EP027 - Will 2023 be the year when enterprises go remote? Running Remote 2023 with Rachel Yenko-Martinka of Running Remote
About the episode
This episode focuses on Running Remote, the main event for remote work. This year, Running Remote is held in Lisbon, Portugal, on the 25th & 26th of April. I invited my friend, Rachel Yenko-Martinka, with whom we have known each other for many years, and she's currently the head of event experience at Running Remote.
About the guest
Rachel is the Head of Event Experience at the Running Remote Conference. She collects speakers who excel at running remote and hybrid teams to share their expertise with our audience of C-Level Executives, Founders, VPs, and HR leaders. She is in charge of making sure all attendees have an enjoyable & memorable experience at the event - from the curated speaker content to unique sponsor activations to engaging networking activities.
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact me here.
Quotes from the show
People are excited to meet people with that same passion in person. And we do that online in well-curated spaces. But if it can also bring you to a new, beautiful location you’d never been to, why not go to the Running Remote?
We have more of an enterprise presence. Companies with 5,000, 10,000+ employees are trying to figure out how to take this remote magic and make it applicable to thousands and thousands of people.
One of my favorite things is the creativity that goes into mirroring what we expect so easily to come in person. You just put people in a room and let them figure it out. But the magic happens out of that. You can’t do that in a Zoom call. You have to be intentional online.
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Welcome everyone. Yet another day to talk about the future of work and the future of leader. Today we will discuss the main event for remote people, Running Remote, and I have Rachel Yenko-Martinka, head of event experiences at Running Remote. Rachel, it's so great to have you here. How are you?
Thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here. I'm excited to represent my awesome conference and company. It's not mine, it's the one my beautiful team has built. Yeah, excited to talk about some remote work things.
So we know each other for a very long, long, long time in the remote world. But just for the audience, please tell me your remote journey. How did you get end up working remotely?
Oh, that's true. It's true. Okay. Let's see. So , yeah you and I worked together on, I think it was my first, actual startup that I had a full-time job with.
Yes.
And I was so excited. Once I got it, I was like, all right, it's real. I have an actual position at a company that doesn't have an office. Cool, what does that even look like? So that was kind of very much at the beginning. And actually right before that is where I got my start in working with conferences for people who work remotely. So back then, that was the Nomad Summit and so that was a lot of digital nomads trying to figure out how to start and grow their own thing. Before that I was just kind of piecing things together in terms of like, oh, graphic design. I'm pretty good at that. I can help people with emails and communicating with people, and then I feel like I just kept collecting experiences from different companies and other people were like, oh, you're good at really random things and I need help with all of those things come work for me. And so I think my if you look at my journey on a resume, it looks like a winding path, which is probably very similar to my wind around the world. So it started out in Thailand, which I think is pretty typical. It did not make it to Bali. Believe it or not, Bali and Mexico are the two places I haven't been yet because they were always just next door that I was like...
Never?
Never, not yet.
Wow.
Eventually.
Wow. A digital nomad who never, who never, ever set for on Bali. I'm so glad that I can interview you. This is so great. Sorry, sorry. I didn't want to jump in.
No, that's so excellent. They were just always next door, right? And I figure, well, you know, if I have to, if I can't go very far and I just have a short vacation, maybe I'll just go there. And so that offer still stands and they're no longer next door, so. But I did do Southeast Asia, Vietnam. I ended up going to Latin America afterwards. And I went to Columbia, Peru, Uruguay.
Nice.
And yeah, a lot of different places. And back to Thailand, Canada. Now I'm in the Philippines, and then I'll be off to Europe for the first time. Well, I did a road trip around Ireland, but I wasn't working then, so I don't count that in this particular journey.
And you're also working while you are traveling, right? So like, obviously.
Right.
And how do you find it? It's hard. Is it easy? Does it have any challenges? At least for you on personal level?
Yeah. Perpetually seeking good signal, and like a near enough outlet, right. And I feel like I was just like, why doesn't Google allow me to sort these locations based on how many outlets are inside the venue, really missed opportunity here. But yeah, those, those two things are kind of the main things that help determine where I get to go next. Honestly, I follow people a lot more than I kind of cold call plan. I used to, at the very beginning of the journey, which was right around when you and I were working together, I made a one year plan where every single month I knew what flight I was gonna go to, how long my visa in that country was where I was gonna go to after I had plans A, B, and C. In case I decided at month three I wanted to go in Hong Kong instead of this other one. What route would that take? Oh my gosh.
