I used to work in a data center. My office was on-premises and the servers were on-premises. My physical proximity to the subject of my work and my co-workers was supremely important. Little by little, over time, this changed.

Changes in technology allowed me to physically decouple from the data center. Remote console technologies allowed me to do the majority of my work from my desk. I rarely needed to physically go into the data center and stand in front of a rack to work on a server.

When I was on-call, I used to have to drive on-site to respond to an emergency. Then, VPN technologies supplemented with out-of-band solutions made that rarely necessary.

Due to those technological advances, most companies moved their data centers off-site to colocation centers, and then eventually to public cloud hyperscalers.

Today’s cloud engineers have absolutely no physical connection to the subject of their work. It’s in the cloud, wherever that is.

Co-workers

Then there’s the physical proximity to co-workers. Long before the start of the pandemic, technological advancements started to allow the physical decoupling of workers from office buildings. VPN and zero trust technologies got better. Not just more secure, but more user-friendly.

Phones went from a physical object on your desk to an application on your laptop or just a button that you click in your collaboration suite.

Hybrid

Now, let’s inject the magical word, hybrid. Hybrid solves everything, doesn’t it? If you want an electric vehicle, but aren’t ready to make the leap, you should just get a hybrid, right?

If the world of cloud-native computing is too advanced and challenging, you can just go with hybrid cloud computing, right?

Finally, when it comes to the office of the future, isn’t hybrid best? Doesn’t it capture the best of both worlds?

Technically, yes, it has many of the benefits, but it also has many of the costs and added complexities. For instance, if I have a hybrid car, I get range and efficiency, but I also need to change the oil and worry about battery life.

For most of us, the hybrid office is still only theoretical. The world hasn’t opened to the point where we can try it out yet. Like hybrid cloud computing and hybrid vehicles, there will be challenges ahead of us.

Post-hybrid

There will be a point where we will stop using the term, hybrid. It may be a long time from now, but it’s coming. One day, most new cars will be electric. Internal combustion cars will be niche and hybrid will be obsolete.

One day, we’ll stop talking about hybrid cloud computing. It’ll just be cloud computing. Private data centers will become rare.

Right now, we talk about on-site work, hybrid work, and remote work as three distinct categories. I wonder what the future will look like.

Perhaps “hybrid” will go away, and we will just talk about work and location independently. Perhaps there will be more of a full spectrum between on-site and remote that is largely situational or preference-driven. Perhaps in the future, we won’t need to flag job postings as “remote” because flexibility will be normalized.

I don’t know the future. But I think about it a lot.

Here’s what I do know:

Over my career span of 22 years, I’ve seen a lot of change in the physical relationship between me, my work subject, and my co-workers.

The change is always enabled by disruptive technologies and that fascinates me.

I’m just as likely to be a futurist as I am a laggard. I used to think cloud computing was a passing fad. I used to love commuting into the office. Today, in 2021, I drive an internal combustion car with a manual transmission, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

While I’ve fully embraced remote and hybrid work, I must humbly admit that I have an awful lot to learn. I haven’t figured it out yet.

What shapes my thinking?

I’d like to share a few articles that have challenged me recently. I follow Seth Godin’s blog and read many of his books. His insights on leadership inspire me.

Recently, he challenged some of the perceived benefits and risks associated with remote vs. in-person work. Read this, and you’ll see that there are nuances that you probably haven’t considered:

Intentional connection in the digital office

He also briefly analyzed the history and purpose of the office and the impact of digital disruption:

The end of the office

You may not agree with everything in my article above or Seth’s referenced articles, but one thing is for sure: We have a lot to think about. More change is coming, not less.

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