Blog · Field notes

Field notes from the laboratory.

What we're learning from audits, cohorts, and the labor-market data — written for people doing the work rather than for a conference stage.

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Research22 min read

What Is an Online Laboratory?

The architecture of a fully virtual, fundable research lab

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Research2 min read

The lab opens in a research phase

Before we sell anyone an answer, we are building the evidence. Our first task is a research foundation on distributed work and distributed learning, and we are seeking research participants.

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Research2 min read

Call for participants: what changed when your work or learning left the building?

We are seeking research participants among professionals, managers, educators and learners for upcoming publications. About 45 minutes on Zoom, pseudonym by default, and you check your quotes before publication.

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Job market3 min read

The remote share of the job market didn't collapse. It plateaued.

Remote postings are running at roughly 8.7% of the US market — about triple the pre-2020 baseline, down a sixth from the 2022 peak, and up year over year. A decline from a spike is not a return to normal.

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Research3 min read

Distance is cheapest for the people who need it least

New York Fed researchers estimate remote work accounts for 64% of the rise in unemployment among young college graduates. This is the strongest argument against our own field, and we are not going to soften it.

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Research3 min read

The office requirement came back quietly

Three quarters of remote-capable workers who aren't fully remote now report required on-site days, up from 63% two years earlier. Nobody announced it. It arrived as a twelve-point drift.

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Hybrid design3 min read

Hybrid is a retention instrument, not a compromise

In the best-identified trial available, two fixed work-from-home days cut quit rates by a third with no measurable cost to performance or promotion. The design question was never how many days.

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Research3 min read

Your managers went first

Global engagement fell a point. Manager engagement fell five, and nine since 2022. In a distributed organisation the layer that collapsed is the layer that implements everything you write.

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Job market3 min read

Skills-based hiring is mostly an announcement

Of the employers who publicly dropped degree requirements, 37% changed their hiring, 45% changed nothing, and 18% went backwards. Net effect: fewer than one in 700 hires.

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Research3 min read

Eleven workers in a hundred

Employers expect 39% of core skills to change by 2030 — and expect 11 workers in every 100 to need training they will not receive. The second number is the one to plan around.

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Async operations11 min read

The meeting audit that removes a third of your calendar

A repeatable exercise for deciding which recurring meetings earn their place. Includes the four questions we ask and the two we refuse to accept as answers.

Coming soon

Async operations8 min read

Documentation is a decision-rights problem

Teams don't fail to document because they're lazy. They fail because nobody knows who decides. Fix ownership first and the writing follows.

Coming soon

Async operations6 min read

Writing a status update nobody has to follow up on

A short structure — decision, evidence, risk, ask — that consistently outperforms a longer narrative. With three annotated examples.

Coming soon

Hybrid design8 min read

Onboarding remotely without a buddy system

Location-neutral onboarding that gives new hires the same first 30 days regardless of where they sit. What to write down, and in what order.

Coming soon

Tools

Templates you can use tomorrow.

Included with the Lab Access Pass, and released individually to brief subscribers as they're finished.

The Async Writing Playbook

Templates for decision logs, status updates, proposals, and handoffs — with annotated examples.

Meeting Audit Worksheet

The spreadsheet we use in workshops to cut standing meetings, including the scoring criteria.

Remote Job Search Tracker

A pipeline template for sourcing, outreach, and follow-up that survives a twelve-week search.

Hybrid Design Canvas

One page for deciding what happens in person, what happens in writing, and who decides.

Request the template library

Monthly brief

One email a month. Research, not marketing.

What we found in audits, what changed in the remote labor market, and one template. Unsubscribe in a click.

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