Did it work?
No, not at all. After the first month, it was totally gone.
I figured.
Which sounds about right.
Yes.
Yeah, at the beginning it was like the, the decision was given to me, do you want to come back to Thailand? Or follow the next place that your plan led you? And then two things happened randomly. One was, I got a job with a conference there and then I got invited to like, play in a music duo in Thailand. I was like, all right, well, I can't say no. These sound pretty good. Yes. Yes.
Yes. I remember you did that too. Yes. Are you doing this that too as well still?
I haven't played music since I got to the Philippines. But when I was living in Thailand, I had like weekly gigs. Yeah I was playing around there. I played in Columbia. And now my partner is a multi-instrumentalist, so we're definitely gonna have more music in the future.
Nice, nice, nice. Then you said that that you usually followed others while you were travel, so maybe that's how you ended up pretty much at the epicenter of remote worker community because you are organizing events like Running Remote or previously the Nomad Summit.
Yeah. I first ended up in Thailand because a best friend of mine was living there and she's just like, come here. And then when I was in Canada, I got connected to Running Remote because I was in Halifax and they were in Montreal. And I initially asked to volunteer cuz I was like, I just miss being around conference energy. I wanna be inspired by all the people who want to attend an event like this, and I'm relatively nearby Meridian, same country. That's close enough, even though Canada's far from itself. And then they said, yeah, sure. Come on over and the more work I did with them, they're like, oh, you're good at these other random things. Cool. Do these things. Okay. Actually, oh, can you help us with this? Okay. Like, here's another hat for your head. Until eventually they're like, all right, just get on him over here, you know.
And how did you find those people who are attending these conferences, why do you think that maybe that's a presumptuous question, but, but why do you think the remote workers do need conferences like these, or events like these? What is the main drive for them?
Hmm, that's a good question. I think although we are also eager to make remote work the way work is, we still get so excited by meeting in person with people that who share a similar energy and vision. And even have very different variations of what that looks like than ourselves. You know, it's fun to be in this energy and be challenged by people who agree on just enough things that now you can start debating something extremely specific, right? You're no longer just trying to convince someone that remote work is good, right? That we're far, far past that. You're now trying to decide what type of benefits truly make for a better employee mental wellness plan, right? And you can get really nitty gritty with that and have disagreements and then grow from there. So I think people are really excited to meet with people who have that same passion in person. And we very much do that online in well curated spaces. But if it can also bring you to a new, beautiful location that you'd never been before, why not?
Of course, of course. They're already traveling anyway, so, and this year we'll be in Portugal.
Yes. Lisbon Portugal. I have never been and I am very excited. Our venue is like, come for the venue alone. You just were right on the river. They were saying something silly of like how many rainy days there are in Portugal. So the chances of us getting one are so small, so excited.
And it's I think it's also interesting to discuss that I mean you and me, we know each other for like five or more years.
Yeah.
And you started to do these conferencing and meeting with other remote workers. And I think you also see the trend of changing the people who attend these kind of events? So what I heard from other nomads a lot and other remote workers as well, is that like five years or 10 years ago when I started working remotely people who worked remotely were mostly like, I wouldn't say like these, these like weird people who never fit it anywhere. But like solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, right? So like entrepreneurs, affiliate marketers, like people who sell courses on how to sell courses and it's like kinda like weird game. But then in like five years or whatever, or two to three years people started to you know, getting serious with this stuff because everyone saw that it's working and then the pandemic hit and and now the I wouldn't say the majority, but there's a growing trend, I guess, and that's what you see also that most people are not freelancing. They are actually full-time workers for companies.
Right.
Right. So do you see the same trend? Maybe they are the same people who are attend these conferences as well or maybe you see a little bit more trend on people who are speaking in these conferences. So before that they were mostly prolific nomads. But now they're mostly coming from companies like actual remote companies. No?
Yeah, I think Having seen the range of attendees that specifically attend Running Remote, it shows you what the history of remote work has been and is becoming because there were people who said, I worked remotely you know, before there were all these fun names for it before it became cool. Back when I was the weird one. And this is like even 30 years ago, it's like the first time there might have been enough internet at someone's house that they could do it. And so their ideas of like, we were just trying to get a telephone that could work at home, right? Like their challenges were so foreign to anyone Now.
