According to Statista, the United States was home to 15 million digital nomads in 2021. In 2023, 35% of digital nomads were freelancers or gig workers. MBO Partners also reports that in 2023, 36% of American digital nomads planned to spend more time in the U.S. rather than traveling abroad. The survey also found that 14% of digital nomads shared that their employer doesn’t know that they travel while working. Additionally, 18% stated that while their manager or boss has given them permission to work while living nomadically, the company that they work for doesn’t have a policy for this type of lifestyle. All this can result in a gray area as people determine whether they should tell their bosses where they are headed or keep it hush-hush.

The tourism industry is aware of the ambiguity and possible need for discretion that digital nomads face, and they are responding with intentionality. So I headed from my hometown of Cincinnati to Clearwater Beach, Florida, to see just how discreet some brands are making digital nomading. After all, do your clients really need to know that you’re at the beach? If your tan lines give it away, that’s your problem—but the hotel you’re staying at sure won’t disclose your trip.

That’s the premise I headed out to explore at AC Hotel Clearwater Beach, a hotel in the heart of the city where bikini tops are the dress code and a full view of the marina is the norm on most floors.

The “hush” package

When I first heard of a hush package, I thought it might be a kitschy hotel offering without any substance behind it. That was ultimately not the case. AC Hotel Clearwater Beach’s “Hush Trip Haven” package offers digital nomads a protected and productive environment, with amenities to stay focused during the day and relax after work. The package I tested out included the following amenities that AC Hotel Clearwater Beach’s website promised:

• Worker’s welcome packet: After arriving, guests receive a worker’s welcome packet, which includes “a portable charging dock, printing credits, a branded notepad, an eye mask for rest, lavender sachets for relaxation,” and a custom door hanger. The portable charging dock and door hanger were the most useful, the latter of which prevented awkward interruptions during Zoom calls thanks to the note on it that read, “Hush. Working ‘from home.’”

• Dedicated coworking space: Digital nomad guests “have access to a dedicated coworking space in [the] AC Business Center, [which is] equipped with essential amenities” for productivity.  
• AC Media Salon: Guests can enjoy “priority access to the AC Media Salon for virtual meetings and technology needs (based on availability).”
• Refreshment concierge: If you ever wished you had a helper who showed up periodically to bring you coffee and water during the mid-afternoon slump, this is your chance. 
• Complimentary drink voucher: Free drinks after work while you lounge by the pool or check out the ocean are the best for happy hour.
• Promotional offer: Digital nomads receive “a 10% discount on stays of three or more weekday nights.”

Boosting creativity with a change of scenery

The most exceptional part was a new view and a fresh perspective—staring over the top of my laptop into the Gulf boosted my creativity way more than staring at the same old neighborhood outside my window at home.

“It was clear that a program like the one we designed, combined with our environment, would result in the ideal experience for this market segment,” says Garvey Johnson, director of sales and marketing at AC Hotel Clearwater Beach. He says that the package is geared toward digital nomads in particular but may also benefit remote workers and business travelers.

What is a digital nomad vs. a remote worker on a temporary vacation?

If you arrive beachside at this hotel—or at others with similar concepts—and instead of going home at the end of your stay, you continue your journey to another locale with comparable accommodations, you might find yourself wading into digital nomad territory. Nathan James Thomas, founder and editor of Intrepid Times and author of Untethered: Living the Digital Nomad Life in an Uncertain World, has been a digital nomad for 10 years and currently lives in Poland.  

“Tourists arrive, take photos, then leave. Nomads linger and integrate themselves more into the local economy,” he says. “They stay in Airbnbs and private apartments, not hotels. Digital nomads shop for groceries at the local supermarket. They bring their laptops to cafes and stay there for hours.” Local economies are responding both to embrace these trends and to resist the negative impact.

“From Fabrika in Tbilisi, Georgia, to The Bank in Poznan, Poland,” he adds, “purpose-built accommodation[s] designed for mid-term travelers and nomads have cropped up, offering something halfway between a hotel and apartment rental, often with community spaces and regular events. At the same time, Barcelona is banning Airbnb, and studies have reported negative economic impacts associated with the influx of digital nomads to Columbia’s popular Medellin.”

What opportunities can digital nomads look for?

While I stayed at AC Clearwater, I found numerous additional perks of working from a hotel where digital nomading was a norm. For example, bikes were available to use in the parking garage to get around town for short trips. This way, I could avoid the inconvenience of getting my car in and out of valet parking in the hotel parking garage. 

Digital nomads can also build relationships with employees and community members in their lodging, with an eye on integrating a bit more than the typical hotel visitor. This was true at AC, where the employees I encountered wanted to have a more thorough conversation and learn more about what I was doing. However, they also took social cues quite seriously when it was obvious I was working.

Thomas offers some other tips and tricks from nomad life. “Accommodations offering discounts for long-term rental is a huge plus,” he says. “One time in Poznan, I found an apartment I liked and wanted to extend for a couple of months after an initial two [or] three day booking. The owner was open to the idea but offered only 5% off their usual day rate. Of course, I declined, and they seemed surprised. Rental providers used to short-term thinking will need to adjust their expectations in exchange for the stability and dependability of long-term residents.”

The ups and downs of the digital nomad lifestyle

Consider yourself warned: You might also get addicted to the digital nomad lifestyle and find sitting in the office from nine-to-five unbearable afterward. “I’ve known digital nomads who have stepped off the road, bought houses and settled down. Some, like Nora Dunn [of] TheProfessionalHobo.com, then subsequently went back on the road,” Thomas adds. “When you’ve experienced the freedom and exhilaration of this life, it can be hard to give up.” 

Another option he presents is living “normal sedentary” lives nine to ten months per year and then living nomadically for short periods of time, as some of his friends do. “It gives them a balance of both lifestyles,” he says. However, since some countries require digital nomad visas, be sure to check the necessary boxes before throwing your computer in a carry-on bag and heading on your way.

What will come next in a world of digital nomading?

The hush package is just the beginning. A 2024 study published in the Journal of Destination Marketing & Management of 225 web articles for digital nomad destinations revealed some themes for this trend’s future. Researchers suggested that “to attract this new market, smart destinations need to innovate to develop readiness and competitiveness,” adding that they found that these digital nomad destinations cater not only to work-based needs but also to digital nomads’ “travel, social, financial and basic living needs.” The study also pointed out that these needs are distinctly different from typical short-term leisure tourists’ or business travelers’ needs. 

Accommodations for children of digital nomads

Ashley R. Cummings, an avid traveler, digital nomad, worldschooler and freelance writer, runs a digital nomad newsletter called “Life In A Backpack.” It focuses on helping people achieve freedom from the nine-to-five and hustle culture to spend more time creating experiences.

She is seeing how digital nomadism is changing the tourism industry through more niche travel services that cater to different kinds of traveling groups. “It’s a lot easier today to get around than ever before,” she says. “And it’s easier to make money on the go and even enroll kids in school on the go.

