virtualize your work

Are we going through an Engels’ pause in the global economy? Engels’ pause as a term refer to an era around the year 1800, when the industrial revolution kept people’s wages low, while GDP per capita was increased, and capital was centralised to the owners and finances of new industrial business. 

Many have drawn parallels between what is going on today with digitalisation to this 200-year-old period. And it’s no wonder, because we are seeing many of the same effects. The white-collars of today may make a decent income, but the capital growth is concentrating to the few.

The industrial revolution made way for the labour movement. A movement to protect workers’ rights from the depredation by capitalists. At scale, the movement has been a huge success, and its effects, like a limited-hour-day or worker-safety are now considered “normal” in the working world. How will working life change this time around?

a Natural drive towards monopolies, again

During industrialisation, the bigger your factory was, the larger the benefit. In digitalisation, the more users a service has, the larger the benefit due to gaining better data, and thus, in most network-based services, offering a better service. 

So both revolutions naturally drive towards monopolies. In the world, where all data is available to all people (we call it a virtualised world), it doesn’t make sense to have a million search engines, a million online trading platforms or a million social networks. Theoretically, the one who gains the greatest amount of data, builds the best service. 

The worker-movement of the virtual era

In the industrial revolution, workers movement was built around uniting workers to protect them. Workers were not empowered, but rather grouped and given one voice, that could, and still does effect change. 

In the virtualised world, will the white-collar-workers answer be empowerment? In my discussions with startup-leaders and investor as well as big platform leaders, a common surmise is that one person with extraordinary skills far outweighs a group of “normally skilled” workers.

Be the best at what you do

So who can be a person with extraordinary skills? Luckily for us, anyone. The world is so specialised, that we can all be the best at something in our own market. The hard part is to articulate our skills to ourselves and to others, and bring them to the market. 

For the market is there. There’s a continuous auction for skills in platforms like Upwork, LinkedIn and Etsy. Each one of them different, but perhaps a sneak peak at the future of work.

The life of white-collar-workers today is made hugely more difficult by the remains of industrialisation. As industrial workers united, they needed strictly built professions that best described their place on the factory floor. The “drill worker”, “the welder”, “the power loom worker”.  Well, listen to us now: the data analyst, backend developer, senior game programmer, test automation engineer. Is it this classification of skills, that create “extraordinary” and “normally skilled” workers. Are we really all extraordinary in our own way?

The value chain of creating a top-notch company in the virtual world is not about having an army of web developers (front- and back-end), it is a combination of many individual, highly specific skills, that deserve a unique description, and deserve to be empowered and heard. 

plan your side hustle

It starts with you. Instead of trying to fit the industrial-era description of your assumed position, create your own. Consider what you’re good at, and what your market needs. Then build your story around that, and join the market.

If you’re not ready to go yet, at least start thinking of how you will break loose from the habits of industrial era work, by considering what you could do as your side hustle. Many of us will have multiple employers anyway in the future (See, for example this publication from Demos Helsinki & Sitra), so why not start now?

What is virtualisation

It’s been hard to find a word to describe and pinpoint where this world is going. But, what we see that has been hugely accelerated this year is the switch to doing a lot more with a lot less. We are looking at a final countdown for the industrial way of life, where every specialist works in their own role and waits for their tasks to come down a chute, much like the workers on an assembly line. Empowered by digitalization, the world is transforming from a giant assembly line with roles, tasks, and opening hours to an open space of innovation and productivity. 

So why is it called virtualization? In a virtual space, you can just indicate to the program that you want to have an item, and there it is. Say you want to be somewhere, boom, you’re there. Of course, in the real world, we are still limited by the logistics of anything physical. But for the majority of business people, it’s information, knowledge, and connections that we’re handling. And all that can and should work much like you’d see in a VR game.

It’s not about virtual reality, it’s about a reality that acts virtually

By virtualisation, we don’t mean that people will go about their business wearing VR helmets, but the effects of virtualisation on our behaviour are the same. Many services have already been virtualized: you can listen to music you like anytime, anywhere, and pull up an article on virtually anything from your pocket. 

The same applies for the production of many services - it isn’t an organisation of learned experts that write for Wikipedia, and anyone of us can become a published author or singer just by uploading our stuff to a service. Taking it further, you can acquire, rent, or lend anything available to your means in an instant (plus the time it takes for logistics). 

Why you really go anywhere?

For white-collar workers, we believe virtualization is the next big change. If you can see and know anything in seconds, with very basic tools and infrastructure, shouldn’t that change the way you go about doing your business? The fundamental reason we go to an office, visit a fair, or attend a seminar has been diminished. We end up with “networking,” “putting a face to the name,” and other secondary reasons. I’m not saying they’re less important, but do we really, honestly make our decisions based on them?

For instance, when you last justified why you went to that seminar, did you list learning from the speakers (you could pull up on YouTube anytime) or meeting potential clients (whom you could just contact online at any second)? Is any one of us honest when we say we’re fans of the speaker, and it’ll make our day when meeting them? Or has someone ever said they don’t think a potential client would get to know their product unless they’ve seen them at a seminar?

