Remotely One - A remote work podcast
Remotely One - A remote work podcast
Navigating the Digital Frontier with Jeff Frick: Insights on Remote Work and Media Innovation - ep. 088
In our latest episode, Rick and Kaleem dive into a multifaceted conversation with Jeff Frick, the Founder and Principal of Menlo Creek Media and host of the "Turn the Lens" and "Work 20XX" podcasts.
A distinguished professional with experience at major companies like Mitsubishi and Intel, Jeff is a remote work visionary! He draws inspiration from his extensive experience with "the Cube," where he conducted thousands of interviews at tech conferences, underscoring the importance of natural conversation over scripted responses. For him, digital engagement emphasizes the crucial difference between reach and engagement. Genuine engagement, which requires time, effort, and meaningful interactions with the community, is far more valuable than broad reach that can be bought through ads.
The undeniable evolution of video production and the significance of transcripts in making video content searchable and accessible are clear. In Jeff’s current area of expertise, it is evident that content should be planned with a focus on evergreen topics rather than fleeting news to ensure it remains relevant and useful over time.
Content creators today can align their work with social media algorithms to enhance visibility and engagement. The goal should be building a real community and leveraging the algorithm’s ability to connect like-minded individuals. Jeff stresses the importance of authentic interaction in this process, as he builds his projects only this way!
Regarding the evolution of remote work, its current state, and its future, Jeff focuses on the transformative period of 2020, when companies were forced to adopt remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The outdated mindset of some managers who believe physical presence is necessary to monitor employees’ work is a retrograde notion. The shift towards asynchronous work and the use of digital tools are fueling the next steps of the future of work, particularly the consumerization of IT! For Jeff, the path forward is clear. Even with the recurring theme of "return to office" initiatives, the trend is moving towards more flexible, team-level agreements on work arrangements, emphasizing management based on objectives rather than tasks.
Society never reverts to its past state, so new companies, unburdened by traditional office expenses, will likely outperform incumbents. Wall Street will pressure older companies to justify their expenses compared to more efficient newcomers. Younger generations, accustomed to remote work and digital tools, will drive these changes.
From the specifics of media production to broader themes of digital engagement and the future of work, this conversation is insightful and useful for everyone remote! Jeff’s views highlight the changing nature of media and the increasing importance of authentic engagement and meaningful discussions in a digital age. Tune in, give it a listen, and connect with our guest on all his platforms. It was a pleasure, Jeff!
Learn more about Jeff:
- Jeff’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jefrick/
- Turn The Lens Podcast: https://www.turnthelenspodcast.com/
- Work 20XX Podcast: https://www.work20xx.com/
Okay. So what is a one wheel?
Frick:Electric skateboards, electric skateboards.
Rick:Okay,
Frick:so I have a Boosted Board, which is an electric skateboard, which is a Casey Neistat rides, but it's got four hard wheels. Then I graduated to a one wheel, which is a big fat six inch by, it's like that thick, a single
Kaleem:Are you a Grateful Dead fan?
Frick:A, not a giant Grateful Dead fan, but I do watch a
Kaleem:I, were you, did you travel with fish?
Frick:I did not travel with fish. No, I'm more of a reggae guy. I'm, you know, I got the Marley in the
Kaleem:I mean, I wasn't far off
Frick:Ha
Kaleem:I was in there somewhere. I can see you rolling around on a one wheel with, with white man dreads. You know how they're different. You know, they're
Frick:I'll tell you what sealed the deal is watching Jesse out at Burning Man first year. He was out there. So I also have a super 73 e bike, which are fun. And then I got the 1 wheel. Then my son rides the what are called E C's, which are the electronic unicycles. So they're the bigger wheel that goes between your legs. You go forward instead of 1 wheel. You stand sideways more like surfboard style.
Kaleem:Okay. Okay.
Frick:So I've got 20, 000 miles on my e vehicles. I have 11, 000 miles on my one wheel.
Rick:Holy cow. That's a lot of travel.
Frick:lot of travel.
Rick:Welcome back everybody to remotely one. I'm your co host, Rick Haney joined by my Esteemed colleague, Kaleem Clarkson. What's going on, my man?
Kaleem:Oh, nothing. Just doing a little chicken dance for today's guest, baby. Oh, I'm psyched.
Rick:y'all geeked up, right? You're all geeked up? Oh,
Kaleem:know, I mean, that
Rick:that's good. That's good. Hey everybody. Welcome back. Since you know how to find us, do us a huge favor. Go to RateThisPodcast. com forward slash RemotelyOne and just leave us a review. That's all we ask. Again, RateThisPodcast. com forward slash RemotelyOne If you could do that for us, we would be ever so grateful. Since 2015, RemotelyOne is one of the largest communities of remote work professionals. With over 3, 000 Slack members and 5, 000 email subscribers. Holy shit, we are making the big time. We are making the big time. It's free to join. It's Well, it's not as good as a 5 footlong, but it's getting up there.
