Distributed Work / Remote Work / Work as Computational Experiences | CX Report 2020 Appendix

Every year I share the Design in Tech Report at SXSW. This year I had planned to release the 2020 CX Report in its place, but a global pandemic kind of happened. So I've pre-released the appendix to the report. In the event that you're new to remote and distributed work, you might find the information in this year's appendix helpful.

Key takeaways of the CX Report Pre-Release Appendix:

• Remote work isn’t the same as distributed work.
• Placemaking forms the grounds for work-making. 
• Ch-ch-change is always an emotional journey.
• Collaboration is better than just cooperation.
• Future’s so bright. Gotta wear XR/AR/VR shades?

Context

The idea of a CXO isn’t tenable when everyone owns the experience. And because everyone “owns” or uses technology in some shape or form, it’s unclear who is accountable versus who is in charge.

As for who should own CX, it’s clear that everyone does and by that token nobody does. And that’s both a good thing and an unfortunate thing as well — esp. for the customer.

In How To Speak Machine, I lay the foundations for understanding how computer science works in practice today. And when armed with that computational mindset, then the products that you make will become fundamentally different.

"Distributed reality is here. #dr is the new #vr.” —Wendy Johansson / GVP Publicis Sapient

It's easy to confuse remote work with distributed work. The former means working remotely; the latter means getting work done in a distributed fashion. You can be working alone, remotely; but need to work in a group to be distributed.

Automattic CEO and WordPress pioneer Matt Mullenweg in “Coronavirus and the Remote Experiment No One Asked For”: “If you can minimize the number of real-time meetings, do so. Embrace asynchronous communications.”

Creating a sense of place is the starting point for work to happen. Built upon a stable foundation, it becomes possible to make that work become much more than just a “job.”

These three modes are now blended because of the way that smartphones, AR/VR, IoT, and other connected paradigms are blurring how an experience hits your mind, body, and tribe. Or, “Alone together,” as Sherry Turtle says.

Change is something that we all talk about as “exciting” but the way it can actually feel will differ — because it usually starts out somewhere in between “wow” and “oh no!” And sometimes it can turn out really great. There are 5 steps for managing organizational change that I've found useful over here.

Cooperation is about working with another party at arm’s length, whereas collaboration is about having arms hugged around each other. —howtospeakmachine.com  

The tools we use are levers for leaders and followers to shape, preserve, or break culture. There is a deep connection between tools and culture, so be sure that they both align with your organization’s values.

Jesse Shore et al in “Facts and Figuring: An Experimental Investigation of Network Structure and Performance in Information and Solution Spaces” shared research on how dense clustering can be superior to network clustering.

Ian Wharton: "When you remove serendipity, you remove the opportunity for by-chance encounters.” Digital presence lets you drop into many different tribes with low friction, but it's still a concerted effort to do so.

Remote employee managers’ top concerns are their employees’ productivity, focus, and getting work done. They’re least concerned with their loneliness, overworking, and careers.

When you start working in a fully distributed environment, you quickly realize how easy it is to get distracted on your computer from all the notifications that come at you.

Wendy Johansson advocates for “the efficiency triad” to be used in advancing distributed collaboration. “Each bit of effort to remain at the intersection of the efficiency triad enables your organization’s machinery to gain momentum.”

"Emotions are discrete, automatic responses to universally shared, culture-specific and individual-specific events. …These affective responses are preprogrammed and involuntary, but are also shaped by life experiences.” —Ekman (2011)

When going online at scale, the training wheels you need are often not just the shiny new digital tools. Instead, how you show up in distributed reality as a human matters more. Use the Publicis Sapient Community Code of Conduct to start.

Time is like a place that needs different rooms where you do different things. It needs a door and window curtains for you to function well in your house of time. Check out Raanan Bar-Cohen's: “Make time for light stuff.”

Proponents of working in a distributed fashion are understandably proud of their way of life. If you’ve ever seen the impact on a young parent and their ability to spend more time with their children, then you get it in a heartbeat. 

In the 2016 Design in Tech Report, VR was approaching its 50th birthday: “Almost 25 years ago, Ivan Sutherland developed, with support from ARPA, the first surprisingly advanced VR system.” —Nicholas Negroponte (1993)

Professor Hiroshi Ishii is the Douglas Engelbart of our times. While at NTT, Ishii long foresaw an era when realtime video communication combined with the ability to annotate and collaborate would someday become a reality.

The Publicis Sapient approach to Digital Business Transformation integrates operational leadership with customer leadership to drive high efficiencies and customer happiness via strategic application of technology and design.

The 12-question survey remains open to May 1, 2020. If you participate there's an option to put your name into the final report.