Like, imagine, imagine a remote workplace that has no slack because we never Right. It's like Really? Yeah. Really. We the first, actually the first company that I worked for remotely, we communicated on, I know it's weird, but Google Chat. Because never had anything else. Slack wasn't, yeah. Wasn't born yet , right.
Well, or, or any competitors to Slack haven't popped up to try to do better. Oh man. I mean, I don't know if anyone ever ran a company over Yahoo chat rooms, like, was that ever a thing? Probably to somebody. But yeah, they knew kind of the og when there was still telecom that they were trying to figure out. And I still am haunted by the sounds of dial up trying to just, you're like, ah, I have a website loading. Okay, well I'm just gonna go eat dinner and by the time I come back it should probably be here. And that was not weird. That was not annoying. That was just the time it took.
That's asynchronous work.
Then that was asynchronous because I would never be on time to be online at the same time as you. Because you're using the same bandwidth I need when you're done. Right. But yeah, so the types of attendees that come... it did. So running remote used to have more roots in the sort of digital nomad sphere because they got their roots in Bali. So I was not there for that. But they had a lot of people trying to build their own thing and they were the solopreneurs and they didn't really have remote teams to manage. Or maybe they had a consult. Super part-time. And the big people there were the ones who were like, this is how my five person team is so successful now. Right? And over the last probably like five to 10 years, it starts getting the curiosity of people like remote work in general starts getting the curiosity of companies that are like, wait, so how much money could I save by not having an office? How can we still talk remotely and, and async? I don't even know if that was a concept back then necessarily.
No.
Cause there was, and and the more you have these international borders that are now dissolving, right? It's still foreign in the minds of many to think I would hire someone in a different time zone than me, because when would we ever be online at the same time? But the way I always sell it, especially when I have worked with teams where I'm like, well, right now I'm in your time zone, but next month I'm gonna be 12 hours ahead of you and I need to convince you that that's still okay and not going to impact our productivity. I'm like, just imagine asking me questions and waking up and the work is done. Like your sleep is When things happen , I try to convince them of that sort of dream.
Yes.
And that's exactly how it's, they're like, oh, that's, As bad as I thought it might be. But so you have the interest from these slightly bigger companies of like, what could that look like for me? And I think Covid kickstarted a lot of enterprise people to say on a bigger scale, even now, if these little teams could do it, how can I apply that on a wider basis when the world had to figure out how it worked? And so something you hear at the conferences is people saying, oh, well I was remote way before covid and did you start in Covid or after or long before. And so it's funny to see these people who are like, oh, well we just started during covid, and people kind of say, it's like, oh, so you're new, welcome. Let's teach you what we have, what we've been doing all this time. It's like come to the dark side. We, we have wifi.
Actually, actually, that's a good tagline. That's a good, yes, yes.
I love, I love the idea that I'm just gonna print a bunch of stickers and that'll just be my future. It's just selling stickers from my wifi trailer hopefully. I mean, now that there's starlink, if it ever is ever delivered to the house, then you can have it, right?
And what are the, if you can share some of the key points that you've seen and we will talk about the, the current lineup of the conference as well, a little bit more, but some of the key learnings that these OGs of remote work can teach to those who joined. Through a crisis, shall we say. It's totally different because it wasn't too much of a choice for them, they were put into a place that they, you know, they had to work remotely. So obviously learning is much needed. What are the key learnings that they might learn from these conference or conferences?
Yeah. There last year there was a distinct theme of lots of asynchronous communication tips. How do we do it? How did you survive when, and lots of bragging, right? It's like, well, I have five teammates and we're on five different time zones. And you're like, well, we have 30 teammates and we're across 18 different time zones, like it's, it's always collecting that I like to. Say is like once I had a, a virtual surprise birthday party from one of my teams, and we had 18 people, I think from eight different time zones. I was like, ah, and all these different people said Happy birthday in their language. I was like, ah, that's, that's a weird thing that will never happen when we all are in the same office, right?
Yes.
