How to Cultivate Community in a Remote Work Environment: Insights from Suman Siva - ep. 107

1 - > Kaleem: What is Build A Boob, bro? 2 - > I mean, like, what is up with that? 3 - > You know what I mean? 4 - > Like, I don't understand.

5 - > What is Build A Boob, dawg? 6 - > Suman: Build a boop. 7 - > I don't even, I actually have seen it before, so I, I get the 8 - > reference. 9 - > I have not partaken.

10 - > I have not. 11 - > Jeff: do you don't, uh, do every experience to do like a QA test 12 - > to make sure it's, uh, 13 - > Suman: I should. 14 - > Jeff: the, for the, 15 - > Suman: We do get good. 16 - > We do get good feedback on that.

17 - > Although it's, it is certainly one of one, I would say the 18 - > build a brood of experiences. 19 - > Jeff: Well, cause we know where the, cause we know where two and 20 - > three go. 21 - > So we probably don't want to go there. 22 - > Suman: That's 23 - > Kaleem: That's the best thing ever.

24 - > So you, 25 - > Jeff: Hey, Welcome back everybody. 26 - > Jeff Frick here coming to you from remotely one. 27 - > That's right. 28 - > I'm a guest host here for the second time.

29 - > I'm pretty excited about it with my esteemed host, Kaleem 30 - > Clarkson. 31 - > Kaleem. 32 - > Great to see this morning. 33 - > Kaleem: Oh yeah, man.

34 - > It's Jeff. 35 - > Thank you. 36 - > Thank you so much, sir, for stepping in for our brother and 37 - > Rick. 38 - > Why he, you know, Rick get better, sir.

39 - > Get your back better. 40 - > But I'm so excited to have you on man. 41 - > We got a professional shout out to you and your podcast work 20 42 - > X X. 43 - > So check that out listeners and viewers.

44 - > Cause it's damn good. 45 - > So, love it, man. 46 - > Thank you for being on bro. 47 - > Thank you.

48 - > Jeff: My pleasure. 49 - > But today is all about remotely one. 50 - > So if you have been watching remotely one, you like the show, 51 - > go to rate this podcast. 52 - > com slash remotely one, and please leave a review just one 53 - > more time.

54 - > So you got that rate this podcast. 55 - > com one word slash remotely one. 56 - > If you did that, that would be great. 57 - > Terrific.

58 - > Since 2015, Rick and Kaleem have built an amazing community of 59 - > remote professionals, over 3000 slack members, which is amazing. 60 - > 5, 000 email subscribers. 61 - > It's free. 62 - > Check it out at remotely one.

63 - > com. 64 - > So, uh, Kaleem over to you. 65 - > Tell us a little bit about our guest. 66 - > Kaleem: Oh, Jeff, you know, you know, you know that I get real 67 - > nerved up.

68 - > I get so nerved up with our guests, Jeff, because they just 69 - > make me understand how little I am and how lack of lack of 70 - > productivity that I have. 71 - > In addition, I have to wear these special shirts. 72 - > I wear these special shirts, Jeff, that have like maxi pads 73 - > underneath them so that I don't sweat so that I don't sweat 74 - > through my shirt. 75 - > So I don't mind.

76 - > So today, today's guest is no different. 77 - > Jeff. 78 - > Today's guests, they are originally from Charlotte, North 79 - > Carolina, the queen city. 80 - > Okay.

81 - > Okay. 82 - > Charlotte. 83 - > And they currently reside in the city, AKA New York city. 84 - > Let's see.

85 - > What else do we have? 86 - > Oh, here we go. 87 - > This is the beginning of me feeling, you know, incompetent. 88 - > Our guest today, Jeff graduated from Vanderbilt.

89 - > So. 90 - > They 91 - > Jeff: Call that the Stanford of the sec or the Northwestern of 92 - > the sec. 93 - > Suman: I think that might be Duke, but yeah. 94 - > Kaleem: isn't it called, isn't it called the Hidden Ivy League 95 - > or is it part the Hidden or the Southern Ivy League actually.

