I recently participated in a meeting. But this wasn’t your regular “I wish I was anywhere else” kind of meeting. It was a gathering of over 50 people from across the world convened by author and academic Chris Kutarna. This gathering was around a metaphorical campfire where we looked into the question of “What’s the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’?”.
I’ve spent over a decade working from home. I stopped calling it ‘working from home’ a long time ago. For me, it’s just work. But for millions of workers, this is the first time they’ve had to commit to spending weeks on end in their home office. And many CFOs and other senior company leasers are seeing this moment of ‘reset’ as an opportunity to slash rental costs. But this period isn’t the time to make those decisions.
It’s been a while since I simply sat down and decided to write something just because. There’s no commission, no invoice to send or payment to chase. I just want to write. Over the last month, the world has changed significantly. Even in war time, there’s a period where the rivals push and shove over some imaginary line on the ground or argue about access to a precious resource. But the coronavirus pandemic has changed things. in ways that, in some ways that are far more personally extreme than war.
And it’s happened faster than many us can really comprehend.