“One particular type of emerging niche is small worldschooling services. There are independent groups of people who organize little pods to slow travel while worldschooling. There are also organizations like Deliberate Detour that set up community and cultural activities and provide schooling while families travel.” 

I found through traveling with my own children that digital nomad sites might also need to look into the possibility of on-site child care or camp-style sessions to further attract working travelers with families.

Thomas concludes that “there have never been more options open to digital nomads, and with companies adapting to provide longer term accommodation options and digital nomad visas on the rise, the momentum seems to be on the side of the nomad.”

Photo courtesy of Alex Frost

The post I Tested Out a Hotel’s “Hush Trip” Package Designed for Digital Nomads and Learned How Remote Workers Are Changing the Tourism Industry appeared first on SUCCESS.

Amy Grilli is a mother who knows the above scenario all too well. She took five years off of work to raise her children. When she tried to find a job after this lengthy hiatus from her previous role as a teacher, she lacked confidence and found the endeavor to be a struggle. Grilli posted about the difficulties of trying to return to the workforce on LinkedIn. After her post went viral, she knew she wasn’t alone in this plight.

Grilli shares that she was in “absolute shock” when she saw the response to her post, especially since she was a novice user of the job networking platform. By the end of the day, her post had reached 1 million impressions. Fourteen days later, it had reached 14 million impressions. Since then, it has racked up over 218,000 reactions and nearly 10,000 comments. Grilli says, “[This] is something I still cannot believe. And [I] feel grateful to be given the opportunity for my story to be the catalyst for the parent voice to be heard.”

The birth of the Five Hour Club

After detailing her feelings of hopelessness while trying to find a flexible job or one she could do during school hours, Grilli announced, in that same viral LinkedIn post, the launch of the Five Hour Club—the antidote to the typical nine-to-five workday. With the Five Hour Club, Grilli and her co-founder Emma Harvey, Ph.D. are “proposing… a way to help parents create boundaries, work more productively and maintain their career between school runs, with the aim to increase diversity and reduce the gender pay gap in the workplace.” The tagline of their mission is: “Because working nine-to-five doesn’t work for parents.”

The duo has curated a Five Hour Club careers board that features jobs available from “trailblazing, family-friendly employers” that “enable parents to work [for] five hours between school hours for up to five days a week.” According to Grilli, they carefully vet these employers to ensure that posted jobs meet Five Hour Workday criteria.

Parents can visit the Five Hour Club job board to create a job seeker profile by uploading their resume, a photo and relevant details about their job preferences. Employers who are seeking candidates for these types of roles can then view these profiles and reach out.

Making employment opportunities work for parents

Grilli and Harvey conducted a Five Hour Workday survey of 2,500 parents from 64 countries to determine what moms and dads desire most with regard to their employment. According to the survey, “87% of respondents want a five-hour workday to help them work around their children.” Harvey adds, “It’s all about transparency. The reason we are asking employers to create five-hour workdays and not just ‘flexible work for parents’ is that we know being vague in a job post creates barriers when applying to jobs. Adding flexible working to a job post can attract more candidates… and means that parents will know exactly what they are applying for.”

The five-hour workday allows parents to avoid the typical scenario of working full-time while hoping their employer affords them the flexibility they need. Grilli explains that when parents are trying to balance running a family with maintaining a full-time job, it’s a “juggle [that] not only leads to burnout but also the feeling of guilt that they are not doing either job well, often resulting in them leaving the workforce altogether.”

Blazing a new trail

As responses to Grilli’s post poured in, she says the ones that “surprised [her] the most were those from company leaders. Out of almost 10,000 comments, almost half of them were from senior leaders, C-suite members and executives. All of [them] were in support of parents. And [they] acknowledge[d] the challenges that a traditional nine-to-five working day creates for them. Many of [them] referenced their partners, who had experienced a similar struggle, and others who had created their own business, as they had experienced this juggle themselves.”

The employers and company leaders who are posting jobs on the Five Hour Club job board are pioneering a new way for parents to work. They recognize that parents are a vital part of the workforce and are happy to join the mission to accommodate their careers via a more flexible approach to the workday—while also granting job access to a much wider pool of qualified candidates who might not have previously applied.

Find support and camaraderie in the Five Hour Club community

Grilli and Harvey are also creating a supportive Five Hour Club community “to provide support for parents returning to work after [having] children.” They say they will “offer career coaches, tools and workshops as a way to boost [parents’] confidence when applying for jobs, as we know from our Five Hour Workday survey that ‘only 28% of parents feel confident when applying to jobs,’ which is a statistic we would like to change.”

Grilli and Harvey have also started the Five Hour Club Podcast “to share the stories of real parents about their real struggles and how they navigate life and work between school runs, as a way to raise the voice of parents and help them be heard.”

It’s encouraging that parents are banding together to support each other in their goals to obtain work and balance family and work life. The Five Hour Club now sets a precedent for employers to be mindful of the demands placed on parents who are working a job and raising children. Hopefully, in the near future, this new approach to the workday will become the norm for working moms and dads.

Photo by Prostock-Studio/Courtesy of Shutterstock

The post The Five Hour Club: Redefining Flexibility for Working Parents appeared first on SUCCESS.

While the manufacturing industry emerged strong after the COVID-19 pandemic, it could be facing up to 1.9 million unfilled manufacturing jobs if the current trajectory doesn’t change. 

“At a time when there is both booming consumer demand for home improvement, construction and maintenance work, as well as growing concern over worker disengagement, the skilled trades have a huge opportunity,” states the 2021 Angi Skilled Trades in America study. 

The aging of skilled workers

The aging of the skilled worker population is an area of concern. According to the Angi study, the median age of tradespeople in 2021 was 43 years old, approximately 10% older than the median age of the general U.S. population at the time. 

“For every five plumbers or electricians that retire, only one young person comes into the trades behind them,” says Erin Izen, head of philanthropy and community investments at The Home Depot Foundation. “Without tenured tradespeople to train the next generation, the problem will continue to build, impacting our country’s economy, infrastructure and more.”

“The shortage is a result of younger people not entering the trades for a variety of reasons—from stigma around the work to a greater focus on college and less focus on key high school courses, like shop class, [that] introduce young people to these career opportunities,” says Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angi. 

“Traditional trade [and] blue-collar jobs in manufacturing and farming experienced a significant decline at [the] end of the 1970s,” explains Lawrese Brown, a workforce expert and author of I Don’t Have To Go To College: Discover Well-Paying Jobs That Don’t Require a 4-Year College Degree. “The response to this shift was a ‘college for all’ emphasis in [the] 1980s, driven by the belief that college was the best vehicle to prepare for the ‘service-based economy,’” Brown says.

Women joining the trades

With this lack of available workers, employers in the trades are looking to recruit people beyond those who have historically held these types of jobs. 

The U.S. Department of Labor Women’s Bureau offers programs that empower women to join these career paths, like the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) Grant. Grant recipients provide training, mentorship and education to women in their community with the goal to increase opportunities for women to enter these higher-earning careers and close the gender wage gap. 

