Out of Office is a research & design lab and community of practice reimagining how we live and work in a modern world. We seek to initiate a shift from work-centered to life-centered existence, offering tools and infrastructures to help people cultivate engaged, authentic, and vibrant modes of living 🌳🎨 If you’d like to support this mission + get additional perks, you can become a paid subscriber 👇 A uniform for modern workers!The Out of Office Uniform is an innovative, stylish tool designed to revolutionize the way modern professionals connect and interact in their workspaces.
The Out of Office Uniform is an innovative, stylish tool (in the form of a cozy crewneck sweatshirt) designed to revolutionize the way modern professionals connect and interact in their workspaces. Put it on and notice how your interactions in work spaces may change: When you need to focus, roll up your sleeves to conceal the playful "Ask Me What I'm Working On" prompt, or roll them down to welcome conversation and collaboration. Discover a constellation of thought-provoking conversation starters on the back, inspiring creativity, surprise, and meaningful connections throughout your day. Join the movement of modern workers and connectors redefining the boundaries of work and life. The Out of Office Uniform is a symbol of belonging to a community of forward-thinkers, redefining productivity, and creating more creative, gratifying and connecting ways of working and living. For the release of our first batch, we teamed up with Metalabel ✨ a new space to co-release and collect creative work! The origin storyAs a research & design lab and community of practice, Out of Office promotes a shift from a work-centered to a life-centered existence—investing in and discovering what makes us feel most alive and cultivating more engaged, authentic, and vibrant lives that are better for people on an individual and collective scale. We’re in the middle of this paradigm shift, and with our ways of working transforming and evolving all around us, come new challenges. Traditionally, offices have shaped a significant part of our lives and identities, dictating and providing structure to how we spend our time, how we dress, the meals we eat, and the people we spend time with. Whether we like it or not, our workplaces play an essential role in defining our professional and personal selves. However, the global pandemic pushed us to reassess and reorganize our lives, leading to a more widespread adoption of distributed work. This seismic shift has permanently transformed the physical and social fabric of our workplaces—and thus, our lives. Nowadays, work often resembles a solitary experience, with individuals immersed in screens and bound to keyboards. We find ourselves working together, yet simultaneously isolated, navigating the complexities of connection within a fragmented digital landscape. Increasing the surface area of serendipity, connection, and intention
"What you wear is how you present yourself to the world, especially today, when human contacts are so quick. Fashion is instant language." —Miuccia Prada In January of this year, we announced our first merch drop and social experiment, the Out of Office Uniform, envisioned as a tool for connection and symbol of belonging to a group of people – namely, remote workers, freelance or otherwise – dislodged from traditional professional infrastructures but reimagining how we work and live in a modern world. With this uniform, we’re interested in the structures and incentives that work used to provide us, and this exploration puts a focus on the cyber-physical aspects of community and belonging to a global network while engaging locally. We see local connections and the spaces that provide for them as pivotal in our ecosystem and aim to help Out of Office members find places that embody our values and where Out of Office community members can visit knowingly, trusting them as partners. From our community of more than 15k kindred spirits, more than 100 people expressed interest in participating in this first social experiment. A shift in social infrastructureTracing the evolution of human connection reveals a fascinating thread. Throughout history, public gathering places (squares, parks etc.) and so-called “Third Places” made us feel a sense of connection and created a connective tissue between neighbors. These physical "third places," as sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined, are places beyond the home and the office – the library, church, and coffee shops, and play a vital role in fostering a sense of community and social connectedness. But “community spaces” have evolved over the years. Burnout, cost barriers, lack of access, perceived importance, convenience culture – and ultimately, our obsession with work and productivity, have caused a decline in engaging with these spaces. With the industrial age, the office quickly became the space where we’d spend most of our gathering time and engaged socially. And with the abrupt interruption of the traditional in-place 9-5 in 2020, Zoom became our new office. This shift made the physical and social ergonomics of work look increasingly like sitting in solitude, connected by screens, tethered to keyboards — working together, alone. And we realized… not only did the office dictate our dresscode, meals, and social circles, but it also provided us with important social infrastructure – “The network of physical and social structures that build relationships and foster thriving communities.” (Gehl, 2024) Purpose, permission, structureWith our research project, we asked ourselves: How can we build permission, purpose and structure* to reconnect soloed remote/hybrid workers to overcome loneliness and stay inspired – near home and around the world? *Purpose, permission, and structure is a framework that Shuya Gong references often around setting the right conditions for meaningful work—creatives or independent workers in particular might look at each within their own practices to diagnose what may be getting in the way of the work they want to produce. Churches, corporations, and other forms of organized community provide each of the three factors that contribute towards a balance of expansive pursuit and exploration of work that fulfills a longer arc of a life’s worth of work, with constraints that help to translate explorative work into execution and output to contribute to a larger field of studied or collective efforts. She defines each as such, and proposes the following relationships between each factor:
The Out of Office Uniform Uniform / Photo credit: JasonLeCras “What would it feel like to wear a uniform to be a part of a club of modern workers and connectors reimagine how we work and live in a modern world? To be seen as a connector in the wild fostering relationship building and furthering the idea of third places over office spaces?” Uniforms are the OG tools of work, and what we wear closest to our bodies. So close, that we often forget to think about them as tools. But what’s also special about uniforms (or brand merch or university swag…) is that they help us find each other and create a sense of belonging. The Out of Office Uniform is a tool for increasing your surface area of serendipity, connection, and intention. Equipping those wearing it and working from a cafe, coworking space or other communal third space (a place beyond the home (1st space) or office (2nd space), to be connectors of this new modern group of humans.
How it works
Not just merch.Co-designed with our global community, this uniform is our first drop and tool for modern workers. But it’s not just merch: By buying this uniform, we are prototyping a community of practice (and an economy) that better serves us, as humans and humans who work. It means you're part of a group developing new ideas, tools and ventures to pave the way to new models of living and working and get access and discounts to a directory of curated third spaces where work, people, ideas, art + culture collide. We’re curious about this approach to connection and membership being built on network mechanisms that share genuine and meaningful value for this group of people. For the release of our first batch, we’re excited to team up with Metalabel and in the coming months, see our Uniforms out in the field, and build a group of local connectors fostering relationship building and furthering the idea of third places over office spaces! Join us and order your uniform today!
This uniform is a collaboration between Out of Office Network x Chaotic Goods a research and design collective building tools to navigate the emotional ergonomics of cyberphysical spaces—what are the new feelings we experience from the internet? It has been created across many timezones and hours on Zoom + an in-person gathering in LA earlier this year 🌞 You’re currently a free subscriber to Out Of Office Network. If you have been enjoying this newsletter and want to support it + get additional perks and content, you can support us by buying a coffee or upgrading to a paid membership 🧡 Looking for some inspiration for your work-life?
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srijeda, 12. lipnja 2024.
A uniform for modern workers!
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