How the Future Works

In this episode, Eleanor and Barry Matthews meet Charlotte Gregson, UK Country Manager for Malt www.malt.com  Malt is rapidly expanding and Charlotte is responsible for growing the UK business.  Malt already has 500,000 freelancers and works with 60,000 businesses.  The discussion covers Malt's country specific strategy, the importance of community and customer experience, the opportunities and challenges for flexible working posed by the current economic climate and of course Charlotte's first and worst jobs! "This episode is a symbolic one as it marks the final episode of How The Future Works in its current format. Open Assembly's two podcasts “Work” with John Winsor and “How the Future Works” with Barry and Eleanor Matthews are being combined into a single podcast titled “Transform Work.” As the title suggests the new podcast will continue to focus on how traditional work formats are being disrupted by digital platform-based open talent models and will include discussion, debate, and interviews with many of the leading thinkers involved in transforming the industry. Please note, we cannot move your subscription from this podcast to the Transform Work podcast feed.  In order to get the same great Open Talent-related content, please search and subscribe to Transform Work wherever you get your favorite podcasts."

In this episode Eleanor and Barry are joined by Colton Chorpenning; digital nomad, author and Senior Interactive Producer for Nest and Pixel at Google.  Originally from Denver, Colorado, Colton has designed a digitally nomadic lifestyle, spending half his time in Denver and travelling the world the other half. To date, he has worked in over 16 countries including Turkey, Austria, Italy, Thailand, SriLanka and India . Colton is the co-author of What The F*ck Is Next - a book he wrote with his father to help people live a life of intention. The discussion includes the Kerala Knowledge Economy Mission, Chat GPT and LLMs and the dangers of eating gummy bears in Colorado!

This episode Eleanor and Barry talk about the Trusted Talent Platform Partner survey and travel plans for work to help boost the freelancing industry in India and Saudi Arabia. Their guest is Ahva Sadeghi, CEO of Symba, a platform with a purpose — to open up the workforce by helping businesses establish remote internships, enabling them to invest in the next generation of talent, and commit to diversity and inclusion. She talks about the lightbulb moment when she realised that Symba had to exist, the benefits of a well-managed internship programme, and the importance of finding the right business partner. Find out more about Symba at symba.io.

The guest on this episode was Glen Hodgson, CEO of Free Trade Europa, a “Think Tank and Do Tank” focusing on liberalisation, free trade, innovation, transparency and the rule of law across Europe. In our conversation he explains what that means and what he predicts for 2023 in way that European governments and other bodies respond to the ongoing growth and expansion of freelancing as a valid career choice for the future of work. Eleanor and Barry also talk about all the speakers from 2022 and what 2023 has in store for Open Assembly.  

Eleanor and Barry discuss topical news including the Autumn statement from the UK chancellor and the recent happenings at Twitter. Their guests this week are Lizzie and Alex Hirst, authors of Sunday Times bestselling book Workstyle: a revolution for wellbeing, productivity and society.   Lizzie and Alex tell their stories and why they felt compelled to create a new word to describe an autonomous way of working, reorientating work to fit around your life instead of the other way around. They also describe Hoxby, the purpose-led company they have built around this philosophy and of course talk about their first jobs, worst jobs and life hacks. Find out more about them at hoxby.com and buy the book Workstyle on amazon.com or any good bookstore

Eleanor and Barry discuss the UK Government's IR35 hokey cokey and the latest industry facts and figures from Staffing Industry Analysts, before welcoming guests, Casey McElroy and Sam Orrin from Worksome. Worksome defies classification and fits into a number of the industry's boxes, so we explore where it fits, what makes it different and what the future holds for the company that is on a mission to reduce friction between companies and their external workforce. Find out more about them at worksome.com, on LinkedIn @worksome or search for worksome on other social platforms.  

In this episode Barry and Eleanor talk to Neil Hughes, LinkedIn Top Voice winner, prolific podcaster and all round nice chap. They talk about the extraordinary growth in podcasting, how it can be a useful tool for promotion and profile-building for freelancers and how to find enough motivation and inspiration to record every day. They also pick apart the recent changes in IR35 and what it will mean to UK freelancers if and when it is executed.

