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BlackBird's Bullets #7: Playboy, Beatniks, WFH, and how/where we work

Five carefully curated bullet points within the 500-word radius. This week on Playboy, Beatniks, WFH, and how/where we work.

Peter Kos

Dec 23, 2020 — 3 min read

Welcome to the 7th edition of the BBB Newsletter. I’ve made it to the seventh dwarf, so next week I’m pushing out the Snow White edition. If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe here, and you’ll get this straight into your inbox every Wednesday. What is this newsletter about — it’s me sharing about what keeps me curious enough to study and write about. I’m trying to add other interesting reads to feed your intellectual curiosity — global (business) trends, everything workplace-related, stuff to help us get better, more productive, and —mentally and financially— richer.

Five carefully curated bullet points within the 500-word radius.

👯‍♀️ If you’re curious about what I had to do with the Playmates, read here. I’ve engaged in many creative pursuits in my life, including Playboy photography. This post includes some of the awesome shots of the beautiful women I took in South Beach, Miami, Florida.
📸 If you like those photographs, see more of the photo art, including my impressions from the legendary Beatnik classic — Jack Kerouac’s On The Road.
👩‍💻 The next post in my WFH Series includes hints on how to deliver a successful webinar. I got good feedback from many readers, and I’m asking for ideas on what would you add?
🧳 This is one of the best analysis about why we’re never going back. My feeling is that the “never going back” movement is being driven by the folks who hate their long commutes and/or working for overinflated real estate prices in the big cities and major hubs. Here in the EU, I’m hearing from more people who can’t wait to go back to their offices. If it’s not a pain to live close enough to get there in a reasonable amount of time, nobody seems to hate the workplace as such — the collaboration, socializing with colleagues, the team spirit. People are social animals, and we want to get in (physical) touch. I said this before, and I’ll say it again: physical office space is going to be the next perk to attract the best employees. That office might not be in San Francisco or London, though. What do you think?
⚙️ Apart from where we work, the big question is how we work. Cal Newport, a digital minimalist, says that The future of office work won’t be found in continuing to reduce the friction involved in messaging but, instead, in figuring out how to avoid the need to send so many messages in the first place.
In #WFH2020, we tried to accelerate using Microsoft Teams for collaboration as well as for Team communication. The worst application I’ve seen is people sending emails telling you not to overlook the messages in Teams. This is the modern version of someone sending you a fax in the early 2000s telling you to check your e-mail. As they say — change happens slowly, then all at once.