And by weird thing, I mean, awesome thing. A lot of it is like how do you take care of your team? How do you still have team Unity? How does everyone still know who each other is And not just what your title is or what I usually need from you on a weekly basis, but like, how do I get to know the name of your dog or remember what your favorite plant is how do you do those sorts of things, and so people demonstrate through their own like, here are my favorite apps. This is how we use this particular app to create this very strange experience that people don't think you can do online. And I think there's a lot of space there for creativity. And so that's one of my favorite things about working with these people in this conference is the creativity that goes into mirroring or just building online what we expect so easily to come in person, right? You just kind of put a people, a bunch of people in a room and you're like, all right unlimited drinks, you know, get to know each other. Figure it out, right? But that doesn't necessarily, and often magic happens outta that. People just make it up. But you can't necessarily do that in a Zoom call and just say, all right, I'll have you figure it out. And one person talks the whole time and a few people just go off camera cuz they don't, they're not really paying attention anymore, you know? So how do you make sure you get all these different personalities present?
Yeah. That's what I also teach to my clients. That intention is really a big thing to do during these operations because in the office everything is organic, right? Everything can just you can wing it. If you're clever enough or you have experience or routine you can just wing that stuff. In a remote environment, you need to be more intentional with pretty much anything, anything.
Great.
Tell me about the current lineup. What happens this year? Why people should join running remote this year.
Yeah, we have probably one of the coolest lineups. And we're still building the content, but the speaker lineup is very exciting. We have Atlassian there. We have Slack, which is cool. And from the future forum of Slack, HubSpot? One of our headliners is the creator of the Getting Things Done Methodology. And so that G T D productivity will be a big one. Typeform, Zendesk. We have the ministry of Labor, solidarity and Social Security of Portugal coming to welcome us to their country, which I find should be very cool.
Wow.
I know. So fancy.
They're also offering or not even sure that they still offer it or what was the status on that, but they had a remote visa, I think for remote workers.
I should know more about that, and I don't specifically, but I do know that Portugal is a, Safety hub for people working online. I'm not sure if that takes a form of like tax breaks or visa extension, ease, things like that. But I know that that's where a lot of people run to flock to because it's just such an, it's so easy to be there.
Yes, especially, well, if you're from the eu, it's it doesn't really matter that much, but you're half American as well, but right for you it's It's, it's, it is different because you need the visa and stuff, and it's easier go to Portugal than than other European countries at least for work for a longer period of time. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. I think borders, as you said, will diminish a lot, so yeah.
And that'll introduce a lot of the debates that we're seeing. That'll introduce a lot of debates that we're seeing in terms of all right are you paid according to where you live now or where you're from? I'm half Filipino. I get this conversation all the time. I feel like when I'm in interviews, I have to assert why I'm worth paying as, I mean, it sounds terrible, like as an American, it's like I was educated in a foreign university and now I am this percentage eloquent. Right? Whereas I have so many Filipino colleagues who are so excellent at what they do, but we are somehow able to justify how little we pay them just because they'll say yes to it, right? Or because that's what the local You're just comparing against what the local daily wage is and you're like, ah, that's fine, but is it fair? Can they still leave the country now with what you've paid them better, or have you just given into a system that was never meant to support the little guy anyway? Right. So anyway, that's something I, I think about regularly.
That's a good rant. And I think to on a more. Shinier side of things. I think it's starting to get, at least that's what I see, it's starting to get equalizing. If you have the skill, if you have the knowledge at least. You speak English, you, you apply remotely and work remotely, obviously we still have these little discrepancies and differences between the wages of course. For sure I have no doubt that if you are a talented coder or developer or marketer, whatever, I don't care. Right? If you're coming from Manila or you're coming from minneapolis, in terms of the wage, it's, I think it's starting to get a little bit more equalized now because everyone is still looking for the skill and not for the location.
Right.
Yeah.
You know, fingers crossed and, and at the same time it's kind of like, well if I can't afford to pay you what someone might earn in the different country, are you still willing to say yes? Are you still willing to gain the experience in order to go elsewhere? You know, there's not something people are always trying to find out is like, how do I figure out how qualified you are? And I've thought about this a lot in interview processes as well. I've been on the other side where I'm reviewing all the resumes and it's crazy how little time you spend on each one. How important the welcome message is actually versus your actual titles or your history. And how superficial it all can be, right? The weird things that catch my attention, why did I pick you? Was it really your expertise or was it the fact that you stood out? It's always the fact that you stood out.
Yes.