Again, there’s still plenty of reasons to go places for business, but the reasons are not the same as they were five years ago.

The future is virtual

This year has seen a giant leap in technology that has been around for years: meetings are online, big investment decisions are made over the internet, families celebrate Christmas over a video call, and suddenly “necessary travel” is somehow not necessary anymore.

Virtualisation has an effect on business, on life, and on the world. As it is a practise of making things simplified, it carries with it a lot of saving potential, but also creates unforeseen opportunities to businesses as well as people who cherish it. Putting the world in a person’s pocket saves time to spend with friends and family, and think of how much more value any business can provide when they serve clients regardless of physical location.

But most importantly, for all of humanity, adopting virtualisation saves the earth’s resources. Aiming for a world where practically anything can be handled from one hand-held device to another, transportation would become the luxury it should be. Heating and cooling resources? Think of all those cubic meters we keep warm in the cold and cool in the heat just so that people can commute for an hour to forward their emails, or all rush in at opening time to get a pair of jeans on sale. It does not make sense in a virtual world.

Be an activist, demand change

So join us, and become a virtual activist in your own life. Demand services where you don’t need to move to another space or stick to a timetable to get them. Start asking yourself why you’re commuting, and how to minimise it. Give up your personal desk in the office, and build one in your bedroom or kitchen. 

For all the little things individuals can do to help virtualization, companies can do a hundred of them. Start with your people. Once they are open to it, have them teach you how your services should change. 

The world will become a better place through virtualisation, and all of us can help everyone get there. 

Virtualize your life

For us, virtualisation is about doing more with less. It saves time, money, and bolsters your health by minimising the routines and burdens you carry in your life. It helps you take full advantage of the opportunities today’s world has to offer. Embracing virtualisation results in more time and exponentially more opportunities to pursue what is important to you.

The first thing is to let go

We’re living amidst an explosion of technology-empowered services that make life easier. At the same time, consumerism has reached its peak. We spend countless amounts of money on products that don’t last long and we could live without. We often find it hard to let go of the old, but rather try new services as an add-on, unable to make them a constant part of our lives. 

Virtualization is about carefully considering what you want in your life, and carefully planning what you spend your time on. Everything else can be left out of the equation by means of automatisation, outsourcing, and simply leaving out as a priority.

It can be as simple as saving on weekly commuting hours, and instead working from home. It’s about choosing to have an online meeting instead of the traditional face-to-face meeting to save time. It’s about replacing that second car with a mobility service that best fits your needs. All of this is empowered by technology. We have a never-ending array of tools to redesign our life in order to have a minimum amount of hassle.

Only then can you maximise output

When you virtualize your life, you maximise your own ability to give. Technology makes it possible for anyone to fulfill their dreams much faster than just a few years ago. We just haven’t accepted that what used to be a dream that would’ve taken a lifetime to pursue, can now often be pursued in months or years, sometimes even immediately. 

To maximise your own output in the virtualized world, you need to package your skillset in a way that makes it more valuable. Then, maximise output by grasping the technology-empowered opportunities you have access to: anyone can now invest in almost any instrument. Anyone can publish a book, found a video-channel, or sell their crafts globally. Often, maximising your output means having multiple roles and multiple endeavours, instead of just one 9-to-5. At best, this results in multiple income streams and a more exciting life.

Beware of your demons

But virtualization is also about not giving a f*ck about whether your car is as good as the neighbours’, unless that’s what’s important to you. It’s about not automatically reserving that holiday, unless that’s what you and your family truly want. A lot of the life we live is driven by our egos, and the ego only sees what our peers are doing. It doesn’t understand that the possibilities in a virtualized world are endless. 

And this may be the hardest part - to believe, understand, and trust in a virtual world where any one of us can achieve anything. 

Branding, Marketing, and Sales

Together, these three form the customer’s path to purchase and the roadmap to true appreciation of a company and an increase in its value.

But, in our digital era this is more easily said than done. Only customer journeys that create genuine experiences have the ability to brand the company with each sale, and create sales with the money invested in branding.

Companies that highlight their brand and aim to stand out, target big audiences in general. Their branding is done by sponsoring and building experiences as well as flashy content. But it’s hard to see how this translates into money. Passive visibility is, on the other hand, not enough to guarantee a steady growth of regular customers.

Companies that invest in marketing struggle to find the optimal balance between marketing and sales. They might even forget to create a respected and desired brand. When all the focus is fixed on messages and comms, distinguishable behaviour, ie. branding, might be forgotten all together.

Who appreciates or is able to make a value judgement of a company that solely focuses on sales and marketing, I wonder?

Companies that make sales sacred forget that good marketing works like a snow plough; sales becomes cheaper and easier when someone clears the path for recognizable, distinguishable, and desirable elements, as well as willing candidates that can make things happen.

People that place their entire faith in sales practice the most expensive and slowest form of commercialization.

