This month on The Sample we spin the dial on the interwebs to discover what you should be grooving to. The topic, the blurring lines between work and home, both at work and on social media.
This month, in keeping with The Blur theme of this issue I have picked four articles that talk about the blurring lines between our work lives, our home lives, our social media personas, and what we should be wearing while we are doing it.
Blurred work and social
How Can The Lessons Of The Lockdown Inform Future Ways Of Working: Accenture
Right now, you obviously can’t throw a digital rock without finding advice about working from home and managed the blurred line between work and home. But what caught my eye about this article by Andrew Birmingham on Which-50.com is the recognition that blurred lines work both ways, that being at work contributes to our social lives. The article features an interview with Sarah Kruger, Head of HR at Accenture ANZ and she makes this point:
“Coming to work is a massive part of people’s lives. It is not just work, it is often also their social life”
You can read more of that article here.
Blurred social media
I Started Posting Personal Updates on LinkedIn. Here’s What Happened
I’ve picked this article as it addresses those blurry lines between professional and personal content on LinkedIn, with real experience.
You see this discussion so often, our own straight-talking Rockstar CMO Ted Rubin is an advocate of bringing your whole self to all social media channels, but a lot of people balk at that with the popular refrain that certain topics are for Facebook.
The article is on LinkedIn from 2014, I know, shockingly ancient in internet years, but bear with me, it’s an interesting read on what John Nemo found when he starting posting personal updates on LinkedIn, with some success as he explores how sharing some personal stories, within reason, on LinkedIn creates trust.
As he says – “we always want to do business with people we know, like and trust” the article then goes on to talk about how we need to be likeable on LinkedIn, Read more here.
Blurred self
How to bring your whole self to work
Another aspect of these blurry lines between work and home is the idea of bringing your whole self to work. It was something an old boss of mine encouraged, a man who was deeply interested in people, and felt it was important that his team were comfortable being themselves.
This article published by The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and is by the author Mike Robbins, who wrote a book on the topic and who believes that:
..to truly succeed in today’s business world, we must be willing to bring our whole selves to the work that we do. This means showing up authentically, leading with humility, and remembering that we’re all vulnerable, imperfect human beings doing the best we can. It’s also about having the courage to take risks, speak up, ask for help, and connect with others in a genuine way, allowing ourselves to be seen.
This probably rings very true right now as we all juggle work and home through the medium of the Zoom call. In the article, Robbins gives 5 ways to achieve this, through authenticity, appreciation, emotional intelligence, a growth mindset, and creating a great team.
If you are curious about the topic, the article is a great primer and features research and quotes that support what he writes. Read more here.
Blurred dress code
Dress for the (Remote) Job You Want
What better indicator of the blur between home and work than what we are wearing for this endless succession of Zoom calls? So, I’ve picked an article on this slightly lighter topic, which is actually from the very serious Harvard Business Review.
For many of us, we worked in environments where the delineation between work and home, was the moment you got home, taking off your tie, suit, or whatever stiff uncomfortable clothes made up acceptable work dress and slipping into something more comfortable. This moment marked the threshold between work and home. In my network, I have seen some people maintain this tradition, even when working from home in lockdown and showing up at their home office in business dress, but similarly, I’ve seen people do client meetings in a t-shirt who wouldn’t normally.
HBR have done some research, in a survey that compared people with various backgrounds and clothing. In March and April 2020, they asked 465 men and women about their video conferencing preferences, expectations, and experiences. Respondents were shown a person against three different backgrounds, another person wearing three different colors, and a third person dressed in three different types of attire. Participants were asked to choose which background, clothing color, and clothing style helped the speaker appear the most authentic, the most trustworthy, the most innovative, and the most like an expert.
The answers are interesting, and as always with these things, it varies depending on who you are zooming. But, take a look at what they found.
Hope you liked these articles, to read more on this topic, hear from our resident housebound of marketing writers and Rockstar CMOs in The Blur Issue
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