Why I've Stopped Talking about Remote Work

Someone sent me a message yesterday on Linkedin:

“Hi Chris, I followed you years ago because of what you posted about Remote work. Why have you stopped talking about it? Do you not think remote work is the best way to work anymore?”

So I went back and checked. I’ve posted about remote work once in the last 6 months. That surprised me. And it’s a big change from how frequently I posted about remote work from 2017 to 2023.?

So what changed?

1. I have nothing new to say. Everything I believe about Remote Work I’ve said ad-nauseum. I got to a place where I was just repeating the same things day in and day out and instead of advancing the conversation I was contributing to stagnation. I was debating the same things with the same people. Honestly, I was bored, and I think other people were too! There was the occasionally witty post that sparked debate, but they grew fewer and further between. They became more and more adversarial with the office-based crowd which sucked the oxygen out the gap for conversation.
2. The war has been won. Almost nobody is going back to work in an office again full-time. I’ve always said that monopolies can and will do whatever they want. They can afford to pay people to return to an office full-time. No other companies can. And that’s what’s playing out now. So continuing to paint the picture there is something bigger at play, and losing would mean a massive step back in terms of quality of life for millions of people, no longer felt necessary. If anything, continuing to harp on about it felt like grandstanding or “I told you so”. That was never my purpose. Remote work started out as such a tiny percentage of knowledge workers – and it was so much better – that it needed a lot of people telling others how much better it was. I did a lot of that! But once there were more people on my side of the argument than against it, I didn’t feel necessary.
3. I needed to escape the echo chamber. Sometimes the best way to develop fresh perspective is to run as far away as possible, climb as high as you can, and attempt to see what’s beyond the horizon (again). The reason I saw the change that was coming for distributed work – with or without COVID – wasn’t because I was interested in Remote Work directly. It was because I was reading and exploring as widely as possible where all of the trends happening in the world around technological advance, decentralisation, and societally meant the acceleration of Remote Work was inevitable.??

Ultimately what made me reassess was that I made a post about Remote Work having a slack problem and I was getting attacked for not supporting Remote Work! It was us vs. them. It felt like politics instead of trying to push for progress that benefitted the maximum number of people. That was a real eye opener to me on how dogmatic the debate was and still is. As soon as people are unwilling to discuss criticisms in good faith, progress becomes almost impossible. People bed into positions that leave no room for manoeuvre. And then innovation and all progress stop. I fear we are there.?

In my opinion, it’s been true of Remote Work for the last 18 months. Maybe some of it is good? I believe we’ve learned many of the lessons from COVID-enforced work from home. But a large number of major issues remain. We continue to use tools optimized for an in-office world that enforce suboptimal work patterns on distributed workers. We haven’t ever arrived at a great solution for “presence”. Certain things absolutely are 100X better in person than they are Remote. Some of them are impossible to solve for.?

Beyond those things, on a more personal level, I didn’t think it was that interesting for my entire identity to be “the Remote Work guy”. I got invited to awesome events. I met incredible people I am now incredibly lucky to call friends. And the community was and remains one of the most interesting, diverse, and stimulating I’ve ever been part of.

I was very fortunate to be at the centre of it for a long time.?

But my mindset has always been one of existing at the edge of the periphery, seeing the weirdness that is emerging, and developing that. I’m not good at – and I don’t enjoy – being sat at the popular table.

As some of you will know, I’m usually sitting in the corner at the big event, talking to a small group of people about the crazy things on the horizon. The innovation that may or may not ever happen. Big ideas for the future. Once something is popular and widely accepted it loses its intellectual appeal and stimulation to me. We’re no longer inventing the future, we’re optimizing it around the edges. And other people are better at that than me.?

I will always be one of the biggest supporters of Remote Work. It allowed me to see my son walk, laugh and talk for the first time, having missed those things with my two daughters. It allowed me to build a global company with the most talented people I’ve ever been able to work with. It launched Firstbase into public consciousness and has allowed us to build a company that works with the fastest growing, most recognisable, and respected public companies in the world.?

But for it to succeed, it no longer needs a loud voice in the North of Scotland screaming about its benefits! It needs the shades of grey to emerge, while I’m much better at painting in great strokes of black or white.?

So, I’m going to get back to doing that. Being more focussed on where the future is headed vs. where the world is today. I'm sure I'll continue to share my thoughts from time to time. But it won't be the only thing I discuss all the time and I don't think it will be that frequent.

Remote Work is accepted.

Hybrid’s has become the norm.?

Those are massive wins in my book!

We can celebrate: To the future of Remote Work!