The future of work has no boundaries

Among the many facets of this new way of working: a not-always smooth shift from officemates to virtually connected nomads who communicate and work via all sorts of virtual channels: social, mobile and video. A statistic that’s been reverberating since I first read it: by 2015, which is now, 1.3 billion of us worldwide will be working remotely. That’s about 40% of the global workforce. Another: HR technology alone is a market worth more than $15 billion. That’s a whole heap of screen time for your personal brand.

In this virtual, hyper-connected and hyper-competitive culture, body language is more critical than ever. There’s plenty of coaching to be had, and data — charts tracking testosterone and cortisol changes and the like. But I’m still hearing questions on the why side from leaders, employees and brands alike. We tend to follow direction and get to a task because we’re team players in a fast-moving workforce: we take care of the who-what-where-when first. But in simple mechanical terms, why a soft skill like body language is ever-critical is an interesting question. The bottom line: essentially, we’re all onscreen. We’re on Digital TV. And the tech has its own impact on how we appear.

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