In this episode of How The Future Works, Eleanor and Barry are joined by Tanveer Mohammed UST UK's head of Innovation.  They discuss how the open innovation model enables UST to collaborate with employees, customers and targeted groups of external experts who can all contribute to solving challenges on behalf of UST's clients.  They discuss how UST is using open innovation to solve problems related to fraud associated with deep fakes and malicious use of AI, as well as a range of diverse client challenges. The team also discuss their plans for The Great North Run, the new PM and Tanveer's 5x10 round

  In this episode of How The Future Works, Eleanor, and Barry meet Kal Sahota, CEO of Open Innovation platform HeroX. She explains how organisations tap into solvers from around the world to find the answers to their big conundrums. As a completely open crowd, the solvers (or Heros) compete for prize money, but as Kal explains their motivation is more about being part of something bigger and the intellectual challenge. They also discuss Barry's recent trip to Boulder, Colorado, and Eleanor's resulting FOMO. https://www.herox.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/Herox

In this episode of How The Future Works Eleanor and Barry meet Matt Dowling, founder of The Freelancer Club and find out more about how the expectation of work for free is a real thing in the freelance industry for creatives. Their #NOFREEWORK movement aims to put an end to that expectation and was born from Matt's own experience of being ripped off by a client. They also discuss Upwork's upcoming Work Without Limits event, lightbulbs going on in a family-run brewing company and possibly the best ever worst job. https://freelancerclub.net/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/dowlingmatthew/ www.open-assembly.com

In this episode of How The Future Works Eleanor and Barry discuss the role of Change Management and Training in scaling adoption of Open Talent in businesses of all sizes.  They are joined by Kelvin Wetherill the founder and CEO of NerdApp and they discuss the term “skill sourcing” and how well it fits what NerdApp do in matching tech experts with demand from consumers and businesses in as little as 30 seconds using a digital app.  They also discuss UK politics, record-breaking temperatures, Meerlust wine, and using the term Nerd as a term of endearment. www.nerdapp.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelvin-wetherill-8a013554/?originalSubdomain=uk www.open-assembly.com  

In this episode Eleanor and Barry discuss why and how governments want to attract and develop freelance talent.  They discuss the top destinations for freelancers, the incentives that many governments are offering to attract successful freelancers and the investment many countries are making in developing their own local experts to freelance globally using digital platforms.  They are joined by Dr. Rochelle Haynes, founder and CEO of Crowdpotential and an accomplished academic, speaker, author and lecturer on gig working, HR and the implications of an increasingly mobile, digital and global population. www.crowdpotential.co.uk www.open-assembly.com https://www.linkedin.com/in/drrochellehaynes/

In this episode Barry and Eleanor discuss the talent challenges in the healthcare industry; the huge number of vacancies at a time when the demand for specialist skills is larger than ever and growing each year. They are joined by Melissa Morris the founder and CEO of Lantum.  Lantum is a platform tackling healthcare's most painful and expensive problem – workforce management.  Lantum provides a workforce scheduling platform which gives clinicians control over their working patterns and connects organisations to flexible workers able to fill vacancies and as a result helps to transform the way healthcare professionals schedule their time enabling them to focus on their clinical expertise. www.lantum.com www.open-assembly.com

Eleanor and Barry are joined by Akhil Seth the head of UST's Open Talent Centre of Excellence.  They discuss the importance of a COE when starting an open talent programme, the role of the COE in establishing relationships with talent platforms and the many functions of a COE in everything from sourcing and interviewing freelance talent, through to ensuring secure systems access, insurance and IP protection – they also have a really fun conversation with an incredibly bright and articulate young professional www.ust.com www.open-assembly.com    