Kaleem:Okay? okay, okay
Rick:It is free to join, however. Don't cost nothing. So, check it out at RemotelyOne. com. And with that out of the way, Kaleem. My brother from another mother. Please give us a tease or two about today's guest.
Kaleem:Yes, sir. Rick. I mean today what we try to do is try to find somebody that does something better than us in the same space. Okay, Rick.
Rick:We're about to get learnt
Kaleem:We're about to get learnt. Okay, our guest Rick. Okay, they grew up in the other Portland first off the other Portland. Okay,
Rick:yeah
Kaleem:not Portland main listeners, Portland, Oregon. Okay.
Rick:That's okay, we'll forgive him we'll forgive him was out of his control.
Kaleem:Out of their control. That's true. You're right. You're right. Uh, they currently reside in Palo Alto. A. K. A. Tepe. You know, halfway in between. Um. They're a graduate of You ready for this, sir? Oh. No. Not indeed. That's a, that's a website.
Rick:indeed I am ready go with it
Kaleem:Damn son, you're getting all proper. I mean you're
Rick:Stupid ass.
Kaleem:Stupid ass mofo the Frick's going on here
Rick:Jeez!
Kaleem:They graduated from the Wharton School of Business, right the Wharton School of Business That's a big deal. Yeah. Yeah, so I guess they know some shits
Rick:Yes, we're gonna get into that.
Kaleem:Yeah. Uh, I guess they started their professional career at Mitsubishi. Then they,
Rick:the car.
Kaleem:I think so. Is there another Mitsubishi? Oh, they also make electronics and stuff too.
Rick:Indeed they do. Indeed they do.
Kaleem:Guess, do they also make electronics?
Frick:Yes, they do.
Kaleem:Listen to that, bro. Did you
Rick:Not enough hose and smooth.
Kaleem:Holy shit. What are we doing? Yeah, baby. Okay. They then went on to work for this little company. You may have heard of. Um, Intel, hmm, just a company, just a
Rick:That's like computers and stuff.
Kaleem:Yup. Yup. The chips. Yeehaw. Uh, then they went, they went on to create a couple of different startups, a couple of different media companies. A little note about our guests today, Rick, they've love personal electronic vehicles, AKA P E Vs,
Rick:The pevs.
Kaleem:the pevs. And if you're on the Around Palo Alto hanging out. Okay. You might see this person rolling around on a skateboard, jamming some bar Marley, a little sublime through his Marley speaker on a big ass skateboard with one wheel. That's right. Our guests loves to roll around on one of those big ass skateboards with those huge ass wheels. It's hilarious. It's awesome.
Rick:I love it.
Kaleem:Yeah, it's great. Rick, our guest is the host of turn the lens podcast and work 20 X, X podcasts on the future of work, listeners and viewers. Please give a warm welcome to Joe. Let's go, Jeff! Let's go! Woo! Woo! Settle
Frick:up.
Kaleem:Settle down, audience! Quiet down!
Rick:Let's allow Kaleem to come up for air.
Frick:Thank you, Thank you. That was terrific. I'm all tired Out and I'm ready to go. Well, I have to go punch something. I don't know which it is.
Kaleem:Let's go! Run through a wall, baby! Run right through our wood paneling!
Frick:And congrats on those numbers that you went through, Rick. That's a great year. Your email subscribers and your slack channel. You guys are kicking tail.
Rick:man, it has been an experience and you know, we couldn't have done this without people like you joining us every now and again, lending your insights, shouting us out on social media. Thank you for that the other day, by the way.
Frick:Of course, of course. Well, there's no, there's no secret, right? You just got to do the hard work over a long period of time. And there's, you know, there's no bend in the curve. It's a slow, slow and steady turtle kind of race.
Rick:That's it. That's it, man. You know, since we're talking of engagement, my first question kind of delves into that a little bit. You know, the very first word on your LinkedIn profile is the word engagement. I don't know if you knew that, but it is. So my question for you is in your own words, how do you define that? And why is it so important in today's digital world?