At its worst, sales considers marketing to be unnecessary, while marketing seem to know that anyone can make a sale happen. Hence, we need a driven and ambitious construction of markets, clients, and regular customers, a skilled and self-cheering sales and a brand director that remains focused on the horizon while keeping the company image interesting.

In the old days, everyone had the money to spend on everything above. However, in our digital era we should be able to gather these functions into a tight packet, take focused action, and make the customer journey synergetic. The audience, clients, and referees should all be drawn in to make this possible.

Only few are able to do this.

Perhaps the answer to all of this is a marketing strategy rooted in tomorrow - the goals, needs and, solutions. Instead of using the dated way of developing things, it is worthwhile to hover above a blank page for a moment, to pause and contemplate how the process could be directed in the best possible way in case you decided to start today.

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Corporate Governance in Crisis

How is the board ideally supposed to react in a bad crisis? Good corporate governance is equal to scanning the challenges of tomorrow. While owners create possibilities, the board should navigate the future and the management create the results. Future-driven corporate governance is therefore founded on a systemic process in close connection with ownership.

The offset for good corporate governance

1. Timely information about the company's progress.

2. Continuous communication between the management and the board (WhatsApp groups are great for this purpose).

3. A documented onward strategy, goals, choices, and an action plan.

4. Scenarios for different outcomes and a list of adequate reactions as part of the annual plan.

5. A good team spirit and a big “We” that stands for the owners, the board, and the management - all heading in the same direction.

On the other hand; a board that’s designed to merely report, look backwards, act distant, and seldom meet up, is pretty much worthless in a crisis. When the shit has hit the fan, and there’s no real responsiveness, the owners and the management are on their own in the eye of the storm.

However, in the end, it is the owners who failed to build themselves a productive board, which is why they have to bear the consequences.  

How does the board act in a crisis?

When crisis hits the board, it becomes a task for the management to form a team that prioritizes to secure the personnel’s well-being and the business responsiveness in all situations. In cooperation, the board and the management will create a situation room that helps personnel recognize changes, make quick decisions, and utilize opportunities that are born out of the situation.

In the situation room, the board and the management team will together have to

1. take all necessary action to secure the continuity of business.

2. discuss the situation and draft potential future scenarios.

3. start enough projects and form enough teams to 1) clean-up 2) lead operation 3) utilize the new potential born out of the crisis. Fast results require the right amount of skill and experts.

4. create a Plan B for operations, just in case the crisis hits the business harder than expected.

5. take care of the board’s and personnel’s motivation, well-being, and resources.

Companies that haven’t utilized the potential of a good board, a systemic process, and the concept of a situation room will remain on top of the blank when a crisis hits. It becomes difficult for such companies to react to a crisis when operations, processes, and communication strategies haven’t been rehearsed in advance. Despite the challenges, a crisis can present huge unseen potential, perhaps the most unused potential [LS1] in the modern day. Hard times require the right people in action.

It’s quite clear that it’s easy for companies to succeed during a boom and an upswing of the market. In contrast, you have to work much harder to achieve the same results during a recession. In times of pressure, flexibility, speed, and ability to react will give birth to something new and become success factors. In light of all of this, it’s fair to conclude that a wise owner will make sure they equip their company with the best possible board.

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How to give birth to new vision and motivation when the world is facing a storm

Often, our vision is based on growth, success and conquering markets. But how can we be motivated about tomorrow, when the news is filled with promises of problems, losses, unemployment, and grief? How can we then remain positive and find strength to build a better tomorrow?

Must is a poor excuse. When we take action because we have to, it will force us to move swiftly, make quick decisions, and sacrifice things; however, this way of acting will consume us more than a performance where we act out of our own volition and true motivation. If we survive only because we have to, it’s a bad starting point.

Would it possibly work better for us if we in the future were motivated by focusing on our own business, instead of trying to conquer the world? How about if we take our eyes off that horizon and tune into the close encounters we have in our daily life, our customer relations, supply chains, and renew these processes and our culture?

Do people have to return to the office to work? Or could we as part of our cooperation negotiations, renew our employment contracts in such a way that our employees are able to choose where and when to work? I wonder if we would then value our shared moments, video meetings, and new hobbies [1]. Could our future be built upon a vision of more pleasurable day-to-day activities?

My guess is that quite a few of us have experienced and witnessed increased productivity during this lockdown [2] [3]. Business trips, journeys to and from work, small-talk, coffees, and lunch breaks all take time. But peaceful mornings, a good breakfast, and spending time outside (whenever possible) [4]  make us old office clerks a tiny bit better at taking time for daily encounters.

What new things could you start doing today? Could you expand your knowledge about subjects that interest you? Will you spend time on self-development and dream about the things you won’t return to [5]. What if your vision could be based on a new era, a new life which meant you didn’t have to go back to the old grind?

The working culture we so often see is all about being a slave to habit. We drag along with our laptops into the same old spaces, where we then stare at screens and pretend to listen to each other. Often, we are present without actually being present. What would the world look like in the future if our new vision could be based on a determination to do things better for both ourselves and others?

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