Learn about the impact that flexible work can have around the globe, across organizations, and at the individual level.  

In the opening address, Brian Kardon will share perspective on the future of flexible work and offer insights into communication and collaboration trends based on analysis of millions of phone calls, meetings, and chat activity.  

For many of us, flexible work is viewed as a necessity. We may choose to work from home one day or leave the office early so we can take care of other responsibilities. We live in communities where WiFi is as available as running water, but this isn’t always the case. In this keynote, Dr. Murabit will provide a global view of flexible work and how leaders can take the benefits of flexible work to transform entire communities. She’ll cover the daily and economic challenges of flexible work; how it impacts socio-economic divides; and provide a blueprint for future opportunities that attendees can take on to push flexwork forward.

What does it take to make distributed teams work? It takes more than just a Slack account and a webcam to reap the benefits. In fact, it’s hard work and many organizations struggle and fail. It requires new management skills and approaches to have good meetings, get good outcomes from staff and teams. It also requires different approaches for hiring, motivation, and rewarding staff, and different ways of structuring your digital office and culture. To operate in a new world of business that is both global and fully-digital, we’ll need new technologies, new techniques, and new ways of thinking. While the advantages of distributed work are enormous, if we fail to work differently in this new virtual office, we’ll fail to meet our goals. From world-class international events, to international non-profits and collective movements, Ryan Merkley has led teams across countries and cultures. We’ll explore some of the tools and skills he’s learned along the way.

 Change comes first at the edges. In just the last couple decades, technology has gradually enabled us to work from almost anywhere, on almost anything, with almost anyone. That revolution has prompted another one: a transition from the traditional, employer-based economy to an emerging economy of independents—call them “soloists”—who design their own work, create their own jobs, and are reinventing the workplace as we know it. By 2025, soloists will amount to half of the American workforce. But long before they were plentiful, soloists were something else: the pioneers of flexible work. What does their experience teach us about managing in this new world of work? What can we learn from the organizations that have benefitted from skillfully collaborating with them? What secrets do soloists—the original virtual, mobile, remote workers—have to tell us about how to make flexible work work?

Network with other future of work pioneers and enjoy the recharge zone.  

Discover the technology and policies that are necessary to support flexible work.  

The face of business has drastically transformed over the last few decades. Shifts in the tools, how and where we work have upended deeply entrenched ideas of how businesses can and should be structured. And the rate of change will only increase. Networks continue to speed up, laying the pipes for more AI, IoT, data analytics, robotics, augmented and virtual reality applications. In this session, Taher Behbehani explores how the step-change that 5G brings will impact work, the workspace and business. 

The way we work is changing and it’s no surprise that AI is playing a major role. According to Gartner, the deployment of AI has tripled in the past year. If you haven’t thought about using AI throughout your organization, it is very likely that your competitors already have. This panel discussion will bring together leaders from three different companies that are using AI to shape productivity and engagement across the workforce.

In a recent survey, 89% of workers stated that flexible work should be how we work, not a benefit. For companies that were founded in the digital age, flexibility may be a no brainer, but this isn’t the case for every company. To be successful, overall company culture, norms, and values will need a shift in thinking. What’s more, perceptions around customer experience, management styles, productivity, training, etc. all create additional complexity that business leaders will need to think through. In this panel, we’ll hear from HR and business leaders who have gone through the process of bringing more flexibility to the workplace. They’ll share insights on overcoming the challenges to flexible working, discuss the necessary changes that need to happen to policies, and offer guidance on building a business case for flexible work at your company.

Piaggio Fast Forward is carving out a brand new category of robotics: technology that aims to support and enhance human experiences. As we look to the future of the live/work movement and everyday life evolves into flexible work schedules, the lines begin to blur between indoor and outdoor, work and home, shop and dine, and so on. Rossitza Kotelova will discuss how PFF taps into some of today’s most prominent lifestyle trends, both at work and in play. We are prioritizing physical wellness, mindfulness in spite of technology, seeking fulfillment through engaging experiences, and the desire for -- live, work, play, shop, dine -- environments. We are making the journey the best part of the day.

Lunch in the Silver Ballroom 

Understand why culture and collaboration are critical to the success of flexible work.

What does one of the world’s most successful interactive entertainment companies have to teach us about trust and security? The quick answer, a lot. Its network boasts more than 500 million monthly active users spread across 196 countries. Its players and spectators are incredibly tech savvy, and often times, there is real money up for grab during its games, creating a perfect recipe for foul play. DDoS attacks, social engineering, simple scripting, and deep hackery have the potential to prevent the company from hosting events whether live or virtual and conducting business as usual. Join this fireside chat with Pavel Murnikov, VP of Technology, Media Group, to learn how he has created an environment which fosters trust for his remote teams and the challenges he has encountered along the way.

Collaboration technologies have undoubtedly played a role in the evolution of the workplace. After all, it’s these tools and platforms that allows us to better communicate with our colleagues, customers, teams, and prospects from afar. The definition of a team has shifted from one that resides in the four walls of an office to one that is distributed across locations and a blended mix of freelancers and full-time workers. This panel will provide a deeper understanding of what collaboration tech can bring to your organization, different approaches to key collaboration challenges, criteria to help in your decision-making process, and what future trends will continue to shape the way work gets done across your organization.  

Ava Robotics, a spin-off of iRobot, develops advanced telepresence robots that allow remote colleagues or experts to visit and collaborate anywhere at your site. Ava telepresence robots autonomously get to where the user wants to be, and allow the remote user to safely move around the facility during the visit. In this session, Ava co-founder Marcio Macedo will demonstrate Ava in a live session and will discuss use cases at the most innovative customers deployments. 

Now more than ever, individual workers and teams need to be more responsive, adaptable, and productive. With the rise of distributed and blended teams, it is more complicated to collaborate and be well-managed. To remain competitive in the new environments, new skills and approaches enable executives and teams to work together and perform at higher levels.

Soft skills are rising in importance--with empathy at the core--allowing workers to build strong relationships, connect better, and interact and collaborate more effectively--across hierarchy levels, generations and locations. Referencing neuroscience and behavioral psychology, Sophie will explore and explain empathy using specific examples, recommend ways to understand coworkers’ emotions, and how to practice and measure empathy to improve leadership, engagement, collaboration, and productivity.

Network with other future of work pioneers and enjoy the recharge zone.  

Look forward to the trends that will impact work in the future.  

As we look to the future, we know that technology will persistently shape and augment our work lives. Employees will continue to demand a work experience that is consistent with their daily consumer experience. New ways of working across distributed teams will be the norm. But what will work look like in 2040? What will digital disruption enable and how will it force organizations to change? And how do business leaders avoid friction between what’s current and what’s new?

In this session, Liz will explain the leadership maturity needed to design and support new ways of working flexibly and with agility and visibility to performance. Within this digital culture, understand how AI will impact organizational design and HR, and glean the principals needed to create work experiences.