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the number of women working as tradespeople reached its highest level ever in 2021, at more than 314,000 skilled workers. Between 2014 and 2022, the number of female apprentices more than doubled, and in 2022, 13.8% of women were active apprentices compared to 9.4% in 2014. 

Women thriving in skilled trades

After growing up in a family that valued higher education, KB Amador was working as a social worker when she had what she calls her “quarter-life crisis.” Finding little fulfillment in her full days stuck in an office, Amador decided to explore other employment options. “It dawned on me that I needed a change, and that’s what started my dive into the trades…. I knew I wanted to use my hands and mind to work.” 

Amador explored several different jobs in the trades before enrolling in the welding program at Madison College and beginning an apprenticeship with Steamfitters Local 601. Now, she is a steamfitter foreman for Hooper Corporation and trains apprentices. 

“Being a woman on the jobsite, the first day, you always turn heads, but once everyone sees that you’re there to do the job and you do a damn good job, they’re usually really welcoming,” Amador says. “It’s also fun to walk on a new jobsite now because I run [the] work, and my apprentice is also a woman. It’s something you don’t see every day, but there are definitely more women joining the trades than when I started.” 

When LeAngela Runels became a mother while pursuing her political science degree at Eastern Michigan University, she left school to focus on raising her child. She eventually started a cleaning service that offered construction cleanup, which opened her eyes to opportunities in the skilled trades. She entered a carpentry program through Goodwill’s Green Works, where she was recognized by the leadership team and referred to the welding program. 

Runels now works for Ferrous Processing & Trading as a welder and appreciates the work-life balance that the position affords her. “Working in the trades allows me to focus on my personal life after close of business. Oftentimes, white-collar jobs require time and attention that extends beyond the workday and affects other aspects of my life. As a welder, I am able to go to work, fix what needs fixing and go on about the rest of my day.”

A flexible work environment is something that Angie Snow, principal industry adviser at ServiceTitan, offers to her employees in her own business. “As someone who entered the industry while raising four children, I’ve experienced firsthand the many benefits the trades provide, like flexibility, work-life balance and job and financial security. To help support women and men in my own HVAC company and promote balance, I offer my employees four-day workweeks.”

Kimberly Santiago, GAF Roofing Academy program manager, started her career in academia and was working part time in the office of a construction subcontractor when she became interested in their roofing business. She eventually quit her job in academia and enrolled in the GAF Roofing Academy. 

Santiago explains the benefits her blue-collar job provides that her white-collar job did not. “It offers hands-on experience that allows you to see the tangible results of your work, which is quite motivating and rewarding. Demand for skilled labor and tradespeople is always high, so job security is another perk. And since demand is consistently high, a job in the trades can offer competitive wages and faster career advancement.”

Women in the trades are encouraging others to join them

The sisterhood of tradeswomen is strong, and you can see that in the way they encourage other women to join them in jobs they love. 

A recent TikTok trend started by @tiltedindustries had women in the trades sharing why they loved their jobs in the trades and encouraging other women to join them as pipe fitters, sheet metal workers, mechanics, train operators and more. Using the hashtags #bluecollarbesties and #womenintrades, women shared hiring tips and disclosed their wages and other job benefits like free schooling, pension plans and equipment stipends.

When Cassie Pound, co-owner of Quality Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Electric in Tulsa, Oklahoma, attended a conference in her industry, and the panel of speakers was entirely white males, she knew she needed to do something to claim her place at the table. “There was a conversation on social media, and someone said, ‘Maybe there [are] not any women with the same business acumen as these men,’” Pound shared. “And I said, ‘OK, we’ll go find them then.’” As a direct result of this experience, Pound started a weekly podcast, Power Women of the Trades, where she and her co-host, Leslie Harpole, interview women who own businesses in the trades and dispel common misconceptions. 

Andi Barney teaches sewing machine service, repair and restoration through her virtual program, Sewing Doc Academy, a full-fledged business with over 1,200 participants. Most of Barney’s students are women, and many are over age 65. “For decades, women have been demeaned and told they weren’t capable of learning, good with tools or smart enough to figure it out,” Barney explains. “Amazingly enough, many of these women are turning their skills into a retirement income or side business.”

Tips for women who are interested in entering the trades

Whether a job in the trades is a career pursued straight out of high school or a second career after years spent working behind a desk, there are opportunities for women. 

“Don’t be afraid,” Santiago says. “It might not seem like there is room for women in this industry, but we need to own our space and show that we can do just as well as the men out there.” 

“My advice for women entering this space is to make sure you surround yourself with people who care about you and this industry,” says Cassi Torres, vice president of High 5 Plumbing, Heating & Cooling. “I have visited many shops and not all are built the same. Your environment matters, so make sure to find a company [that] will invest in your training and support you and your goals.”

According to Krystal Greenhaw, owner of Wise Coatings of Raleigh, it’s all about showing your skills. “I move forward each day, not focusing on being a woman in this area, but focusing on what I can bring to the table. I would suggest others do the same and have more women interested so we all have more empowerment in the field.”

Photo courtesy of PeopleImages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

The post The U.S. Needs More Tradespeople and Women Are Answering the Call appeared first on SUCCESS.

Leeming has told this story a hundred times, a thousand times. But here’s the thing he says is massively overlooked: It’s because his team is health- or ability-diverse—because they have built a company that empowers its employees to put their own health before their everyday to-do lists—that they’ve attracted 50,000 users and $1 million in funding in less than two years. It’s not in spite of accommodations or asynchronous schedules that Visible has found early success, Leeming says, it’s because of it. After all, he and some of his employees are the company’s own target customers.

If your company isn’t actively working on their disability inclusion, or recruiting and retaining people with disabilities, you’re overlooking incredible talent, Leeming says. You’re also ignoring a huge potential customer base—and possibly capping your profits at half of what they could be.

Disability inclusion isn’t just ethical—it’s profitable

When it comes to hiring new employees, there’s a stigma against making workplace accommodations, Leeming says. It may sound expensive to make an office more accessible or complicated to adapt team culture to offer more flexibility for someone who has frequent daytime doctors’ appointments. But, in reality, companies that fail to be inclusive are ignoring huge potential for growth.

“I think the cost is actually minimal, and that the benefit is huge,” Leeming says. Data backs him up: Companies that lead on disability inclusion criteria make 1.6 times more revenue and twice as much profit compared to companies lagging, according to a 2018 Accenture and Disability:IN report. They’re also likely to be 25% more productive. “Hiring people and making small accommodations more than pays for itself in bringing on people [who] are talented and still able to work in very meaningful roles.”

Invisible illnesses and disabilities are more prevalent than you think

Look no further than the URL of makevisible.com to understand how the app got its name. About 10% of Americans are estimated to have an invisible disability or illness, which can make it challenging for them to get the support they need. The Visible app, paired with a wearable health tracker, enables users to collect data about their symptoms and vitals, so they can better predict how activity—exercise, work, stressful situations—will impact their energy levels later. This way, they can take preventive measures to conserve their energy and avoid getting into a situation where they need to take days to recover.

