WELCOME TO THE FIRST EDITION OF SALIENCE
Hello and welcome to the first edition of our new weekly newsletter, Salience. As a PR, strategic communications, digital marketing and lead generation consultancy which prides itself on being immersed in all things to do with tech, disruption, purpose and reputation, we wanted to share with you some of the stories that have caught our eye over the last week. We’ll bring you five such stories every Friday, and we’re keen to hear your feedback if there are other topics that you would like covered.
Richard Morgan Evans, Co-Founder and CEO of Sapience Communications
Is the cult of Elon cracking?
Elon Musk has attracted an army of fans over the last few years, with some even claiming he was the inspiration for Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of billionaire Tony Stark in the Iron Man films. But as this article in The Atlantic points out, after some recent pronouncements around COVID-19, even some of Mr Musk’s most ardent admirers are starting to question their idol. Read more here
How leading VCs think COVID-19 will impact
real estate and proptech
Having worked with many proptechs, Sapience was interested in what 2020 would mean for them and the wider real estate market after the uncertainty of the General Election and Brexit looked to be behind us. But then COVID-19 hit, upending plenty of assumptions. If you’re keen to know what several leading venture capitalists think the short and long-term impact of the pandemic will be, it’s worth reading this article from TechCrunch. Read more here
Can remote-team managers learn from open-source communities?
With so many companies now working remotely, many managers are finding it hard to bring their teams together. But this piece from Quartz explores whether lessons can be learned from open-source software communities (which are of course also groups of remote workers), who have traditionally appointed a community manager. The article includes some helpful tips along three main themes: creating community, defining the rules, and making decisions. Read more here
Google & Alphabet CEO on managing through the pandemic
Google and its parent company Alphabet are taking an active role in the response to COVID-19, not least in building an exposure-tracking system into Android and iOS in partnership with Apple. In this podcast interview with The Verge, Google/Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai discusses the challenges the tech giant is currently facing, including how to manage the entire company remotely. Pichai also shares how he has adapted to remote working, including blocking out more time to read and think (something he used to do during his commute) and how he’s learning to make pizza by watching YouTube videos. Read more here
And finally…every type of zoom call participant, illustrated by cats
With Zoom calls now a daily feature of all our lives, we are all having to perfect our onscreen personas. Many companies we’ve spoken to have also noticed that some colleagues can always be relied upon to pop up on screen in a certain way (be it with the camera placement not quite right, or with pets and family members in view). As a little bit of light relief we liked this take on every type of Zoom participant, as illustrated by cats. Read more here
Let us know what you think of Salience at rmorganevans@sapiencecomms.co.uk