Frick:I think people confuse reach and engagement. And so I think you can't speak of one without speaking to the other. So, all of us post and we get really excited when we see numbers, right? How many people viewed it, how far did it go, et cetera, et cetera. And people chase the reach number, but here's the dirty little secret. If you really want a big reach number, just buy an ad. You can actually buy, you can buy all the reach that you want, right? And if you think back to the old broadcast model of media, it was about a broad broadcast. And you hope that, you know, you happen to be in the car in the market for a mattress when they play that ad on the AM radio station. Station that plays every day. Not only the days that you're interested in buying a mattress. What's different today is now it's it's direct engagement. You can actually connect directly as a media company with your audience because if they comment, if they give you a thumbs up, if they reshare their signaling with the media, Their self that I'm in. I like this content. I have a similar opinion. I'm engaged in this topic, et cetera. So you can actually see the people who you're engaging with. So to me, I think it's much more of a narrow cast, uh, to go after the people that are engaged in those topics versus this huge broadcast where you have this small conversion number. So rather than chase, the impressions, and if you want impressions, again, you can cheat, you can buy them. It's called an ad, and they'll put your, they'll put your widget in an ad and they'll take it and place it as many times as you want to pay. If you want actual engagement with people that are interested in the topic that you're talking about, that just takes time, effort, and work. There's no real shortcut to find those people, to engage with those people, to get involved in that community to talk on what's happening to that community, to contribute to other people's conversations, to really engage like a person, as opposed to a bot or, you know, a wall full of phones with Sims that somebody's just saying, you know, reach, reach, reach, reach, reach.
Kaleem:Yeah. Yeah, engagement. Wow, I never thought of that. Hey, if you want to, if you want to reach people, just go ahead and buy that. I mean, damn, it's as simple as that. And ads are way better. And ads are way better today than they ever were, right? I
Rick:yeah, well, you know, and I think that's kind of it's a double edged sword because they buy the ad and I'm gonna see it whether or not I want to right I feel like social media, you know, they're all bombarded with ads and really you got to tell the algorithm I don't want to see this stuff, but it if it resonates with you, all you gotta do is click, click, click, and then all of a sudden you start seeing less of the advertisements and more and more of the stuff that resonates with you. Impactful
Frick:reach and you're going to get more engagement. If you're, if, if you do buy that ad and of the million people that see it, you know, 16 people decide that they want to join the club. It's just, is that, is that a great investment of time and what's the yield on that? And if you look at historical, you know, kind of engagement percentages or conversion percentages, pick your favorite media. Yeah. Email campaigns, whatever, right? It was always infinitesimally small. What's different about it today is I can actually go find the people, right? If I want to reach out to Rick, because Rick's got a cool podcast on the feature of work, and I like what he says, I like his guests. I can actually contact you. And I can actually comment directly on their stuff and you can comment back, right? That wasn't the way you could do call in radio, but you couldn't comment on a television show. You couldn't really engage with the audience, say, around, say, ESPN game day. That comes to Georgia Tech on Saturday morning. He's got all the kids out there screaming. The only people engaged in that conversation are the four guys up on the set and the kids get a scream and have a sign. That's a very different kind of model to what we have today, where you can actually talk directly with the people that are in your community. It's funny when I talk to authors and TV people, you know, that is such a different thing that they couldn't do before. They couldn't touch their audience and the audience couldn't really touch them.
Kaleem:you know, speaking of like just this idea of conversation, you're out in the West Coast, you're in the Bay Area. You're kind of doing some of the, I don't want to say typical, but you're doing the normal job thing. And then you, you kind of decide at some point, you know, one thing we didn't mention that you had a long time, running show of the cube. Can you. Can you just talk about like, how did you decide making the transition to having interesting conversations? Like you can see that that was a dramatic shift and, you know, I don't know if it was intentional or if it was by accident, how did you kind of change? And everyone's in tech out there. You know, everyone's all about tech. I need to be a coder. I need to code. I need to do this. I need to be a sales person, either hustle. But you went in like a different direction and you started having conversations. was the motivation for that? Yeah.
Frick:Yeah, truth be told, after the 2000 crash, which was not very fun, and there were some nuclear winters out here, and then, you know, the 2008 crash, there were some tough times trying to figure out what to do, and I tried a lot of different things that worked and didn't work, but when I came across the cube, a friend of mine was running it, and I went and visited one of their productions, and I just thought, you know, this is so cool, most people never get the chance to talk in a professional setting and tell their story. And again, you guys have been in this podcast business. I mean, this didn't exist before. This wasn't available for people to have this, you know, professional, semi professional, whatever degree of professional you want to say, but to actually tell their stories in a well lit environment when they're ready for it, they're prepared. And I saw that and I said, you know, there's something there because everybody has a story to tell. It's not necessarily a huge story, but everybody has some story to tell. And that's how I got involved with the cube. And then through that process, and I was there for eight years, we did over 10, 000 interviews. We would do one or two events a week. Most of it, we would do kind of like ESPN game day, go to a tech conference. Set up a live mobile TV studio and interview people all day long. So, CNBC and John Fort might be there and you know, the big wheels. And they would get Andy chassis for five minutes and send it back to New York and then they're done. We'd be there for three days with three sets, 12 interviews per day per set. And just cranking interviews. So just through repetition and process, you really start to learn things like, it's very hard to read a script and make it sound natural. That's why they pay actors a lot of money. It's very easy to have a conversation about something that you're both passionate about and knowledgeable about. So the trick is, and it's kind of like the future of work conversation, where, you know, create the conditions for people to do their best. And so in an interview format, if you just sit down with people and don't have hard questions, but you have conversations, you guys know this, people relax, and they can talk about stuff that they're interested in, that's easy. I always tell people, just imagine you're on the back porch with your uncle on a Thursday at four, drinking whatever you like to drink a Thursday at four. And telling them about this thing that you're so excited about. And so that's, um, a big piece of the learning. Another huge piece of the learning is that in video, and I've been in video forever film, all the kids, sports and dance and everything, but the trick with video is always, how do you find the best part? If the best part of the video is 10 minutes into a 60 minute asset.
