How the Future Works
46 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 months ago -The world of work is transforming before our eyes. The global freelance workforce is growing fast and digital platforms and marketplaces are linking people with skills to companies looking for skills no matter where in the world they’re located. Talent is universal but opportunity has previously been limited to big cities - until now.
Join Barry and Eleanor Matthews from Open-Assembly as they meet businesses and individuals involved in how the future works
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Episodes
44: Charlotte Gregson, UK Country Manager for Malt
May 26, 2023 23:00 - 51 minutes - 41.5 MBIn this episode, Eleanor and Barry Matthews meet Charlotte Gregson, UK Country Manager for Malt www.malt.com Malt is rapidly expanding and Charlotte is responsible for growing the UK business. Malt already has 500,000 freelancers and works with 60,000 businesses. The discussion covers Malt’s country specific strategy, the importance of community and customer experience, the opportunities and challenges for flexible working posed by the current economic climate and of course Charlotte’s f...
43: What The F*ck is Next
March 10, 2023 00:00 - 49 minutes - 39.4 MBIn this episode Eleanor and Barry are joined by Colton Chorpenning; digital nomad, author and Senior Interactive Producer for Nest and Pixel at Google. Originally from Denver, Colorado, Colton has designed a digitally nomadic lifestyle, spending half his time in Denver and travelling the world the other half. To date, he has worked in over 16 countries including Turkey, Austria, Italy, Thailand, SriLanka and India . Colton is the co-author of What The F*ck Is Next - a book he wrote with his...
42: Symba: Investing in the Next Generation of Talent
January 24, 2023 00:00 - 40 minutes - 32 MBThis episode Eleanor and Barry talk about the Trusted Talent Platform Partner survey and travel plans for work to help boost the freelancing industry in India and Saudi Arabia. Their guest is Ahva Sadeghi, CEO of Symba, a platform with a purpose — to open up the workforce by helping businesses establish remote internships, enabling them to invest in the next generation of talent, and commit to diversity and inclusion. She talks about the lightbulb moment when she realised that Symba had to...
41: Happy Free Trade Holidays
December 19, 2022 05:00 - 44 minutes - 35.3 MBThe guest on this episode was Glen Hodgson, CEO of Free Trade Europa, a “Think Tank and Do Tank” focusing on liberalisation, free trade, innovation, transparency and the rule of law across Europe. In our conversation he explains what that means and what he predicts for 2023 in way that European governments and other bodies respond to the ongoing growth and expansion of freelancing as a valid career choice for the future of work. Eleanor and Barry also talk about all the speakers from 2022 an...
40: Workstyle
November 23, 2022 05:00 - 49 minutes - 39.9 MBEleanor and Barry discuss topical news including the Autumn statement from the UK chancellor and the recent happenings at Twitter. Their guests this week are Lizzie and Alex Hirst, authors of Sunday Times bestselling book Workstyle: a revolution for wellbeing, productivity and society. Lizzie and Alex tell their stories and why they felt compelled to create a new word to describe an autonomous way of working, reorientating work to fit around your life instead of the other way around. The...
39: Disrupting Staffing
November 03, 2022 04:00 - 51 minutes - 41.2 MBEleanor and Barry discuss the UK Government’s IR35 hokey cokey and the latest industry facts and figures from Staffing Industry Analysts, before welcoming guests, Casey McElroy and Sam Orrin from Worksome. Worksome defies classification and fits into a number of the industry’s boxes, so we explore where it fits, what makes it different and what the future holds for the company that is on a mission to reduce friction between companies and their external workforce. Find out more about them a...
38: The Podcast Podcast
October 04, 2022 04:00 - 36 minutes - 29.1 MBIn this episode Barry and Eleanor talk to Neil Hughes, LinkedIn Top Voice winner, prolific podcaster and all round nice chap. They talk about the extraordinary growth in podcasting, how it can be a useful tool for promotion and profile-building for freelancers and how to find enough motivation and inspiration to record every day. They also pick apart the recent changes in IR35 and what it will mean to UK freelancers if and when it is executed.
