RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – A potential client called me recently to ask if I’d travel to meet her team in person. When I said I’d be happy to, she sighed with relief. 

“Our company is really against virtual meetings right now,” she told me.

That interaction has been stuck in my head ever since. 

Where are the workers? Watch tonight on WRAL TV


We’re approaching the three-year anniversary of shutdown orders—when everything from my client meetings to my book club went virtual. Why, then, years later, are we seeing so much pushback on working remotely?

To talk through these questions, I reached out to Adam Riggs, Founder & CEO of Frameable, a startup with the mission to “transform your daily digital experiences.” Riggs is no stranger to tech and business; he was the first President and CFO of Shutterstock from 2005 to 2010, and he’s advised the State Department on open data and knowledge management challenges. 

He thinks corporate leaders are “wrestling” with the question of remote work—but that many of them are choosing to bring everyone back to the office. 

“When they say, ‘We want everyone back to the office,’ I think they’re making a totally rational decision,” said Riggs. “But it’s based on a very incomplete set of options. They need to demand better options.”

Dr. Sarah Glova, left, talks with Adam Riggs

What options are missing from the remote work tech stack? 

I asked Riggs to help me understand this—what should corporate leadership be looking for, as far as options for remote work?

“In the remote work experience that most people are used to, every interaction they have with other humans is a scheduled interaction,” said Riggs. “Even if it wasn’t ‘scheduled’ on a calendar, it still takes logistics. There are many modalities that need to be negotiated, and it generally requires typing, it generally requires waiting. It’s not natural.”

He pointed out that, in a traditional office, you might walk down the hall and see your colleagues working together in a meeting room. Maybe you realize they’re discussing something related to your work, so you knock on the door and ask if you can offer an idea. 

Those off-the-cuff interactions, says Riggs, aren’t available in most remote work environments—but he thinks they should be.

I can see his point. For the most part, when I meet with clients on Zoom, I’m only seeing the people in the meeting—I’m not seeing the full office. I can’t see who’s working on what. There’s no opportunity to knock on the door of another office or conference room. 

“For the most part, you’re just with the person you’re with, and there is no peripheral vision at all,” said Riggs. 

Without that “peripheral vision,” it’s harder for teams to have those serendipitous moments of interaction—something that Riggs and his team are trying to solve.

“We’re trying to build an environment that brings the advantages, the texture, and the fun of the in-person, human experience, to the distributed work moment,” said Riggs.

Image courtesy of Frameable

Bringing real interactions to the virtual world

Riggs was kind enough to treat me to a tour of one of Frameable’s signature products: Spaces. At first, it reminded me of a traditional video call. I could see Riggs, he could see me, and the usual accouterments were there—mute button, background filter, emoji reactions. 

But to the left of the video screen, there was a sidebar—and on that sidebar, there were a number of tiles. I could see people’s avatars moving in and out of the different tiles. 

“We can see them, and they can see us,” said Riggs. 

The sidebar, Riggs told me, is a “floor.” Each tile represents a “room” on the virtual “floor,” and the avatars were showing me who was in each room. 

Each room also had a label or status. So I knew not only who was in each room but also what they were focused on.

“This is transformational,” said Riggs. “Imagine you and I were talking about website redesign copy. We name our room, and maybe somebody in the office sees that, and they think, ‘Oh, I have an idea about the website redesign, and I see that Adam and Sarah are talking about it—I’m going to go in there.’ That’s an interaction that is not possible in the stack of tools that most people use.”

Seeing this in the demo, I’m reminded of how things used to be when I worked in an office—how I might walk past a conference room, see my team members working on something, and pop in to see if they needed help. 

“This is a very, very normal type of interaction to happen in an office, and it’s been missing,” said Riggs. “And that’s sad.” 

Back in the demo, I could see that some rooms were “locked”—meaning they weren’t open to impromptu visitors—but others were “unlocked.” 

I imagine that, if I worked on this team, it would be nice to have a picture of where my team members were—and nice to know I could pop into rooms as needed. Or, even if I didn’t pop in—I had that visual of them working together, that knowledge of what everyone was working on. 

“This totally changes how distributed or remote work feels to the people doing it,” said Riggs. “We think, for the better.”

 ‘Nice to have’ or ‘Must have’? Distributed work is here to stay

Something I noticed about Riggs is his use of the term “distributed work.”

“We don’t really want to say ‘work from home,’” said Riggs. “For us, ‘work from home’ is a subset of remote or distributed work. Many people work in a distributed fashion from their office, with key colleagues that are in some other office location.”

Riggs told me that he thinks distributed work is “bigger” than work from home. 

“We want corporate leaders to understand that distributed work is not about only working from home, it’s also just about how people work together effectively with colleagues that they’re not physically with, no matter what that means,” said Riggs. 

I can’t help but agree. The CEOs who are rallying against remote work—do they have the same attitude toward distributed teams? 

Is the stigma of “home” holding us back?

According to Riggs, helping companies recognize the role of distributed work—rather than focusing on the idea of ‘work from home’—could help them justify investments in tools like Spaces that increase engagement and transparency. 

“The sooner they think about distributed work that way, the sooner they will feel and be justified in expecting more from their toolset,” said Riggs. “The remote work stack of tools that people rely on—they don’t really deliver on interactions. So that’s why we are here.” 

Converting the skeptics

Thinking back to my client—the one who insisted that I meet her team in person—would a tool like Spaces help her feel more comfortable working virtually?

I’m not sure—but I’m also not sure it matters how she feels, unfortunately. 

At the end of the day, it wasn’t her preference to meet in person—it was a directive from her company. 

I think we’ll need to see more leaders embracing tools like Spaces—tools that strengthen connections across distributed teams—in order for people like my client to feel they have permission to continue with distributed work. 

But I think it’s worth fighting for. At the end of the day, I know I can be connected, collaborative, effective, and impactful whether I’m working from home, from a coffee shop, or from a cubicle. (And, to be honest, I think that last one would be my least productive space.)

Plus, in today’s talent crisis, I know that recruiting a distributed, flexible team gives me a serious advantage in the job market. 

Until we can help leaders overcome the stigma of working from home—help them realize that problems with remote work don’t stem from where the employee is but, instead, what tech that employee has access to—then this won’t be the last time a client is paying my travel fee. 

About Sarah Glova

Founder of the award-winning e-learning firm Reify Media, Dr. Sarah Glova is a tech writer and contributor for WRAL TechWire, an advocate for women entrepreneurs, and a keynote speaker. Learn more at sarahglova.com