On Wednesday evening, I moderated an event about Remote Work. On the panel was Angelina Ebeling from acework, Nadia Harris-Kosior from Talent Place and Britnee Bond from Remote Collective, who had invited to this evening at the latest St. Oberholz in Kreuzberg. On LinkedIn, you can watch a recording of the discussion that was streamed live during the event. That was my first appearance in a LinkedIn stream.
I have to admit that I was not prepared for the event. I aim to exchange possible questions with the guests in advance and send them a list of questions so that they can prepare themselves. However, I didn’t get to all that. At the moment, I have a lot to do, and I have to admit that after this very strenuous year, I lack the strength to do justice to my demands.
Accordingly, I opened the event nervously. After a few minutes, I noticed how the tension disappeared. I noticed that although I was talking to three full-time professionals here, I was also familiar with the subject. That didn’t occur to me before. With each round of questions, more topics came to mind that I wanted to ask these three impressive experts. It was almost by chance that a structure and also a flow in the questions emerged.
Expertise is worked out over a long period.
Yesterday I thought about how lucky I was that everything came together so well, and the moderation didn’t go to waste. However, I also noticed that I had been involved with remote work for years, albeit indirectly. I work a lot on the road myself. I managed the Hamburg Netzpiloten editorial office from Berlin. In 2015 Kati and I traveled through Europe, working for two months. Also, I run Coworking Spaces.
Then I realized that even I sometimes sell myself too severely. Usually, self-confidence is not one of my weaknesses. When I am asked for lectures and workshops, it is sometimes difficult for me to call up the fee we have agreed on in the company, especially when local authorities or public institutions ask for information that has only minimal budgets for their events compared to companies.
But I don’t get paid for the 30 or 45 minutes I spend on-site, nor for the sometimes long journeys, but the more than seven years I’ve spent intensively dealing with particular topics, living them up to them myself and being actively involved in their further development. Sometimes I am not even aware of that. And nobody is more surprised than me why I once had to write this thought down.
Header Image: Britnee Bond, Berlin 2019