37: Bees, Trees and the Waggle Dance - Open Innovation in Action
September 09, 2022 04:00 - 43 minutes - 35.2 MBIn this episode of How The Future Works, Eleanor and Barry are joined by Tanveer Mohammed UST UK’s head of Innovation. They discuss how the open innovation model enables UST to collaborate with employees, customers and targeted groups of external experts who can all contribute to solving challenges on behalf of UST’s clients. They discuss how UST is using open innovation to solve problems related to fraud associated with deep fakes and malicious use of AI, as well as a range of diverse cli...
36: Holding out for a Hero?
August 26, 2022 04:00 - 36 minutes - 28.9 MBIn this episode of How The Future Works, Eleanor, and Barry meet Kal Sahota, CEO of Open Innovation platform HeroX. She explains how organisations tap into solvers from around the world to find the answers to their big conundrums. As a completely open crowd, the solvers (or Heros) compete for prize money, but as Kal explains their motivation is more about being part of something bigger and the intellectual challenge. They also discuss Barry’s recent trip to Boulder, Colorado, and Elea...
35: Freelance Doesn’t Mean Free (the one with Winky the Crow)
August 11, 2022 04:00 - 41 minutes - 33.4 MBIn this episode of How The Future Works Eleanor and Barry meet Matt Dowling, founder of The Freelancer Club and find out more about how the expectation of work for free is a real thing in the freelance industry for creatives. Their #NOFREEWORK movement aims to put an end to that expectation and was born from Matt’s own experience of being ripped off by a client. They also discuss Upwork’s upcoming Work Without Limits event, lightbulbs going on in a family-run brewing company and possibly t...
34: Skillsourcing – matching supply with demand in 30 seconds
July 20, 2022 04:00 - 43 minutes - 34.6 MBIn this episode of How The Future Works Eleanor and Barry discuss the role of Change Management and Training in scaling the adoption of Open Talent in businesses of all sizes. They are joined by Kelvin Wetherill the founder and CEO of NerdApp (now called Supportwave) and they discuss the term “skill sourcing” and how well it fits what they do in matching tech experts with demand from consumers and businesses in as little as 30 seconds using a digital app. They also discuss UK politics, rec...
33: Freelancing Friendly Destinations
July 04, 2022 04:00 - 47 minutes - 38.3 MBIn this episode Eleanor and Barry discuss why and how governments want to attract and develop freelance talent. They discuss the top destinations for freelancers, the incentives that many governments are offering to attract successful freelancers and the investment many countries are making in developing their own local experts to freelance globally using digital platforms. They are joined by Dr. Rochelle Haynes, founder and CEO of Crowdpotential and an accomplished academic, speaker, au...
32: Solving Healthcare’s Talent Crisis
June 06, 2022 04:00 - 35 minutes - 28.6 MBIn this episode Barry and Eleanor discuss the talent challenges in the healthcare industry; the huge number of vacancies at a time when the demand for specialist skills is larger than ever and growing each year. They are joined by Melissa Morris the founder and CEO of Lantum. Lantum is a platform tackling healthcare’s most painful and expensive problem – workforce management. Lantum provides a workforce scheduling platform which gives clinicians control over their working patterns and co...
31: The Role of an Open Talent Centre Of Excellence with UST
May 20, 2022 04:00 - 43 minutes - 35.2 MBEleanor and Barry are joined by Akhil Seth the head of UST’s Open Talent Centre of Excellence. They discuss the importance of a COE when starting an open talent programme, the role of the COE in establishing relationships with talent platforms and the many functions of a COE in everything from sourcing and interviewing freelance talent, through to ensuring secure systems access, insurance and IP protection – they also have a really fun conversation with an incredibly bright and articulate y...