Barry and Eleanor are joined by the charming, erudite and ebullient Albert Azis-Clauson the CEO of Underpinned.  Underpinned have been helping people prepare for the future of work since 2018 – they specifically help people to commercialise their skills and turn their passions into businesses – and over the last 4 years they have helped to prepare 50,000 people for the future of work.  Barry, Eleanor and Albert discuss the importance of relationships, the role of talent marketplaces, the future of work, the importance of focus and why everyone should work hard and be kind – it's a conversation not to be missed www.underpinned.com www.open-assembly.com

In this special episode, Barry and Eleanor are joined by their good friend and new colleague Dyan Finkhousen to celebrate Dyan joining the Open Assembly team as Chief Strategy Officer.  Dyan joins the team to help realise the Open Assembly vison of creating the operating system for open talent.  Dyan has an incredible career including positions as GE's Global Director of Open Innovation and Advanced Manufacturing, and Founder of GE GeniusLink and GE Fuse.  Dyan and the team discuss how Open Assembly started, her vision for an open talent future, her interest outside of work and her ability to thrive on very little sleep! https://open-assembly.com/about/team

In this episode Eleanor and Barry are joined by Adam Morehead from Topcoder, arguably the best community building platform in the industry.  Topcoder have built a unique community of 1.7 million of the world's best technologists.  Over the past 20 years they have placed community building at the core of their offering.  They combine regular virtual events with an annual in person event for the top performers in the community.  The Topcoder Open has become the equivalent of the Olympics of engineering!  This week the team also discuss lessons learned from Rishad Tobaccowala,  Stephen Bartlett, Elizabeth Daily's How to Fail Podcast and Jay Shetty's book Think Like a Monk. www.topcoder.com www.open-assembly.com

In this episode, Barry and Eleanor discuss the pros and cons of being a digital nomad, how frustrating it is to try and work without a mobile phone.  BT's £30m investment in Distributed.co and the rapidly expanding use of Open Talent in the UK.  Their special topic is the use of student talent and how students are being used to provide skills and capacity to businesses, through talent platforms. They are joined by Jeffery Moss the founder and CEO of Parker Dewey.  Parker Dewey offer “micro internships” for students to showcase their skills and potential while also getting paid and providing employers with skills and the chance to get to know student talent who might go on to longer term internships or full time future roles. Links: www.parkerdewey.com www.open-assembly.com

In this episode, Barry and Eleanor talk about the Great Resignation, Tang Ping, and how workers around the world are changing the way they think about work and approach work-life balance. They also look at the ongoing trend towards freelancing and open talent and how governments are reacting. They are joined this time by Elinor Hamilton, freelance voice artist, entrepreneur, ultra-runner, mother-figure-to-many, and voice of the underground. She talks about how voice artists find work and how brands and companies find their voice and tells the story that sparked her own award-winning podcast Tales from the Tannoy. Find out more here: Website: https://www.sayerhamilton.com/ Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/tales-from-the-tannoy/id1507189945

In this bonus episode, Eleanor and Barry are joined by Tom Matthews who has reviewed and catalogued each of the 2021 podcast episodes and the trio discuss the guests, the themes, the answers to the 5 x 10 questions and have a general review of the year.  They remember their favourite answers and the topics that resonated the most, as well as looking ahead to How The Future Works in 2022

In this episode, Barry and Eleanor discuss the Great Resignation, the move from fixed employment models to flexible freelance working models, and the benefits and risks associated with taking the big step. They are joined by Tom Brooks the founder of Yon Living www.yonliving.com a brilliant concept that combines staying in great locations, designed for working and relaxing, with meeting like-minded digital workers and creating community. Tom explains the story behind Yon, explains how the model works, which cities Yon is currently located in and their expansion plans for the future. It's an entertaining and inspiring conversation with an entrepreneurial founder who has created a model for the digital worker. www.yonliving.com www.open-assembly.com www.transformationofwork.org

