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Nola Simon: Hi, I'm Nola Simon
and I'm the host of this podcast.

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Now, this podcast you may know
by a couple of different names.

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Initially when I started it way
back in what, December of 2021.

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I was calling it the Janus
Oasis or the Janus Oasis.

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I. Discovered there are two ways that
people like to pronounce that word.

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So that's what sparked the initial
change of name to the hybrid

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remote center of excellence.

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And that served its purpose it focused
on the topic that I really wanted to

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emphasize at that particular time,
because that's how it was building

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my consulting business around
the experience that I'd had in.

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Advocating and facilitating
hybrid remote work.

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It's a mouthful.

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Hybrid remote center of
excellence is a long name.

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It's, it doesn't roll
off the tongue easily.

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And it's like going out to the park
and when you're naming babies shouting

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out, you know the name that you're
gonna have to shout when you want

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them to get off the slide or finish
on the swings and come to see you.

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You have to test it out and I've done now
a hundred episodes and that tongue, that

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name does not roll off the tongue easily.

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I, when I'm in the playground and I'm
telling people that this is the name

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of my podcast, it feels I chose the
wrong name for my kid because it's not.

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Something I wanna use on a daily basis.

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So I'm gonna rename it again, and
I'm gonna put it in line with the

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newsletters that I've created for
new LinkedIn and for Substack,

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and that's hope and Possibilities.

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And the subtitle of that is A Love
Letter to the Future of Work because I

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really still do believe that flexibility
is important to the future of work.

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I don't believe that we
will be in the office.

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It's not a future of
work that I wanna see.

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I think that we need to look at.

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It more broadly, but also more
deeply at the same time, right?

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Like we're in a process where
there's a lot happening in the world

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that we didn't necessarily expect.

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I'm in Canada, so a lot has changed
politically since January, and that

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has not necessarily being expected.

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So how do we make sense of
what's happening in the world?

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How do we curate and.

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Focus on the things that are
actually going to help us build to a

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future of work that we want to see,
that we feel we can live within.

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How do we put, ideas into impact, right?

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How do you take an idea that exists
right now and build it out into a

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future of work that you wanna see?

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And that can be used with scenario
planning, with, a strategic foresight.

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It can also be backcasting.

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So if you can imagine a possible future.

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Imagine what that is like in the future,
but then what steps do you need to take

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now to actually get to that future?

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There are a couple of different future
futurist capabilities that we can

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employ to really understand how you
take ideas and put that into to context

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and put that into, nuance, right?

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So it's about exploring the
possibilities and exploiting the

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opportunities and figuring out
how we do that in a different way.

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So I'm gonna change the format of
the podcast a little bit this year.

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I'm not taking guests.

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I had announced that already.

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For one.

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Pitching podcast guest.

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It's a lot, some of it's intense, so
it's a lot easier for me to say, Hey

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this year I'm just not doing guest.

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And it's not that I don't enjoy guests.

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Part of the reason I started the
podcast was because I really enjoyed the

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opportunity to talk to the people who
were writing the books that I was reading

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and exploring those topics in more depth.

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I enjoy that.

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It's not that I don't, but I'm
not sure that it gave me the

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opportunity to go into some of these
topics as deeply as I wanted to.

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Or it, it didn't necessarily allow me to
cross pollinate within a same episode.

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So that's another thing that I'm
going to be looking at, is how

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do we take a particular topic.

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One that I'm actually working on
right now is, the future of music

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and what the, what fandom looks
like, and what does that mean for.

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Wellbeing of artists and if we're
turning to artists to help us understand

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what's happening in society and
culture, how can we protect them when

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we know that fame is a hell of a drug?

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And that's an interesting
aspect to me because music.

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In lots of ways, as in asynchronous
industry a lot of times collaborations

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happen and people aren't even in the same
continent, nevermind the same building.

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Producers are across the world.

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It's an industry that's being built it
lots of ways to facilitate remote access

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to talent cross borders, but it also has
one heck of an emphasis on in-person.

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With the touring and live
concerts and live music.

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So it's an interesting industry
to, to look at because for one,

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a lot of people enjoy music.

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They understand it intuitively.

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They understand the business model.

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They know a lot about the musicians
and the art that sustains it.

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So it's an interesting topic to look at.

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In a holistic way and apply
some of the things that we've

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talked about before, right?

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So that's what I'm gonna be starting at.

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But there's other things that I
can use to explore that, right?

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So that's what I'm interested in.

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I what does work look like?

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When the changes don't stop,
it's just becoming more complex.

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It's.

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I'm going to change again because
of the advent of AI and AI is

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going to really impact in ways
that we don't yet understand.

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So how do we look at that in context?

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How do we look at it with nuance, how
do, how are we going to be more flexible

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in the way that we think about things?

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How do we make connections from
trends that we're seeing in one

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industry across to another industry
in different areas of work and life?

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But then, how can we also
look at it in different ways?

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So looking at how art facilitates it,
how humor facilitates it, some of the

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things that we're sarcastic about.

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That's an avenue of interest, right?

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Because if we can laugh at things.

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It helps us process the
deeper meaning of change.

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So that's what I'm interested, where I'm
interested in taking the podcast this

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year is to look at it in a different way
and how I'm gonna be setting that up.

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So this is just an intro that I
wanted to give you so that you know

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what to expect for March of 2025.

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I'm still gonna be publishing on a
quarterly basis now what that looks like.

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It's almost the end of March
and I haven't published yet.

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This is the first thing I've published.

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As I said, I'm working on the music thing.

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I'm probably gonna be releasing
those episodes fairly soon.

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I'm gonna take my time.

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I am, I'm still gonna stick to quarterly.

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You'll get something, but.

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I'm going to let the rabbit
holes take me where it does.

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So I recommend that.

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If you like the podcast, if you're
interested in what I'm talking about,

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you wanna subscribe and make sure that
your podcast app is going to notify you

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when the newest episodes are dropping.

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I'm also gonna be looking at how older
episodes and see how they actually work

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together so that if you're interested
in pairing them and you want to learn

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from them, maybe we can create like
playlists of three or five that work

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together well, so that you can learn
from them and go in depth from them.

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How can I repurpose a lot of that content
in ways that I haven't yet made available?

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I just feel that there's an awful lot of
work that has been done that I haven't

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necessarily taken advantage of to really.

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Go more in depth on particular topics
that can be useful and helpful.

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So how do I do that in a way
that's going to be interesting

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and timely and impactful?

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But overall how do I create value so that
I'm helping people who are interested

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in the future of work and navigating.

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What's happening at work in life in the
moment, but also for the future, right?

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So that's the goal.

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And I hope you follow along and as
always, if you can rate review, give

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me feedback give me suggestions.

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It's.

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I'm open to anything that
you'd like to discuss.

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The problem for me is I don't
necessarily get an awful lot of

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that, so I'd love to engage you more.

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I'd love to feature questions that
the audience actually asks and I. That

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would be fun for me to be able to do.

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So I just haven't had the opportunity to
really focus an awful lot on questions

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that come in from the audience.

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So I'd love to, to focus in on that.

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So you can send me an email if you
want, NOLA at Nola nola@nolasimon.com.

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Or you can DM me on LinkedIn Substack.

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I'm available in lots of different
places, so it's easy to get ahold of me.