2021 Digital Workspace Reflections

Ryan Purvis  0:00  
Hello, and welcome to the digital workspace works Podcast. I'm Ryan Purvis, your host supported by producer Heather Bicknell. In the series, you'll hear stories and opinions from experts in the field story from the frontlines. The problems they're facing, how they solve them. The areas they're focused on from technology, people and processes to the approaches they took, that'll help you to get to grips with the digital workspace inner workings.

Heather Bicknell  0:29  
Well, I think we wanted to recap the years today, and what a year it has been.

Ryan Purvis  0:37  
Yeah, it's been a year of change. Which to say the least, some things have changed and stay the same. And some things have changed and been very different. I don't know how it's been for you.

Heather Bicknell  0:52  
Yeah, I think in some ways, it feels like a carryover for a lot of 2020. I mean, a lot of folks including myself to working full time remotely, including you.

So that kind of gives it a samey say mean it. But obviously, we both changed jobs this year. So that's a big life change of a pretty recent, so it still feels fresh.

Ryan Purvis  1:27  
Yeah, I mean, I think society as much as we've changed jobs, and all that kind of stuff, I think some of the things is it's has been consistent in the sense that you can't plan too far ahead. Because you don't know what's going to happen. If you look at a couple weeks ago, for the sake of this, a month or two ago, it was looking like there was only one variant to worry about. So things are things are starting to settle down, and then boom, there's another one. And then we don't have to worry about that some of the silliness that happened after that. But, you know, it's almost going back to the fact that you've got to look for the for the moment, and that's a cliche. But I think, you know, that is that important that that when you've got the opportunity to do something, you should do it rather than putting it off for a so called bill of time. And I know, that's a very big generalisation. But, you know, friends of mine trying to get married, they should have done it while in the game was good. So they're waiting for the new year. And then they had this complication, with all this other stuff as the sixth distress. And, you know, it's easy to say that when you're on the on the sidelines, but I just think, you know, you got to you got to take the choices when you can.

Heather Bicknell  2:43  
Yeah, I think there's been, you know, this mindset shift around priorities. And I think, being a little bit bolder, maybe in terms of doing what you want, when you can, because you don't know when that opportunity may be taken away from you. I think, kind of both of those things are coexisting. Right now. The people are sort of just taking the time to step out and reorient their lives, whatever that means to them.

Ryan Purvis  3:15  
Yeah, yeah. No, I think you're right. But the going to our recap, sort of view on this stuff. Firstly, I'm surprised that we haven't done 52 We're going to 52 by the time we published the last episode of support, do we miss a week somewhere?

Heather Bicknell  3:34  
I didn't think we did. So yeah. We'll have over 50 episodes published. By the time this one airs, which is awesome. And they are doing this weekly. I don't think we did miss one. Maybe I miscounted? I don't think so. It was because of our publishing schedule. That's possible.

Ryan Purvis  3:57  
Yeah, it's entirely possible. There's a chance we've missed a Monday. So there's a Monday that's missed because of the way it all lined up. That's That's entirely possible. I thought the numbers are really good, you know, almost 3000 downloads, which which by the end of the year, we will definitely be honest with you.

Heather Bicknell  4:14  
You know, that's pretty amazing. When he stopped. Yeah, that back and think about it.

Ryan Purvis  4:22  
Well, this is our first full year. So that's a pretty good I would I'd be very if you told me this when we started that we'd have a few 1000 people I think we will have 3000 the time we get to the end of the year. I'd really pretty shuffled that would have been tough with 1000.

Heather Bicknell  4:36  
Yeah, I mean, it's still wild to think about people finding the show listening to the show. That's pretty cool. Another of these numbers that jumped out to me was listeners in 63 countries.

Ryan Purvis  4:54  
Yeah, that's a pretty that's a that's a that's a really exciting prospect that people listen to us all over the world.

Heather Bicknell  5:01  
Yeah, I thought that was a pretty cool one. We had 22 I guess it will be I think 23 guests probably by the end of the year. So congrats to Ryan for managing all of that. Probably most of our listeners don't know that Ryan does the guest outreach and coordination and has this whole system built in notion to kind of acquire all the necessary things from God. So congrats to you for that one.