Kaleem:it's difficult
Frick:How do you find it? Right? And if I search for an image, I know if I found it. If I search for text, I know if I found it. But how do I know if it's in that nugget, that, that gem is inside that video? And really what's changed over the last several years is transcripts. And now you've got this text searchable way to access, you know, the library that like you guys have, you have a huge library. So if you remember, Oh, that's right. I remember Nick said something that perfectly relates to whatever the buzz is in the news today, you'd go back to that interview, find that clip, pull it out. You guys are playing with shorts and then pump it into the stream. So it's a very different way to think about video production. Knowing that you're going to go back and clip it. And the long form is really. Just kind of the generator of the or, but it isn't necessarily the gold. And it's not necessarily the watch those come after.
Rick:Yeah.
Kaleem:Yeah, I just wanted to say Commenting on what you were just talking about jeff Jeff pulled a clip from one of our shows rick and it was an absolute gem and I It went over our heads and we never even saw it. I was just like, oh my gosh, how It's so hard to comb through that much footage, but I mean it's there so we could do it So I just wanted to say thank you. Um,
Frick:Yeah, no, you're welcome. And, and there's a ton of gems, right? And the other thing is that if you are, if you're shooting your assets, knowing that you're targeting more evergreen stuff versus, you know, what's in today's news or, you know, stock market, this, that, and the other, then You end up with the stuff that you can use over and over again because the conversation stays higher level. So that was, you know, the probability that you'll have some gold back in that library is much higher than if you're talking about, you know, you're reacting to quarterly earnings or those types of things. So you can kind of structure your conversation that way and increase the probability that that will be there. The last thing is really important. And you guys are small and I'm small. Is this really hard to create a wave as a small media company? It's basically impossible. It's really easy to surf a wave that somebody else has created. And so if, if I have this great library of content and today's wave is X, and like we said, we know exactly that Nick Bloom was on your show or Kate Lister had this great quote that exactly addressed the issue that everybody's talking about today, I can go back Lister interview, grab that drop it in today's stream in today's wave. And try to get a little bit of a, of a ride off of that versus just dropping it on its own as a standalone thing. That maybe it has no kind of gravitas on its own. So that's another trick.
Kaleem:Damn.
Rick:I'm barely treading water here.
Kaleem:yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, hey, everybody out here, listen, you got a pod, you got a media company, please rewind some of this shit. Okay.
Rick:going to be a keeper for
Kaleem:You don't know what the frick is going on. You know what I'm saying? Damn.
Rick:it is. There it is.
Frick:Well, it's funny, you talk about the Boosted Board. The Boosted Board experiences, what it really did beyond the fun of writing these things, is it exposed me really to the way YouTube works. And YouTube in terms of the media consumption, YouTube in terms of shared community, YouTube in terms of collaboration, YouTube in terms of async consumption. And that's what really got me thinking about the way that all these things work. And then this piece that we talked about, which is really aligning with the AI in the platform. So if you watch social dilemma on Netflix, scariest movie you'll ever watch. But the whole idea is they're trying to pick which content to put in this kid's feed to keep him on his phone. It's horrible, scary, but if I'm the content guy and the content selectors have in number of articles that they can choose from, I want to go horse shack and say, pick mine, pick mine so that mine is the next. Article that shows up in Kleem Feed to keep you on LinkedIn for an extra two minutes. And so that's where this, you know, you kind of do this back thing, which we talked about. Full circle Rick building that real community so that the LinkedIn algorithm goes Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. Kleem and Jeff do share some interest. Kleem is on, he's looking at articles on whatever. Let's give him Jess. Maybe he will hang out on LinkedIn. A few more minutes.
Rick:That is so brilliant. just,
Kaleem:Evergreen
Rick:yeah. Evergreen that, that, that is it, you know?
Frick:That's what I try to do. And so I created, turn the lens to basically say, don't do what I just said. Just watch and let's see if it
Rick:Yeah. Oh my God. You know, I want to go back a little bit to the conversation aspect. I find it fascinating because, you know, we're all Gen Xers. And we remember what life was like before the internet. You know, traditional childhoods, we didn't really talk about much about how we were feeling. Some of us didn't do it at all and, you know, shaped who we are as people, as adults. So, we're now part of this society where conversation has become everything. You know, it's, it, there's so much, there's so much light being shined upon, mental health awareness and just being overall, just being well. Thank you. And I think that's a huge part of why everybody needs the conversations these days. It's a split amount of people looking for conversations to help themselves open up. And it's the other people who are looking for the inspiration just because the stories are so good. Right. And we all, at the end of the day, want to connect with one another. Yeah. You know? That's it. There's really nothing more to it than that.