30: Turning Your Passion into a Business
May 05, 2022 04:00 - 45 minutes - 36.6 MBBarry and Eleanor are joined by the charming, erudite and ebullient Albert Azis-Clauson the CEO of Underpinned. Underpinned have been helping people prepare for the future of work since 2018 – they specifically help people to commercialise their skills and turn their passions into businesses – and over the last 4 years they have helped to prepare 50,000 people for the future of work. Barry, Eleanor and Albert discuss the importance of relationships, the role of talent marketplaces, the f...
29: Industry Expert Dyan Finkhousen joins Open Assembly as CSO
April 07, 2022 04:00 - 30 minutes - 24.7 MBIn this special episode, Barry and Eleanor are joined by their good friend and new colleague Dyan Finkhousen to celebrate Dyan joining the Open Assembly team as Chief Strategy Officer. Dyan joins the team to help realise the Open Assembly vison of creating the operating system for open talent. Dyan has an incredible career including positions as GE’s Global Director of Open Innovation and Advanced Manufacturing, and Founder of GE GeniusLink and GE Fuse. Dyan and the team discuss how Open ...
28: Creating and Expert Community
March 04, 2022 17:00 - 54 minutes - 43.4 MBIn this episode Eleanor and Barry are joined by Adam Morehead from Topcoder, arguably the best community building platform in the industry. Topcoder have built a unique community of 1.7 million of the world’s best technologists. Over the past 20 years they have placed community building at the core of their offering. They combine regular virtual events with an annual in person event for the top performers in the community. The Topcoder Open has become the equivalent of the Olympics of eng...
28: Creating an Expert Community
March 04, 2022 17:00 - 54 minutes - 43.4 MBIn this episode Eleanor and Barry are joined by Adam Morehead from Topcoder, arguably the best community building platform in the industry. Topcoder have built a unique community of 1.7 million of the world’s best technologists. Over the past 20 years they have placed community building at the core of their offering. They combine regular virtual events with an annual in person event for the top performers in the community. The Topcoder Open has become the equivalent of the Olympics of eng...
27: Micro Internships, Macro Opportunity
February 18, 2022 17:00 - 44 minutes - 35.5 MBIn this episode, Barry and Eleanor discuss the pros and cons of being a digital nomad, how frustrating it is to try and work without a mobile phone. BT’s £30m investment in Distributed.co and the rapidly expanding use of Open Talent in the UK. Their special topic is the use of student talent and how students are being used to provide skills and capacity to businesses, through talent platforms. They are joined by Jeffery Moss the founder and CEO of Parker Dewey. Parker Dewey offer “micro i...
26: Year of the Tiger
February 04, 2022 21:11 - 48 minutes - 38.6 MBIn this episode, Barry and Eleanor talk about the Great Resignation, Tang Ping, and how workers around the world are changing the way they think about work and approach work-life balance. They also look at the ongoing trend towards freelancing and open talent and how governments are reacting. They are joined this time by Elinor Hamilton, freelance voice artist, entrepreneur, ultra-runner, mother-figure-to-many, and voice of the underground. She talks about how voice artists find work and how...
25: How The Future Worked 2021
January 03, 2022 05:00 - 34 minutes - 28 MBIn this bonus episode, Eleanor and Barry are joined by Tom Matthews who has reviewed and catalogued each of the 2021 podcast episodes and the trio discuss the guests, the themes, the answers to the 5 x 10 questions and have a general review of the year. They remember their favourite answers and the topics that resonated the most, as well as looking ahead to How The Future Works in 2022
24: Yon Living – Empowering Anyone to Live and Work From Anywhere in the World
December 04, 2021 05:00 - 51 minutes - 41 MBIn this episode, Barry and Eleanor discuss the Great Resignation, the move from fixed employment models to flexible freelance working models, and the benefits and risks associated with taking the big step. They are joined by Tom Brooks the founder of Yon Living www.yonliving.com a brilliant concept that combines staying in great locations, designed for working and relaxing, with meeting like-minded digital workers and creating community. Tom explains the story behind Yon, explains how t...