96 - > Um, and he studied economics 97 - > Jeff: They still have to play Alabama and football though. 98 - > It's rough. 99 - > Kaleem: That is true. 100 - > That is true.

101 - > Oh, our guest started off some of their professional career 102 - > with a friend of ours from the show, Rob Sato at Scoop 103 - > Technologies and the Flex Index. 104 - > Shout out to Rob. 105 - > Rob, what's up man? 106 - > How you doing?

107 - > Jeff: Kicking tail with the flex index. 108 - > Kaleem: something most people don't know about our guest, 109 - > Jeff. 110 - > He has a twin brother that he has. 111 - > He says he has a dad bod, but brother, I have a dad bod.

112 - > It's okay, bro. 113 - > Dad bods are cool. 114 - > It's cool. 115 - > It's the new, it's the new coolness, man.

116 - > Um, he has a twin brother. 117 - > Our guest plays the piano in. 118 - > An instrument, which is an Indian drum called the tabla 119 - > really interesting. 120 - > So 121 - > Jeff: Have you played that before?

122 - > Kaleem: now I play the guitar, never played the tabla. 123 - > Maybe you could teach me. 124 - > Oh, and our guests, they went to burning man last year, AKA 125 - > burning my guest. 126 - > Did you have to throw your muddy clothes away?

127 - > Suman: Definitely a portion of that. 128 - > Yes, definitely. 129 - > Kaleem: The dirt, they're in the trash. 130 - > Oh, that's so awesome that you went, I gotta get out there one 131 - > year.

132 - > Let's see. 133 - > So something else about our guests. 134 - > Our guest was a senior associate consultant at this tiny, tiny 135 - > little firm, Jeff. 136 - > this company is called Bain and company.

137 - > No big deal. 138 - > Just one of the big three and the big three. 139 - > What's that McKenzie. 140 - > What's the other one?

141 - > Uh, Boston Consulting Group and Banning Company. 142 - > So again, Jeff, what the hell am I doing with my life? 143 - > Jeff, what are we doing? 144 - > Jeff: Something in the water.

145 - > Kaleem: I know, I guess know some shits. 146 - > Then he just decides to just say, I'm going to, I'm going to 147 - > bolt. 148 - > I'm going to bolt. 149 - > I'm good.

150 - > Then they decide I'm going to get into the other side of the, 151 - > the, the. 152 - > Startup business. 153 - > The VC world decides to become an investor, an advisor in the 154 - > Bay area, just doing big things, Jeff, just doing big things. 155 - > And then last but not least, last but not least, our guests, 156 - > they are the co founder.

157 - > And CEO of Marco experiences, which is a platform that helps 158 - > companies plan their off sites and retreats. 159 - > So listeners and viewers, please give a warm welcome to Sue. 160 - > Let's go. 161 - > Woo!

Let's go, baby. 162 - > Settle down, studio audience. 163 - > Just 164 - > Jeff: Give that man a new shirt. 165 - > Kaleem: studio audience, please chill.

166 - > Sorry about that. 167 - > Come on. 168 - > Our studio audience gets fired up. 169 - > Sorry about that.

170 - > Thank you for joining us, man. 171 - > Thank you for joining us. 172 - > Suman: Pleasure to be here. 173 - > Love the energy, Kaleem.

174 - > You're coming in hot on a Friday morning or afternoon, depending 175 - > on where you are in the country. 176 - > So, 177 - > Kaleem: Yeah, we gotta do it, man. 178 - > Gotta do it. 179 - > Thank you.

180 - > Jeff: Greatest intros in the biz. 181 - > That's certainly for sure. 182 - > Subban, I want to, let's jump into it. 183 - > So you were.

184 - > Clip it along at Bain doing smart things with smart people 185 - > and big companies. 186 - > And then suddenly you decided to take a slight detour and join 187 - > our friend, Rob, as a clean mentioned over at the flex 188 - > index, how did you decide to leave the big world in the big 189 - > business? 190 - > And didn't get, uh, get your toe wet in the startup world. 191 - > Suman: Yeah, actually, so Rob used to work at Bain as well.

