for W3c validation

Last week, 12 June, marked our 13th week of Remote Working Meetups. We’ve been under a variety of lockdown conditions and remote work conditions – some at organisations who had gone suddenly remote, others whose organisations were already fully distributed – for 3 months now (how long exactly depends, of course, on where you live).

Over that time, our discussions have grown from concern abut widespread and large-scale remote working including technology and security concerns to social concerns and a continuing wonder about how we adjust to the current normal while preparing for the future.

Through it all, however, the key question always comes back to ‘What happens now? What comes next?’ Whether it’s figuring out a transition plan and a return to the physical workspace, a commitment to ongoing remote and distributed work (e.g. Twitter, Shopify) for the immediate future, through to what happens in our social and non-work lives with regards to rules, regulations and requirements to support our post-pandemic societies, they’re big questions that don’t necessarily have easy answers.

The question also applies to our meetup group – what comes next for us? Three months on, the urgency of the pandemic and the changes it brought with it have faded, and in its place, we have the murky waters of transition. How do we best help and support one another in our range of roles at our myriad organisations to bring ‘the future of work’ out of the future and into today?

Like we anticipate we will all need to do in many areas, we are approaching this together and with a spirit of trying new approaches and see what works, what doesn’t work, and how we might adjust and try again. For our meetups, our group have decided to try an approach that is a mix of informal networking sessions, and more detailed sessions that focus on a particular topic and may include guest speakers and rotating hosts.

For now, we still plan to meet weekly, alternating between the informal networking sessions and the focused topic sessions. We’re keen to attract new voices and new perspectives to our discussions, so whether you’re interested in presenting or just want to learn more about a topic related to remote working – including the future of work, new ways of working, and the digital workplace – we’d love to hear from you! You can give us topic ideas or feedback at any time through the comments on the blog, comments on our Meetup group, on social media, or via email.

We’re excited about the possibilities and looking forward to our next meetups! Make sure you join our Meetup group to stay informed, and RSVP to the sessions that suit you – this week, Friday 19 June, will be informal networking and we’ll be talking more about future topics, so it’s a great one to join if you’ve got ideas to share or just want to get to know some of the other members of the group!

See you online!