Welcome back to Collective Bookmarks. This week’s newsletter is a 5-7 minute read depending on whether you get distracted by a co-worker calling you to gossip or not.
We find it really hard to believe it’s May already. The first 4 months of the year seem to have flown by, but here we are still building! Last week we hosted our second Collective Table event in New York City with HQO and Cisco. The tour of Cisco’s integrated technology space was really incredible and the conversations were truly awesome. We may have unlocked some sort of achievement by having 4 different generations of workplace professionals at one table. As you can imagine the conversations were very interesting! We’re excited to be bringing the Collective Table to more of you very soon.
You can check out more of Cisco’s space in the well crafted WSJ video below.
In This Week’s Issue:
- Three Things You Should Know
- A Person You Should Know: Kayla Gottschalk
- A Resource You Should Know: The Workplace Solution Ecosystem
As always, if you have feedback or want to sponsor this newsletter please reach out below.
Three Things You Should Know
From The World of Work and Place
1.The Future Of Jobs
The World Economic Forum put out their Future of Jobs report this week and it had some very hopeful bits in it. One key piece to take away – “Some 23% of jobs are expected to change by 2027, with 69 million new jobs created and 83 million eliminated.” With all of these new jobs being created in different industries they highlight re-skilling as a critical factor for the future.
What We Think: In the industries that make up workplace (CRE, FM, HR, IT, EX), re-skilling / up-skilling is a conversation that has been happening actively since Covid hit. How do we operate in a hybrid / remote world without updating our skill sets? There are harder hit parts of our industry, but a lot of our world is changing quickly. Collective is dedicated to creating / sharing resources to help enable that process over time. For now, check out the report below.
2. Resilience In The Workplace
In this piece from Quartz author Olga Mecking discusses the problem with valuing resilience as a workplace skill. In the article she highlights that resilience is a state that any employee can achieve in a supportive environment, but that we should not think of it as a personal trait. Additionally too much resilience can make us more likely to tolerate toxic environments for too long. She points towards connection as a pathway to enable resilience and a supportive workplace as an enabler as well.
What We Think: Olga highlights the fact that research has shown that toxic workplaces can have a massive impact on employees choosing to leave companies. However, she also highlights that supportive workplaces tend to have more productive employees. We think that workplace teams are the scaffolding that supports employees and enables them. It’s important for workplace teams to understand the outsized impact the workplaces they create can have.
3. Future Proofing Yourself
In this recent piece for HBR Dorie Clark and Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic outline how we can future proof ourselves in the age of AI and Automation. With the immediate and immense popularity of ChatGPT they outline four things individuals can do; avoid predictability, hone skills that machines try to emulate, double down on the real world, and develop your personal brand. They emphasize that the things that make us inherently human and that AI tries to emulate, but can’t are the most important to focus on.
What We Think: For a while now, a focus on human centric skills have been noted as important for safeguarding your career for the future. However, we agree with the authors that focusing on what humans can do best, and AI can only provide a light imitation of is important. AI can mimic empathy, but can’t really recreate it (yet). Automation and adoption of more efficient technology is inevitable. However, if we understand the technology and it’s limitations, we can mange how it is implemented and adopt it in a way that makes it additive vs negative.
One Big Thing
“Technology that crowds out our real-life interaction with others will lower our well-being and thus must be managed with great care in our lives.” Arthur C. Brookes
Someone You Should Know
In The World of Work And Place
Kayla Gottschalk is the co-founder of Collective (the product we’re building right now, woo!) based in Atlanta, Georgia. She is ecstatic with what she and Omar continue to build and launch since Collective Work and Place will truly make a positive impact on the industry she’s been passionate about for over fifteen years. Kayla is looking forward to sharing Collective’s mission across the globe, executing on the roadmap, and creating a community driven marketplace for her industry friends…and make the world of workplace better.
In Her Own Words: I am probably one of the rare few in the world of workplace where I sort of knew what industry I wanted my career in. It started with architecture and then I was exposed to something called Facility Management. Yes, a Bachelor’s Degree in Facility Management (plus architecture). This area of learning, versatility, and career opportunity was the perfect match for me. I am design-oriented, service driven, technical, and really care about user experiences.
Today, I have over ten years of experience working at enterprise companies on their Corporate Real Estate & Facilities teams improving the built environment and creating better workplaces. In the midst of working at the enterprise level, I had an aspiration of entrepreneurship and established my own consulting company called, Cobuilt, servicing tech startups with their operations and workplace needs. These experiences ultimately led me to build Collective with Omar, where I’m (finally) full-time on this mission and cannot wait to see our continued growth.
If you’re interested in jumping (career) ships or want to learn more about the world of workplace, as a student, please reach out! I’d be happy to share more about my advocacy for my industry, cool past experiences, and of course, what we’re building at Collective. Cheers y’all!
A Resource We’re Into Right Now
Workplace Solution Ecosystem
The workplace solution ecosystem is meant to cut down on the time it takes for a workplace professional to find and quickly understand the features of a workplace solution. We’re excited to put out our first iteration of our workplace solution ecosystem map. Over time this mapping will improve and grow with input from workplace professionals like you. It’s open to the public and you can access it now at the link below.
That’s It For This Week
We Appreciate You
As one of our over 600+ weekly readers we appreciate you being an early subscriber. We’ve reached over 6000 humans already and can’t wait to reach even more of you. Together, we believe we can enable teams at the intersection of work and place to move beyond conversation.
Until next time – Omar and Kayla