192 - > And so I was working at Bain doing consulting and I was 193 - > working at Walmart, which is the biggest company, massive 194 - > company. 195 - > And I kind of, uh, always had this kind of desire to get work 196 - > at a startup. 197 - > This is, by the way, this is preflex index, Rob, Scoop was 198 - > initially a B2B carpooling product. 199 - > So they, they help companies with mobility.

200 - > And so basically I think it was like 10 people in San Francisco. 201 - > So, um, whenever they're, there's kind of a first taste of 202 - > where I guess you live, uh, Palo Alto now, Jeff, but moved over 203 - > to SF and was there kind of helping his chief of staff, 204 - > everything from, you know, building out their financial 205 - > plan to moving plants and moving offices for Rob, and so he's 206 - > still an advisor. 207 - > I'm like, Oh, actually, so, uh, I've had the pleasure to kind of 208 - > keep in touch with him over the years.

209 - > And obviously he's now a top Lincoln influencer in the future 210 - > of work. 211 - > And he's done a lot of amazing things with regards to kind of 212 - > like building out the flex index and we can talk more about that. 213 - > But yeah, that's how I initially got linked up with Rob. 214 - > Kaleem: That's really cool, man.

215 - > So I need to just go back to when you and Rob were at Bain 216 - > and Company. 217 - > So we've had a few people on the show that have been at either 218 - > McKinsey or any of the other big three consulting firms. 219 - > What was that experience like first off? 220 - > Oh, do you remember your interview question?

221 - > That's the first question. 222 - > Do you remember your interview question by any chance? 223 - > And then number two, like, what is that experience like? 224 - > And like, what did you really take from the consulting 225 - > experience as far as education?

226 - > Okay. 227 - > Suman: consulting, it's one of those things. 228 - > It's like, there's actually means about this. 229 - > It's kind of people don't even know what the job means, right?

230 - > It's like, what does a consultant do? 231 - > And I think there's actually there's truth to that. 232 - > But what I think 1 thing about consulting is you kind of learn 233 - > how to think and solve problems essentially. 234 - > So going to your question, like the way you interview for 235 - > consulting firms is like a case study.

236 - > So essentially, Absolutely. 237 - > It's like, Hey, there's this business problem and what 238 - > they're kind of testing for is like, can have structured 239 - > thinking? 240 - > Can you kind of like figure out from first principles, like how 241 - > to solve a problem, which I would say Rob is phenomenal at. 242 - > The first, I don't remember the first interview question, but I 243 - > remember the guy that interviewed me was one of those 244 - > fascinating guys.

245 - > This guy, Nick Padlow, and he was an army Ranger and he was 246 - > also went to Stanford for business school, but he was a, 247 - > Professional poker player as well. 248 - > And he was like a weird, eccentric, super smart, 249 - > charismatic guy. 250 - > And we just like hit it off. 251 - > I don't know.

252 - > There's certain interviews you do and you're like, this was 253 - > this kind of clicked. 254 - > And so I still remember he actually went on to become an 255 - > entrepreneur and do a bunch of interesting kind of things. 256 - > But I remember the person who interviewed me, not necessarily 257 - > the question itself, but yeah, exactly. 258 - > yeah, exactly.

259 - > Jeff: How many manhole covers in Manhattan? 260 - > Kaleem: Yeah. 261 - > Suman: Yeah, 262 - > Jeff: and you went down another kind of traditional course, 263 - > which is on the investment side. 264 - > And you jumped over into the investment and even got to spend 265 - > some time at SoftBank Vision Fund, which at that time is one 266 - > of the biggest, most important investors out there on the tech 267 - > space.

268 - > So what did you learn kind of in your time on the investment 269 - > side? 270 - > Kaleem: Unbelievable. 271 - > Suman: so I initially started off at a firm called Castaneda 272 - > and now it's called Stride and they're a consumer, basically, I 273 - > love, I love brands, uh, whether that we obviously focus on 274 - > businesses B2B now, but they were the former Neiman Marcus 275 - > family office. 276 - > So invested in, you know, brands, fashion, food and 277 - > beverage, beauty, that sort of thing.