Ryan Purvis  5:32  
Thanks for that, well, this is a team effort. So we would have to do something else that makes muscle work. So I appreciate all your efforts this year. But that's, that's become quite sophisticated, actually. Because I use notion that you're talking to Zapier, it's, it's become quite a nice little workflow automation tool.

Heather Bicknell  5:51  
For the for the podcast. Absolutely. Any of these other stats I put together jumped out at you as surprising.

Ryan Purvis  6:01  
Yeah, so what I'm surprised by is that the UK, so I obviously check the stats like you do sort of every week. And the UK used to be over 50% or 60%. And the US used to be closer to 10%. So that that's gone up from while the UK is going down to 40%. But the US has gone up to 24%. So that Forget being 10% that I kind of expect, because I'm here now so that with that, obviously sort of skew that number a bit, but it means that the other countries are growing on their own, which I thought was quite a nice. A nice thing to to keep an eye on more actually to get the better.

Heather Bicknell  6:49  
Absolutely, yeah, that means we have around 25% from the rest of the world apart from UK, US and South Africa. So that is also very cool.

Ryan Purvis  7:02  
Yeah, so we maybe change tack when we look at the the episodes that were most downloaded, I was so shocked when I looked at the over employed the chain of work in two remote jobs. I was number one, and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised considering that I've tended for a while there were two different roles at the same time. And it's almost a byproduct of the gig economy to an extent where, you know, with with Uber, you are, you know, you've got a car and you can provide a service vehicle. In a knowledge worker space, as long as you've got a laptop or connectivity, you can provide a service. You know, some roles on here require someone part time. And because you don't have to travel you could you get to squeeze out an extra couple hours a day. So. So there's obviously a lot of people do that or thinking about doing that. So I was quite shocked to see that that was when I saw the sort of numbers and stuff that resonated so well that people

Heather Bicknell  8:01  
totally, I think part of it as well could be it's kind of controversial, or is it more of a hot button type topic, especially if you're talking to full time remote position. So I think it evokes some curiosity, for that reason. And I think you're totally right, in that. You know, there's the sort of side gig side hustle phenomenon that has, you know, is evolving, and in some cases, resulting in people taking on to full time remote positions. Yeah,

Ryan Purvis  8:45  
I look, I think there's also a level of uncertainty or pre empting uncertainty, you know, not knowing what what the markets gonna be like. I mean, I, you know, I talk to a lot of recruiters and they always telling me, there's so many jobs and so few candidates. But this I still think there's a belief, it's harder to get a job than to pick up a side hustle in some respects, or because the interview process can be quite daunting versus just contracting to someone that is, there's almost safety and can that kind of approach. Interesting.

Heather Bicknell  9:26  
So you're surprised by the over employed episode being number one. What was more surprising to me was that our episode on QR codes ended up being the second most listened to and this one is a bit of a mystery to me. I think maybe it's a topic that others weren't covering. So we came up for it more. Maybe when people are looking for podcast content about QR codes, but did the font also surprise you?

Ryan Purvis  10:03  
Yeah, you know, for a long time, the QR codes didn't really reflect, or people didn't bother to use it everywhere. And it's it's almost a stealthy arrival in some respects. But it's such a simple, elegant solution in other respects, but almost feel like it's one of those things. It's everything it's so used to them, but they're gonna fall away as quickly as they became useful.

Heather Bicknell  10:30  
Hmm. Yeah, I think they are, you know, for obviously the contactless situation, they're a really good solution for that. I think in the maybe the restaurant world or shops of that nature, I think I could see them to be used for digital menus like that. Very convenient use case. But I think we've we may be reached a peak there have the QR code here. Yeah,