Of course, it’s ideal when a founder is his company’s own target customer—could you ask for a more effective product tester? But Leeming isn’t the only one on the Visible team who lives with chronic illness, which he says has been a huge asset to the company. “I do think having your user base actually work at your company has allowed us to move so much faster,” he says.

Worldwide, about 1.3 billion people—that’s 1 in 6 of us—live with some form of disability, according to the World Health Organization. If no one on your staff can identify ways you could make your product or service more accessible, you may be excluding millions of would-be loyal customers.

Making better use of the workday

Visible’s team, which spans time zones across the United States and United Kingdom, includes multiple employees who live with chronic illness. So, the team uses tools like Slack, voice notes and Loom, for video messaging, to cut down on real-time meetings. Most team members have only one scheduled meeting per week, Leeming says, which makes it easier for everyone to work the hours that suit their health needs. The team leans heavily on Slack status updates so that employees can make it clear when they’re taking some time away from the computer.

“We don’t really have a huge amount of process in place,” Leeming says. “It’s mainly just trust in the people that we hire, that they’re able to take off time whenever they want. They can put their status on Slack to like, ‘I’m taking a break.’” Team members have free reign to get some rest, go for a walk or take care of other needs whenever they arise.

Because the company limits meetings, “there isn’t the need for them to be there in the moment,” Leeming says. “People will just get back to messages when they can, and we haven’t found that it slows us down. Rarely is there ever anything that’s, like, that urgent that you really need an answer in the moment.”

Be ahead of the curve with flexible workplace inclusivity policies

Visible is based in the United Kingdom, which is one of many countries that may soon legislate a more hands-off approach for employers. In Australia, France, Portugal and Spain, workers are legally allowed to ignore after-hours contact from their managers; in the U.K., employees now have the right to request a flexible work schedule. Become a leader in your industry by adapting now—and not just because you may be forced to. Studies have shown that employees are happier, healthier and more productive when they have flexibility to respond to health, personal or family needs.

Chronically Capable: a resource for disability inclusion in the workplace

Leeming points to Chronically Capable as a great resource for employers and jobseekers alike. The inclusive job board was co-founded by Hannah Olson, who quit her dream job because it was incompatible with essential treatment for Lyme disease. Chronically Capable works to destigmatize chronic illness and disability, and matches jobseekers with companies proactively working to be inclusive and accommodating to their needs. You can list job openings—or browse opportunities—at wearecapable.org.

This article originally appeared in the September/October issue of SUCCESS magazine. Photo credit: Drazen Zigic/Shutterstock.com

The post How Disability Inclusion Is the Heart of This $1 Million Startup appeared first on SUCCESS.

As you step outside and unlock the car, your glasses issue a reminder. The reminder says your car needs an oil change. The glasses offer to schedule the appointment for you. You have an opening on Thursday after lunch. You make the appointment. Then, you get in the car and drive to work.

These experiences are an intentionally banal depiction of how augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality will impact life as we know it. And how artificial intelligence (AI) will shape our lives as extended reality (XR) experiences become more widely used.

Although the narrative sounds like something out of science fiction, it’s close to becoming a reality, according to researchers Alvin Graylin and Louis Rosenberg. Their book Our Next Reality: How the AI-Powered Metaverse Will Reshape the World is structured as a debate around the techno-utopian and dystopian potentials of XR technology and the role AI plays as these experiences continue to be developed and perfected.

What is the metaverse and when will we get there?

For Graylin and Rosenberg, it’s not a matter of when we will be able to use the metaverse. It’s the cultural, financial and ethical implications of technologies that will almost certainly be in widespread use within the next decade.

If you’re a science-fiction fan, you’ve likely read Neal Stephenson’s novel Snow Crash. In the novel, users of the metaverse don virtual-reality goggles to experience a virtual world. They explore the metaverse as avatars—digital representations of themselves they can customize to appear however they like.

Stephenson’s satirical future was a novel idea 32 years ago when his book was published. But as companies continue to design VR and AR experiences for work and play, it’s apparent the metaverse is more than futuristic chatter among tech bros—it’s reality. Augmented reality is used to bring museum exhibitions to life, enhance online shopping experiences and even help physicians in real-time as they perform surgical procedures.

In Stephenson’s visualization of the metaverse, a subculture of individuals exist who remain connected to the metaverse. They wear portable devices all day. These individuals are nicknamed “gargoyles” because of their appearance while wearing these devices.

If that sounds far-fetched, just consider Microsoft’s HoloLens 2 or Apple’s Vision Pro headset.

While the Vision Pro is clunky and futuristic, there are other stylish and normal-looking forms of smart eyewear, like the Ray-Ban Meta glasses. Tech startup XPANCEO has even prototyped a set of smart contacts they plan to test in 2026.

AI: Augmenting everyday life

Virtual world-building at scale is a big endeavor. Augmenting all our daily experiences is just too big a task for human designers. This is where AI comes into the picture.

Generative AI—the kind that can produce content—has the ability to create more of it on a larger scale faster than humans.

“The real world is big. And if you really want to augment it with content, [it] is everywhere you go and everything you experience. AI-generated content is going to be significant,” Rosenberg says. “You could now create content at scale that is customized for individuals and customized for the locations… they’re in.”

“I think one of the issues [that has] kept XR or VR from really taking off in the last 10 years… is because of insufficient content,” Graylin notes. “There hasn’t been enough content [for people to] go in there and use it every day.” With generative AI, there might soon be an unlimited supply.

Augmented marketing

One of my Facebook friends recently made a post about her job, saying, “I will find a way to inject unskippable ads directly into the human experience.” We are not too far away from this reality. As people spend more time in XR, it will be a prime environment for advertisers to place their products directly into our consciousness.

“Meta had a demo of this in their glasses just a couple of months ago. You can walk into a clothing store and pick up a pair of shoes,” Rosenberg explains. “The AI sees that pair of [shoes]. I can now recommend a shirt that goes with it…. It’s amazing technology, but it’s also kind of a creepy technology and one that I think we should worry about a lot. We’re going to allow AI powered by a corporation to be basically whispering in our ears all day long and seeing what we can do, hearing what we hear and potentially influencing what the world looks like around us. That’s a lot of power to give to anybody.”

AI and advertising

Instead, advertising could be replaced with an AI agent—a virtual assistant doing product research and shopping for us. Although people might object to giving up their privacy in all cases, there are some instances where the benefit of personalization outweighs the cost of our privacy.

“I think that the future is coming where people will proactively say, ‘I don’t want privacy from this AI, but I want it from every other AI,’” Graylin says. “’This AI is my eyes. It’s my agent that will then go and shop for me [or] attend meetings for me.’”

When social media was first introduced, consumers’ unwillingness to pay for it opened the current advertising model of data collection. As the metaverse continues to evolve, our contracts as consumers might need to change to prevent advertisers from digging deeper into our interactions and behavior.

“If the AI tools that we’re using are driven by business models that are all about collecting data and selling influence, they will be so much more targeted and so much more powerful than even social media has been in that regard,” Rosenberg notes. “It’s up to consumers to demand privacy.”