23: Leaving the Rat Race and Going it Alone
November 21, 2021 05:00 - 36 minutes - 29.2 MBIn the latest episode of How The Future Works, Barry and Eleanor are joined by Emily and Alex Marcham Emily and Alex are a married couple who decided that life was too short to be employed in a 9-5 and so made the big life decision to resign from their jobs and embrace the digital nomadic lifestyle. Emily went from being a legal secretary to becoming a virtual assistant, social media expert and blogger and Alex left behind his role as a HVAC engineer to embrace a new future as a web desig...
22: Securing the Gig Economy
October 08, 2021 04:00 - 40 minutes - 32.4 MBIn this episode Barry and Eleanor reveal some exciting news in that Re-source the open talent consulting business that they run together, has merged with Open Assembly the world’s leading learning resource and consultancy for the future of work and the open talent economy. They discuss the podcast which will continue under the same name but under the Center for the Transformation of Work (CTW) banner – the CTW is a community project established by Open Assembly designed to support the nee...
21: Elastic, On-demand and Distributed
September 20, 2021 04:00 - 40 minutes - 32.7 MBIn this episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the increasingly popular model of companies turning to elastic teams of expert freelance tech resources to deliver projects. They meet Callum Adamson Co-founder and CEO of Distributed. www.distributed.co Callum founded Distributed in 2017 and the business has seen rapid growth with demand coming from prestige brands, attracted by Distributed’s model of sourcing the best independent talent in the world managed through a quality based process and deliv...
20: Freelance Teams and Virtual Companies
August 31, 2021 04:00 - 1 hour - 48.1 MBIn this week’s episode Barry and Eleanor discuss the importance of taking some time off especially when working as an independent professional (which explains the slight gap between the previous episode and this one!) they discuss the Open Assembly’s latest publication Networked Organization – a play book for implementing open talent at scale https://lnkd.in/egFrUMEA and discuss the growing trend for businesses to engage teams of freelancers. As companies grow more comfortable with mark...
19: Creative Offshoring, Secret Helpers and Marrying your Business Partner
July 28, 2021 04:00 - 50 minutes - 40.2 MBIn this episode, Eleanor and Barry meet Mark Hannant and Munni Trivedi a married couple who met at work and run multiple businesses together. They compare notes on what it’s like to be married to your business partner as well as learn about Mark and Munni’s business; Indigo Premedia that provides outsourcing services to creative agencies. They discuss the rapid rise of outsourcing creative services as well as the wider industry, the disruption of human cloud marketplaces the importance of ...
18: HR, HR Tech and OCM expertise on-demand – that role playing episode
July 15, 2021 04:00 - 45 minutes - 36.8 MBIn this episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the “talent paradox” and look at the reasons why enterprises find engaging with human cloud models so challenging. They role play a scenario to bring to life how companies can overcome concerns about security, compliance, employment classification, IP protection and more and discuss how despite having solutions for each one, enterprises still find it difficult to engage readily available open talent due to “organisational inertia” and they look at t...
17: Trust and Transparency
June 24, 2021 04:00 - 44 minutes - 36 MBIn this week’s episode, Eleanor and Barry discuss the importance of workforce culture and how culture can be maintained and improved within an ecosystem environment. They discuss the importance of feedback loops and how the ability to give feedback in an anonymous, safe environment should be a fundamental right that transcends employment boundaries and be universally available for all workers. They are joined by Claire Schmidt, founder and CEO of Allvoices; an anonymous reporting tool and...
16: B2B Staff Sharing and Workforce Ecosystems
June 10, 2021 04:00 - 33 minutes - 26.8 MBIn this week’s episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the growing trend of workforce ecosystems and how enterprises are starting to think more holistically about how work gets done and who does the work, treating employees, agency workers, open talent platform work, gig workers, outsourcers and robots as an ecosystem to manage. They discuss the World Economic Forum and Willis Towers Watson’s formulae for accounting for work: Return on Work (ROW) = Total Revenue / Total Cost of Work (TCW) wher...
