Vegetable soup: Batch #1, Day #2

At this moment I should be sitting under a palm tree on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast sipping something very different from canned tomato soup. Instead, after cutting short my trip, I am prematurely back in my spatially-challenged flat in London, cooking up batches of vegetable soup and planning for the long, tough months ahead. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to write.

I’ve only been back in the country for a few days, so am still dealing with jet-lag, disbelief and the reality of being a self-employed insight consultant and small-time landlord… with tenants due to move out imminently and no income whatsoever for the foreseeable future. I’m doing my best to take it in my stride, be the adaptable, strategic, resourceful person I know I am.

View fullsize

Dreaming of those Costa Rican beaches

Like many, I’ve been wondering how this whole situation is going to affect us humans in the long term. There is a sad inevitability that many lives will be lost and mourned. But how are we going to cope with social isolation, both physically and emotionally? The message from the government is clear – keep your distance – but there are many who are choosing to disregard this advice. Sadly, the invisible cape of immunity that some feel they have draped over their shoulders is going to have a significant impact on where we all end up after this whole bizarre episode is over - and are hopefully still here to pick up the pieces. 

And come on guys… lead by example, FFS! After watching BJ on Sky News reinforce his social distancing message very clearly, the programme then cut immediately to the news presenter with a backdrop of attendees leaving No.10. I was staring, wide eyed and mouth gaping at the TV as I watched an almost comical scene showing a slow but steady stream of people walk out of the front door and right past the policeman on duty, with barely a foot or two’s grace. To my utter amazement, a group of people then exited together, cheerily chatting as they made a mockery of the whole kit and caboodle. It makes me wonder. Seriously.

Keen to maintain a daily routine of exercise and ‘fresh’ air, (and to stave off cabin fever for as long as humanly possible), I, along with most of the nation, decided at the weekend to take a walk on Hampstead Heath. It was teeming with people and dogs. Some were making a concerted effort to keep their distance, while others passed by worryingly close to one another. I had my weapon of choice: old hiking boots. This was a strategic choice for the purpose of taking the wettest and muddiest paths that everyone else wanted to avoid. Over those few hours, which included a trip to the local independent supermarkets, which were way more crowded than anticipated, reality started to set in. 

Hampstead Heath attracting walkers with and without dogs :)

No swimming for the foreseeable future… :(

As I thought about everything I was seeing, hearing, reading, it struck me that we are in something akin to the initial Forming phase of Tuckman’s Team development model (1965), where everything is new and unknown; and fear and panic set in.

Tuckman’s Team Development model is a useful proxy for determining the phases of behaviour we’ll see during the COVID-19 era

The first time I left home after returning to the UK, it felt very Britishly rude to give ordinary people a wide berth as I passed them on the street. I still got the sense that people wearing masks were potentially taking things too far, and I felt utterly discombobulated.

The second time I ventured out, I did my bit to maintain distance from others wherever possible – but also tried to engage in ‘safe’ social contact with a smile, or a nod, or a stroke of a passing pooch. I did ask one dog walker if she minded me stroking her springy miniature pinscher as I thought people may be a bit uncomfortable about it, but she said she was fine with it, as it had been confirmed that dogs couldn’t carry COVID-19.

Last night, I was watching Netflix… safest place to be employed right now I reckon… and I found myself physically recoiling every time two people passed within a metre of each other. Like, whaaaat?!

…That’s when I realised: I was already adapting to this ‘new normal’.

If, after only a day or so, I am already uncomfortable with the notion of getting ‘too close’ to another human, what will it be like after months like this?

---

NINE. One year on... (Interview with Anne Kuppens, owner of Ninecoliving, Tenerife)

In June last year, Anne claimed the keys to the traditional Canarian property (est 1852) that was transformed over 2 months into Ninecoliving; a coliving and coworking space to serve Tenerife’s burgeoning Digital Nomad population. I spent 10 days at Nine (mostly on my hands and knees restoring 170 yr old tiles, or otherwise up a ladder, paintbrush in hand...) helping with the planning and renovations. I came back to Nine one year on to see how everything had been going...

D: So, Anne... it’s been a year. How’s the journey been so far?

