🤔 Who’s getting a huge boost in employment? | Ep8 OoO

👨‍🦽 Bloomberg: People with disabilities benefit from WFH

🤦 Logitech: Creating the new ‘mini discs’ of today

Hey! Welcome Back -

It’s episode 8 of Out of Office, and today’s show hits you right in the feels. 

I tell you a story making headlines this week, where remote working helped a person with a disability reclaim their lost career. 

I also highlight a pretty wild new innovation and consider what might have possessed the inventors to create such an impressive doodad. 

Let’s dive in -

Bloomberg: The Real Return to Work

Imagine for a second, what it would feel like to suddenly become paralyzed. Then on top of that, you realize your career is over. 

That’s what happened to a woman named Beka Anardi. 

Before you assume that Beka’s life was changed as a result of the innovation I was talking about earlier - think again. It wasn’t a gadget that made her more mobile.

In fact it was something much simpler: remote work. 

Molly Smith writes -

“If you had asked me two years ago if I would ever return to work, I would’ve said no. It never entered my mind as a possibility until everyone was working remote.”

👩‍🦽 Like Beka who lost the use of her legs in 2009, there are millions of people with disabilities in the US - it’s the second largest minority group that exists. 

So this week we reviewed a publication with the first data we’ve ever seen on remote work and its game-changing impact on people like Beka. 

• Employment among disabled adults is up 5% since remote work became the norm

That’s a serious boost. 

It’s so easy for able bodied people to forget that the many benefits of remote work extend well beyond our own daily experiences. 

For people with disabilities these benefits are nothing short of life-changing. 

• Get to work on time with no commute
• Avoid inaccessible transportation, public areas and buildings
• Able to manage any tricky needs in the comfort of their own home
• Massive decrease in stress and anxiety

And I’ll bet that the stigma of having a disability is massively reduced when people’s first impression of you doesn’t start with walking into a room.

In many ways, remote work has been the greatest equalizer of our time.

Logitech: Solving The Wrong Problems

This week’s second story brings us to that innovation you won’t stop harping on about.

🦾 In this case, it is actually a gadget. 

Much like many other ill-conceived innovations, it has several components. A sort-of Alexa, and a control station, and a TV, and also the unit below that. 

You could say it’s the inspector gadget of gadgets.

So Logitech invented this contraption to solve a major problem that companies were having with their hybrid teams at the office.

💻 During Zoom calls:

• Half the team is in a room at the office 
• The other half are distributed at home
• The people at home appear in individual Zoom windows 

…and everyone else - well you just see the back of their heads.

That tiny conference window was enough to prompt the invention.

Charles Mclellan writes - 

“In a hybrid work world, a mix of in-office and remote workers increases the challenge of delivering equitable experiences to everyone, said Scott Wharton, general manager of Logitech Video Collaboration, in a statement."

The carnival of devices captures a 360 degree view of the room, then assigns everyone in it their own Zoom window. Voila! 

As a tech geek, I think this is really cool.

If I worked at a hybrid company I’d be stoked to have one of these.

But the reality requires recognition.

This sort of innovation is a perfect example of why I’m so glad I don’t work for one of those companies anymore.

It feels over the top. 

Like companies are scrambling to save a dying model.

It reminds me of those mini disc players - remember those?

That’s alright, no-one does. 

At some point during the shift from CD to digital music, someone invented a smaller CD. Because that’s really what the world needed!

A bulkier, less elegant solution to a problem that was already solved.

Of course - they were immediately forgotten by history.

💽 No disk technology could rival Apple’s 10,000 songs in your pocket.

Companies that don’t innovate die. There is no surer sign that something is on its way out than companies creating gadgets for it. 

Gadgets that are overly complex and try to solve a problem that’s already been eliminated by something superior. 

What do you think is going on here? A go go gadget nightmare, or have I missed something? Let me know in the comments below.

That’s it for today, tune in next week for more insights.

Until then remember - the future of work is Out of Office. 

Andrew

This Week’s Shareable

• #Remotework changed Beka Anardi’s life, “If you had asked me two years ago if I would ever return to work, I would’ve said no. It never entered my mind as a possibility until everyone was working remote.” People with disabilities are benefitting from remote now more than ever. Read about it on OOO.