Ryan Purvis  11:05  
that was the problem. The problem was something that something that was trying to sell me something. The reality is that too slow. I mean, that sounds funny if you think about it, but the time it takes you to get your camera out to take to scan the code, to click the link to open the page, you're talking seconds, 510 seconds. And that's if you know what you're doing, probably longer if you don't. So it only really works for use cases where you've got time. So you know, sitting down at a restaurant table, to audio food in your drinks, you've got the time to do it. But if you're trying to use QR codes and things of that nature, so me too, has access control into A into an event. That's why you want to switch it over to scanning your phone, but you want to have a barcode on your device that's been scanned by another device. It's not the other way around. And that's why I think they'll they'll move on to something else. Yeah, NFC chips would be more sensible, more secure. They got a certain range. I think it's a couple centimetres. And I think that's an illusion. That makes

Heather Bicknell  12:19  
sense. I also see a future and we haven't talked too much about the metaverse yet, but where that could change the situation. If you have the virtual kind of overlay, depending on how this kind of work works out where you're already in some sort of mixed reality space and can do things that QR codes would have been helpful for in the past just right, within the experience you're already engaging with. Makes sense.

Ryan Purvis  12:59  
Yeah, exactly.

Heather Bicknell  13:02  
So number three, I don't I don't know if we want to go through all the top 10. But maybe we move on to the themes as well. But number three, for our most listened to episodes, was it for a Premier League football club. And I think this one has a natural appeal, especially to our UK and South African listeners that it's not something most people get a window into is the kind of back end technology side of art. Specifically football or as we say to the mockery of the rest of the world. Soccer in the

Ryan Purvis  13:52  
we call it soccer do mostly so yeah, I think you've probably got this one purely because we had the word football and Premier League in the title. You know, I was I was really appreciate with James explained to us about how they were doing the pitch backing with technology, for drainage and in preparing for game. So that was really cool.

Heather Bicknell  14:18  
Yeah, I agree. It was a very interesting episode to listen to those kind of unique IP projects and three talks so much about knowledge work and the office and that kind of workspace. So thinking about a very different set of technology needs a very different end user was fascinating. Well do. Do you want to keep going down the list or do you want to move to or?

Ryan Purvis  14:49  
I think I think there's just I mean, we'd have to get we will put the list in the show notes. I think the the lessons learned from a year of remote work I think that something genuinely we're probably going to point out everyone's sick and tired of talking about remote work. But in the same token into the new year, they're still figuring out new lessons about doing hybrid working. I think if this year was was all about, we, I think we called the year the VDI last year, this year was probably the remote working, I think next year is going to be the year of hybrid working. And that is inclusive of travelling now, which not everyone was probably doing. But, but going to, I think that's gonna start happening, you know, with additional boosters, and all that kind of stuff.

Heather Bicknell  15:45  
Yeah, knock on wood. But I think you're spot on there. I think 2022 for throwing some predictions here. I think that will be the year hybrid starts to really come into its own and be a bit more widespread. And we'll start to see the implications of like, office redesigns, as well as people moving out of, you know, moving farther away for their commute. I think some of those things will start to play out. And we'll see how the hybrid, at least for me, I feel like a lot of hybrid is bed talk versus people actually doing it. So much like there's, you know, a handful of people. Oh, I feel like, at least in the US, I think the dominant model for at least office workers has been sort of an optional hybrid approach, you know, where some people have chosen to go into the office, but it's generally not been a force. Move back. So I think that, you know, you've had some people are starting to experiment with hybrid for themselves, but it's definitely not been as widespread as I think we will start to see next year, as people sort of, I don't know, I think, again, like, re examine how they're working and start to maybe want to dip their toes into for turning to an office and may remain seeing colleagues again, and having opportunities for collaboration.

Ryan Purvis  17:33  
Yeah, I think I think there's a fear factor is a corporate culture or company culture, rather, I think there's a level of, of enablement that has to happen. Not only technically, but business process for these things to work. So that's, I think it's gonna be an interesting year to see how businesses evolve. And I think it's also from a hiring point of view. I know people talk about the great recent resignation. But I think the great hiring is people are gonna want the flexibility to be treated like adults and choose where they work, as long as it makes sense. So that's, that's something to see how we go through the year to receive anything that's, that's interesting.

Heather Bicknell  18:11  
Yeah, absolutely. It will be interesting to track those retention and hiring trends and see started where the power balances between employers and employees in the new year.