Augmenting the future

Our digital echo chambers are abuzz about the potential impact of AI on the way we work and whether we will have jobs at all in the future—and for good reason.

In the past couple of years, we have become bombarded with evidence that AI can create text and images that are convincingly human. As technology improves, so does its capability to take on our work responsibilities.

At the end of Our Next Reality: How the AI-Powered Metaverse Will Reshape the World, there is a section that offers tips for policymakers, leaders both in and outside of tech, children, students and law enforcement. Leaders, in particular, need to consider the benefits and drawbacks of technology in their industries. And the long-term decisions for improving efficiency.

AI, productivity and beyond

“Get your staff trained up on the technology,” Graylin says. “But I think the other thing is really understanding that [just] because your productivity increases, it’s probably not necessarily the best thing [to] immediately cut your staff. Everybody does that. It creates a very large disruption to the job market, which can tend to have the kind of negative ramifications that waterfalls on itself.”

Rosenberg adds, “My first recommendation to anyone who’s at all afraid of AI is [that] you could be afraid of it, you could think it’s not necessarily going to work out well, but you should still be using the technology so that you’re aware and you can make good decisions.”

So, should we worry about whether technology will take our jobs? Or should we reimagine how we think about work altogether? Technology will continue to progress. And as our way of work becomes increasingly impacted by machines, labor itself might take on its own meaning.

“I mean, the whole point of technology is that [it] has made us increasingly more productive by 1,000 times over,” Graylin adds. “And if that’s the case, we should be able to work less in terms of being forced to work. And [instead be] doing the things we enjoy and make us more fulfilled.”

This article original appeared in the July 2024 issue of Success+ Magazine. Photo courtesy of Image Flow/Shutterstock

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As a result, more companies are prioritizing climate protection as part of a comprehensive employee benefits package. In fact, Gartner, Inc. included climate change employee benefits as part of its top nine workplace predictions that HR leaders will need to address in 2024 and beyond.

Why climate change employee benefits are good for business

“Employers have a direct stake in their workers’ stability and financial security, and strong business reasons to help employees manage, avoid and prepare for weather-related disruption and crises,” explains Timothy Flacke, co-founder and executive director at Commonwealth, a national nonprofit building financial security and opportunity for financially vulnerable people through innovation and partnerships. “As climate change weighs more heavily on workers’ financial situations, it’s a smart HR strategy for employers to invest in the resilience and productivity of their workforce by alleviating the financial impact of extreme weather.”

Offering climate-related employee benefits also helps boost employee satisfaction and morale, while attracting new talent who prefer companies that prioritize environmental issues. “As a CEO, I hold the belief that climate protection is not merely an environmental concern, but it also has significant implications for our business,” notes Jon Morgan, co-founder and chief editor of Venture Smarter, a consulting firm that specializes in helping startups and small businesses scale and grow.

Climate change protection

“This is why we are considering adding climate protection for our employees. We understand that the decisions and actions we take today will have a profound impact on the future,” says Morgan. The company views climate change protection as an investment in their employees’ well-being and productivity. “By creating a healthier, more sustainable working environment, we can help our employees feel better, work more efficiently and be more satisfied with their jobs. This, in turn, can lead to lower turnover rates, higher employee engagement and, ultimately, better business performance.”

Plus, many companies have long supported staff during crises, and climate change is a critical challenge of today. “As extreme weather events become more frequent and severe, it’s natural for employers to respond here as well,” says Flacke. “And it’s important to recognize that the need and the business case for addressing it exist regardless of the cause of extreme weather.”

Types of climate protection employee benefits

Commonwealth’s recent report Feeling the Heat: Climate Change’s Impact on Worker Financial Security found that workers are looking to their employers to mitigate the financial effects of extreme or unusual weather, Flacke notes. “Eighty percent of workers surveyed would like greater assistance from their employers, such as paid and extended time off, flexibility in work schedules and additional financial resources.” With over half of workers surveyed reporting that extreme weather is already impacting their work, education, finances, home or living situation and/or health, it is clear that businesses need to explore adding climate change protection employee benefits, if they haven’t done so already.

Morgan has already heard from employees sharing personal stories about how climate change impacted their families or communities, and others have expressed concerns about the environmental impact of business operations. “While we haven’t had specific requests for climate resilience stipends or climate-focused mental health support yet, we’re proactively addressing these issues to demonstrate our commitment to our employees’ well-being.”

Here are seven of the most common climate change employee protection benefits available. If your company isn’t offering them yet, contact the HR department for consideration.

1. PTO and flexible schedules for climate-related events

Climate leave, as it’s often referred to, allows staff to take time off during a severe weather event. Conor Hughes, a human resources consultant who shares his expertise on SMB Guide, has collaborated with firms to integrate climate resilience into their employee benefits offerings. “This has taken the form of specifically scheduled paid time off, which enables workers to get ready for potential dangers and safely evacuate.”

2. Financial support for evacuation, short-term housing and relocation assistance

When a disaster strikes, some employees may need to evacuate and find a temporary or permanent place to live. Without a stable place to call home, they won’t be able to be productive at work. Therefore, it’s important for companies to provide support, such as monetary assistance for transportation to evacuate, temporary housing and/or relocation costs.

3. Climate change mental health support

Having access to mental health services in a time of climate change is more important than ever, as 43% of workers are experiencing persistent eco-anxiety, resulting in work demotivation and lost focus, according to a survey from The Conference Board. Venture Smarter is looking into providing access to climate-related mental health resources and counseling services. “We recognize that climate change can have a significant emotional impact, and we want to help our employees maintain their mental health and resilience in the face of this global challenge,” Morgan acknowledges.

4. Telemedicine and pharmacy perks

Climate-related health costs in the U.S. total over $800 billion per year, according to Natural Resources Defense Council, and Mercer’s Inside Employees’ Minds study found that the majority of employees (62%) are concerned about the impact of climate change on their health. During a crisis, people may need to access telemedicine if they have evacuated or if their providers’ offices are closed. Being able to do so for free could be extremely beneficial. Also, pharmacy benefit vendors can provide no-questions-asked grace refills for prescriptions, which is critical for those who have not been able to get medications from their local pharmacy or mail-order program.

5. Climate change funding for special equipment

Some companies may invest in critical emergency supplies to distribute to employees during a disaster, such as bottled water, shelf-stable food, air purifiers, generators and solar-powered radios. This benefit may also be in the form of a reimbursement to employees who purchase these items themselves.

6. 401(k) hardship withdrawals and expedited insurance payments

For those in a real financial crunch, having the option to withdraw money from a retirement plan early can be a lifeline. Also, carriers for home, automobile, boat, motorcycle and pet insurance may offer expedited payment services following a climate disaster. “Looking at it pragmatically, permitting early withdrawals from retirement accounts or speeding up insurance payouts after disaster strikes are key benefits,” Hughes states.

