Posts from NYC

Return/Hybrid/Remote

With vaccinations topping 90mm doses in the US and upwards of 75mm doses likely to be injected into arms in the US in March, many companies are starting to think about what a return to the office might look like this summer and fall.

I read two great posts this weekend talking about what this all means for knowledge workers and the companies that employ them:

Imagine Your Flexible Office Work Future – Anne Helen Petersen

We’re Never Going Back – Packy McCormick

They both reference the writing of Dror Poleg on this topic so I will link to his blog as well.

What Anne and Packy are writing about is the future of our work spaces and whether our employers will require us to come back to the office full-time or will something else emerge.

Anne opens her post explaining that while the pandemic has proven that knowledge work does not need to be done in an office filled with all of our co-workers, what we have been doing in the last year is not what we will likely be doing in the future. As she observes, we have simply been working from our homes in the last year and that is not necessarily the future.

Packy asserts that employers don’t really have control over the decision of where we will all work going forward, employees do. The war for talent will determine where all of this lands.

Both are extremely thoughtful posts. I have been thinking about this topic for the better part of a year, for USV and for the 150 portfolio companies that we have invested in and advise. Anne and Packy’s thoughts line up pretty cleanly with mine. I think the change in venue for knowledge work is likely to be one of the biggest changes that we will see this decade.

Last summer, the Gotham Gal and I decided to make a co-working space where people living in the Clinton Hill and Bed-Stuy neigborhoods in Brooklyn could work when they don’t want to go to the office but also don’t want to work from their kitchen or bedroom. We call it FrameWork and it will be opening next month. The tagline is “Your Home Office Away From Home.” We are very excited by the possibility that many more people will work most of the time in the neighborhoods that they live in and commutes will be an occasional thing versus an everyday thing. I think the quality of life improvements and the quality of neighborhood improvements that will emerge from this will be dramatic.

FrameWork is just an example of the many ways that knowledge workers will choose to work going forward. I expect the innovation around work spaces will be fast and furious once we can actually start working somewhere other than our home. And I expect that to start to happen in the second quarter of this year as I explained in my Jan 1st 2021 blog post.

So if you are an employer, what do you do? This suggestion by Packy is interesting:

instead of mandating a certain number of days in-office, companies should view employees as customers who they need to convince to come in with a great product:

Re-design the office to facilitate things that employees can’t do at home: whiteboard rooms, podcast and video recording studios, screening rooms, maker tools, etc… 

Take less space on more flexible terms in order to adapt and evolve as employees’ needs do.

Make the office feel more like a social club, with more focus on spaces for employees to share meals, have spontaneous conversations, and take in work-related programming. 

Hire hospitality and flexible operators to help them figure it out. Alma does hybrid work/social well, so Carlström set up Another Structure to bring that expertise to companies that want to build the right spaces for this new world. 

Infuse the space with technology to facilitate communication and collaboration with remote employees. 

https://www.notboring.co/p/were-never-going-back

But it is this observation by Anne that I think is maybe the most powerful of all:

The idea of “boundaries” has become so porous when it comes to cultivating work/life balance that it’s lost all meaning. People don’t respect boundaries. You don’t respect them. Even when the pandemic is over, it’s going to be very, very difficult to try to rebuild them. What we actually need are guardrails, big and sturdy ones, to protect us from the runaway semi-truck of work.

In our current framework, boundaries are the individual’s responsibility, and when they’re broken, it’s because the individual failed to protect them. But guardrails? They’re there to protect everyone, and they’re maintained by the state, aka your company. There are a lot of ways to actually build guardrails around employee’s lives, and we discuss them at length in the book. But the larger shift has to be away from all of this worthless “personally-maintained boundaries” bullshit.

https://annehelen.substack.com/p/imagine-your-flexible-office-work

As Anne correctly points out, working from home has meant working non-stop for many of us. I am guilty of this and I feel it after a year of working this way. Employers will need to figure out how to constrain work hours for their employees because it turns out we can’t do that for ourselves. Office hours (9 to 5) did that for us. What will be the new office hours? We will need to figure that out.

We have the possibility to fundamentally change the way knowledge work is done and how we who do it experience it. The opportunities around this are almost endless and I am personally very excited by it.

#employment#entrepreneurship#NYC

Funding Friday: The NYC Mayoral Race

In less than four months, the Democratic Primary will effectively choose the next mayor of NYC. For those of us who live here, this will be a very important choice. Though the race is partially funded by NYC through matching of small donations below $250, the candidates need more funds to get out their message, connect with voters, and help us make the best choice we can.

If there are candidates you like and want to support, here are some links to the donation pages of the most popular candidates. The Gotham Gal and I have financially supported most of these campaigns.

Andrew Yang

Maya Wiley

Eric Adams

Kathryn Garcia

Shaun Donovan

Ray McGuire

Scott Stringer

Dianne Morales

If you live in NYC and have the means to support the political process, I encourage you to do so and get behind some of these candidates.