But what makes them stand out is very different. We have a lot of Companies come to us when they help with international hiring, because that's something that's very intimidating. There's companies like in the States, they're like, well, I do want to have very high quality talent that is outsourced, but I don't know how to deal with the legalities of hiring someone in a different country. What do taxes look like? Am I protected? How do I make sure I take care of them? What do benefits look like when they're all the way over there? I've had employers wonder how to send me a gift card, you know, or the secret Santa, and they're just like, oh man, they were trying to get secret Santa. All the way to Ukraine, and this was pre-war actually, and that was just, they're just like, we just can't deliver it to you. We have no idea. Like, what's your local Amazon equivalent in the Philippines? It's like, actually it's Za, but it won't accept any foreign payments. So good luck.
Yes, totally. It, it has its ups and down and challenges for them as I'm sure we have a mutual friend on employer record companies as well. And yeah, discuss this issue with with her Andre Carlon from Lano. it's so interesting to see how people can hire compliantly pretty much from anywhere, and get paid on the local currency and, you know, it's like terrible, terrible paperwork. But there are companies now that are offering really easy and and better solutions for them. So, yeah. Let's talk a little bit about the event experience. You're head of event experiences. So what will be the event experience for running remote this year?
I am still excited to find out how it will lay out because this is something that I am making up as full transparency , and we're like, what, what do you, I became the head of event experiences from being the creative services manager, which was a really nice way to say, you do a bunch of really random things that are all super helpful, but they don't Right. All the stuff creative services, you manage them. Ah, these things, right? And then it kinda and then it kinda elevated to, okay, let me get really specific with the particular umbrellas in which are my domains. And so I am in charge of onboarding all our new speakers. So I get to meet with these people and make sure that they have a positive onboarding experience and they're properly represented externally. And then we're now going through like content refinement. we have that also with the sponsor side of things, I am not the person onboarding the sponsors, but I am super pushing for creative activations because I am always thinking about what it's like to be an attendee at a conference. Because those are, that's my, like, life blood. I love being the social butterfly in the room and experiencing so many things, but I know I cannot just be that one person that makes everything a little more fun. So how can I make sure things exist outside of me that do that? So one of them is, you know, sponsor activations. What can people actually interact with? What will be more memorable versus things that, you know, if you've been to a handful of conferences, then you've seen the same things over and over again. There's kind of this understanding that if you go to a really big conference where there's a ton of enterprise level money and you go to a Google then you're gonna have something super cool, but if you're anywhere smaller, then it won't be as interesting because people have less money and I disagree. So I've been deep within Pinterest trying to find creative like. Are there ways we can utilize interactive art installation? So I'm hoping to have some of those. What are organic photo moments? Right. What do people actually take pictures with? And then they do like hashtag remote work, work from home. And so some of it will be voting on these little remote work arguments or disagreements within the culture. I want them to be able to like vote with the sticky note or I mean the venue, like I said, will just be picturesque, but what can I add to it to make something worth tagging is another challenge, right? Because people are like, oh, we'll give you 10% off if you tell a friend. And it's like 10% off won't motivate me to tell a friend, really, unless that might be like what I do. Affiliates who want to do that a hundred percent can make much more money doing it intentionally. But if I'm just the casual attendee, I will share because I had fun because I saw something very unique or weird. And because I had a conversation, I love quoting people and so how can I encourage that organic interaction with each other. So I've been thinking about a lot of different ways we can do this. So running remote community is the group of people that are talking about this stuff all year round, not just during the conference. And so we have a lot of attendees from that have signed up that will be this community trying to meet each other in person for the first time. Those things where it's like I have tagged you so many times on Slack. I didn't even realize that I've never met you in person and now I'm about to. So that part's cool. same with you. Totally. I haven't met you in person, but this feels very familiar.
We might, might be able to do that this year in Europe. So yeah.
I would be very excited. I like making my digital people become real.
And it's always funny to see, by the way, to see each other that, I mean, that's why remote retreats exist for companies. It's an ultimate bond for everyone because it's so weird that Yeah. For example, like that's a practical example. You and me, we know each other for like years now, and we never met , like ever. And it's so funny that for example, I also have like these people that I know for like years now. And when I met with them the bond was all, when you already have a history together, right? The bond immediately is stronger when you actually meet right offline, immediately. And that's really interesting. And after that, the meeting remotely again, like in a Zoom call, we already have like constant me shared memories together. Right, right. Usually associated with drinking, but, but yeah.
And that's something you can't quite cheers to online, right?