7. Company-sponsored resilience or climate change relief funds

Setting up a fund in advance can provide a safety net for employees facing climate-related challenges. “We’re thinking about offering a climate resilience grant to help employees cover the costs of climate-related home improvements like flood-proofing and wildfire-resistant construction,” Morgan notes. This grant would provide financial assistance to employees who are taking proactive measures to protect their homes and families from the effects of climate change.

Finally, Flacke highlights what Julie Gehrki, vice president of philanthropy at Walmart and Walmart Foundation, discussed during a recent webinar: “She notes that the first topic their emergency operations team raises during a climate-related event is the safety and well-being of their employees. Are they healthy? Are they safe? [And] are we in contact? How are we supporting them? In circumstances where employees need financial support during acute issues, such as losing a car or house damage, [Gehrki] says Walmart activates its employee assistance fund and offers financial grants intended to supplement the assistance from insurance and FEMA.”

Photo courtesy of Peopleimages.com – Yuri A/Shutterstock

The post Climate Protection Could Soon Be Part of Your Employee Benefits Package appeared first on SUCCESS.

Collier’s first role in the early ’90s was as a technical support engineer at the UK Ministry of Defense, initially on the help desk while studying a computer science degree in the evenings.

From e-commerce to marketing

After a five-year career in IT at companies such as J.P. Morgan, she started her own digital e-commerce and marketing agency, completed her master’s degree in business information systems and worked for a management consulting company leading workstreams and advising marketing directors and partners on launching new online initiatives. But she didn’t stop there.

“My next venture was [at] an e-business consulting and marketing firm for 10 years,” she says. During her tenure at the firm, Collier developed business management and digital marketing programs with certification components.

“I later invested these constantly updated certifications into the new dedicated awarding body, Digital Skills Authority, with growing content and training delivery by a team of experts,” Collier recalls.

The rise of digital skills authority

With the growth that Digital Skills Authority has enjoyed comes the need to get—and stay—ahead of the curve. Collier, as a digital tech entrepreneur and futurist leader, considers this a core competency.

“I need to see what ideas will sink and what we’ll need in the future,” she explains. This skill enabled Collier to develop a content strategy and engagement course she describes as the “first public classroom course training ever developed and delivered to brands such as Skype and Warner. It later became the foundation of a core component of our marketing and management certifications.”

“I then created the first ever e-business management program in 2009,” Collier continues. “It’s about being cutting-edge. That’s what draws clients toward us.”

Digital skills authority course offerings

Deborah Collier: I built Digital Skills Authority from the ground up with limited resources, developing the business plan, marketing, digital, tech and growth strategies and the Certificate in Online Business series. I’m leading the global expansion, including appointing and directing regional leaders who will collectively lead our future growth, standards and operations. 

SUCCESS+: What does Digital Skills Authority offer? Who should look at the courses available and why?

DC: Digital Skills Authority is the industry’s global awarding body for advanced digital and digital business skills. Aside from product development, quality and measurable impact, we’re focused on multi-user subscription licenses through international partners and are seeking governmental backing or other strategic partnerships to deliver e-learning subscriptions at scale internationally. This boosts economies and enables digital innovation and business.

Through our e-learning platform, we offer digital interactive media subscriptions as well as on-site consultative programs and public courses delivered by future licensed training providers. We’re approached by corporations looking to upskill their teams or startups looking to build a team. We’ve written the recipe. We know what they need to do—the skills and activities required to take the next steps. It’s the strategic development of skills and education, created by pioneers in the industry who have done this for many, many years.

Digital skills authority’s notable clients

S+: Some notable companies have chosen Digital Skills Authority. Can you tell us more about your client base and elaborate on some of the success stories?

DC: Some of our more well-known clients are leaders and teams at Procter & Gamble, Ernst & Young, Mars, Schneider Electric, L’Oréal, Delta Air Lines and several international post offices, banks, insurance companies, government ministries, stock exchanges [and] telecoms companies, as well as startups and SMEs. We also sometimes have individuals wanting to boost their careers, start a business or who are job seeking.

We’ve seen people take our courses and then be promoted shortly after. One national post office reported that our training enabled them to implement a professional presence. Another client, a national retailer, informed us that their year-end stats revealed an increase of several million in their sales that year, after learning about merchandising products with us. We had staff from an airline on a consultative course [that] ended up reporting to their teams in real time to update their website and make things more navigable to drive more sales.

Comprehensive tech marketing strategies and the use of AI

S+: What does a well-rounded tech marketing strategy look like?

DC: Tech marketing is all about data, so any tools that can analyze and provide insight into audiences’ advertising performance and competitors are vital, as well as automation. Artificial intelligence will continue to support businesses with their marketing strategies.

S+: As a futurist leader of the Digital Skills Authority, which skills do you see becoming increasingly critical for the future of work?

DC: I think we’re going to need a mixture of human skills, management and machines. Selecting, monitoring and managing technologies and tools will be crucial, including emerging technologies, such as AI and spatial computing—that mix of reality and augmented reality because we can now extend our worlds.

I also think we need more strategic development, leadership and governance, with a focus on ethics—environmentally and socially responsible businesses. Creativity and innovation will continue to be important. [Also], as well as other human skills like communication, collaboration, empathy, people management and teamwork. Tech is taking care of the mundane, repetitive tasks, but we need to be skilled to do something with those technologies.

Industry trends of tomorrow

S+: Are there any industry-specific trends you foresee?

DC: Depending on our government’s actions today, our culture will either be heading toward enlightenment that is more socially conscious and ethical or it’s going to be a dystopian future fueled by a lack of ethical governance, extreme conditions in wealth and opportunity and lack of meaningful education.

Enhancing digital security for businesses across the United States

S+: What recommendations do you have for improving digital security in the United States?

DC: Cybersecurity is something I’m extremely passionate about, especially corporate espionage and the protection of citizens’ and directors’ information. Hacking puts entire businesses at risk, which on a broader scale, has the power to collapse economies. The future battles of this world are going to be less about guns and boots on the ground and more about information warfare and cyberattacks.

Governments have been quite late in catching up with the fact that content needs to be heavily regulated in some ways. Robots need to be monitored. Citizens must be equipped to protect their content and their computers. There should be someone on every board of directors equipped at a reasonable level regarding cybersecurity. This will become more important in the future.

This interview originally appeared in the July issue of SUCCESS+ Magazine and has been edited for length and clarity. Photo courtesy of Digital Skills Authority.

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Why do you think it’s dad’s money?

“Because he goes to work.”

You know I work on my computer, right?

“But you don’t go to work.”

It quickly occurred to me that we didn’t just have a disrespect issue—rather, this is a modern age misunderstanding that extends far beyond my son’s understanding of work, value and pay. It makes sense—he sees his dad’s alarm go off earlier, he watches him put on a tie and “real” shoes, and he doesn’t see him again until 4 or 5 p.m. Meanwhile, I’m typing away at the trampoline park or the pool or in the front yard, and I often only look presentable as far as my camera captures for a Zoom meeting.

