London 13 September 2025
Funny how times change - or don’t. Here we are, approaching five years since the pandemic, and the teleconferencing tools which burst into our daily lives have become settled here.
The Teams, The Zooms - and the Owl - have nested here, if you like.
200,000 organisations around the world and rising use Owl. They are the cute 360 degree machines which allow as much immersive involvement from meetings where some folks are in the room and some are not.
Move over Alexa.
I had the pleasure of a long interview with Owl’s CEO Frank Weishaupt for The Nowhere Office podcast and you can listen to it here, plus an extra bit from our feature ‘My Working Life’ featuring journalist Emma Jacobs of the Financial Times, brought to you in association with Whitefox the personal publishing house.
Why does the technology not go away when there remains such a push in some corporate quarters to ‘get back’ to the office? Well, I think it’s because the reality is the working world is hybrid: According to Owl data, in over 90% of meetings at least one person is not physically present.
Also according to Owl, 62% of their customers would take a 10% pay cut to be able to work hybrid-remote. As Frank W told me:
“The office has a role. I don’t think there’s any question about it. It’s team meetings. It’s meeting new people. Collaborating. It just doesn’t have a mandatory 5 days a week 52 weeks a year role”
Do you agree?
Have a listen and let me know!
Meanwhile I’m speaking in London on 21st September at the How The Light Gets In Festival about these matters, specifically what they call ‘The Communication Crisis”.
The Owl and The Office