278 - > So I love kind of, um, brands and kind of brand equity, which 279 - > is something too important to kind of Marco. 280 - > Now, and then basically I was like, all right, I want to go 281 - > into tech in some capacity. 282 - > So I was working with consumer. 283 - > I worked, I went over to soft bank and joined kind of pretty 284 - > early.

285 - > I was one of the first money folks. 286 - > On the investment team, working on the consumer technology and 287 - > prop tech or real estate tech group and so Stop bank was I 288 - > mean we could do a whole podcast on that to be honest, right? 289 - > It was a hundred billion dollar firm. 290 - > The initial year was like, you know it was could have been I 291 - > mean, I actually joked that there should be kind of a movie 292 - > about this But you go there It was like 20 people.

293 - > We got a ton of money to deploy in the first year was, you know, 294 - > just really, I would say getting a lot of exposure to some of the 295 - > most interesting people in Silicon Valley and just be a 296 - > super young person, but because of the fund, you got tremendous 297 - > access. 298 - > So meeting incredible founders who were creating kind of 299 - > category defining companies. 300 - > And to be honest, a lot of what. 301 - > I found there was, I was like, it looks like, people on the 302 - > other side of the table are doing more interesting work.

303 - > I think, the venture ecosystem, is super important and capital 304 - > is important. 305 - > And obviously SoftBank made some good investments, made, some 306 - > wild investments that I think. 307 - > Masa was probably ahead of his time in terms of thinking about 308 - > the importance of AI, which is obviously super relevant now. 309 - > But he was always talking about kind of the importance of AI as 310 - > an investor in NVIDIA.

311 - > And so basically I didn't know what I was doing. 312 - > I was at SoftBank and I was like, all right, I want to go 313 - > start this company. 314 - > And I was working in consumer tech, spent a lot of time within 315 - > travel and experiences is kind of a category. 316 - > Invested in a company called get your guide, which is a 317 - > competitive trip advisor.

318 - > It's an experience platform. 319 - > It's kind of like, all right, I want to get you something in 320 - > this space. 321 - > Didn't have co founder at the time. 322 - > Didn't have really much of anything.

323 - > And so went out. 324 - > Luckily, I was in San Francisco. 325 - > So it was able to meet Nick, my co founder and start working on 326 - > markup. 327 - > So 328 - > Kaleem: Interesting.

329 - > Interesting. 330 - > So just out of curiosity, before you started your company, and 331 - > we'll talk about that in a second, what was your initial 332 - > spark that got you involved with the remote work? 333 - > What was your first remote work experience? 334 - > Like, do you remember?

335 - > Suman: Well, you know, what's funny is we started Marco right 336 - > before COVID. 337 - > So initially it wasn't focused on remote work, but it was 338 - > focused on experiences. 339 - > Right. 340 - > So it was actually consumer facing.

341 - > And then I remember COVID happens and Nick and I, Nick, my 342 - > co founder were in Tahoe actually. 343 - > And we were like, all the ski resorts start shutting down. 344 - > And no one really knew what like was going to happen. 345 - > It's like, is this going to be a weekend thing?

346 - > Is this going to be a couple of weeks? 347 - > Is this going to be. 348 - > What happened is couple of years, and I don't think anyone 349 - > foresaw that the way we live and work would just fundamentally 350 - > change overnight, like, even the fact that we're doing this 351 - > podcast recording super normally over zoom or Riverside or 352 - > whatever platform that's not normal. 353 - > And now 80 percent of companies are remote.

354 - > Our hybrid and the way we work is, is kind of fundamentally 355 - > changed. 356 - > What happened actually, and then the reason for kind of pivoting 357 - > Marcos, we basically were trying to back to square one, figuring 358 - > out what we're going to do, and we started doing like virtual 359 - > events to support kind of creators, hosts in the local 360 - > kind of community and someone, we just basically had a text 361 - > list and we would just, people were, you remember, we're so 362 - > bored that they would really do anything.