Ryan Purvis  18:28  
Exactly. So we look at the trends of what we talked about this, I think this ties in quite nicely because one of the trends and themes of our episodes is USB, digital nomad, and re examining work life priorities. And I think digital nomad is something we probably see a lot, not a great amount of people doing. But you will get people saying, well, I'm going to go on holiday for two weeks, but let me do an extra week there. Because I get a better deal. If I book three weeks, and I work one week, or something like that. Not that I'm saying people should work on the holidays. That's off everyone. But I think there will be a level of people doing that almost integrated Working Holiday.

Heather Bicknell  19:12  
For sure, I think there is more more comfort with the work from anywhere approach where, you know, I've even started to see it with colleagues now in the lead up to Christmas that people are already at their relatives, you know, working from their, their in laws or their, you know, grandparents or wherever they have landed, but I think that's just more normalised to, you know, as long as you have a good Wi Fi connection. It doesn't really matter what your background is, and if people put a virtual background in their teams, their resume or whatever you would never even know

Ryan Purvis  19:58  
Yeah, well, I think this should be a little more transparency about that. And I get why people would want to hide it. But I think about it from the point of view that yes, if if you want to go and see your family and your family lived far away, and yummy based, I mean, the freebies go back to India for a month now because he wants to spend time with his folks. You know, he says he's going and people realise it needs to be a different time zone. And he'll do his work and he'll be available. But the nice thing is when he's off the phone, and he's not working, he's spending time with people you won't see every day. And I think that's, that's one of the things that that I think we should value is time with the right people when we can get them.

Heather Bicknell  20:39  
Yeah, absolutely. I think coming back to I think the catalyst for digital nomads, lifestyles and sort of being maybe digital nomads, light, like kind of doing this, maybe on occasion or for holiday travel or what have you. It's coming back to the ways that we've been reflecting and re examining our lives and work obviously, takes up a huge chunk of a lot of people's lives. So naturally, kind of challenging the norms around that and how we've approached it. In the past. I think we've, you know, we've even touched on things like The Four Hour Workweek, and kind of retirement, you know, kind of even challenging the, the traditional perspectives on those, I think people are willing to question a lot more things than maybe, you know, things that were maybe fringe or think about in the past are much more normalised now they're kind of think about what's the best way to really structure how you spend your time, so that you are spending it with the people you want to be around or doing the things that you are really passionate about.

Ryan Purvis  22:10  
Yeah, I mean, the biggest problem to all of this is, is tax and, you know, earning your income. And this is probably why the, the over employee episode got so much playtime. You know, if you if you're based in what if you if your company that you're working for pays you a certain country, that country will have rules around how you reflect your income and pay their taxes. And you start travelling around like some, like we had Jared, you know, with with his sort of exercise, you know, he's trying to figure out how he can assert his tax with a sovereign government. And I know they have a rule that if you have to count 283 days, you don't pay tax, as long as it's certain amount that's consecutive. So they are going to be loopholes like that. And I think that's something that the world sort of financial systems will have to compensate for. Because if you were to go and live in a in a tax friendly country that will have have good benefits and and cons. But it might change the whole legislation very quickly because countries are going to lose the tax revenue they thought they're going to be getting it a lot of a lot of people are leaving to work somewhere and more cost more and more tax efficient.

Heather Bicknell  23:29  
So yeah, I think we'll start to see that some of those questions get addressed. You know, I there what we've done these episodes, we've discovered that there are some countries offering passports for you know, digital nomads, trying to incentivize people to come work there from other countries. In a sort of, you know, in a digital nomad kind of sense as a as a knowledge worker with you know, presumably some income descend coming to another country and boosting the economy in that way. But I don't know about you, I still feel like digital nomad will be like, it'll be a thing that people almost like a gap year kind of trend or that people explore early in their careers, but that they won't be ever that mainstream have an idea?