Yes. Yeah. Totally. Totally.
Something I find with people I meet in person after knowing them online, and this is always consistent, is they're always a different height than I imagine they are. When I meet them, it's I don't know if my mind just makes me think everyone's just my height or maybe a little bit taller or a little bit shorter, but then people are like half a foot smaller or a full foot taller, and I'm like, wait. Okay. I guess if you're sitting up at the computer I'm like trying to do the math of angles in my head I'm like, that doesn't matter, you're just way taller than I thought you'd be. I think, I think you would be one of those people you're gonna be way taller than I expected.
This is so weird as an example, but it is so true. Both of the people that we know together jesse and Christian. I met with both of them and they were so much taller that I expected both of them. Oh, they're taller. Oh, I've never even guessed. Yes, totally. And I am tall and even to me, Seeing those who I thought will be shorter, at least to me.
Yeah. Right.
And they're not, wow. Yeah. It's, it's really weird. Anyway.
That's so funny.
Cool. Speaking about the last question, future of remote work, you actually need to think about the future of remote work a lot because next year you are also doing the conference, right? So it's an annual conference. I'm so eager to see what will be there next year as well. Obviously you haven't started the preparations, of course. But still, what do you think, what will be the future of work for next year for the conference? What kind of speakers you will see? Will there be a trend. That's going overrepresented compared to this year?
Yeah. It funny you say that because literally today I just started a document that is called Running Remote 2023 Debrief, and it hasn't happened yet. Usually you have the debrief, but I'm like, I already have notes for things. I do not have time to change now, but I want to sorry, I'm already thinking. Plus I build things now with the desire that it saves me time next year. Right, of course. I'm already like part of me sometimes I just kind of, I was like, ah, well I'll just kind of like do this partially. And then I think, Rachel, no, you should do this fully because you don't wanna do this next year. Yeah. I'm like, ah, let's just do that. Make, make my future life this is a side note, but that's part of my own mental wellness. I perceive myself as my own friend, so I'm like, what will make future me more stress free? It's like, ah, if I take the second now to do that, I'm like, all right. And then in the future I'm like, ah, thank you past me. We're so good. I'm just friends with myself through time.
You're conversing really well with yourself, by the way. Yes. Sorry.
Yes, I am . You know, people say that that's like a questionable thing. I think that's just a healthy thing to be. I'm a great conversationalist with myself because my opinion is my own other people may have your own opinion.
Yes, you're conversing yourself and not an another version of yourself. So that's totally fine. I'm fully supported time traveling really.
So I am thinking about the future of remote work and actually one of our talks this year is The Future of remote Predictions. And another one is analyzing trends we've seen so far and so kind of analyzing both the future and the past. For this conference specifically, what I anticipate may be more of is still in the trend that is going towards, including larger companies that are trying to figure out how to do this. Because like I said, we're having more of an enterprise presence. And these are these 5,000, 10,000 plus companies or employees sized companies trying to figure out how do you take this this team, small team magic and make it applicable to thousands and thousands of people. So I think that'll, on a small scale, that'll be the direction we're going. I think there are things I absolutely cannot see coming at all, there are things that I have yet to personally learn about, like web three and the Metaverse and anything that happens through the lens of an Oculus. These are all things that I am so curious and excited for other professionals to tell me what that will look like. Because as much as we could not have possibly described, Now to someone 40 years ago what the effect of the internet has and it's so deep permeation into everything we do. I cannot personally, at least, I cannot predict what is going to happen in the next 20, 30 years, especially considering our technological acceleration rate is ridiculous. The fact that just the word AI now pops literally everywhere. I am a little admittedly scared of the difficulty to distinguish human from ai. Though I recognize the absolute efficiency that AI will help. You know, it's interesting to see how when automation was first introduced, a lot of laborers were saying, well, they're gonna take our jobs, right? And they did. They came for your jobs and they took 'em and and now there are people running them. And that created a new set of jobs. And I think the same will be, you know, you have a lot of the creatives myself is included in that, but like, I remember writing a song using an AI generator, and I was like, oh gosh, this thing is, that's not, not bad. It's fine, it's fine. Yeah, I can still do better. Thank gosh, you know, but it wasn't bad. And actually about that song, I was trying to write a song about ai, so I figured I should use an AI generator. It started saying things like you and I are the same AI and human, you and I will be just I, and I was like, What are you trying to tell me right now? That is a little, that's Skynet stuff. Yes. Some eerie, deep eerie. So I do think there will be a next generation of like, what does the, from the laborers to automation, to ai, what will we now be in charge of as humans? I think we're far too far away from having a universal income, which would be nice to just have everybody you know, chill and supported and well. I don't think our governments or infrastructure is unfortunately near doing that, unless maybe, I don't know I think the Netherlands, I think they're pretty close at everything, right. So if we could just follow their model. But I mean, America's still over here trying to debate basic human rights. So some places are closer than others.