Kaleem:no, no,
Frick:Yeah, I agree.
Kaleem:I was going to say, you've had a lot of great conversations with some, you know, really awesome guests. Some that we've shared, but you're on a whole nother realm. What really made you interested in the conversation around the future of work or remote work? How did you get to that point, right? Like what, what made you think about this topic as a topic of conversation?
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Frick:So very specific, like I'm sure a lot of people, you know, 2020 starts out, I've got a huge schedule ahead of me. I had a week in May that I had planned. I think I was gonna be running six concurrent sets in three different shows in like two different cities. And so I was all geared up for, so it was, it would be like IBM at a show in Vegas and Oracle at a show in San Francisco and SAP at a show in Orlando. And I've got. And I've got three sets interviewing people at all those shows during the same day concurrently, because all the tech conferences like to have their tech conference the first week of May for some God awful reason, which is also my anniversary week. Anyway. So I was geared up for this huge thing, COVID hits boom. And our whole business was going to events. That was our whole business. So COVID hits boom. We still thought it might be over. I remember, I remember in late March, they can, maybe it'll, maybe it'll clear up by, by may it did it Okay. So now we're like, so everyone's confused and what to do. And I have a media company that I'm not now filling full of air, full of content, because we're not going to events. They all got canceled. And so what I decided to do both to fill. Just to fill air time and also just to go out to experts who could provide some insight as to what everybody should do. And so it turns out that the all remote people are the people that had the experience in this world that could share data for the newbies that got thrown into this. Unplanned and unready to, to what they should do. And so we had had Darren Murph on, and so I reached out to Darren and said, Darren, can I have you on to talk about remote work best practices for people that are suddenly thrust into this world? And I had him on, and then I had Martin Mikos on. Martin is currently the CEO of HackerOne, but he was a CEO at, MySQL back in the day. And so that was an all remote company. And so I started reaching out to people to say, you know, what are the secrets to all remote? And, you know, right? Much more clarity around. How do you work? Much more clarity around communication, communication protocols, a sync workflow, blah, blah, blah. And that's how I started to get into it. And then the piece that was happening concurrently to that is this whole thing with YouTube. And now we're not going to events. How should we think about content creation in this new world and really start thinking more of events as kind of organizing themes or topics. This is what we want to talk about, but not necessarily a consumption appointment, um, and more about, we'll use it as a, as an organizational theme, but we'll presume that most of the content is going to be consumed asynchronously on people's own time and how does that start to reshape things? And so once we got the company, Transitioned over, everybody went to remote. I left like October of that year of 2020, decided I really wanted to explore this more. And then it turns out that WebEx, had a program called WebEx One, thought leadership around hybrid and future of work, and they invited me to be a contributor, and that's where we launched Work 20XX. They sponsored Season 1 of Work 20XX as part of that Bigger Thought Leadership Program, which was terrific, and so that was 8 episodes to help, you know, kick that off. They didn't continue the sponsorship, but I've continued the show, and it's grown from there. We're kind of coming up to the end of our 3rd season,
Kaleem:Nice.
Frick:as you guys.
Kaleem:Congratulations. Oh, come on, sir. Don't be doing we lit. We wish we were that prolific And by the way, Darren, what's up, dog? Huh? What's
Frick:Well, Darren
Rick:appointment with us, Darren?
Frick:Oh my goodness. He has not been, well now he's with Ford. See, you gotta get him when he's with when he's with his other company.
Kaleem:Come on Darren, what the frick get on the
Frick:I knew if I got Darren on, I got Darren on, who's my first guest, love you, Darren. And, uh, I knew if I could get Darren on, then the rest of the dominoes would fall. And as you guys have, have experienced, you know, you get a couple of key, you get a couple of key guests that kind of validate you and lead the way. And suddenly, there's other opportunities to get other great guests.
Kaleem:That's
Rick:absolutely.
Kaleem:great story man
Rick:a few minutes ago you mentioned, the beginning of 2020 and hoping that things would clear up by, what, May, you said, I think?
Frick:Yeah, that was my big week was May was May 5th, the week
Kaleem:I think I was like, ah, this will be fine by June
Rick:Oh, you know, I was the same way, right? But, you know Here we are, it's four years later. And I'm wondering if you could shed some light on what are the most common themes that you're hearing about from remote workers, you know, people in the remote business. What kind of conversations are taking place today versus the ones you were having
Kaleem:Ah,
Rick:May of 2020? Thank you.
