“This is the perfect storm,” Lister said. “And once the genie is out of the bottle, it’s not going back in.”
That’s precisely the bet Rousseau Kazi is making as co-founder and chief executive officer of Threads, a collaboration tool that employs topic forums like those found on Reddit to speed project work for remote workforces.
The Facebook Inc. veteran reckons that the pandemic has sped up the move home by as much as a decade. Threads, founded about three years ago and counting Silicon Valley stalwart Sequoia Capital as an investor, had been adding users slowly, but as its waitlist ballooned and demand surged, it decided to scrap a broader launch later this year and instead this week offered up a version to anyone for free through July 1.
“We decided we needed to help this,” said Kazi, who managed teams at Facebook working on projects ranging from mobile applications to search functions. “Our bet is the world is going to become more distributed.”
And the 28-year-old makes a compelling case for why that will happen. Shocks to the system like the virus often cause society to leapfrog. The sharing economy, spearheaded by the likes of Uber and Airbnb, was just getting started when the financial crisis hit. A few years later, society’s view about vacationing in a stranger’s home dramatically shifted. It’s now seen to many as a cheaper—and more fun—way to travel.
“This has taken a trend that’s already happening, just like the sharing economy, and bent the curve,” Kazi said.
What was once just the domain of tech firms is likely to become one of the next in-demand skill sets. Don’t be surprised if “distributed management”—a way to work together through online collaboration—starts popping up on many more LinkedIn bios. Expect an increasing number of companies to describe themselves as “fully distributed,” meaning everyone works remotely most of the time.
Global demand for collaboration tools will increase “exponentially” because of the outbreak, according to Wayne Kurtzman, research director for social, community and collaboration at research firm IDC. A big reason is that so many workers already use similar tools in their personal lives, so once they get the corporate version of video chat, instant messaging or forums, adoption will be quick and relatively seamless. Plus, there’s research showing that distributed teams are more productive, and happier. Kazi said one of his customers cut email traffic in half.
“A lot of the friction and time wasted is gone,” said Kurtzman, who has been involved in collaboration software for more than two decades. “That’s what a lot of companies will start learning.”
To make sure the information being shared remotely is safe, companies will have to spend more on data protection, according to Appsian. The cybersecurity firm expects hackers to be readying attacks because of the increased vulnerabilities created by so many more remote workers.