363 - > And so we were just doing these events and there's a couple of 364 - > funny stories from that period. 365 - > But someone worked at like an old school tech company. 366 - > I forget. 367 - > It was like work or something like Cisco.

368 - > And they were like, Hey, like our team hasn't seen each other. 369 - > Would you do this? 370 - > Would you do this for our team? 371 - > And we're like, Oh, that's interesting.

372 - > you're like, yeah, we're just like on zoom all day. 373 - > We, we don't get to kind of like do anything social or kind of 374 - > engage with one another. 375 - > So then we kind of started doing this. 376 - > We had a PDF with basically 10 hosts that you could just kind 377 - > of book.

378 - > And people started. 379 - > A lot of companies leaned in and they're like, okay, we need some 380 - > way to connect our employees. 381 - > So that was the first experience of people kind of asking for 382 - > some way to connect. 383 - > Jeff: It's pretty interesting.

384 - > Brian Elliot from the future for him, you know, one of his great 385 - > lines is remote. 386 - > It doesn't mean never together. 387 - > And, you know, it's even more important and more intentional 388 - > than the time you are together. 389 - > You're spending time building trust and building relationships 390 - > and strengthening the team and move all your crap work to 391 - > async.

392 - > But I'm curious, everyone was kind of struggling in those 393 - > early COVID days. 394 - > You know, they're doing zoom meetings and zoom cocktails and 395 - > zoom happy hours and zoom family days. 396 - > How did you start to think about experiences first digitally? 397 - > And then I don't want to just say we have to get to people 398 - > together.

399 - > Obviously there were the restrictions. 400 - > So together still wasn't an option in early COVID. 401 - > How did it kind of evolve into a, to more than just getting 402 - > together on a zoom call? 403 - > Suman: totally.

404 - > And so Brian, we do for Marco, we do a webinar, called turning 405 - > companies into communities. 406 - > He's been a guest on there with, Chrissy Arnold, who, when he was 407 - > at Slack, they had, you're familiar with this, something 408 - > called the future forum. 409 - > They're publishing a bunch of like amazing research. 410 - > around remote work and how to collaborate more effectively.

411 - > Obviously, slack is one of the, you know, we live in slack. 412 - > It's amazing collaboration tool. 413 - > However, both of them will talk about how, as you said, Jeff 414 - > remote doesn't mean never together. 415 - > Right.

416 - > So I think philosophically human beings are just like social 417 - > creatures. 418 - > So Kaleem, we met an event. 419 - > We met at HR transform. 420 - > Right.

421 - > And I actually think that meeting and developing kind of 422 - > empathy and kind of just like, Making friends, honestly, with 423 - > folks that you work with or developing some like common 424 - > understanding just allows you to do better work. 425 - > Like I always say that transactional work or just like 426 - > the productivity of work is a lot easier. 427 - > Now you have so many tools that are collaborative, whether it's 428 - > like notion or Slack or whatever it is to like, get your work 429 - > done more effectively.

430 - > But if I'm working with you on something and I don't know where 431 - > you're coming from, I don't know if you have a family or kits or 432 - > like, what's stressing you out on a personal level or just 433 - > like, don't have that empathy, I don't just think there's a lot 434 - > of data that supports this. 435 - > You're not going to do as good. 436 - > Your work isn't going to be as good, right? 437 - > So that is philosophically, I think, something that's super 438 - > important, and then I would say, like, in the beginning of covid, 439 - > the only way you could get together with zoom.

440 - > Right? 441 - > And we actually, our company has pivoted and focused on group 442 - > travel kind of onsites, off sites, retreats, and the reason 443 - > for that, and any dean at last year and do a lot of like, great 444 - > research on this that folks have all kind of. 445 - > Yeah. 446 - > Seen in the space around they've measured the impact of kind of, 447 - > you know, say you're doing a quarterly gathering or something 448 - > like that.

449 - > Your scores of employee connection improved by 30, 40 450 - > percent and then they go down after time. 451 - > But those moments are like super. 452 - > And you can tie that to productivity. 453 - > It's not just employee connection, but there's actually 454 - > like business outcomes that come out of that.