Frick:2020 was just a whole different thing, right? Because nobody do anything about any, about anything. What impressed me with Darren's and with an all remote point of view, and Darren said, said a great is that it forced companies to be good at things that all companies should be good at. And I think what it really exposed was a real problem with lazy management. That didn't necessarily connect your objectives to the bigger objectives. Didn't necessarily know what you're working on. I mean, people say, how do I know what people are working on if I don't see them? Like, you don't know what they're working on? Like, really? Like seeing the back of their head is what, I mean, come on. And so I, and I think this whole thing around a sink and, you know, one of the themes that I covered a lot at the cube within the it world is the consumerization of it. So what happens, right? Cutting edge technology hits consumer world before it hits business world. So suddenly you've got all these young people that have their entire lives. In these things, right? This is how they're used to working and now they're jumping onto all these crappy old systems, these green screen systems and, you know, systems that you still have to push save and all this other, this other crap. And so what happened in our personal world is a lot of stuff got sucked into the phone. Well, guess what? Look at an old office picture from 1985. All the shit that was there when I started work, let's start with a calculator and the phone and mail that those are all on your phone now. So I think it really. Kind of threw up that if you use, use the tools, use digital tools, use a synchronous consumption and really reallocate the time to two important things. And it is funny. I was on a phone call the other day. These people didn't realize there was a day that you had to go to the office to get on your computer. Right. You had to go to the office to get on broadband. You had to go to the office to go to the files were. That's where the files were. There weren't any place else, right? That's where the mail came. Your work mail came to work. So the thing that keeps happening over and over, I don't know if I answered your question, Rick, is, you know, the return to office every, um, every, every September, right? Every August, right after Labor Day, the kids are going back to school, return to office, and it's happening again. I'm just getting ready to post my Friday Five, and there's a really funny TikTok HP ad. That I posted this week. They got a lot of action and they're making fun of themselves as bosses. Like here's the plan. Three days, no four days. No, come in. No, don't come in. And I think we learned from Brian Elliott, who I think you guys have had on, you know, it's about team level agreements and moving. agency as far down the organization as you can and letting those people figure out what works best for them as a group. And then, you know, managing objectives, not managing tasks. And I don't know, I think the pushback is interesting. There's obviously a big reckoning coming in commercial real estate. That's not going to be pretty, but you know, it's going to go through it and a bunch of shit's going to get written down, and recapped and re birthed as something new. But not rows of offices.
Kaleem:You know, that is a common conversation that's happening. It's about like kind of this return of like going back to the way it was. I'm just kind of curious of what your personal view is of, you know, we're always trying to tell the future. Nobody knows really. But what's your feeling of where this thing has headed moving forward? Where are we going? Are we eventually going to fall back to exactly the way it was? Is it going to change? What are your thoughts on that?
Frick:When have we ever fallen back to anything? I mean, the world spins in one direction, right? It only spins one direction, whether you're happy with the direction or not, it doesn't matter. It doesn't spin backwards. I think what's going to happen is that the newer companies that grow up in this way. And do not have that expense and also have that Tam of talent are going to start knocking off incumbents and when they start knocking off incumbents increasingly and they don't have that financial structure, Wall Street is going to look at the CFO and say, how can you justify this expense when you're getting your tail kicked by the newbie down the road that doesn't have this structure? So I think it will happen over time. Also, if you look at younger people, I've got two young, not young kids, you know, fresh out of college kids. They don't know anything else. I had two kids that graduated college the last couple, three years. They don't know anything else, right? They're perfectly comfortable with this world. They have other ways of meeting and having social engagements and stuff that maybe before we didn't have as many options. It wasn't as easy to find, you know, local softball rec league. So everybody played,
Kaleem:Yeah.
Frick:Company rec league, you know,
Kaleem:Right. Or swipe left. You know what I mean? I mean, you, you don't have to go to the bar guy. You don't have to go to the bar anymore, dude. You can just bring it. Let me just swipe left and swipe left and swipe left. And they just show right up and
Frick:it's funny, right? You, you say that clean. There's a guy at Stanford that's got to study an ongoing study of how people met their spouse. And when I met my spouse in the mid eighties, the internet wasn't even an option, right? It was me at the bar and meet at the restaurant, do your church community, friends, family, whatever. It's like nine categories. Okay. Guess what percentage of people in the U S they get married, met their spouse online dating now.
Kaleem:No idea. Okay. Let me throw it on number. I'm going to say 5%.
Frick:Right.
Rick:Uh, I'm going with, uh, I'm gonna go with, uh, Wow.
Frick:would say 70.
Rick:You're shittin me.
Frick:So more than half of the people getting married this year met their spouse in a way that didn't exist at the time that the device, not that I didn't choose it. It wasn't like it was an outlier, like only a certain, I mean, it didn't exist as an option. So when you, when you talk about old people like me who don't understand that people. Can operate on their phones. These are the same people that don't, that didn't have online dating as an option when today that's more than the 50%. I think that's such an illustrative stat to me. That's just like, wow. Yeah. The world has changed. And that means all those other nine categories, work, church, bar, restaurant, all of those got wiped out. You
Rick:I mean, I met my wife at the family reunion.