Ryan Purvis  24:35  
Yeah, I don't think everyone will do it. And I was really hoping to get Sam on this year because she's been a digital nomad for a couple years now. And even she was saying that she's getting to a point now where she wants to settle down. And I think that lifestyles can get a bit frustrating where you're always living out of a suitcase, you're always in a temporary situation. It's fun while you travelling, and you and you're not travelling like a tourist. You're travelling A worker, so you be finding a place to work for five days, you touring the city on the weekend to see things. You might be there for a month, and then you move to the next place because your income is coming from your work. So you you're not you're not a tourist, but you're just getting to live the lifestyle of where you are. And then, you know, like, she comes back to the, to our hometown for a couple months, those are folks. And then she sets out again. You know, it's, it can be a stressful life. It's just, it's got its own pressures. And it's not glamorous, like some people think it is, I think it's a different personality and stage of life, for sure. And then you have to settle down again, because if you want kids and that sort of stuff, you can't really travel on purpose like that for for too long, gives you stability and that sort of thing.

Heather Bicknell  25:59  
For sure, why don't we talk about wellness and burnout, another big and a topic in the past year.

Ryan Purvis  26:11  
I think we've all experienced that. I mean, I definitely have had some low points. And some high points. I'm finding now working with with, again, with a good company across multiple time zones, that it's very easy to get sucked into working long, long days, and getting up early and starting early and all that sort of stuff. So I think you I think we talked to a few people about this. We talked about a few good ideas around putting in boundaries and avoiding burnout. But I also think because I've ever been working in different ways, it's harder and harder for a leader to see if someone's struggling or having a rough time because not everyone's available, you know, for that office face to face. And you know, people don't turn on the cameras, you can't see it either. So I think there's there's definitely some changes there that will come in organisation to try and try and tackle that. Yeah, so he explained something that I really liked. Were they the way they run their daily meetings, their stand ups, that sort of stuff. He's very involved in the CTO, but there's a bot that using that gets people to capture the daily updates, but also check in how they're doing, you know, how are you good, bad, or exactly what the criteria were. With, that sort of gives you an indication, I mean, not everyone's gonna be bright eyed and bushy tailed, every day, you're gonna have a low days, to them feeling pretty slow, to be honest, so. And that just could because it's the end of the week. So I might mark today as a bit of a slow day. But tomorrow might feel good, because I've gone to gym, and I had a good night's sleep and they couldn't, whatever. So you're really looking for patterns. And you could bring that down into people's, you know, what time do they start in the day? What time do they end in the day, looking for fatigue? And that sort of thing?

Heather Bicknell  28:09  
For sure, I think another element to this, I think 2020 There was, you know, wellness and burnout and all of these things. Were obviously running rampant. I think 2021 What's shifted now is that companies and leaders feel like they have to do something about it. I think that's sort of where the where the shift has been notable for me is that I think people have had a messed up relationship with work for a long time and kind of did that as this is just the way it is. But now that thing, you know, pressures on companies to retain employees, I think there's just a lot bigger focus on this as a business priority in that if your people are unhappy, if they're feeling like they're overwhelmed with their jobs, that they have more options than ever to find another company to work for and then that attrition problem becomes very expensive, and hiring people become more difficult, then you're kind of putting even greater pressure on the staff that you still have. So I think that's yeah, to me, that's really the big takeaway is that companies are starting to implement things like surveys or, you know, meditations or for yoga sessions, or even talk more about mental health and counselling. And that is part of a health care package. So I think it's the norms around sort of mental well, being in the workplace and talking about it. It's way less taboo. Now.

Ryan Purvis  29:54  
Yeah, yeah. I think there was a level of guilt as well. You know, people felt guilty for Leaving their desks, an average in some organisations where if you're not at your desk by a certain time, and you're not there all day and all night, then you're not working. And I think when people get forced to work from home, if they hadn't been used to it, there was a guilt for leaving their desks to go and go for a walk or do some errands, you know, for the house or whatever it is, because, you know, there was almost, we've almost been beaten, have had it beaten into us that we always got to be working. And, you know, I have said in sessions with with guys that drive like that they've got that kind of culture behaviour, and even watching them change and realising that you can't work 1314 hours a day, because now you're at home and you don't know their commute, which is you're breaking your buffer. And accepting that the staff need to feel like they can go for a walk, because actually taking that break probably gives you 10 More ideas to solve a problem, or gives you a different perspective on things or calms you down. Because, you know, you can see some people that run really hot, and they just need a break. But then they feel almost obligated to to always be, you know, overly committed.