A: Well, first of all a year flew by. I cannot believe it’s already been a year, and yeah, I mean, the first part went really fast... for like 2-3 months remodelling and then I started in September. First, I invited Remote Year people with a 50% discount for anyone from the (Remote Year) Nation, and in Sep a few people showed up. I had 2 people by the end of Sep and then October, I had a few more and then November became actually pretty busy, and then from end of Nov on I went into like a super high season which I never expected so it was very full on because I was not really prepared to be full for like 3 months straight through until Feb. I can have up to 16 people but that never really happens because then all my doubles have to be booked for two. I have some volunteers, so right now there’s like 16 people in the house. I just went with the whole thing and by the time winter was over it was a little slower... So, by March, I realised I needed help – it was too much to do it on my own, so I looked for a host and found Katia who started at the beginning of May. (Katia and her partner Emmanuel are staying at Nine for a year).

In that year, everything fell into place, a routine... and then I had my first volunteer, and I didn’t really have any idea what she would do except for taking care of the dog (Lara is a rescue dog and became Nine’s second permanent resident in September)! And now I feel like most things have their structure and routine, and now guests turn up and they kind of fall into the way of doing things and it all runs smoothly. So now I have a bit more time for myself and also to work on seeing how Nine can grow and what other things I can do, so yeah... I’m very happy with how things are going.

D: What would you say has been a favourite part of the journey for you so far...?

A: I guess of course my fave thing is meeting all these people because it’s crazy how many people I’ve met and everyone’s been so nice... and seeing this community become its own thing – being part of Nine – apparently that means something and that’s really cool. There’s now this kind of community like after Remote Year as well... it’s a thing – it’s become way more than just a hotel basically - it’s because more like a community where people really feel like they want to stay in touch and stuff. Beautiful house, beautiful town... but the people they met... that’s what they value the most. And it’s why they come back, I think.

D: What would you say has been the biggest surprise for you?

A: That I was full all winter without any marketing. I hoped I’d picked the right place (Tenerife) but I had no idea people were actually looking for coliving places in Tenerife, and then Nine comes up because I’m the only one here.

D: You say you haven’t done much marketing, but you seem like you’ve got a pretty good handle on social media...

A: ...but everyone found me through Google. Now it’s through a friend, or social media, or a Facebook group, but the first few months were all through Google. It’s just being at the right spot where people want to be... (plus a good bit of SEO). It was kind of logical that this would be a good place and because there wasn’t anything else like this yet... if you think of Gran Canaria, it’s a big hub already. 

D: What would you say have been your biggest challenges?

A: The internet... I knew that the one thing I needed to get right was the internet, but it’s hard in this building because it’s in the old centre, and people weren’t too up front about that when I was looking into it so I thought it would all be OK and then there was a minute where it wasn’t looking so good... I remember when I was here last time and you were looking into it, that it was pretty stressful. Luckily we found a solution and the wifi has been pretty stable since then, and that has been the biggest challenge. And in other ways (people ask me this a lot), I think another challenge is that I find time for myself. Especially in the beginning I just kept going, going, going and now I’m much better at taking time off and taking time out of the community here and taking time to make my own friends on the island with people that are not moving, basically, because otherwise you only have friends that are going to leave. I think that maybe it’s like, something that doesn’t come super easy... so time management I guess for me.

D: It can be very hard to separate yourself from your business at this early stage... especially when your business is also your home!

A: Yeah, it’s really important to set boundaries for yourself, because, it’s really easy to go out almost every day for dinner, because there’s always people going out for fun dinners... and it never stops. It really never stops... so if you think ‘ah they’re almost leaving... but they’re almost leaving...’ so you wanna spend all your time with them and it never stops... and you’re basically out for dinner and drinks all the time... you have to, like, say no sometimes so I think that’s probably the hardest thing. No... I’m gonna do my own thing and cook myself dinner and just chill... watch some Netflix.’ Tell me a little bit about the coliving and coworking community in Tenerife... It’s not a big hub yet but there’s definitely a lot of digital nomads here, a lot of expats, a lot of people who come here for 6 months or a year or something like that and they definitely look for a community or the structure or events or someone who takes that structure on, and that isn’t really there yet... I’m really good friends now with a girl from Coworking in the Sun, which is here in Puerto de La Cruz and they’re the only ones who take care of events and they’re also the owners of the Facebook group (Tenerife Digital Nomads), which is really active so they’re the ones that do that now, but... it could be a lot more developed and I could definitely be a big part in that. The people are definitely here and they’re wanting to connect and find that community....it’s just so easy to go ‘oh but we have such a cool group at Nine’ ...but it could be really beneficial for me and also just be super nice to kind of like have that community a bit more active here in Tenerife, yes.