Frick:there you go.
Rick:my cousin,
Kaleem:Settle down, Rick. Stop with the accent, Rick. Stop with the accent, Don't do it, Rick. That is, no, Jeff. I think like jokes aside, it is kind of crazy. The stat that you're throwing out is significantly, it's significantly relevant because. That is the prime example of why there's this friction between leadership and employees. I mean, that, that example is the perfect example. Like, Hey, listen, Mr. CEO, all out of your a hundred employees, 60 of us met our people online. And by the way, when you met your significant other, It didn't even exist. So what do you know about dating? It's almost like asking a married couple that's been together for 30 years. Like I love giving dating advice, but like, what do I know? Right? Like it's almost in that same realm. And I've never even thought of that. Jeff, this is going to be a nugget by the way. So thank you.
Rick:Yes. Yes. Just edit the part out about the family reunion. All right. I don't want that getting out there.
Kaleem:in. We're keeping
Frick:You can drop that signal into the editing team. No, it's pretty interesting. You know, I had another really interesting thing. I was sitting on the couch with my son or watching a football game or something one day, and he was supposed to send an email to somebody and I'm like, send an email and we're sitting there watching a few minutes later, go by. And I'm like, dude, get up and go send the email. And he's like, dad, I already sent it. Like, what do you mean you already sent it? He's like, I did it on my phone. I'm like, you did it on your phone. You know, you didn't get up to go to a computer to sit down and do your email. And I was like, Wow. I would have never, you know, again, it just, as a demonstration of people's comfort and the way they use the tools is very, very different. The story Brian Elliott uses all the time is that the bosses are complaining that they don't see the buzz in the office, but the buzz is all happening in Slack. It's all in your Slack channel and the boss is only on email. So They're, so he wants some idiot to have to do the translation between email and Slack. And so it's just this. It's a, there's a, it's a, it is a very different world. You asked a question and it's not going, going back. It's like chat GPT. It's like, okay, this is today's calculator. You better learn how to use it. You may or may not like it, but this is the calculator. And guess what? The people you're competing with, they all have new calculators on their desks.
Kaleem:Yeah.
Frick:if you're doing, You know square root longhand, you're in trouble,
Kaleem:you know what I love about your son's example about the email. We talk about this a lot and I would love to kind of get your take on it. You're sitting there watching the game, having a good time and you're like, Hey, send that email. Your son. Integrated his work with his life. We talk a lot about work life integration. I think that's what so many people really, really, really enjoy when they're doing remote work. You're watching the game. He's watching the game. Boom. Boom. Send the email done and they just integrated. So what do you think about like the freedom that some people have experienced? Do you think that people are ever going to just like, let that go? Like, would your son take a job where he would have to go into an office eight to five Monday through Friday?
Frick:Yeah. Well, you know, Nick's research says that. That freedom's worth 9%. Flexibility is worth 9 percent of your income. That's what people have rated it. So is it worth 9%? And then the other thing that comes up is people talk about all the office perks. You know, you have free this, free that, ping pong, this and that. But, but what's proving out is there's no office perk that's worth more than flexibility. Right. That is the ultimate office perk. And, you know, I tend to more look at the downside, which is not even a question, which is the commute. What a waste of time. What a waste of time. You know, if you got to come into the office, cause we're having something going on, okay, but every day sitting in the car going bananas. And that's before we talk about the waste of the gasoline, the bad air, the waste of time, et cetera, et cetera. So then, you know, another piece is flow state and really doing work. And I think we talked about kind of the distractions. I think a big piece of this is you need to more actively manage the distractions. You need to more actively manage things like email and these kinds of things. Communication protocols, which is why I think communication protocols are such a big unlock so that you can actually find time to do work and not just do email. You know, these, you can, you can suck your life up and email all day long. I had this great interview with a guy that changed my life on email and he's just like, I don't do it anymore. Very, very little, you know, don't try to tame it, just get in and out. And again, I think it's the theme that was in that social dilemma movie, which was so good, right? If you use the tool to do things, that's great. But when the tool starts using you. That's less great. So, you know, if you're using Google maps to get to each other's house and plan your route, great. But when the Starbucks ad pulls you off an exit, because it's two o'clock and you save 3 on a, on a chicken sandwich and you pull off. That's not so great. Right.
Rick:No.
Kaleem:So great. Not so great. That's pretty
Frick:intentional, intentional, conscious use of the tools.
Rick:that's absolutely it. Total distraction too.
Frick:Yeah.
Rick:so Jeff, as much as I could go on about this stuff because I absolutely love these topics, the time has come for the highlight question of the show.