Heather Bicknell  31:18  
Yeah, no, I totally agree.

Ryan Purvis  31:21  
And I think this is where I mean, the health tech that we've talked about. And that's partly because I'm always, you know, I've always got a big kick on it. You know, I've got this aura ring, I've got my Apple watch, I got a Fitbit. And I'm constantly checking them. And what's amazed me, you know, like I say, champion, but sluggish today, the data on my aura ring, you're telling me the same thing. You know, just take it easy today. Don't don't go to gym, you know, or literally saying don't go to gym. But it's don't take it easy. And, and that sort of changes your approach for the day. So I haven't gone to gym today. So I know tomorrow, I'll feel a bit better. So that I could put the gym session in. And in the same token, I've cancelled some meetings, which I which I know require me to be really focused and said, Look, I'm not, you know, I think let's do this one tomorrow, you know, thought critical to be done today, which has given me some time to, to catch up on some stuff. And that's probably what was driving down my fatigue as I'm thinking about all these things that have done going into the end of the week. Also the Christmas coming up next week. And I think that's an important piece of this sort of self awareness and having things that help you to make better. prioritisation decisions.

Heather Bicknell  32:39  
It's certainly been interesting for me to hear about your or ring tracking, and how you've kind of been able to see that correlation for yourself. I think health tech in general is something we will start to hear more about, again, in the news. As we start the new year, people set their fitness resolutions and all that good stuff. I think a lot of our health tech content did skew towards earlier in 2021. But are you are you still using Apple fitness plus, or did you and that subscription.

Ryan Purvis  33:22  
Funny story about that. So I stopped using it. And I've been using an app called Flipboard which works really well in the gym. And I've gone back to using my videos from Beachbody insanity. But recently, I was told to watch a series called Ted leso. And the only way I can watch TED less so was on Apple TV. So I signed up for the this new subscription from Apple that you pay for everything in one price. I think it's premium wind or something, I guess what they call it. So now we're at Apple fitness back in there. And I've been contemplating using it now, instead of the Beachbody insanity videos, just for variety. Because I have gotten to the point to those videos that I can almost recite the whole training programme. So now that it's all bundled in for the family, my wife can start using it. That's what I'm going to do. And I've started reading the Apple news quite a lot. And that was quite a bad product for a while, but they've done quite a lot to make that better. So I'm finding that quite a good value proposition all combined. Together. So that's my situation with Apple fitness. haven't used it yet. I'm really just signed up for it. But I was gonna do some yoga this morning but I just don't feel up to it.

Heather Bicknell  34:53  
Well, if you do once you do give it a go. I'd be curious and it hasn't really changed at all. And we've talked to Got it last year when it's sort of like brand new morning if they have evolved the service much?

Ryan Purvis  35:08  
Yeah, I'll definitely do that. Because we're going to be, as I say, travelling over Christmas. And I don't think I'll be able to get into gym while we're in the hotel with the kids in that so early morning, wake up and do do next do something will be my only option. So in fact, I'm just gonna make sure the app is downloaded on my device. But if you're looking for a serious to watch recommendation, I could get the recommended less so. It's it's really good.

Heather Bicknell  35:39  
Yeah, I've heard I've heard many good things.

Ryan Purvis  35:42  
signed up for this. I can actually watch dude. I can read dude on Apple TV.

Heather Bicknell  35:48  
Oh, really? Yeah. But you haven't yet?

Ryan Purvis  35:54  
No, I haven't, because I think it's about three hours long. And the problem I have is that if we start watching it, and my son doesn't go to bed, then I can't carry on watching it. So it's kind of it might take me a week to watch it. That's a problem. So I've got to do it. We've got

Heather Bicknell  36:15  
it all on? Yeah. Well, why don't we set a goal? We could do it. Do and for episode 100. Because that is coming up? Not too far away.