D: What would you say to someone who was considering coming to Tenerife / Nine but they didn’t know so much about it...

A: Well, Tenerife in general is super, super awesome and it’s surprised me in so many ways, in terms of nature, culture, and how much there is to do... I would always suggest to go to the North but I know there are people who like the South better. What I like more about the North is that it’s about local life. There’s a lot of cultural events and there are so many festivities here and you don’t really have that in the South as much. But, in the South it’s always warm and sunny, so if that’s what you come for, you go to the South. If you want more of an active lifestyle and community and culture then I definitely recommend the North. If you want to stay up to 3 months in Tenerife I would recommend staying in a coliving space because it’s such a cool place to meet or live where you work... the whole thing. I can imagine if you stay much longer you might want your own space... but there’s not a really good coworking space here yet that you could go to, so I’d still recommend coming here!!

D: Well, Anne’s been making her lunch while we’ve been speaking and I can tell she’d really like to eat it, so the last thing I want to ask is – if there’s anything else you’d like to mention?

A: Definitely put Tenerife on your list, because it’s definitely better than we, in Europe, think it is... it’s not just a destination for sun seekers... give it a chance. It’s mountains, volcanoes, hiking, surfing, a very cool community of young people, Digital Nomads, surfers, expats, hippies – there’s something here for everyone.

You’ll find Nine Coliving in the heart of La Orotava, in Tenerife. For info and bookings, visit ninecoliving.com

The humble laptop: Heaven or Hell?

Being a Digital Nomad pretty much dictates your laptop as your most valuable possession. We have little time for software updates, bugs or (if you’re faint-hearted avert your eyes now), breakages. As for theft… don’t even make us contemplate that! …Except do, because if we don’t think about it most of the time then the chances are it’ll happen sooner or later.

If you’re travelling with a community, you can be fairly confident that if anything untoward happens someone will *probably* have a backup that you can borrow until you find the nearest Apple or HP dealer // dodgy fake Apple maintenance store // anyone who has any knowledge whatsoever of laptops // someone to mule you a new one from another country.

Joking aside, if you don’t have a working laptop (or someone to lend you one), not only can you not work, you can’t support your team // colleagues // clients, and ultimately you are not going to get paid, and that leads to all sorts of other ‘inconveniences’.

This is serious business.

But this ascension of the humble laptop in the eyes of the Digital Nomad has another, maybe less obvious impact on our lives, too. It’s a feeling that you and your laptop have melded; think 2-become-1, but a little less passionate lovers and a little more life revolves around a piece of hardware that will never need you the way that you need them.

This is not a good thing. It is not what we would call a healthy relationship.

What tends to happen after travelling and working remotely for a while is that it becomes genuinely difficult – if not almost impossible - to close the laptop, step away, and enjoy even just one day without work // admin // business development // 13” screen interactions.

I tried to explain this concept to my current co-workers (most of whom are office-based) and they found it a bizarre concept; ‘Why don’t you just have a holiday?’ or… ‘Just don’t take your laptop with you!’ These are both very logical points of view, but they don’t take into account three things about being a Digital Nomad:

1.     How attached you become to your laptop

2.     How you find yourself constantly defending your lifestyle to people who think that you’re on an extended holiday (and therefore feeling like you have to over-deliver on your work to prove you’re working)

3.     How the concept of not being ‘always’ on becomes foreign after a while because of client demands, different timezones or personal projects

In fact, the only way to really down tools is to go somewhere where you have no option but to leave the laptop behind. I recall a discussion that continued over a few weeks in the lead up to a group of nine of us trekking the Inca trail to Machu Picchu, where we were deciding whether or not to bring our laptops. The reality was that we weren’t going to use them, but being separated from them for a whole week caused unfathomable anxiety.

‘What happens if a client wants to get in touch with me?’

‘What if someone needs something from me?’

‘I might miss out on some work!’

‘I might miss out on…something!’

In the end we made a collective decision NOT to take our laptops 4000m up into the Andes (mainly through fear of not having anywhere secure to leave them), but it was a good decision and we didn’t regret it. It meant we were able to reset and recharge our own batteries, do a little internal software update and come back refreshed and ready.

