My last startup was almost totally remote.

60 employees we’d never met in person, following the sun across the UK, USA and Greece.

It was always interesting to see how people responded to this.

“How do you know what they’re doing if you can’t see them?”

Results, Karen. We look at results.

Our management styles and approaches are stuck in the Industrial Revolution. Literally.

The 8 hour day and 5 day week a product of thinking from Robert Owen... in 1817.

”“Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.”

It’s not just working hours that are stuck, literally, in history but the location and approach of management. Most of which is still based on productivity theories used in production, not in the creative or knowledge industries.

Come to work. Be creative 9-5. Then go home. Rest. And come back and be creative again.

Any creative worth their salt will tell you that creativity isn’t on tap. Nor are so many of the skills that today’s economies rely on.

Coronavirus shouldn’t have been required to update our thinking on working location. It’s time we re-looked at the whole approach to work and adapted it to both the outputs we now need and start to really leverage the tools we now have.

Steam engine, meet the Internet.