HI there, 

STEP INSIDE THE INNERCIRCLE:

your monthly recap to stay connected with the world of Smart tech and Smart life.

WILL YOU GO BACK IN JUNE?

Microsoft may have been one of the first to invite employees back to the office, but many more have since put forward their best laid plans. Predictably, most are targeting a hybrid plan with a handful of days spent in the office proper beginning anywhere from now through September and beyond. Goldman Sach's CEO announced this week that employees will be back in June. Others like Citigroup, Spotify, Salesforce, and Amazon have also made announcements about their return to office strategies.  And Google will test new office designs across 10 percent of its global hubs in the next year. No coincidence that the tech hub of Seattle is seeing demand for office space rebound to pre-pandemic levels. 

It’s also no coincidence that big tech is ahead of the curve. Thousands more companies are still decoding the best path forward to return to work. A recent survey by independent media organization Reset Work found that only 33 percent of key decision makers believe their organizations have sufficient resources to successfully reopen office spaces. Similarly, a Forbes survey found that more than 60 percent of executives don’t have a solid return-to-work plan in place. 

THE FUTRE OF WORK(PLACE)

In recent weeks, InnerSpace has focused on understanding not when or if employees will return to workplaces – but how. And to help figure out what the picture looks like, we interviewed industry thought leaders David Cairns the founder of CBRE Forward, HR and workplace transformation expert Mark Lang, change management strategist Martin Hofmann at Oversea Strategies, and digital innovator Alan Nicholas, founder of Vada Digital to explore the specific changes in how we work, how employees are managed, how we evolve corporate real estate, and how technology is there at each step of the way.

To share what we’ve learned, we proudly introduce a new, free guide to help companies welcome employees to a better workplace – one that keeps them safe, productive, engaged and empowered to work the way they want to. 

In the guide – The Future of Work(place) – we uncover:  

• How, where and when we work is changing – and how to make that work for everyone.
• How HR leaders must shift management styles to boost productivity and worker satisfaction. 
• How to rationalize real estate and create offices that service what employees need.
• How to tactically transform the workspace through modern tech. 
• How to create, test, prove and deploy new change management strategies. 

NEW IN SMART TECH

Out in the farmlands of North America, smart crop tech driven by machine learning detect any diseases on crops, distinguish what weeds are spreading, and inform precision use of smart spraying tech to keep fruits and vegetables healthy. 

Meanwhile, the Smart clothing industry continues to heat up with Brooklyn-based Nextiles, whose Smart fabric has circuitry built in to capture biometric data. It joins more high-profile efforts by Samsung, Apple and Google as well as research at MIT and elsewhere that is driving acceleration in this emerging market. 

If you happen to live in Colorado, a Smart Cities Alliance there is challenging tech providers to devise inexpensive Smart solutions that will help communities recover from COVID’s impact. On a related note, Denver is the first U.S. city to launch Smart bike lights to improve cyclist safety.

And if you happen to live in Florida, have you seen the push to rebrand Miami as the next great tech capital. In December, the mayor took out a billboard in San Fran that read “Thinking about moving to Miami? DM me.” And last month the city was home to “Miami Tech Week”, an unplanned yet buzzworthy event that became a kind of SxSE. 

IN OUR SPACE ...

If you haven’t dialled into our blog lately, we have plenty more stories to explore:

• The rise in coworking spaces has unlocked an opportunity to create a network of offices... and a new workplace ecosystem. Read how here.
• Meeting rooms can evolve with the times via different layouts, collaborative technology, and performance-measuring data. More here.
• On that last note, the data part, we puff our chests a bit and show how and why InnerSpace outpaces out-of-the-box WiFi location companies in accuracy and price. Details here.

We've also been in the news.

• President and COO Cerys Goodall spoke with techinsideout about InnerSpace technology, while our CEO James Wu recently participated in an expert panel discussion focused on workplace analytics for the future of work and the hybrid office. Read more here.
• Cerys also spoke with analyst Predrag Jakovljevic (PJ) from research firm TEC (Technology Evaluation Centers) about how companies benefit from people analytics. 

Cats: perpetually ready for the return to office

Source: Reader’s Digest.com

That's a wrap... 

THANKS FOR READING, FOR SUBSCRIBING, AND FOR BEING PART OF THE CONVERSATION.

Stay well,

YOUR TEAM AT INNERSPACE