Remote Work Politics, Digital Nomad Futures, Creativity for Grown-Ups
This week’s best links about borderless living.
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Hej! I’m Lauren Razavi. This weekly(ish) post is where I share the best links about borderless living, plus updates about my writing, speaking, and activism work to enhance people’s understanding of digital nomads and the future of work. To keep in touch, follow me on Twitter and subscribe to my newsletter. Thanks for reading ✍️🌍✌️
Hi friends 👋
I teamed up with Maddy Russell of Paiv Creative for a one-day design sprint last week. Our mission? To create some beautiful new artwork for this newsletter.
I’m more of a words person than a visuals person, so I relied on Maddy’s expertise to guide the process, and she made it deliciously easy for me. We were inspired by a few different ideas: the topographies of maps, a bird’s-eye view of a swimming pool, and the colour blue as a signifier of open spaces, freedom, imagination, and wisdom.
Here’s what we came up with:
We spent the day working asynchronously and in our preferred styles: Maddy likes to chat through things while she scrolls around her screen, so she used Loom to share updates. I like to think things through then distill it down into actionable steps, so I replied to her with email breakdowns. It all went off without a hitch, and I’m delighted with the results.
You can make brilliant things and have lots of fun with the right collaborators. So get the ball rolling: Is there someone you’ve been meaning to chat to about a project? Open a new tab and send them a message right now.
— Lauren
🌍 Links of the Week
🎙️💰 Should Remote Workers Take a Pay Cut? (LinkedIn Live)
Join me and Isabelle Roughol next week for a live chat about her recent essay on remote work pay. In it, she argues Google is right to consider cutting pay for remote workers, and the alternative is an overpaid nomadic class.
🛼💻 Remote Work Is All Gen Z Knows. But Are They Satisfied? (TIME)
The first generation of true digital natives has been initiated into the world of remote work. Writer and anthropologist Raisa Bruner pulls together the data and interviews Gen Z workers to find out what they’re making of it so far.
🏝️🏛️ Internet Countries Are Giving Digital Nomads Wings (Kaspersky)
I spoke with Leanna Lee about the growth of digital nomadism and the nomad internet country project Plumia. Her piece gives an excellent overview of the political and social movement emerging around remote work and digital nomads.
🏡🇦🇫 Airbnb Funds Short-Term Housing for 20k Afghan Refugees (BBC)
Airbnb will provide free temporary housing to refugees fleeing Afghanistan in response to the Taliban’s recent takeover. Interesting to see a global tech company working to mitigate the human costs of a failed government.
🎧🔮 Wired’s Kevin Kelly on the Future of Nomads (Building Remotely)
A globally-renowned futurist and the founding editor of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly is a tech legend. In this podcast episode, Kelly chats in-depth with SafetyWing founder Sondre Rasch about what the future holds for digital nomads.
🎨👣 Creative Thieves: An Exercise Book for Grown-Ups Who Have Run Out of Ideas (Paiv Creative)
This free resource was Counterflows designer Maddy’s lockdown project, made to inspire people who make a living from their creativity whenever they find themselves in a rut. A beautiful antidote to pandemic fatigue.
🏛️ Nomad Politics
I interviewed the coder Kate Sills, who specialises in smart contracts, as part of the Plumia Speaker Series on how to build an internet country.
Kate is a software engineer at Agoric, a smart contracts fellow at the Foresight Institute, and a prolific blogger on blockchain technologies and other future-facing issues.
This was definitely my favourite session to date, so if you’re intrigued, go give our conversation a watch or listen 👇