Ryan Purvis  36:33  
Okay, that's a good deal. That's a good deal.

Heather Bicknell  36:36  
I think that'd be fun. I didn't put dune here as a theme, but it is something we have to

Ryan Purvis  36:46  
do it. Well, it's a general science fiction, Yun and Star Trek. And I'm reading a really good series at the moment. So I told you about my one series, the frontier Saga by Rick Brown. And now I'm reading another series, which if you follow me on Twitter, you'll see the updates from Goodreads Amiga force or Mega Force to pin how you pronounce it, which is about an earthling that finds an alien ship and becomes a mercenary basically. And I'm not going to give away all the all the nuances around it. But it's so it's just as much as it's, it's kind of the same hero. Drama, repeating repeated the way this guy's written it is to so so good. Every book is good. Some authors can't really get out of the same structure of writing. Whereas this guy has really got a good handle on it. Trying to find his name, like to credit the name as well. And he's got a really it's a really rich world, or universities and Josh de Zell, that's his name. So if you're looking for a good science fiction, read over the holidays, definitely recommend it.

Heather Bicknell  38:15  
Um, interesting. Well, I know we're running short on time here. And I didn't want to miss another topic that has come up a few times this year, which is the digital inclusion and fighting digital poverty, sort of that. That group that you've been, you know, involved with, to make sure that people have access to technology, I think kind of starting with looking at school aged kids who don't have the tech they need at home for remote learning. But I thought those are some really great episodes, even kind of tying in some of the other nonprofit and charity talks that interviews you did this year around the blood bank charity and guide dogs and I think it was nice to see some of that work kind of highlighted on the show as well. I really enjoyed that.

Ryan Purvis  39:22  
Yeah, it's pretty quick, still doing some really good work. They've now set up the DPA which I forget exactly what that stands for. But it's an association for the association doesn't work today. So that's, that's good progress. And they used to live in it really hard and he's doing a good job of keeping everyone informed. I think if you if you're not connected with Fraley on on LinkedIn, but worth at least following him, so you can see what's going on and see me you can maybe help out.

Heather Bicknell  39:58  
Absolutely.

Ryan Purvis  40:00  
So one thing we haven't done, which I've been meaning to bring up a few times in our conversation is just thank everyone for listening. In and this doesn't, this doesn't work if we don't have people that listen to what we have to say. So really appreciate people that put in the time to listen to us. And there are a few that reached out to yourself and with some feedback, and that's always appreciated. And I hope everyone has a good 2022 Hope it's better than 2021.

Heather Bicknell  40:28  
Same here, really appreciative, relevant listeners, definitely don't take your time for granted. And I hope everyone has a really great holiday season. And that, yeah, as you said, Ryan 2022, things start looking out.

Ryan Purvis  40:50  
So far, and thanks again for your hard work. It's been a good year with you. And hopefully for a good year next year.

Heather Bicknell  41:00  
Yeah, awesome. Thanks. Same here, I can't, you know, this is our first as you said, at the top, full year. So it's really nice to see sort of the catalogue that we built out. And I've thought about, as we you know, kind of approach number 100. I've thought about the number of shows that I don't even discover until they're, you know, well over this number of episodes. So I'm excited to see kind of where, where things, take us next year and maybe start to explore some new kind of topics and get more guests on and I think it'll really yeah, I'm excited to see where things go from here.

Ryan Purvis  41:44  
Fantastic. Super hot. Let's get into it. Thanks, Heather. And have a good Christmas and New Year's. And we'll keep we'll catch up in the beginning of the new year.

Heather Bicknell  41:57  
Sounds great. All right. Merry Christmas, Ryan.

Ryan Purvis  42:01  
You too. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening today's episode. Hey, the big news app producer editor. Thank you, Heather for your hard work on this episode. He subscribes to the series and rate us on iTunes or the Google Play Store. Follow us on Twitter at the DW W podcast. The show notes and transcripts will be available on the website www dot digital workspace that works. Please also visit our website www dot digital workspace that works at Subscribe tourney's. And lastly, if you found this episode useful, please share with your friends or colleagues

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