In the latest episode of How The Future Works, Barry and Eleanor are joined by Emily and Alex Marcham Emily and Alex are a married couple who decided that life was too short to be employed in a 9-5 and so made the big life decision to resign from their jobs and embrace the digital nomadic lifestyle.  Emily went from being a legal secretary to becoming a virtual assistant, social media expert and blogger and Alex left behind his role as a HVAC engineer to embrace a new future as a web designer. They now live the freelance dream and travel the world, work for themselves and earn income from client projects through open talent platforms. It's a fascinating and inspiring discussion that might just tempt you to think differently about what work is all about! Emily's details linkedin.com/in/emily-marcham-255b3095 Alex's details linkedin.com/in/alexander-marcham-44280657 www.open-assembly.com www.transformationofwork.org

In this episode Barry and Eleanor reveal some exciting news in that Re-source the open talent consulting business that they run together, has merged with Open Assembly the world's leading learning resource and consultancy for the future of work and the open talent economy.  They discuss the podcast which will continue under the same name but under the Center for the Transformation of Work (CTW) banner – the CTW is a community project established by Open Assembly designed to support the needs of freelancers around the world.  They are joined by Ray Wolf the CEO of A2K Partners.  Ray and A2K make the future of work a reality for business leaders and they have developed a VDI based security solution that's designed to enable freelancers from any platform to safely and securely access enterprise systems.  The key to open talent enablement in the enterprise. www.A2kPartners.com www.open-assembly.com

In this episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the increasingly popular model of companies turning to elastic teams of expert freelance tech resources to deliver projects. They meet Callum Adamson Co-founder and CEO of Distributed. www.distributed.co Callum founded Distributed in 2017 and the business has seen rapid growth with demand coming from prestige brands, attracted by Distributed's model of sourcing the best independent talent in the world managed through a quality based process and delivered via a digital platform. They have a great discussion on the benefits of the elastic, freelance model and have a bet live on air as to whether freelancing will be the predominant employment model for technology professionals by 2025. Barry and Eleanor also discuss Turing, Braintrust, MBO Partner's latest research showing a 34% annual increase in independent professionals in the US, orange wine, ultra-marathons, the Great North Run and so much more – go on, have a listen! www.distributed.co www.re-source.uk https://foilsurfing.co.uk/

In this week's episode Barry and Eleanor discuss the importance of taking some time off especially when working as an independent professional  (which explains the slight gap between the previous episode and this one!) they discuss the Open Assembly's latest publication Networked Organization – a play book for implementing open talent at scale  https://lnkd.in/egFrUMEA and discuss the growing trend for businesses to engage teams of freelancers.  As companies grow more comfortable with marketplaces as an alternative to agencies or consultancies, they are also increasingly asking freelance platforms to assemble multiple experts to complete more complex, strategic, projects.    To help them to explore the teaming topic in more detail they are joined by Dr Hans-Ulrich von Freyburg the founder of  Vicoland and Niklas Lieb  Vicoland's head of Busines Development.  Vicoland stands for Virtual Company and is a really innovative platform based business that creates virtual companies or “Vicos” comprised of freelance experts who then provide a specific service to an enterprise client and all supported by Vicoland's digital infrastructure. https://www.vicoland.com/ https://www.re-source.uk/  

In this episode, Eleanor and Barry meet Mark Hannant and Munni Trivedi a married couple who met at work and run multiple businesses together.  They compare notes on what it's like to be married to your business partner as well as learn about Mark and Munni's business; Indigo Premedia that provides outsourcing services to creative agencies.  They discuss the rapid rise of outsourcing creative services as well as the wider industry, the disruption of human cloud marketplaces the importance of providing managed services, and how to create a movement (see link to the video below) Mark and Munni are fascinating guests with a brilliant story and a really positive energy which makes for a fun-filled, entertaining conversation. https://indigopremedia.com/ www.re-source.uk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hO8MwBZl-Vc 

In this episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the “talent paradox” and look at the reasons why enterprises find engaging with human cloud models so challenging.  They role play a scenario to bring to life how companies can overcome concerns about security, compliance, employment classification, IP protection and more and discuss how despite having solutions for each one, enterprises still find it difficult to engage readily available open talent due to “organisational inertia” and they look at the role of HR experts and Change Managers in helping to make the change happen. To bring the topic to life they are joined by Mark Brooks-Lewis the Founder of LavaSourceHR the new talent marketplace and community for HR, HR Tech and OCM Professionals.  Mark describes why he established LavaSourceHR and how he expects the market to develop in response to enterprise demand for HR professionals, HR Technology experts and Change Management practitioners that are now available through his new platform.  Mark also discusses his first and worst job and his long-time prediction that England will win the Euros! www.lavasource.co.uk www.re-source.co.uk

