#8 🌲 The power of a new place
What I've been working on
Something a bit different today - back to our normal broadcast for the next edition, I promise :)
I started working on Ashore in January, with the idea to solve for something I had never had when I was in a corporate role - the space to work out how I do my best work. You can read the first iteration of my thoughts on this problem on the Ashore blog.
Today I’m publishing more about how and why.
What can a human do that a robot can’t?
When we talk about the future of work, we usually undersell exactly how different the future will be from what we have seen before.
AI is already eliminating jobs which historically have involved repetitive tasks, research or administrative work1, and is closing in on more advanced concepts quickly.
If your job primarily happens in front of a screen today, that means your job will soon change too - probably to a greater extent than you expect within the next 5 years.
At Ashore, our bet is that these changes will make thoughtful and creative knowledge work will become more important than ever.
How can we do our best thoughtful and creative work?
Today, these kinds of workers can work from anywhere, but they’re still often chained to a home office.
Why? Because the alternatives don’t work.
A coffee shop is too noisy and usually cramped.
If you choose to book a holiday cottage, you’re usually sacrificing your carefully curated home setup to work at someone else’s kitchen table - and at the mercy of rural internet connections.
Ever have someone on your team not turn up to an important meeting because they’ve taken a trip - or even worse, turn up with a stuttering 1 megabit connection?
Companies, therefore, are not encouraging workers to go somewhere else to concentrate on their work - putting them in conflict with their best talent.
Great artists, writers and entrepreneurs have used the power of a new place to do their best work for centuries, as well as refresh their perspective and recharge from the day-to-day.
″...I am so busy; my calendar is solid and I’m on email and messages after the kids go to bed and on weekends. But I take two weeks a year in a cabin in the woods where I am not interrupted - I read and think about the future.”2
“Robert (Plant) and I went to Bron-Yr-Aur in 1970…Robert suggested the cottage. I certainly hadn't been to that area of Wales. So we took our guitars down there and played a few bits and pieces. This wonderful countryside, panoramic views and having the guitars ... it was just an automatic thing to be playing. And we started writing.”3
This isn’t just an effective strategy for the top 1%.
A growing body of scientific research is discovering the underlying factors that drive productivity and peace of mind when we work somewhere new:
A disrupted routine can boost creativity by 58% in the three weeks following the disruption4
Our main stress hormone (cortisol) decreases by 21.3% per hour spent immersed in nature5
Exposure to nature compared to urban environments is associated with improved attention, capacity to switch from one task to another, and memory.6
Companies that can harness the power of a new place will be able to unlock the true potential of their highest performers - a real competitive advantage.
Ashore enables companies to organise personal off-sites for their employees, in homes optimised for focused and creative thinking, to both inspire and refresh their highest performers, without using up their holiday time.
We install the high-spec Ashore workspace in each home, ensuring that whatever you do, you are primed to do your best work at an Ashore, with guaranteed high-speed internet - in the most beautiful parts of the world.
It’s our updated version of the Electronic Cottage - quiet reflective spaces, perfect for stepping away from the normal everyday and discovering somewhere new.
Hilton Hotels built a global business around the emerging white-collar corporate traveller of the 1950s7.
We want to build the same service for the hybrid working world, starting in the UK.
We are just over six months in, but we already have thousands of freelancers, creators and entrepreneurs signed up and staying with us; and now, our first set of paying business customers after a successful MVP.
It’s the highest ROI way to both reward and inspire your team, and we’re excited to bring this established concept of working away to everyone.
Interested in finding out more?
Choose your own adventure:
(A) “My business would want to know more about this” - send me an email - stephanie (at) ashore (dot) io
(B) “I wish my boss would pay for this” - sign up as an individual member here to book your own Ashore trip
And if you’re interested in learning more about how a trip Ashore can enhance your productivity, happiness and creativity, watch this video diary from Rich Beech, Electroheads’ CMO. You can also read his reflections about visiting Hay on Wye here.
“IBM to pause hiring in plan to replace 7,800 jobs with AI, Bloomberg reports” (Reuters, March 2023)
Jimmy Page (Interview in Uncut, 2009, p.43)
Ruth Ann Atchley, David L Strayer ‘Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning Through Immersion in Natural Settings’ (12.12.12)
Heather Ohly, Mathew P. White ‘Attention Restoration Theory: A systematic review of the attention restoration potential of exposure to natural environments.’ (26.09.16)