#NYC#Politics

The NYC Fintech Innovation Lab

The NYC Fintech Innovation Lab is a program which accepts fintech entrepreneurs to develop their businesses with the assistance of senior execs at the leading NYC banks and insurance companies.

The key priorities of the CTOs and CIOs of the Lab’s partner organizations include:   cloud, cyber-tech, data, digital engagement, enterprise IT and sustainability.

If you are building a fintech company and are focused on one or more of these areas, you should consider applying.

Applications are due on December 1st. You can apply here.

The Lab will be hosting a virtual info session for interested applicants on November 10, featuring a panel discussion with alumni and financial institution partners.

#entrepreneurship#NYC

The David Prize

The David Prize is a philanthropic effort to find NYers who are doing amazing things and support them financially.

They recently announced five winners, you can see them here.

They have an open call for new applicants and you can apply here. The deadline is December 4th.

They are eager to support entrepreneurs of all kinds who are working to make a better NYC. If that sounds like you, then you should apply for a David Prize.

#entrepreneurship#NYC

Funding Friday: Westbeth

The Gotham Gal and I have lived a block away from Westbeth for almost fifteen years. Westbeth is a treasure. It was Bell Labs for most of the first half of the twentieth century and became an artist community in 1970 about twenty years after Bell Labs left for New Jersey.

Earlier this week, I backed a photobook project on Kickstarter to document many of the artists who live there. That project was funded and is over now.

The video does a great job of showcasing what Westbeth is and so I am embedding it here on the blog. If you are reading this in email you can go here and watch the video.

#NYC

AirPod Alternatives?

We have been back in NYC for the last month and enjoying the city very much. One of the many things we love about NYC is that we walk everywhere (or most everywhere). I enjoy walking around NYC by myself and listening to music, podcasts, or talking to friends or colleagues on the phone.

But earlier this year, I developed a bad case of Tinnitus. I stopped using the in-ear Airpods and the Tinnitus went away quickly. I am not saying that the Airpods caused the Tinnitus, but they certainly seem to make it worse and so I stopped using them about six months ago. I did not miss them much when I was in my car a lot, but I sure do miss them walking around NYC.

So I am in the market for bluetooth headphones that fit over the ear, not in the ear, that are small, light, and good for walking around with. I just can’t wear my Bose Quiet Comfort headphones (which I love for the office) out on the streets.

So if you have any suggestions for me, I would love to hear them. Please click on the button that says “Discuss On Twitter” and leave them there for me. Or reply to the email if you get this blog post that way. I am all ears 🙂

#NYC

Covid Alert NY

I’ve written a bunch about Exposure Alerting and its potential to limit the spread of Covid by alerting people when they have come in contact with someone contagious.

Back in April, Google and Apple came together to create GAEN, a framework for secure and private proximity data sharing on mobile phones.

In July, the Linux Foundation open-sourced two code bases that operate on top of GAEN for public health authorities around the world to build mobile apps with.

And yesterday, NY State launched Covid Alert NY that was built on those open source code bases. Covid Alert NY was built by the NYS Dept. of Health and Tech:NYC (where I am Chairman), along with Google, Apple, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Goldman Sachs, and a coalition of technology and research partners.

Here’s how Covid NY works:

  • Phones that have downloaded the app are assigned a random ID that can be exchanged with other phones via Bluetooth technology.
  • Devices that are within six feet of each other for 10 minutes or longer exchange those random IDs.
  • If a person tests positive and reports it on the app, an alert goes out to those with whom they had close contact alerting them of potential exposure.
  • The app also serves as a resource hub of daily case count numbers and informs users of the steps they can take to prevent further virus spread.

And it’s designed to work by placing privacy first:

  • It uses secure Bluetooth technology, not GPS, that can only detect when two devices are in proximity to each other, not geographic location. It doesn’t collect users’ data on their location or movement.
  • The random ID assigned to your device changes every 15 minutes, and users are not identified to other users, nor is their personal identifiable information shared — not with other users, Google, Apple, or the NYS Department of Health.

I hope that all NYers download Covid Alert NY to their phones and participate in a voluntary network of exposure alerting. This alone will not end the pandemic, but it can slow the spread of the virus by letting people know when they might be contagious and encouraging them to isolate and get tested. Imagine if we had this technology widely deployed back in January and February?

I downloaded Covid Alert NY to my phone this morning and am now participating in this voluntary exposure alerting network. You can join me by downloading Covid Alert NY to your phone:

App Store (for iPhone)

Google Play (for Android)

#Current Affairs#NYC

Talk:NYC Podcast

I have been saying no to podcast requests and will continue to do so. But when Julie Samuels asked me to be the first guest on the Tech:NYC podcast, called Talk:NYC, I had to say yes.

We talked about tech, NYC, the current moment we are living through, and a lot more. It’s about 35mins. You can listen here.

https://soundcloud.com/user-212806065/talknycep01fredwilson
#NYC