In this week's episode, Eleanor and Barry discuss the importance of workforce culture and how culture can be maintained and improved within an ecosystem environment.  They discuss the importance of feedback loops and how the ability to give feedback in an anonymous, safe environment should be a fundamental right that transcends employment boundaries and be universally available for all workers. They are joined by Claire Schmidt, founder and CEO of Allvoices; an anonymous reporting tool and case management system that was built with both the employee and the employer in mind.  AllVoices provides workers a way to report wrongdoing and feedback anonymously and company leaders the opportunity to have two-way anonymous conversations with reporters.  Claire left her position as a tech exec at 20th Century Fox to start AllVoices after reading Susan Fowler's blog about the harassment she experienced at Uber, which ultimately led to Uber's CEO stepping down. Susan is now on the board of AllVoices.  The team have a great discussion that covers BrewDog's recent challenges with employee feedback, the importance of anonymity and how its achieved, positive as well as negative feedback loops and the spin-off benefits of trust and transparency on workforce culture. Links https://www.allvoices.co/ www.re-source.uk www.humancloud.uk

In this week's episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the growing trend of workforce ecosystems and how enterprises are starting to think more holistically about how work gets done and who does the work, treating employees, agency workers, open talent platform work, gig workers, outsourcers and robots as an ecosystem to manage.  They discuss the World Economic Forum and Willis Towers Watson's formulae for accounting for work:  Return on Work (ROW) = Total Revenue / Total Cost of Work (TCW) where the TCW includes all work sources.  They are joined by Hassan Khadra-Brooks – Founder and Director of The Hive – a platform for staff sharing and the future of B2B Collaboration and they discuss the benefits of non-competing enterprises collaborating and sharing staff.  Hassan explains the benefits of sharing staff to fill talent needs, to balance supply and demand and to up-skill and develop skilled employees.  Hassan also shares his 5x10 answers, including his predictions for the 2021 edition of Euro2020! Useful Links https://thehive-enterprise.co.uk/ www.re-source.uk www.humancloud.uk  

In this episode Barry and Eleanor discuss the world of Customer Experience (CX) and discuss what makes good CX and why.  They discuss how after over a year of managing with the pandemic  companies shouldn't be using COVID as an excuse for poor customer service and they discuss how flexible, remote working models with mixed teams of experts can improve CX by attracting experts to work remotely on flexible terms.  They are joined by Jitender Mohan, Executive Vice President and head of Customer Experience at WNS who discusses WNS's approach to CX and how they have developed an open talent model based on mixed teams of domain experts working flexibly and remotely as part of hybrid WNS teams. www.wns.com www.re-source.uk www.humancloud.uk  

In this week's episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the world of internal talent marketplaces – an area of open talent that doesn't always get the attention that it deserves.  Much of the public discussion on open talent focusses on the way digital talent marketplaces are disrupting the world of freelance work, but that same technology can equally be applied to internally employed talent and can play an incredibly valuable role in balancing internal skills and demand across an organisation and as a result improving efficiency, reducing and avoiding recruitment costs and improving employee career paths. The team are joined by Iman Fadaei founder and Managing Director of Whitelance a technology company helping businesses to create their own digital marketplaces, whether internal, external or a hybrid of both and also the marketplace technology that powers www.humancloud.uk The team discuss the benefits of internal marketplaces, the potential for marketplaces to cross the internal, external and employed and freelance boundaries and learn more about Whitelance and their ability to set up a marketplace in a day! www.whitelance.uk www.re-source.uk www.humancloud.uk  

