By Janus Boye
DOKK1 - The famous library in Aarhus - is closed in order to slow down the Corona virus.
How are you? How can I help?
These two questions are now front and center at almost every interaction. Looking back at just a few months ago, the beginning of 2020, and it already seems so long ago. It’s clear that the world has changed so much during these past weeks.with unprecedented changes to what we consider normal.
No more travel, working from home is the norm, and there’s many Stay-At-Home orders around the world. It all also impacts us as a community and as human beings. Hopefully we’ll very soon be post-corona.
In this community update, I’ll look at what we’ve accomplished so far in 2020, share some highlights, offer some lessons learned, outline our plans for the future and finally how you can help and be a part of it.
First, let’s look at what’s on everybody’s mind.
We’re in a pandemic
Back in 2010, Canadian designer Eric Karjaluoto travelled from Vancouver to Aarhus to deliver a well-received keynote at our Boye conference aptly titled Speaking human. I think Eric nailed the feeling of many, including myself, when he shared this new job on his LinkedIn profile.
An unusual career move as shared by Eric Karjaluoto on LinkedIn
He elaborated in a blog post titled Keep Paddling. Spoiler: There’s a chapter titled ‘This too will pass’.
One of our US members, digital strategist Laura Stringer, described it like this in her newsletter which had the helpful subject line: Anything I can do?
It's been a whirlwind lately. The news seems to change almost hourly, and we're all operating with a constant low-key (or high-key) anxiety.
I spent several days staring at my screen without actually doing much. An article that should have taken a few hours to write instead took a few days.
Thanks, Laura for writing, offering your help and sharing your insights with us. Here’s her article that came out of it: Experience And Operations: Better Together
Brian Tomlinson working from home
Hamburg-based digital leader Brian Tomlinson is another past Boye conference speaker, who also knows how to look at the bright side of life. He shared the photo of what working from home really looks like when your kids are home with you.
On the topic of working from home, UK-based digital strategist Jonathan Phillips made a good point that we should not call it remote working. “Remote is the very last thing, we want our employees to be at this time” he wrote. Read his full post on LinkedIn.
Our member Deane Barker has also written a blog post on how changing circumstances radically change what we consider normal. As usual, it’s worthwhile reading - see Surface Tension and Culture Change.
Moving from an individual perspective to an organisational perspective, Czech-based Kentico shared openly How Kentico is coping with COVID-19.
James Bloor from UK-based digital agency Distinction, also shared the actions they’ve taken. See Preparing for COVID-19. In the US, Tim Garrigan from GLG shared a helpful post with advice for their clients. Read Let’s make some lemonade, people.
Finally, on a national level, we’ve seen very different courses taken. Even Denmark and Sweden who shares so much in terms of culture and history, is navigating the pandemic very differently. In Denmark schools are out, while in Sweden they remain open. If you look around Europe and North America, there are so many different levels of lockdowns, responses and thankfully also signs of hope.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on a video call with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen shared a Facebook update on March 18, where she had held a video conference with Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz. Her social media update emphasised how it is now more important than ever, that we keep talking and that we keep sharing our experiences, and keep sharing our ideas. As she wrote: “We should not lockdown our dialogue with the rest of the world.”
That’s exactly what has kept us busy since our beginning in 2003 and let’s move from pandemic to our 2020 so far.
25 peer group meetings so far
Since the first one on 13 January in Clearwater, Florida, we managed to do 25 peer group meetings, in person and around Europe and North America. We’ve launched new groups, welcomed new members, hosted a breakfast briefing on digital transformation in London, made progress on our conferences and much more.
Building a community on face-to-face meetings and peer interaction takes time, but I’m thankful for some really good meetings and a slow and steady member growth, so that we are now approaching 100 members compared to 50 a year ago.
It’s always something special to launch new groups and this quarter was no exception as we launched three new groups:
In Zurich a new Corporate Innovation & Intrapreurship peer group led by Maarten Korz.
In Munich we launched our fourth Automation & Robotics peer group
in Hamburg we launched a new Future Workplace peer group.
Here’s from the launch in Munich, where we had Neil Ward-Dutton from IDC as an analyst guest speaker
It’s equally rewarding to see existing groups grow and feel how the relationships and connections between the members add value and provide a sense of meaning. Our Content Ops peer group meeting at WHO Europe in late February was one such example as shown in the below tweet.
Many other meeting highlights and good conversation behind the scenes. Some of the talks at the peer group meetings get turned into a blog post, like this popular post on performance and the tech stack changes by our member Lars Birkholm Petersen from Uniform: What Got You Here, Won't Get You There.
We’ve also kept our commitment to the the museum world and shared how and why SFMOMA Selected Kentico Kontent To Separate Content From Code.
Finally, and on a less technical note, BJ Fogg kicked off our 2020 member conference call series with a talk on his new bestselling book Tiny Habits. Read more: Simplicity Changes Behavior.
Plans for Q2 and rest of 2020
Looking at the calendar, I would usually say that Q1 is wrapping up and we are in the closing of the quarter in terms of the usual business cycle. Hopefully some additional member growth to pay back on the investment year which was 2019 followed by some much needed Easter vacation, but these days nothing is quite as usual.
Navigating the pandemic is now at the forefront of what we do.
We are continuing our series of member conference calls and have another round of peer group meetings planned from May to June.
At the moment we can’t really make any travel plans, but as many of our groups are local, also with local moderators, we can make some progress on agendas, and firming up the always important group composition.
It feels like the English saying, fighting with fog, as industry analyst Alan Pelz-Sharpe has taught us in several peer group meetings in the past. We’ll have to see when the fog clears and in the meantime, I hope everyone stays safe, healthy and sane.
Finally, here’s how you can help us. We don’t have a strong financial footing as we’ve invested in growing the community, so here’s what you can do:
Join the community if you are not already a member. We’ll happily extend your membership, so that you get a year of learning after the pandemic
Renew your membership early if possible to help us. Just get in touch and we’ll sort it.
Secure your seat at one of our upcoming Boye conferences - as always we offer flexible terms if you can’t make it or if we’ll have to postpone due to local regulations and health concerns.
Consider writing a blog post or hosting a member conference call to help our mission of sharing new thinking.
More from the behind the scenes
Read more about our history in these past community updates
Towards 2020 and the next chapter (July 2019)
The story of Boye & Co (August 2018)