer to keep things ticking over, or an unproven

Future Of Work

A workspace for your tribe

The ‘X for Y’ high level concept gets bandied around a lot these days, and whilst Uber for…cats/dogs/washing machines/insert just about anything here has become something of a cliche it’s still a useful proxy to get a concept across in just a few words. I’