15: Open Talent and Customer Experience
May 19, 2021 04:00 - 51 minutes - 41.3 MBIn this episode Barry and Eleanor discuss the world of Customer Experience (CX) and discuss what makes good CX and why. They discuss how after over a year of managing with the pandemic companies shouldn’t be using COVID as an excuse for poor customer service and they discuss how flexible, remote working models with mixed teams of experts can improve CX by attracting experts to work remotely on flexible terms. They are joined by Jitender Mohan, Executive Vice President and head of Custom...
The Power of Internal Talent Marketplaces
May 06, 2021 04:00 - 45 minutes - 36.6 MBIn this week’s episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the world of internal talent marketplaces – an area of open talent that doesn’t always get the attention that it deserves. Much of the public discussion on open talent focusses on the way digital talent marketplaces are disrupting the world of freelance work, but that same technology can equally be applied to internally employed talent and can play an incredibly valuable role in balancing internal skills and demand across an organisation an...
14: The Power of Internal Talent Marketplaces
May 06, 2021 04:00 - 45 minutes - 36.6 MBIn this week’s episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the world of internal talent marketplaces – an area of open talent that doesn’t always get the attention that it deserves. Much of the public discussion on open talent focusses on the way digital talent marketplaces are disrupting the world of freelance work, but that same technology can equally be applied to internally employed talent and can play an incredibly valuable role in balancing internal skills and demand across an organisation an...
13: Virtual Reality Gets Real
April 21, 2021 04:00 - 48 minutes - 39.2 MBIn this week’s episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the world of Virtual Reality! They discuss both the fun, recreational, entertainment use of VR as well as the professional, enterprise applications of the latest incarnations of VR technology. They are joined by Neil Fox, CTO of Hexaware, emerging tech expert, open talent expert and VR afficionado and they discuss the world of VR from a business, open talent and societal perspective, it’s a fascinating discussion which covers the basics, t...
12: Digital Platforms and Professional Services and the Importance of Unlearning
April 08, 2021 04:00 - 48 minutes - 38.6 MBIn this week’s episode Eleanor and Barry discuss how open talent marketplaces are beginning to be used at scale by global enterprises as well as by business services and technology services providers who are embracing open talent and open innovation models into their service delivery operations. The hosts are joined by Roland Rosevear from Freelancer.com’s enterprise team who provides some fascinating examples and stories that really bring this trend to life. The team also discuss virtua...
11: The Future of Consulting in an Open Talent World
March 26, 2021 04:00 - 43 minutes - 34.7 MBIn this episode Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the world of consulting and the opportunities and challenges for this long established, traditional $600 billion profession. To bring to life the different models at play and to discuss the world of consulting and open talent, Barry and Eleanor welcome Mike Berry Chief Commercial Officer of JDX Consulting. JDX specialise in aligning bespoke, flexible resourcing and consulting services to financial services clients. Mike sets what Barry a...
10: The Glue That Makes the Gig Economy Work
March 10, 2021 05:00 - 44 minutes - 35.9 MBIn this episode Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the complexities of making the gig economy work globally. The rise of the digital nomad raises questions around tax, employment law, compliance and requires expert advice. Our guest this week is Connor Heaney the EMEA Managing Director of CXC Global a company that specialises in making the gig economy work globally. Eleanor and Barry also talk about how the worlds of outsourcing and open talent are colliding and creating opportunities for ...
9: Agile Talent and Martini
February 25, 2021 05:00 - 39 minutes - 18 MBIn this episode Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss what’s been happening in the wonderful world of open talent; including the GT&BSC’s Open Talent event, Microsoft and Linkedin’s plans to move into the open talent market and Uber’s supreme court ruling. They also discuss Agile Talent over a glass of wine with Martin Boakes MD for Europe at Enate. Agile Talent and the Martini model: any time, any place, any-where, any employment type – requires a level of orchestration and balance that onl...
8: Working in the Gig Economy and starting Clubhouse
February 10, 2021 05:00 - 35 minutes - 28.2 MBIn this episode Barry and Eleanor Matthews meet 2 of the people who make the gig economy possible; the talent providing the services. They are joined by Joanna Hulks and Alexander Chekspir who both provide services in the human cloud, but in completely different ways. Jo works on the Limitless gigCX platform www.limitlesstech.com answering text based customer queries in her spare time while bringing up a young baby and Alex works on the Topcoder platform www.topcoder.com and has been t...