Truly taking time away from work is healthy, and as the lines between our work and personal lives blur we need to get better at doing it. Being away from home used to mean being away from work, but now that the two are no longer mutually exclusive we need to redefine ‘time off’.

Who would have thought that the humble laptop would become such a force for freedom but also captivity in our lives?

The semiotics of Remote

Real world journalist Vs. desk-bound theorist

Remote. Remote. Remote. Remote. Remote.

Barely an hour goes by where I don’t hear this word being uttered, read it on a Slack post or see it somewhere in my immediate vicinity. I’m so used to hearing it that I almost don’t hear it anymore. Does that make sense?

Recently though, I’ve started hearing it again. And listening. I mean really listening. And what I’m hearing has started to clarify some things in my mind.

This past year I’ve heard many different people’s experiences of their remote working lives. It’s disappointing, but not altogether surprising that a significant proportion of employers have serious reservations about allowing their staff to work remotely. Some reject the idea outright and others find obstacles to place in the way.

I’ve tried to unpack this the best I can, with the help of the Remotes that I’m travelling with and others I’ve met along the way, and I hear the same concerns raised again and again:

As those who have followed my journey know, I’m currently 11 months into conducting a year-long ethnographical study into Digital Nomadism (working title: MyLifeAsADigitalNomad), and these are all themes that I’ll be reporting on in detail in 2018, so they are not going to be the focus of this piece, but what I do want to look at is what semiotic cues can be taken from the word Remote itself and how this can affect people’s perceptions and therefore their actions.

---

First off, here’s a snippet from the Oxford English Dictionary definition of Remote: 

Adjective: (of a place) situated far from the main centres of population; distant - Having very little connection with or relationship to.

 …and some synonyms from a brief Google search just to hammer the point home:

 Irrelevant to, unrelated to, unconnected to, unconcerned with, not pertinent to, inapposite to, immaterial to, unassociated with, inappropriate to.

---

I think it’s fair to say that our residual definition of (and associations with) Remote sit at the core of people’s apprehension, and while there is positive evidence to show that the word is being used increasingly in our everyday lives, I feel that this is an issue that needs to be tackled head-on and I for one am willing to take up this gauntlet and run with it.

Before starting to write this piece, I sought the opinions of an experienced Semiotician who is a former colleague and current friend, and whose mind I admire greatly. He suggested that I “consider what the positive signifiers are of remoteness in the context of work, but what the negative associations are in terms of our cultural understanding…”, but in truth I struggled to find any historical references to the former.

On the whole, his thoughts and mine were pretty well aligned; “…the myths about slobbing around in pyjamas, not engaging fully with work, productivity dropping, too many (homely) distractions etc, and how we might signify pro-activity to offset that assumption with activity signifiers…. greater use of email to declare work in progress and checking in for reviews etc. The stuff we habitually do to make sure nobody thinks we’re slacking off.”

Interestingly, his immediate associations are around working from home, whereas mine are generally intertwined with travel; clearly a product of him being a dedicated partner and father living outside of London, and me being a little more footloose and fancy-free (and currently in Colombia)!

The issue as I see it is that these negative perceptions are barriers to individuals and employers considering remote work as a positive step forward. Not only does this create resistance to a movement that is growing in popularity and momentum, but it also holds people back from exploring their full potential and becoming their best selves.

My experience of living as a Digital Nomad fully contradicts the dominant/residual semiotic cues of Remote. Of course, every individual is different, but on the whole I see only good things coming from those who are free to live a more integrated work and personal life. A life full of richness, cultural immersion, flexibility, opportunity, gratitude and positivity. The world and how we connect with it and each other is changing, and that to me is exciting.

When all is said and done my friend and I agreed that it feels like there is a battle of opposing perceptions… one dominant/residual that focuses in on the negatives, and the other emergent/dominant that tries to articulate the positives. The challenge is that the negative signifiers are well established and understood, whilst the newer, less formalised positive signifiers are still evolving and coalescing to create a new set of semiotic codes. And so we are left with a question in our heads and in our hearts:

---

How do we neutralise the negative perceptions of ‘remoteness’ with powerful signifiers of ‘remote action’?

---

With thanks to Tim Spencer, Semiotician extraordinaire.