So where had I gone wrong teaching him what I really do as a freelance journalist and marketing strategist? I’ve frequently explained my successes and challenges at work, but clearly, I don’t look the part. As a work-from-home mom, I make more money staying at home than my in-office partner does. But “flexible” and “remote” work don’t necessarily register for kids in the same way when they picture doctors, lawyers, teachers and plumbers going to their jobs. My son and his four younger siblings are part of a generation that might have to relearn what work looks like—with our help.

How kids might perceive remote or hybrid work

I knew in the pandemic that my kids must think that work is total chaos that just ruins your marriage while you try to alternate keeping the dog and kids out of your office with your spouse. What a way for my then toddlers, preschoolers and early grade school kids to learn about what mommy and daddy do.

From there, my kids were mostly left to fill in the blanks about why some adults in their lives pop in and out of the house for work and others don’t.

“Kids are concrete thinkers, so they often look for visual cues to understand complex concepts,”  says Eli Harwood, licensed professional counselor, author of Raising Securely Attached Kids and mother of three. “When a parent leaves the house for work in their ‘work clothes,’ it gives clear delineation between work and home. But when so many of our jobs now entail staying at home to work behind screens, it is harder for our children to process the meaning of our work because it is generally more abstract.” She adds that “it also makes it harder for them to see the boundary between our work life and our home life, leading them to interrupt us and seek time with us even when we have told them we are working.”

After all, are we really just working? Or are we working while we check our phones and answer the door and stir the chili and put in a load of laundry? How confusing for kids. 

“The perceived casualness of the environment can make work appear less formal and more like everyday life for children, and while it can foster a sense of availability and presence, it may also blur the lines between work and home life,” says Daniel Rinaldi, father, therapist, personal coach and owner of MNTL Town, a mental health platform for families. “That being said, children might perceive remote work as more flexible and perhaps not as significant.”

The age of remote work might influence kids’ future

So will my own kids think they’ll be poor if they work from home in their sweats rather than leaving in a suit like their dad? Hopefully not, with some guidance and daily education to the contrary. 

Jenny Groberg, CEO and founder of BookSmarts Accounting and Bookkeeping and a work-from-home mom of five children, says that her “three older kids will do everything possible to work from home [or] remotely rather than in an office. The flexibility of remote work and the realization that I was able to successfully provide for the family while keeping them as my main focus as they grew up has opened their eyes and is driving them to work ‘smarter not harder,’” she adds.

Kids these days are also moving into the workforce with the expectation that nobody should have to work for a long span of time without room for coffee with a friend or a long lunch break to walk outside. “I think we see a bit of this effect in the current group of young people who are moving into the work sphere,” says Bonnie Scott, MA, LPC-S, a licensed professional counselor at Mindful Kindness Counseling and parent to a 10-year-old. “They are more likely to decentralize work in their lives, and they have boundaries around their personal time. They tend to flex the traditional work hours to meet their own schedule needs, so they work the required hours [and] get things done, but not in the typical eight-hour stretch.”

Maybe they don’t need to know it all yet

When learning about Groberg’s story, I realized that it might be fine—and even a sign that things are going well—if kids don’t know all the nuances of their parents’ work lives and related finances.

Groberg shares that “for 17 years, my children didn’t see or value the work I did remotely. They were oblivious to the fact that I contributed to the family finances. In fact, it was necessary for me to contribute and pay my husband’s way for school and residency and dig us out of student debt after only two years. For 17 years they also had no idea that my side hustle grew into a very successful company, but I am OK with that.

“I’m grateful because that means they didn’t feel neglected. My remote work enabled me to be at home with them and be present when they needed me. I am not offended that they don’t value my work as important as my husband’s employment. They know now what I did and that I was there for them, and that is what is most meaningful to me. For this reason, I will do everything I can to grow my company so I can offer more work to stay-at-home moms.”

How to help your kids understand your work

Once, I shared with my kids how much I would make from the article I was writing, how long it took and what it was about, simplifying the concept for my non-readers. They hadn’t realized until then that typing words produced grocery money or paid for their soccer cleats. This kind of small conversation is something I’ve been more intentional about since I found out that they think I don’t make much money.

Harwood also shares that we have to “illustrate for them the nuances they cannot see. I let my children know that when I am writing words, I am helping other people get excited about science and how to use science to help them show their love to their children and sweethearts,” she says. “I also let my children know how much I love words and that for me, words are art, and it fills my heart to weave sentences together that may touch another person’s heart.

“When we help our children visualize the impact our work has on ourselves and on the world, they can begin to see all of the ‘behind-the-scenes’ ways that humans help each other, both on and off a computer screen.” 

She adds that she hopes teaching her kids about her career will empower them to “find meaningful, fulfilling and sustainable ways to offer the world the labor of their hearts, minds and hands, even if that often happens in the meeting of their fingers and their keyboards.”

Photo courtesy DimaBerlin/Shutterstock.com

The post Is the Next Generation Confused About the Value of Remote Work?  appeared first on SUCCESS.

Her gamble paid off. Within a couple of years, she was promoted to vice president and was earning the highest compensation of her career. That lateral move helped her develop new relationships and new expertise—not just in corporate communications but in regulatory work as well, says Maria R. Pellicione, managing director and head of research and operations at Hechkoff Executive Search Inc. in New York City.

Career advancement is no longer limited to moving up a career ladder. Increasingly, employees are making lateral moves at work within a career lattice to gain additional skills and experience and establish new relationships and connections that will be helpful to their careers in the long term.

Traditionally, employees expect to move from associate to senior associate, or from assistant manager to manager, but that type of advancement isn’t happening as often as it has in the past, says Jody Fosnough, a training and development manager at Fort Financial Credit Union in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She describes today’s career advancement as more of a web than a ladder. “Where I see all organizations evolving is [employees] having a web of accumulated portable skills that are readily available to be used in a wide variety of different scenarios and situations,” she says.

Here’s how to take advantage of the career lattice at your organization

1. Build your network

The people who are most well positioned to make a lateral move are those who have incrementally built a diverse network of colleagues in a variety of fields and functions, says Anne Shoemaker, an executive coach in Greensboro, North Carolina. “They’re not just networking with people in marketing,” she says. “They’re networking with people with lots of different expertise, so when they are considering making that lateral move, they have a whole catalog of people they can call on.”

For instance, consider shadowing one of your colleagues in another department or take them to lunch and ask about their job and how it’s changing, Fosnough adds.

2. Develop portable skills

Lateral promotions can help you build a tapestry of experience, Shoemaker says. “Instead of being a one-dimensional account manager from the tech field, become a multidimensional account manager who has sat at the table in tech, manufacturing and other industries and therefore has a broader base of experience to draw upon in future roles,” she says.

Within her own industry, Fosnough sees the trend to hire people with broader skills. Credit unions want their frontline workers to have more than just expertise in operations—they also need experience in sales and customer service, and maybe even loan serving. “Traditionally, these are all different departments, but what we’re looking for is somebody who has that web of knowledge, [who] is going to be able to make more holistic decisions,” she says.

