a #reddit thread - Those of you who are happily married, what is your biggest piece of advice for maintaining a relationship?

Will office work ever be the same again? - recent BBC commissioned research

Yesterday morning the Radio 4 Today programme reported on some BBC commissioned research on this subject.  You can find out more info here, but some noticebale headlines were as follows:

"70% of those polled predicted that workers would "never return to offices at the same rate".

The majority orf workers prefer to work at home full or part time

50% of senior managers though staying at home adverely affects creativity and collaboration

But only 38% of the general public think the same"

The arguments for and against digitally workng from home versus physically being in the same office seemed to focus on four themes which I've unpacked a little below.

Creativity - not been physically together means less creativity.  

This might be true - but only for the people who are invited into the creative discussion in the first place.  Lets face it, often in an office only certain people are allowed to input to meetings/conversation seeking creative ideas and solutions.  The office admin is almost never invited to contribute to such discussion.  Plus this focus on physical ='s better creativity seems to focus on the assumption below that ...

Relationship & team building  - physically works better than digitally

At first glance this seems obvious - but maybe only if you are over 40.  Watch any bunch of teenagers or twenty year olds out socially and its obvious they are very comfortable interacting with others digitally - and often do so even when with others physically.  Or think about how many people using various "dating" apps to make contact with others and sus them out before investing time in a physical meeting.

Teaching others or learning with others physically - is better than digital learning

We've all being on really appalling physical training sessions where you watch the trainer read out what is on their slides.  Or where you are asked to role play out various situations with an ill thought out brief and dynamic.  Equally during lock down those of us having to using guided learning and assessment digital tools  - for compliance or health and safety training  - has seen how some of those digital tools amply illustrated that it can be too tick boxy in its approach.

Less commuting  - means less knackered people

But only if bosses don't try and claim the saved time back - either by wanting the saved time to spent on longer work hours, or by threatening people with saalry cuts if they don't come in physically using an argument that their living costs are less so they don't need the "London! allowance.  Hidden in all of this of course is the idea of being "present" been better - you have to be in the office to show commitment - even if your productivity is sometimes lower.

So what do you think?

4min clip Questionable #Relationship Advice

6min 35sec @TearFund clip - The #Restoration Story

Text from youtube "Watch our latest film the Restoration Story where we explore Christians around the world are answering God’s call to restore relationships with him, with one another and with creation. We can do this through living differently, praying and speaking out against poverty, injustice and climate change. What part can you play? "

To escape your #socialhorizon limit & understand more - get to know people different from your own race, religion, age or education

These 5 take-a-ways are summarised from this LSE blog article - which you really must go and read for the full story - and its summary of work (in the USA) by Jeffrey A. Smith, Miller McPherson and Lynn Smith-Lovin.  This work used used 1985 and 2004 General Social Survey data on these demographic characteristics: racial, religion, gender, age and education.

In summary the finding is that the composition of one’s social network is highly contingent on the composition of the population and thus only changes slowly over time as does the composition of the population. 

Which means if you want to escape some of the limits of your own social horizon and understand the views of others you'll need to take specific steps to get to know people beyond those like you - particularly as concerns racial background, religious belief, those much younger or older and those with much higher or lower education.

So the 5 take-a-ways from research on homophily (the tendency for people who are similar to know each other) are:

1) We now know more people from different racial backgrounds - but this change is in line with the changing composition of the population and only some 10% of confidant ties are cross-racial;

2) We now know more people from different religious backgrounds - but this change is in line with the changing composition of the population and only some 29% of confidant ties are cross-religious;

3) On gender some 43% (was 40% in 1985) of confident ties are cross gender  - as the the population's gender composition has not changed significantly this change from 1985 is thought to reflect men and women occupying increasingly similar roles in society;

4) On age those in their 20s and early 30s are increasingly more likely to interact with each other, but less likely to interact with those who are older;

5) On education - even though income & wealth inequality has increased - those with lower levels of education are socially closer and less likely to have confidants with those with higher levels of education.

inter-ethnic #relationships

heartstrings

heartstrings from rhiannon evans on vimeo.
via the atlantic