🔮 FUTURE OF WORK

Has “remote work” become a dirty word?

As the editor of this newsletter, I have the privilege of speaking with tons of founders, consultants, and thought leaders working in the future of work space.

Over the last 6 months, I’ve noticed an interesting shift in the remote work conversation…

And it boils down to this - remote work is now a dirty word.

But the actual ethos at the heart of remote work is still going strong.

In my conversations, I’ve found that founders of companies that enable working remotely, and consultants who help companies function in a remote environment have begun to adjust their language focusing more on words like “digital-first”, “distributed”, or “virtual”.

This is a classic “don’t listen to what I say, look at what I do” situation.

While CEOs of Fortune 500 companies go on TV to talk about how remote work doesn’t work, they know that there’s no going back to pre-2020 days, and are starting to adopt many of the principles remote-first companies have been promoting for years

They’re just not calling them remote-first!

A great example of this is Dropbox.

As a company, they were quick to see the writing on the wall and announced an aggressive pro-remote focus just a few months after COVID hit.

But their wording is careful, even in their podcast Remotely Curious, they focus on “virtual first” work as opposed to remote work.

Another great example is Mastercard, which I profiled last week, and technically describes itself as a hybrid company, but it very much functions as a remote-first company. It just happens to have office hubs around the US that workers can use if they want to.

In order for hybrid to work, you HAVE to be remote-first, or shall I say virtual-first.

Even when these companies work out of an office building, it’s not like someone is taking the elevator 3 floors to ask a coworker a question. They’ll Slack them just like they would if that coworker lived on the other side of the country.

Smart CEOs understand this, they’d just rather not use the “remote” word anymore

🎒 DIGITAL NOMADISM

Remote Year launches new 1-month programs

For the last 8 years, Remote Year has led the organized digital nomad market with their 12-month programs, this week they announced their new Remote Year Membership.

The new offering allows people to book month-long organized trips giving more people the opportunity to test out the digital nomad lifestyle. The prices are also really competitive starting at just $549 which includes a workspace, events, tours, and on-the-ground support staff in addition to a built-in community.

Importantly, the price does not include accommodations. You can book accommodations on your own according to your preferences and price range.

You also have the option to have Remote Year find & set up a living space for you for an additional fee.

💾 TECH

Instagram’s new Twitter killer Threads is launching tomorrow

Over the last couple of months, we’ve seen reports that Meta is working on their own text-based competitor to Twitter and it looks like it will finally launch on July 6th.

This is a good time for Meta to launch a competitor to Twitter which has seen its fair share of tech, financial, and leadership issues recently.

The new app will be called Threads and it will be a separate app that uses your Instagram login and profile for access. While we don’t know exactly how it will work, descriptions and images of the UI suggest it will be very similar to Twitter.

You can check out Threads here for Android and Apple

🚨 WORD ON THE WEB

• 💰 How to earn over $100K as a virtual assistant. Hannah Dixon is a world-famous virtual assistant coach, long-time nomad, past TRL guest, and funny enough, my next-door neighbor 😊 I trust no one more on the topic of VAs and in this recent Business Insider article, she shares her 5 biggest tips on earning 6-figures as a VA.

• 🕶️ Apple Vision Pro probs. According to analysts, Apple has had to make aggressive cuts to its new Vision Pro headset projections. Originally they forecasted selling over 1M headsets in 2024, but that has now dropped to 400K, and some are saying that could be as low as 150K. The reason… the headset requires incredibly advanced curved displays which the $3 trillion dollar company is struggling to source.

• 🏖️ 68% of Americans admit to working on vacation. Recent layoffs and high inflation levels have made it more difficult for employees to take a vacation. As a result, over 2/3 of workers plan on turning their vacations into workations.

📆 UPCOMING EVENTS:

July 15-29: Nomad City Festival 2023 [📍Gran Canaria] - the original nomadic unconference presented by Repeople. Get inspired, learn, & make connections at the biggest nomad event in the Canary Islands.

Dec 7-13: Nomad Island Fest [📍 Madeira, Portugal] - Learn from world-class industry experts on topics like mindset, marketing, tech, wealth & health

More events coming soon!

🌍 WFA JOBS:

Looking for a job that’s not just remote, but that you can work from anywhere in the world? We’ve done the heavy lifting for you. Check out these awesome WFA positions 👇

⭐️ Ad Creative Project Manager @ Rocket Conversions

⭐️ Quality Engineer @ Testlio

⭐️ Senior/Lead User Researcher @ ClickUp

⭐️ Senior UI Software Engineer @ Mathspace

⭐️ E-commerce UX Auditor @ Baymard Institute