The History of Remote Work

A look back before we zoom too far into the future...🚀

#FutureOfWork #WorkforceFuturist

Thread (1/10)
https://t.co/4SxOJDx8HG

What % of working adults in the UK will 'work from home exclusively' in July 2021?

About 75% of this group of #superforecasters say more than 10% but less than 20% (the red line in the graph below)

@superforecaster

Thread (2/10)
https://t.co/3fhFR1lXFy
“We tend to overestimate the effect of the technology in the short run and underestimate for the long run”
Roy Amara

Our predictions tend to be made through foggy Zoom goggles and constrained by the Gregorian calendar.

Thread (3/10)
Remote Work Isn’t New

In Britain from the 1600s to the mid-19th century work did not take place in factories but in people’s houses.

Workers made dresses, shoes, and matchboxes in their kitchens or bedrooms.

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https://t.co/1A52zT4kiP
Some predictions from people in 1921 who were asked

“what will happen in 2021?”

📺 streaming entertainment into our homes
🚗 electricity powers our wheels
📚 books will read to us

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https://t.co/JYY5fXcBTT
No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees

From the history of remote work, to a future of work scenario for some.

from @shl at @gumroad

No Sweat...

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https://t.co/KicHWzHGaj
The Blockchain Workforce is coming

From a blockchain version of Upwork

to freelancer platforms paying #crypto @LaborXNews

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https://t.co/szlj5tJJ3Z
How do we manage our workforce?

From improving innovation in virtual teams using network analysis to better sales productivity.

Best People Analytics Resources of 2020 from @david_green_uk

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https://t.co/gx546FSHwO
'Scribe Spotlight' in this newsletter is on @Vitolae

Recommended reading for Workforce Futurists

"The future of work, with a feminist perspective"

Thread (9/10)
https://t.co/ScbCIXV5Vg
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https://t.co/774xNODMBz
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More from Tech

There has been a lot of discussion about negative emissions technologies (NETs) lately. While we need to be skeptical of assumed planetary-scale engineering and wary of moral hazard, we also need much greater RD&D funding to keep our options open. A quick thread: 1/10

Energy system models love NETs, particularly for very rapid mitigation scenarios like 1.5C (where the alternative is zero global emissions by 2040)! More problematically, they also like tons of NETs in 2C scenarios where NETs are less essential.
https://t.co/M3ACyD4cv7 2/10


In model world the math is simple: very rapid mitigation is expensive today, particularly once you get outside the power sector, and technological advancement may make later NETs cheaper than near-term mitigation after a point. 3/10

This is, of course, problematic if the aim is to ensure that particular targets (such as well-below 2C) are met; betting that a "backstop" technology that does not exist today at any meaningful scale will save the day is a hell of a moral hazard. 4/10

Many models go completely overboard with CCS, seeing a future resurgence of coal and a large part of global primary energy occurring with carbon capture. For example, here is what the MESSAGE SSP2-1.9 scenario shows: 5/10
So we had to develop technologies like this to barely manage control over limited areas in Iraq's few urban centers. Only ~8 in 100 Iraqi adults owns a personal vehicle. That rate is > 1 car/adult in America yet I have never seen any doctrine paper or work of fiction address this


We've seen and struggled in civil conflicts with instant, local, universal, distributed communications (cell phone era, basically every conflict since 2000). We've seen and struggled in conflicts with instant, global, universal distributed communications (everything since 2011).

The world's most overfunded military and glow in the dark agencies struggle and largely fail to contain conflicts where fhe vast, vast majority of people are locked into a ~5mi radius of their home.

How can they possibly contain a conflict in a nation with universal car ownership and the most developed road network in the world? The average car can travel over 400 miles on one tank of gas, how can you contain the potential of that kind of mobility?

I think that's partially why the system was so freaked out by 1/6. Yes, most of it is histrionics but you don't decide to indefinitely turn your capital into the Baghdad Green Zone with fortifications and 25k troops over histrionics alone.

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