Yahoo! Right or Wrong on Remote Working?

Yahoo has announced it is taking measures to ban its staff from "remote" working. After years of predicting working from home as the future for everybody, why has this high tech company taken this step? 

"Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home." says the memo from the Yahoo! HR department. 

Virgin entrepreneur Richard Branson, who spends much of his time working on Necker Island in the Caribbean, was quick to respond calling it a "backwards step in an age when remote working is easier and more effective than ever". 

Julian Stubbs, based in Stockholm Sweden is a pioneer of remote working. Stubbs is CEO of the global cloud based agency *UP There, Everywhere, which has over 130 people working remotely around the world. 

“I used to spend up to three hours a day in my car driving to work and from work. I’d sit in an office with a large number of other people who had all done pretty much the same thing. It dawned on me that there had to be a better way of working in this new digital age.” says Stubbs. He continues 'I'm truly baffled by Yahoo's! announcement. It seems a very odd move, for a supposedly high tech company'. 

What makes UP* so different? You won’t find any fancy offices or executive creative directors. UP* works with distributed project teams, assembling senior level ‘doers’ to meet each client’s needs after a careful input and evaluation session. Team members may be located in the client’s home city, or halfway around the world.

“The majority of UP* people have worked together in the past either at agencies or as clients,” says Stubbs. “We're extremely selective and careful in who we allow to join and having a past shared experience better enables us to work successfully without sitting in the same physical room.” *UP There, Everywhere is already working with a number of clients in the US, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, USA, UK and Switzerland.Global Connected Co-operative Communities

Working in the cloud

“We believe that Connected Co-operative Communities working through the cloud 
will make major changes to the working patterns of people around the world. *UP There, Everywhere is one of the very first of these to be put together in such an organised and international fashion,” said Stubbs. He continues, “Our mission is to help change the way the world works.  It’s a big mission, but we believe one that is now possible with the tools we have available.”

And if that new way could address CO2 emissions and its effect on climate change, then all the better, he figured.  *UP There, Everywhere emerged as that totally new way of working. The dream of teams of people working remotely has been around a while, but only now, with today’s technology and applications, is that dream becoming a reality.

The focus at UP* is on delivering creative and brand services that helps clients, especially those in what the company calls “high involvement” markets, to develop brand strategies, identities and communications that reflect today’s global market, digital communications and cross-cultural thinking. The company forms client teams based on needs, location, language, market experience and other factors. UP members use online technology, including project management tools through sites such as Base Camp, Drop Box, Skype conferencing, iChat and Facebook groups. Without the overhead of offices and formal employees, *UP has developed a completely new business model, while offering a highly experienced, diverse team of experts with international work experience.

About the UP* Founders

The company’s founders are Julian Stubbs and Eric Dowell. English national Julian Stubbs, who is a brand strategist, is best known for the branding of city destinations such as his work for the city of Stockholm, The Capital of Scandinavia, and his recent book titled,” Wish You Were Here, the Branding of Destinations.” Stubbs was formerly Head of Global Branding for GyroHSR the world’s largest Business-to-Business advertising agency Group. Amongst other projects he worked on the re-branding of Thomson / Technicolor Corporation.

Award-winning American Creative Director Eric Dowell, formerly a creative director with GyroHSR in New York, brings over two-decades of experience working in New York, London and Stockholm. Today, Eric resides in Princeton, NJ.

The two are joined by a global team of senior marketing professionals, creative designers, web marketing experts, social anthropology experts, and digital and animation developers in places such as London, San Francisco, Boston, Amsterdam, Rome, Stockholm, Geneva, and LA. With over one hundred and thirty people and partners already part of the UP* community it gives the organisation a wide resource to call on.

About *UP

The new agency has already landed a number of international clients, such as The Nobel Peace Prize Concert, Airport City Stockholm, the branding assignment for the city of Oslo, Dako Cancer Diagnostics and Science magazine in Washington DC among others. In its first full financial year the company passed a million euros in sales and is growing strongly. 

*UP has created some unique solutions to help support their global operation with servers providing 24-hour back-up and storage of client work. The same system is capable of helping clients store their own marketing materials – a service offered by UP*.

For more information about *UP There, Everywhere visit www.upthereeverywhere.com. UP* can also be found on Facebook at UpThereEverywhere , Twitter at @UP_For_It  and Linked In: www.linkedin.com/company/up-there-everywhere.