Digital location.
Most businesses have always been based in physical buildings.
Indeed, it’s a legal requirement for a limited company to have a registered office, a place where notices, etc. can be served.
But for a decade or longer, and of course now massively accelerated by the pandemic, many people work remotely.
Up to now the focus has been on operations – how can we produce our goods and services when working remotely?
This agenda needs to be widened. How can we create a culture remotely? How can we creatively collaborate remotely? How can we get together to celebrate remotely?
I suggest we might want to start by adopting a “digital first” mindset; akin to when Google told us all to think “mobile first”.
What does your digital ‘building’ look like?
Do you have areas to socialise together?
What about meeting rooms for creative brainstorming sessions?
Are there places to be able to have a confidential chat, or a one-to-one?
How about celebrations – whether they be business or personal, (birthdays, etc.)?
My bet is that, as with digital events, the digital HQ will take some getting used to, but as with many things, once the new habit is formed it will quickly become normal.
We already have many of the tools needed, in particular video whether that be of broadcast quality like our event platform or via whatsapp, facetime, teams or zoom.
Perhaps we just need to switch our thinking to consider these mediums first rather than having them as a backup for when we can’t meet in person.
I also think it’s time to stop talking about being “zoomed out”, etc. I think this is massively exaggerated – or at the very least, we’ve forgotten quite quickly how we used to be “meetinged out”, (remember those days?).
To get started, I suggest you imagine that your whole team has to work away from each other – that you can’t meet in person for 12 months. I bet if this was to occur, you’d soon have a digital building that delivers everything your physical one does – perhaps even more.
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