7: Smells Like Team Spirit – the nomenclature of the gig economy and curating brilliant teams
January 26, 2021 05:00 - 45 minutes - 36.6 MBBarry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the various different terms that are used to describe the gig economy and provide a structure that helps to provide some much needed consistency. They also discuss whether it’s possible to create effective teams when working remotely and digitally and when the team members are globally distributed and comprised of a multitude of different employment models. They are joined by the amazing Laura Thompson from Phenomenal Training. Laura is an expert in cul...
6: Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging – Accepting difference and “getting the love you want”
January 07, 2021 05:00 - 1 hour - 48.5 MBBarry and Eleanor Matthews kick off 2021 with a glass of wine and an inspirational chat with Aoibhe Cantwell the head of Legal, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Version 1. The conversation covers the impact of the pandemic on Diversity and Inclusion, the importance of acceptance and belonging in the workplace, Version 1’s innovative Starts With A Name (SWAN) initiative, the pros and cons of D&I in the world of Open Talent and so much more besides. It was such a fun, interesting and ...
5: On-Demand HR Expertise – Using a Digital Platform to Access Global HR Professionals
December 07, 2020 05:00 - 39 minutes - 32 MBThis week Barry and Eleanor Matthews share a virtual cup of tea and discuss how talent platforms are being increasingly used to match the supply and demand of highly skilled expertise as they are joined by Emma El Karout the founder of on-demand HR platform One Circle The conversation covers the latest news in Open Talent, including the WEF report on ‘The 4 things that will redefine the way we work by 2025’ and Harvard and BCGs recent report ‘Building The On-Demand Workforce’ Emma explai...
4: Imagine Having a Workforce of 1.6 Million – That Crowdsourcing Mark Zuckerberg Rumour Episode
November 23, 2020 05:00 - 37 minutes - 17.4 MBThis week Barry and Eleanor Matthews share a virtual glass of wine and chat all things crowdsourcing, competitions and challenges with the amazing George Gallant from Topcoder The conversation covers the latest news in Open Talent as well as how crowdsourcing challenges work, why companies are choosing them as a delivery method, who the challengers are and how they deliver value George shares anecdotes, examples and stories to really bring the crowdsourcing challenge model to life. He s...
3: Open Talent Meets Digital Talent and the UK’s Best Sausage Rolls
November 09, 2020 05:00 - 37 minutes - 29.7 MBThis week Barry and Eleanor Matthews share a glass of wine and a chat with the automation legend, pioneer and the “youngest veteran in town” (his words) that is Wayne Butterfield The conversation covers the latest news in Open Talent, the changing role of RPA as a strategic lever, the similarities between open talent and automation models and the ways that automation, AI and data science can be accessed through open talent platforms to achieve rapid non-linear growth Wayne also shares ...
2: GigCX – Brilliantly Simple, Simply Brilliant
October 28, 2020 04:00 - 44 minutes - 25.5 MBThis week Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the wonderful world of GigCX where workers are “crowdsourced” using a digital platform and work on an on-demand basis from their homes (or anywhere for that matter) – a trend that’s helping big business to reduce fixed costs while utilising their existing, trusted brand ambassadors to provide services to other customers. Brilliantly simple, simply brilliant! The team are joined by two thought leaders in GigCXMeghan Neale – co-founder and COO of...
1: Every Business in Every Industry Needs an Open Talent Strategy
October 12, 2020 23:03 - 28 minutes - 22.6 MBBarry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the role of a gig economy, open talent mindset and how sourcing strategies should incorporate this rapidly developing area of business Sourcing models are being disrupted, intelligent automation is rapidly maturing and open talent eco-systems are accelerating fast. Accessing the power of the crowd alongside more traditional internal, freelance, outsourced and automated delivery models requires a new way of thinking and a new way of sourcing