WLP354 What's Going On: Experiments in Networking
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
Release Date: 03/28/2024
WLP369 Strategy Leader with a Heart
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
In this episode, host Pilar Orti talks to Sagar Chandni, who describes himself as a distributed work practitioner and a strategy leader with a heart. We talk about the nuances of these terms and the evolving nature of work, particularly in India where Sagar is based. Sagar discusses his work with startups and the challenges and opportunities they face, and shares his approach to informed leadership, ethical business strategies, and workplace inclusiveness, as well as the importance of embracing a mindset shift and approaching work in a way that...
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WLP368 How do You Build a Hub of Talent?
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
Host Pilar Orti is joined by Doug Haines, the founder of and . Doug's entrepreneurial journey began with Kalium, where he successfully recruited talent from South Africa. This positive experience inspired him to launch Marketing Pros, an agency connecting South African marketing professionals with global opportunities. In this episode, Doug discusses the development of both ventures and his strategies for maintaining a robust talent pool. For the full show notes check out Find out more about Doug Haines and his companies: Marketing Pros: Kalium: If you’re looking to expand...
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WLP367 The 3 A's of Connection and other things I've been up to
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
In this episode, host Pilar Orti shares her new framework showing how we connect at work, and talks about some of her other projects. If you'd like to be alerted when the Remotely Shakespeare wall calendar comes out, head over to For more information check out
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WLP366 The Multiple Challenges of "Hybrid"
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
A special episode to celebrate the launch of the revised edition of The Long-Distance Leader, written by Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel, who returns to the show with another conversation that made host Pilar Orti laugh plenty of times. The conversation takes a critical look at the “hybrid” workplace - is it a compromise, a hostage negotiation? Or is the problem that we’re all transitioning to a new era of knowledge work, and are uncomfortable with uncertainty? Wayne also covers the role of trust, building a culture fit for hybrid and proximity bias. Summary blog post: ...
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WLP365 Career Transformation, Cultural Adaptation and Running a Pilates Studio!
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
In today’s episode, host Pilar Orti catches up with Frédérique Lloyd Bougreau, about how she transformed her career and lifestyle by setting up a Pilates studio in rural France. They talk about cultural adaptation, building a business in a new environment and the Importance of movement and exercise as we progress through life. Frédérique’s contact details are over at her website: As always, you can find Pilar over at
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WLP364 Researching Gen Z plus Reading and Listening Recommendations
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
For today’s Recommendations episode, Pilar is joined by Catherine Nicholson, co-founder and creative director of The Virtual Training Team. Before they move onto this month’s reading and listening recommendations, Catherine talks about her recent interest: the blend of generations in the workplace, and how to make the most out of them. Recorded on 7 August 2024 For the full set of show notes, head over to
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WLP363 Building Engagement and Belonging
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
In this episode Pilar talks to Justin Gignac, co-founder of Working Not Working, and Nicolina Jennings, the company's VP and Managing Director. Our guests share the origins and evolution of Working Not Working, and how what they’ve learned about engagement and belonging led to their new platform NTRNL. They make a strong case for increasing employee retention by creating an infrastructure that makes internal opportunities - and hidden talents- visible to all. You can find a summary over at Check out and
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WLP362 Bonding and Bridging - plus Reading and Listening Recommendations
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
We are joined by regular guest Theresa Hollema who has been doing some thinking with host Pilar Orti on the topic of Bonding within remote teams, versus Bridging, where team members create bonds with other parts of the organisation. Plus, Theresa has her own reading and listening recommendations to add to Pilar’s. You can connect with Theresa on LinkedIn: And check out the resources on her website: Let us know what you thought of the episode over at You can find an summary of the first part, plus all the links we refer to here:
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WLP361 Can Chatbots Affect Connection in Remote Teams?
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
A new player has entered the field in the world of work: generative AI. As remote teams increasingly rely on asynchronous communication, have AI chatbots become go-to resources for quick answers and idea validation? What does this mean for our workplace relationships and social skills? Maya Middlemiss and Pilar Orti discuss! For more detailed show notes head over to You can message Pilar through the Virtual not Distant website: and get hold of Maya over at Remote Work Europe: .
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WLP360 Remote and Beyond: A New Landscape for the World of Work
21st Century Work Life and leading remote teams
Host Pilar Orti talks to Henry O'Loughlin, founder of Buildremote. As he shares his journey from running a fully remote marketing agency to creating Buildremote, Henry discusses the pitfalls many companies faced during the pandemic and how his experience led him to develop a "remote operating system" playbook. The conversation evolves into a thought experiment looking into the future of work, exploring concepts like the four-day workweek, the growing trend of freelancing and the creator economy, ending in a not-too-distant future where traditional employment structures become networks of...
info_outlineMaya and Pilar discuss some of the ways in which remote workers are networking. And very special guest Matt Ballantine shares his experiment “100 coffees”.
Recorded on 21 March 2024.
To get in touch, head over to https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/contact-us
Maya shares a recent event she ran as part of Remote Work Europe, with Ali Meehan on “speed networking”.
Someone else organising networking-type events is Lisette Sutherland from Collaboration Superpowers, who is running virtual coworking sessions: https://www.collaborationsuperpowers.com/workshops/schedule/?type=1112
Maybe this kind of event is something organisations could run, instead of assuming the best way for people to connect is through face to face social events?
12.25mins
Special guest Matt Ballantine tells us about his relationship building experiment: 100 coffees.
Read about it here: https://mmitii.mattballantine.com/category/projects/100-coffees/
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattballantine/
Listen to his previous episode on this show: https://www.virtualnotdistant.com/podcasts/collaboration-in-organisations
Listen to the WB40 podcast, or even, book a coffee time with Matt: https://calendly.com/matt-ballantine
27.15mins
What about online communities? Belonging to a public group and a private one, and a free one versus a paid one, are very different experiences.
Remote Work Europe has a public, open group on Facebook, and a private community, over at https://www.remoteworkeurope.eu/connected
Communities and relationships can exist both online and off: we mention Social Now as a conference about the digital workspace: 16th and 17th May in Lisbon, and also the online community Asynco.
And relationship building can be synchronous or asynchronous.
Virtual Team Talk, set up back in the day by Pilar and Lisette, is still around!
43.15mins
And Social Media? How’s it going over on LinkedIn? If you want to become active on the platform, join the RWE challenge: https://www.linkedin.com/events/levelupyourlinkedinspring2024-a7175914652218834945/comments/
Or, you might want to join Alison Jones’ Book Proposal Challenge.
And being part of a challenge itself is a great way of meeting new people with whom you have something in common!
52.30mins
In the absence of people, can generative AI bots help?
A cheeky transition into some resources we have around generative AI:
Maya has created the course: Generative AI Secrets For Remote Work Search Success
And Pilar is now blogging about her artistic projects with and without genAI over at Spiralling Creativity, where her latest post ponders on whether genAI is a Clown .