Frick:Highlight question.
Kaleem:Yeah.
Rick:had while working remotely?
Frick:Sure. So I was thinking about this and I go back to when I was first remote back in the day when all salespeople were remote. So I carried a bag. I was a traveling salesman and I actually covered the Sacramento Valley. So I covered from Fresno. To Chico, basically the whole spine of the Sacramento Valley and then up to Tahoe and Reno. And I lived in San Francisco and the boss said, Well, Jeff, you have to move if you're going to cover that territory. You have to move to Elyse Davis, which is out by Sacramento. I said, Okay, fine. And I moved out there. I never unpacked my boxes. I slept two nights in that place in a year because as a good salesman back in the day, you know, Rick, you had to be out with your customers. So this is not new. I mean, it was less convenient like to get my orders in. I would go to Denny's back by the bathrooms next to the cigarette machines is where you could find a phone. I have vivid memories of standing in Turlock in 95 degree heat with a tie on sweating in a little phone booth that had a little corner wedge of metal kind of in the thing you try to put your book on to call in your orders with trucks driving by and a broken window and dust blowing all over the place. I mean, if you got, if you're in the office and you're in sales back in the day, the boss would kick your ass out fast like now. So. To me, this is, I don't really get it. And anyone that I know that's ever worked hard has never worked nine to five. If work has to get done, then work has to get done. If that means you're going in early, sometimes you're going in early. If you're staying late, you're staying late. And so I don't, I was fortunate, I guess, cause I had that sales job and you got paid by one thing. What was your output at the end of the month? And then it got, and it reset to zero. Now it was a lot of inputs that doing well, help that number get to where it needed to be by the end of the month, but that's what you got created on. And it was, I don't understand why there's not more of that. And I think, as we said earlier, I think a lot of people don't have clarity as to what that number is. Sales is lucky because there's a clear number, you know, if you're in marketing or other roles, maybe it's not as easy, but I think that's incumbent on the boss to really better define the objectives and measure against, accomplishment of those objectives.
Kaleem:Wow. What a story.
Rick:yeah, that's fantastic. Thank you for sharing.
Kaleem:You know, I could just see you right now in the in the phone booth and the dust come The dust coming you got that sweaty that sweaty like,
Frick:You got your phone card out. You're trying to get the phone key. It's like 87 buttons. You got to push in and you get one button wrong. You got to start
Kaleem:got the
Rick:what is that movie with Michael Douglas where he's the, uh, Uh, falling down. It was falling down.
Kaleem:white shirt with the tie on the glasses Oh my God.
Frick:was it.
Rick:Chasing the gang member away with a baseball bat. That was incredible.
Frick:hoping you can get through on the order line, right? Cause
Kaleem:Oh my gosh. Enough quarters. You need the quarters to
Rick:Yeah.
Kaleem:phone, right?
Frick:It was funny when I saw it, and it was TVs, right? I sold a lot of TVs. And, you know, I was smart enough to look at those things even early on and look at the magic that we're surrounded by. I mean, the magic that we're using right now. You guys are in two different states. I'm on the West Coast. We're talking online. People are going to see this wherever. I mean, you stick a hanger in the back of a blackboard. Box and it can bring the Olympics in from across the ocean. It's magical, crazy stuff that, that we have. So I think if you kind of appreciate the magic and the tools and how far we've come and, you know, I think it's exciting times and let's use these tools to free up time, to take a walk or read a book or work out or spend more time with your kids or do more work if you want, you know, whatever you want to do.
Rick:Yeah, it's a it's the perfect time to be grateful for the little things and you know, especially in this day and age I think Bill Burr's got a bit on ungrateful people. That's you know complaining about shitty Wi Fi on a plane
Kaleem:30,
Rick:you're in a giant tube in the sky and you're complaining about your Wi Fi service
Kaleem:the signals go into the mood coming from the moon and hitting you going 600 miles an hour and you're complaining.
Frick:If anything complaining, cause it used to be a break. I mean, I remember telling people, telling customers I'm driving up to the North coast of California, up to Reading or whatever. And I'm going to be off the grid for the next six hours. So don't even try to call me. And what a treat to actually be off the grid for a six hour drive through the Redwoods.
Rick:Wow. Unbelievable. I feel like we could talk for hours, but we got to wind this up. Jeff Frick, thank you so much for joining
Kaleem:Thank you.
Rick:incredible conversation.
Frick:Thank you gentlemen. I really appreciate it.
Kaleem:Yeah, where can I listen is fine you Jeff
Frick:Find me on LinkedIn. I live on LinkedIn. So Jeff Frick on LinkedIn. I've got some sub stacks, but if you just go to LinkedIn and, and you'll see everything there,
Kaleem:awesome, man
Frick:I guess as well.
Kaleem:That's great, man. Appreciate you come back in any time bro. Come back anytime. We'll talk to you. I'm in peace