455 - > So long winded answer, but 456 - > Kaleem: Yeah. 457 - > I mean, it was, it was, it was good answers. 458 - > Good answer. 459 - > And it actually made me think about, so if I'm getting the 460 - > timelines, correct, you started, Marco experiences as a company 461 - > that did like in person events before the pandemic started.

462 - > Right. 463 - > Is that accurate? 464 - > Suman: we, we, yeah, we basically started, Marco is 465 - > there's a company called party full or you may know Luma, which 466 - > is like a. 467 - > Basically like a Facebook events, like super lightweight, 468 - > text based social events product where you can book experiences 469 - > on a marketplace as well.

470 - > That was like the initial kind of thing. 471 - > So it's always been called Marco and it's always been around kind 472 - > of the, I would say like experiences kind of space. 473 - > and then it was kind of like virtual and then in 474 - > Kaleem: Uh oh. 475 - > Like, cause you're all ready to go and then all of a sudden 476 - > there's a thing.

477 - > Uh oh. 478 - > So then you had to kind of transition. 479 - > And now you're kind of back to being able to help people plan 480 - > their experiences in person. 481 - > My question is kind of back to connection again.

482 - > I know I talk about this all the time. 483 - > So people, I'm sorry if you're hearing it again, but shout out 484 - > to buffer for the, doing their state of remote works that 485 - > they've been doing since like 2016, maybe I think they've been 486 - > doing those state of remote works for a while and in every 487 - > one, they ask relatively the same questions as far as what 488 - > are your biggest challenges and the most recent one, or the 2023 489 - > version, when you add up all the challenges, Difficulty 490 - > collaborating, difficulty, connecting with my teammates, 491 - > difficulty with loneliness.

492 - > When you add up all of these connections, it comes out to 493 - > about 68%, I think, no, 60 percent of all of the challenges 494 - > that people have or around connection, like literally like 495 - > those are their challenges. 496 - > So as a company that Is leading the charge in this space. 497 - > How much advice do you provide your clients as far as building 498 - > the week out for those intentional connections? 499 - > I know a lot of people plan these off sites and load them up 500 - > with work, work, work, and shout out to chase warranting.

501 - > He's talked a lot about this with do us as far as what their 502 - > percentages are of work versus fun. 503 - > So what type of assistance. 504 - > Do you provide, you know, organizations, especially remote 505 - > or hybrid organizations to really be intentional about the 506 - > connection side of it? 507 - > Suman: Yeah.

508 - > I think it's a great question. 509 - > So I think we always talk about like intentional experiences at 510 - > Marco and the way I describe it is in some ways. 511 - > You're kind of in this like long distance relationship with folks 512 - > that, by the way, even if you're remote or hybrid or in person 513 - > now, a lot of companies have different hubs. 514 - > So you might be on a sales team and you're actually working with 515 - > folks that are in different geographies.

516 - > So you're actually, even if you wouldn't be qualified as a 517 - > remote company, everyone has. 518 - > Yeah, 519 - > Kaleem: you could be fully onsite. 520 - > You could be fully onsite and in different locations is your 521 - > point. 522 - > You could say we don't allow remote work, but all these 523 - > people in different hubs, technically they're working 524 - > remotely.

525 - > Suman: Yeah, for sure. 526 - > So there's, from an advice standpoint, we are as much 527 - > learning from companies. 528 - > They're doing the doing, you know, doing these the right way. 529 - > We're kind of learning along the way as much as we are providing 530 - > advice is what I would say is everyone's trying to figure it 531 - > out.

532 - > And we're in this period where companies are just starting to 533 - > develop. 534 - > You know, during COVID, no one could see each other. 535 - > Now people there's a period of experimentation where people are 536 - > like, okay, cool. 537 - > We're going to invest in kind of these kinds of gatherings.

538 - > And now you have like companies like Atlassian Dropbox that are 539 - > developing strategies around like frequency cadence. 540 - > format, right? 541 - > Whether it's like, okay, cool. 542 - > This is how often we do something with the full company.

