I have become more than simply curious about all that it means to work remotely. In fact, it has become one of those topics that seem to be ‘popping up’ in various conversation these days. I know it is not a totally new concept, but I do believe it is going to continue to impact the way we design work across all industries. In a recent conversation with my son, he described how his attention is being drawn to how we design customer experiences (check him out at http://nathansawatzky.com). To me, this is the flip side of the same coin; are we considering how we design work in light of how we design the customer’s experience? It is also interesting to note that Nathan works remotely from various countries around the world.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself here. Suffice to say, my focus for the next few months will be on investigating how different organizations – large and small, local and global – creatively design jobs that intentionally build in opportunities for employees to work remotely…and considering how this then informs the customer experience.Here is an interesting article published by the New York Times on the topic…Out of the Office: More People are Working Remotely, Survey Finds.

Over the course of the summer I will be traveling and look forward to doing some work remotely, AND connecting with others who also have the opportunity to enjoy such freedom.

Any book recommendations, research, organizational examples are greatly appreciated! I’m starting off by reading Remote: Office Not Required by Fried and Hansson. Hope you join me for this wide open (by design) journey.