In this week's episode Eleanor and Barry discuss the world of Virtual Reality!  They discuss both the fun, recreational, entertainment use of VR as well as the professional, enterprise applications of the latest incarnations of VR technology.  They are joined by Neil Fox, CTO of Hexaware, emerging tech expert, open talent expert and VR afficionado and they discuss the world of VR from a business, open talent and societal perspective, it's a fascinating discussion which covers the basics, the fun stuff and some of the potential implications of life in the real world when the virtual world goes mainstream! www.hexaware.com www.re-source.uk www.humancloud.uk  

In this week's episode Eleanor and Barry discuss how open talent marketplaces are beginning to be used at scale by global enterprises as well as by business services and technology services providers who are embracing open talent and open innovation models into their service delivery operations.  The hosts are joined by Roland Rosevear from Freelancer.com's enterprise team who provides some fascinating examples and stories that really bring this trend to life.  The team also discuss virtual reality and its potential to transform the way we work, the latest news from the open talent industry and Roland's first and worst job – spoiler alert – paper boy and hospital cleaner!  It makes for another really entertaining and informative discussion on the wonderful world of open talent. www.freelancer.com www.re-source.uk www.humancloud.uk  

In this episode Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the world of consulting and the opportunities and challenges for this long established, traditional $600 billion profession.  To bring to life the different models at play and to discuss the world of consulting and open talent, Barry and Eleanor welcome Mike Berry Chief Commercial Officer of JDX Consulting.  JDX specialise in aligning bespoke, flexible resourcing and consulting services to financial services clients. Mike sets what Barry and Eleanor hope will be a new trend for the podcast, in sending them delicious wine to enjoy whilst chatting.  To accompany the wine and alongside the discussion on consulting, the team discuss the challenge of over-working in open talent, the question of when a freelance worker is really an employee in disguise and of course find out more about Mike during a fun filled 5x10 round. www.re-source.uk www.jdxconsulting.com

In this episode Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the complexities of making the gig economy work globally. The rise of the digital nomad raises questions around tax, employment law, compliance and requires expert advice. Our guest this week is Connor Heaney the EMEA Managing Director of CXC Global a company that specialises in making the gig economy work globally. Eleanor and Barry also talk about how the worlds of outsourcing and open talent are colliding and creating opportunities for all as well as some of the work they're doing, Eleanor's imminent exhibition, Connor's first and worst job and so much more besides! It's a fascinating conversation on the world of open talent over a glass of wine with much insight and advice and a few laughs along the way. www.re-source.uk http://www.cxcglobal.com/

In this episode Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss what's been happening in the wonderful world of open talent; including the GT&BSC's Open Talent event, Microsoft and Linkedin's plans to move into the open talent market and Uber's supreme court ruling.  They also discuss Agile Talent over a glass of wine with Martin Boakes MD for Europe at Enate. Agile Talent and the Martini model: any time, any place, any-where, any employment type – requires a level of orchestration and balance that only software can provide.  Martin explains how Enate's orchestration software enables load balancing across geographies and worker types. Martin also shares his first job and worst job, his cycling accomplishments and his and Eleanor's obsession with fitness performance metrics www.enate.net www.re-source.uk

In this episode Barry and Eleanor Matthews meet 2 of the people who make the gig economy possible; the talent providing the services.  They are joined by Joanna Hulks and Alexander Chekspir who both provide services in the human cloud, but in completely different ways.  Jo works on the Limitless gigCX platform www.limitlesstech.com answering text based customer queries in her spare time while bringing up a young baby and  Alex works on the Topcoder platform www.topcoder.com and has been taking part in and winning software challenges since he was at University. They discuss the work they do, how they got into the gig economy and the benefits of being able to choose where and when they work; including in-between 3am baby feeding or on a beach in Brazil with a beer.  Barry and Eleanor also discuss their introduction to the new social media app Clubhouse and pledge to start a new How The Future Works room – watch this space!

Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the various different terms that are used to describe the gig economy and provide a structure that helps to provide some much needed consistency.  They also discuss whether it's possible to create effective teams when working remotely and digitally and when the team members are globally distributed and comprised of a multitude of different employment models. They are joined by the amazing Laura Thompson from Phenomenal Training.  Laura is an expert in culture, change and communications and has been delivering change and leadership programmes through her business Phenomenal Training since 2008. She's also an expert on robotics and AI and its impact on the way we work.  Laura has a background in human psychology, she is a Ted speaker an author a podcaster and an expert in creating high performing teams. It was such a fun and engaging conversations that included Latitude Festival, Darwin, RARA, 4Cs, Pandas and Foxes!  Definitely one not to be missed

Barry and Eleanor Matthews kick off 2021 with a glass of wine and an inspirational chat with Aoibhe Cantwell the head of Legal, Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging at Version 1. The conversation covers the impact of the pandemic on Diversity and Inclusion, the importance of acceptance and belonging in the workplace, Version 1's innovative Starts With A Name (SWAN) initiative, the pros and cons of D&I in the world of Open Talent and so much more besides. It was such a fun, interesting and inspirational conversation and one that reminds us all of the importance of acceptance, belonging, diversity and inclusion across all types of work and every kind of worker Useful Links www.version1.com www.startswithaname.net

This week Barry and Eleanor Matthews share a virtual cup of tea and discuss how talent platforms are being increasingly used to match the supply and demand of highly skilled expertise as they are joined by Emma El Karout the founder of on-demand HR platform One Circle The conversation covers the latest news in Open Talent, including the WEF report on ‘The 4 things that will redefine the way we work by 2025' and Harvard and BCGs recent report ‘Building The On-Demand Workforce' Emma explains why she set up One Circle, the kind of work that the platform delivers through the community of highly vetted, experienced HR professionals from 48 countries, the new marketplace functionality and her plans for the future The team also discuss Emma's first and worst job and get some top tips for new lockdown box sets!

This week Barry and Eleanor Matthews share a virtual glass of wine and chat all things crowdsourcing, competitions and challenges with the amazing George Gallant from Topcoder The conversation covers the latest news in Open Talent as well as how crowdsourcing challenges work, why companies are choosing them as a delivery method, who the challengers are and how they deliver value George shares anecdotes, examples and stories to really bring the crowdsourcing challenge model to life.  He shares the parallels of crowdsourcing to cloudsourcing a decade ago and how once clients start the journey how rapidly they become hooked – he also shares how a certain very famous and successful business leader was once a member of the Topcoder crowd! George also shares his first job and worst job and provides fascinating insight and anecdotes to really bring the world of crowdsourcing to life

This week Barry and Eleanor Matthews share a glass of wine and a chat with the automation legend, pioneer and the “youngest veteran in town” (his words) that is Wayne Butterfield The conversation covers the latest news in Open Talent, the changing role of RPA as a strategic lever, the similarities between open talent and automation models and the ways that automation, AI and data science can be accessed through open talent platforms to achieve rapid non-linear growth Wayne also shares his first job and his worst job, what happens when automation programmes go wrong and why he loves Gloucester Service Station on the M5

This week Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the wonderful world of GigCX where workers are “crowdsourced” using a digital platform and work on an on-demand basis from their homes (or anywhere for that matter) – a trend that's helping big business to reduce fixed costs while utilising their existing, trusted brand ambassadors to provide services to other customers.  Brilliantly simple, simply brilliant! The team are joined by two thought leaders in GigCXMeghan Neale – co-founder and COO of Limitless Technology – a business established specifically to provide opportunities through gigCX and who created the category in 2016 – The Limitless mission is to empower anyone on the planet to earn money for providing brilliant customer services for brands they love Phil Jones – who is senior VP and Strategic Business Development at Teleperformance : the world's leader in high touch and high value customer interactions and digital integrated services.  

Barry and Eleanor Matthews discuss the role of a gig economy, open talent mindset and how sourcing strategies should incorporate this rapidly developing area of business Sourcing models are being disrupted, intelligent automation is rapidly maturing and open talent eco-systems are accelerating fast.  Accessing the power of the crowd alongside more traditional internal, freelance, outsourced and automated delivery models requires a new way of thinking and a new way of sourcing