How many meetings have you had so far today? Have you stepped outside the office?
Over the past year the Coveragebook team have been exploring what it means to remote work and meet outside of the office.
Collectively our small team have over 80 years of working life combined — with most of those years being in an office, at a desk, in an office-shaped box, between the hours of 9–5.
Although we love where we work, we agreed it might be time to try something new.
We started by taking our team stand-up meetings outside. Very simply, walking whilst talking. We found that the meetings were quicker, we felt more open in our discussion and were all energised to start work again once they finished.
Success! So we tried more..
We were inspired by our friends at Unknown Epic to try ‘net-walking’. After attending a session by Unknown Epic founders, Kim and Jake who lead regular outdoor adventures for business, we tried some alone.
A planning session that would have normally been two hours around a table with a flip-chart was suddenly transported to a river-side walk in an hour. The result was an inspired conversation with ideas that were ten times more powerful than those we had previously formed in a meeting room.
We decided to up the ante when two members of the team joined five similar start-ups for a co-working experiment in the French Alps, named; Alpselerator.
Alpselerator, hosted by Dream Valley Projects was an inspired week long adventure of mountain-climbing, lake-side walking and snow-throwing but we have all never been so productive or decisive in business.
Apps were developed, multiple videos made, daily blogs posted and an e-book written! We all couldn’t believe how much we had achieved but we know we owe it to getting outside every day.
We all now take at least one day out of the office to meet or work. Why don’t you try too? How about going free-range next Friday?
Tips to get started…
1. Get outdoors. Nature has a way of bringing new perspective to challenges
2. Try something. Why not organise your next brainstorm outside. A walk through Central Park or along the Thames could have your next campaign gem waiting for you
3. It’s amazing how much you can capture with just post-its and sharpie pens. You don’t always need white boards and flip charts!
4. If you like the sound of this read the book that inspired our journey: REMOTE
5. If you feel like you could do with a helping hand check out Unknown Epic
6. If you love what you’ve read so far then why not join the Free Range Business movement.
Still need some inspiration?