A Paradigm Shift in Traditional Organizations

There is a paradigm shift happening even within traditional organizations, Fosnough adds. Rather than focusing on a specific role or area of expertise during an entire career, employees can expect to be engaged in shorter projects that are based on their knowledge and experience. She says that companies are looking for employees who are adaptable and teachable and have high energy to complete a task and then move on to the next thing.

“If you’re taking a look at internal upskilling programs and internal mobility programs,” Fosnough says, “you’re looking at shorter life cycles like project-based work, gig-based work or maybe some mentorship on a specific situation or scenario.”

To prepare yourself for a lateral move, Fosnough recommends anticipating job function and industry trend changes by reading articles, attending industry events, listening to TED Talks and networking with colleagues. You need to be able to look at the market and decide if you might need the new certification Google offers, she says. Focus on portable skills you can get in a month rather than going back to school to learn business analytics, which could take years. “We don’t have time for that because by the time somebody graduates with those skills, we’re looking for something else,” she says.

3. Consider the opportunity

When evaluating a lateral move, it’s important to consider more than just the salary. Examine how this new opportunity could position you for future roles and where it might lead you, Pellicione says.

She also recommends exploring these four questions before accepting a lateral role:

• Is this a step backward from what you were doing three or four years ago?
• What could the opportunity bring you in terms of new contacts and new skills?
• Where can you make the biggest impact in this new role?
• How will the new role expand your skills beyond your current job?

For instance, if your current role doesn’t allow you to interact with finance and you really want to be more engaged in investor relations and communications, it would be a good idea to take a lateral role that offers more direct interaction with finance, Pellicione says. Then you would be interacting with the CFO, heads of finance and other members of the financial community. That would make a difference in your career by opening the door to other relationships and business verticals. “Ultimately, these are things that could really help build not only the skill set that you have but [also] expand on it,” Pellicione says.

Making a lateral move internally is also a good way to show the company that you’re committed to them, Pellicione says. “Companies sometimes go through reorganizations and restructuring. But if they see someone is committed to what they’re doing…, that’s going to really help you… get to where [you] want to be, too.”

Ultimately, lateral moves are about embracing a growth mindset, Fosnough adds.

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of SUCCESS magazine. Photo by fizkes/Shutterstock

The post Forget About the Career Ladder—Focus on the Career Lattice Instead appeared first on SUCCESS.

Ariel Ekblaw’s mission to bring us closer to space

And this isn’t part of some far-off, futuristic vision. Some of her concepts are already underway, and others will benefit humanity in the next few years. Think: floating apartments and remote work environments circling our planet; diverse, microbiome-improving food options that are far from the “space food” in the movies; artificial retinas that cure blindness on Earth; and AstroAnt robots that function like tiny cars to diagnose and repair spacecraft.

Her team isn’t looking to leave Earth to visit other planets; they are looking to expand into the closest layer of space. “Earth is the best home humanity will ever have. It’s the only place where our biology co-evolved with the planet, so we are always going to be better suited here,” Ekblaw says.

Learn more about the innovations Ariel Ekblaw and her team are developing.

Artificial retinas that cure eye diseases

Retinitis pigmentosa is the leading cause of heritable blindness and affects approximately 100,000 people in the United States and 1.5 million people worldwide. Macular degeneration, the leading form of blindness in patients over 55, affects 10 million in the U.S. and over 50 million worldwide. These stats from LambdaVision co-founder and CEO Nicole Wagner, Ph.D., are what’s driving her to solve the world’s vision issues supported by Ekblaw’s VC fund.

Patients can’t just get a new retina. But in orbit, where gravity restrictions don’t apply, artificial retina scientists apply over 200 layers of a matrix. This process creates an artificial retina. “What’s special about this is that it needs microgravity to happen—it can’t be done on Earth. The reason it can’t be done on Earth is because of sedimentation,” Ekblaw says, referencing a drink, where “stuff sinks down to the bottom.” Those particles would lead to lots of errors in the matrix, with those errors “amplified by every layer.”

“Microgravity gives you this beautiful floating environment, kind of like the womb, where eyes are originally grown,” Ekblaw says. “And it’s the perfect environment.” Those space-built retinas would be a welcome alternative to prosthetics that people have to wear over their eyes currently, Ekblaw says.

Wagner expects the project to be in clinical trials in three to four years. “There is a huge unmet need to help patients blinded by these diseases, and our goal is to [get] the artificial retina into patients in need as soon as possible,” Wagner adds.

Floating transformable buildings for parties, concerts and remote meetings

TESSERAE: It stands for Tessellated Electromagnetic Space Structures for the Exploration of Reconfigurable, Adaptive Environments. Confused? Just think of a large, transformable floating pavilion that’s “big, beautiful science fiction” but modular, cut into different tiles that can be packed flat into a rocket, Ekblaw says, “like a glorified PEZ dispenser.” She compares them to Legos that could build themselves in space.

“Right now, on the International Space Station, if there’s a micrometeorite impact, and it punctures the space habitat, you have to repair it…. It’s actually very hard to repair,” Ekblaw says. “But the idea with a reconfigurable habitat is that there’s all these different parts. If there’s damage to one, you just pop it off and replace it.”

Even more fun, you can swap out your window that previously had a view of Earth for a docking port where your friends might show up for a party at your building, she says. “It’s meant to be architecture in space that would finally scale access.”

Ekblaw estimates that, perhaps in the next decade, scientists and researchers might head to space, too, instead of just astronauts. Then, tourists might come later, in the 2040s.

Ekblaw’s team is planning its first test in 10 years. And if you ask Ekblaw how expensive a ticket to your remote workplace hangout in space might be, she compares it to probably “slightly fancy commercial aviation.”

Musical instruments made for space

In addition to improving Earth, Ekblaw’s vision involves building the future of human culture in space. “We shouldn’t always just take up into space the cultural artifacts from Earth; we should let that also be a domain where we are creating new and novel cultural artifacts for humanity,” she says. Ekblaw points to a Telemetron, a steampunk-inspired object with two percussive elements inside two modules that players can only use while floating.

Designers Sands Fish, Nicole L’Huillier and Thomas Sanchez Lengeling have already played this instrument on a “Zero-G flight,” at the top of which you get around 20 seconds of microgravity. “[Then] they turned that one Telemetron into a zero gravity orchestra—they had a series of other types of instruments that have been designed for the same environment,” she says. “Quirky, wacky, beautiful design.”

Diverse communities in space

She wants to ensure that nonscientists can expand into space. “We need welders. We need plumbers. We need all kinds of tradespeople, so it will be a combination of traditional blue-collar work and white-collar opportunities,” Ekblaw says.

She’s a part of two flights per year, one with Aurelia and one with MIT, with an eye on equity. “We try to do it explicitly with communities that are not as often welcomed into aerospace,” she says, whether it’s due to their industry, like artists and musicians, or because they are from marginalized communities with less access to STEM education, she adds.

So, the next time you are shopping for apartments or your next best remote office, remember that one with a window facing planet Earth from space, no matter your industry, might not be far off. 

This article originally appeared in the July/August 2024 Photo courtesy of @aureliainstitute.org

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