Ubi I probably won't come to Florida, I guess because they have other things to figure out first, I guess.
Yeah, the more, I never really expected to spend time in Canada, but my partner is Canadian and so when I was there, it's like, wow. We're just, everything that you are still unsure of is a human right? It just is. And we're kinda like, why you guys fighting over there? We're still here. You know, and sometimes in remote work, people think about that in terms of when people are like, remote work is so, it's just like, just a fad from Covid, and you're like, are you still here? Why are you mad that we can work from home? And admittedly, there are many job types that cannot work from home, right? You have manufacturers that have to to be at the machines, you know, and so how do we make sure they feel like they have equity in the system that is moving forward in a way that doesn't necessarily deeply accommodate them. So I think I'm getting off track, but the future is something I absolutely cannot predict. There are others that will be speaking at running remote that can predict much more accurately, and I'm looking forward to their talks. And I am excited for the creativity that I and my team can bring by no means is it me alone to the experiences of these people. I am wondering how best can we make it? It's, it's like what you were talking about with the retreats, right? This is the one occasion, everyone comes in person to experience this thing. I better make it super memorable. Let's get things fun. So for example, for the first time this year, we're offering tours. They're small cost add-on. It's not officially included in the conference ticket or anything, but if you're coming a day early, You can choose from one of five tours to just experience Lisbon with other small group networking people, right? And so if you happen to be a history buff, go to the History museum.
We're gonna be having early morning running tours. If you're one of those people that runs at 6:00 AM in the morning and then wants to do a conference, that's not me. But I will support you and I will direct you to the bathroom where you will need to wipe yourself down before going into the keynote, you know ?
These are fun. These are fun. I'm sure this will be a really fun and great event, and for every remote worker, it'll be the best event to meet with each other. Let's plug the dates and the location and also where people can find you.
Yeah, so the dates are April 25 and 26th. As the conference states, like I said, if you come a day early on the 24th, we have tours. They can find us a www.runningremote.com. , there are also virtual tickets available in case you cannot make it all the way to Portugal. Completely understandable. We'll have networking for you guys as well. Finding me. Probably LinkedIn is the easiest. Rachel Yenko- martinka. You'll see how to spell it. I'm not gonna try. I'm amazed that, Peter, you pronounced it so well and with your accent it sounded so much better. Sounded so much, I was like there's like a, did you roll your R there? I don't know. I can't.
Yenko-Martinka.
Yes. Yes. There you go. I never learned how.
The description, don't worry.
Perfect. Good. Because if they're trying to spell it, they'll never find me.
Don't worry. But probably you are the only one with that name, by the way.
So I am.
Or I don't know. Are you? Certainly, is it, it's, it's really unique, I guess.
Right. Well it's hyphenated and so there are other Yenko and apparently Yenko is a type of car. I am completely unrelated to that. I know nothing about cars. There are other Martinkas, but there is no Yenko, so that's.
Interesting. Which one is the Filipino?
Yenko. It used to be Chinese, I believe. And so it was like y e n g k o.
Yang, co. But then they just sense smashed it together. Makes sense.
Makes sense. Thanks for sharing me.
Yeah. Genealogy 23 in me or.
Again, this conversation might be a bit, little bit more personal than other shows, but I hope our audience doesn't mind it. We know each other for a lot. It was so great to catch up. It was so great to talk. Appreciate your time coming here. Thank you, Rachel.
For sure, Peter. This has been a lot of fun. It's been I don't know. I think it's good to have person. That's a big thing too, including the person deep within the work. Yeah, been great to chat. Bye.
Yes, that's a really great ending of this whole show. Thank you.
Yes. Yes. We winged this.
I'm all about the sound Clap clips. The sound claps. I'm all about the Soundy clips.
I will leave this in. I'm not gonna edit that...
