Before We Begin
Announcements and the like.
Juan: Thanks to everyone who was able to join us for our State of Innovation conversation on the Future of Work! There were some great insights by the panel on all of the worker and workplace issues being considered by corporations, startups and freelancers alike. If you missed the event, check out our recap below including a video of the discussion.
On a related note, if you would like to partner with us on our next virtual event, feel free to drop us a note at sales@americaninno.com.
The Big One
A breakdown on the day’s biggest Inno story.
The future of work: What four business leaders say we can expect post-Covid
Charlotte Inno continued its virtual event series on Tuesday with State of Innovation: the future of work.
With a turnout of more than 100 founders, innovators and community members, the roundtable discussion focused on how different the workplace might look post-Covid 19.
Charlotte Inno General Manager Juan Garzon moderated the hour-long conversation with Chris Schaaf, managing director of the Tenant Consulting Group at JLL; Peter Marsh, founder of Flywheel Coworking and owner of Workplace Architecture + Design; Rod Garvin, senior vice president of Talent Insights at Charlotte Regional Business Alliance; and Karla Shields, executive director of the Computer Technology Institute at CPCC.
Here are a few takeaways from the discussion:
Chris Schaaf: The spatial environment was really leveraged before to create culture and build an environment that everyone wanted to go to. How do we go back to that by leveraging technology while we’re in this brief window (of Covid)? America’s “always on” work culture has reached new heights. Whatever boundaries remained between work and home life have simply disappeared.
Peter Marsh: The pendulum has always kind of swung back and forth between the level of density and open plan vs. enclosed space. This is not a pendulum; this is a sledgehammer that has basically hit corporate office planning. We’re seeing a significant de-densifying of workplaces. It begins at the front door. I think what you’re going to see is a lot more elbow room and more of a residential feel coming into the work place.
Karla Sheilds: We’re starting to see companies are becoming a lot more flexible. I don’t really see anyone going back to 100 percent with no remote working. We’ve learned we can continue to work, can continue to have meetings … We have a huge population that has really been effected where they didn’t have the choice of working from home or not. That is very critical, so whether it’s a shared working space or not … look at how do we get everybody back up and working.
Rod Garvin: When we look at corporate offices, we’re going to see changes. What happens if how we think about headquarters is not as tied to a location. Some relocation decisions have been made by what is the best environment for a corporate office. Now we have to think about what business recruitment and expansion looks like when it’s not as tied to physical location. We will see changes in corporate real estate and how that factors into economic development, and that may actually elevate the significance of coworking.
Read the full story here! Want more Charlotte Inno? Check out all our stories here.
Making Moves
Inside the people, companies and organizations making moves today.
Fintech company Figure is expanding operations into Charlotte
West Coast fintech company Figure Technologies is putting down roots in the Queen City. Figure, which provides financial services to borrowers and businesses through blockchain technology, announced during the annual Fintech Generations conference earlier this month that its new East Coast loan operations center will be located in Charlotte. CD Davies, head of lending at Figure, said over the next two months the company will hire between 12 and 20 people in the region to work remotely. Eventually, he said, they’ll find a permanent build space, but that timeline is fluid because of Covid-19. Davies said they chose Charlotte because of the built-in talent pool. nbsp;“We’re in financial services, and Charlotte is the mecca for that talent,” he said. “Also I think … being in the banks’ backyard will be helpful to them.” More here.
National Venture Capital launches new nonprofit to advance diversity in the startup world
The National Venture Capital Association is spinning out a new nonprofit organization aimed at advancing diversity and inclusion in the industry and expanding access to venture capital. The new 501(c)(3) nonprofit is called Venture Forward and will be based at the NVCA’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., and at new offices in San Francisco. Its focus will be on advancing diversity, inclusion and access to opportunities in the venture and startup worlds, which continue to be heavily dominated by white men in a handful of coastal markets. Maryam Haque, the executive director of Venture Forward, told the Silicon Valley Business Journal — a CBJ sister publication — in an interview, “A big part of our mission here is to make sure that we are expanding opportunities for women, for people of color, for people in geographies outside of California, Massachusetts and New York, to be able to learn about venture capital and participate in our ecosystem, whether as an entrepreneur or as an investor,” according to Charlotte Business Journal.
Charlotte's SentryOne partners with London-based company to expand product distribution
SentryOne recently announced a new partnership with QBS Distribution, a London-based distributor of software solutions to more than 240,000 organizations worldwide. The new relationship will simplify the process of selecting and purchasing SentryOne's Database Performance Monitoring and DataOps solutions for data professionals managing systems across the Microsoft data platform, including SQL Server and Azure SQL Database. "As an established and well-respected software provider ... can shorten the cycle for data managers who could benefit from SentryOne data management solutions,” said Mike Lambert, SentryOne president of field operations. “Known for exceptional customer service and speedy delivery, QBS is the ideal partner to help bring our top-rated technology to DataOps teams across Europe," according to a news release.
|