543 - > This is functional level, leadership team level, new hires 544 - > and so forth. 545 - > From a content perspective, it is a classic kind of, the 546 - > initial kind of reaction will be like, cool. 547 - > We only see sort of let's jam in a bunch of stuff here in these 548 - > three days, which especially you have to think about some people 549 - > are introverted. 550 - > Some people are extroverted.

551 - > Everyone is exhausted and probably has to travel. 552 - > They may be leaving behind kits and so forth. 553 - > So then that is actually not the best use of time in terms of 554 - > just like getting as much things to do and possible. 555 - > We'll be right back after these words.

556 - > 2020 was no joke. 557 - > It changed the game for everyone. 558 - > Workplace flexibility is no longer a perk, but an 559 - > expectation. 560 - > In fact, a recent study showed that a flexible schedule is more 561 - > important than salary.

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599 - > me for more information. 600 - > And now, back to the show. 601 - > Suman: And Brian, actually, we talked about this when we 602 - > chatted, but we do something called kind of experience design 603 - > where it's like, what is cool? 604 - > We can book you a hotel.

605 - > We can handle vendors and so forth, but also there's almost 606 - > like a psychology aspects around how does the near, like, we also 607 - > talk about like the airport test, which is how do you get. 608 - > An employee, when they're headed back down to the airport to be 609 - > like, that was an exceptional use of time. 610 - > And it actually isn't like a boondoggle where you're just 611 - > like having a bunch of drinks and having a bunch of fun, but 612 - > it's also not something where you're just like heads down on 613 - > your laptop all the time.

614 - > So there's different ways you can kind of structure and 615 - > program the time when you're together. 616 - > And I think it should be. 617 - > Based on it could be, you know, there's obviously like your 618 - > things and where you're eating, you're drinking, there's 619 - > collaborative work you can do. 620 - > So there's work around like, hey, I got to build a slide deck 621 - > or write some code or whatever.

622 - > You can do that pretty effectively asynchronously. 623 - > Right? 624 - > But what you can't do. 625 - > Is maybe having like a product kind of jam session or, getting 626 - > old school whiteboarding, which I still am a kind of big fan of 627 - > right or delivering some strategic message and getting 628 - > people excited about something or doing something around like 629 - > team connection, which is a very broad phrase, but something that 630 - > is kind of work related, but it's actually about like 631 - > understanding how someone Shows up at work, what their strengths 632 - > are, you know, how do you effectively communicate with 633 - > them?

634 - > So we basically have a whole platform or product around this, 635 - > where you basically build out an itinerary and there's templates 636 - > around what you might want to do, how do you structure the 637 - > time and it will actually tell you how to do that. 638 - > Most effectively, and we have people that will help. 639 - > So 640 - > Kaleem: Oh, you called it experienced design consultants 641 - > available to help people. 642 - > Suman: yeah, so we have, yeah, so court Roberts leads 643 - > experience design.

644 - > She has a background as a facilitator as coach and she'll, 645 - > you know, and we work with other companies as well. 646 - > If you need to book like facilitator or session or 647 - > something like that, but we can also our big thing at market was 648 - > combining product and technology with like, a high level of 649 - > support service and human beings as well. 650 - > So, 651 - > Kaleem: man. 652 - > Kudos to you, bro.

653 - > Wow. 654 - > Jeff: So it's interesting. 655 - > People are always trying to define the right word that 656 - > describes the relationship between people in the company 657 - > and the company. 658 - > And, some people will say it's like a family and, you know, 659 - > people have a lot of pushback on it's a family and there's all 660 - > kinds of different words.

661 - > Your guys tagline is turning companies into communities. 662 - > And helping companies bring together. 663 - > How do you see communities as the right defining 664 - > characteristic and what is it about a community that's the 665 - > right amount of intimacy, but, you know, something short of a 666 - > family? 667 - > Kaleem: Well 668 - > Suman: Yeah.

669 - > So there's a guy, Chris Shembra, who, he's a, he's an author. 670 - > He's a speaker. 671 - > He's an awesome guy. 672 - > He's a gratitude expert is what people call him.

673 - > So he's written a book, a couple of books called gratitude 674 - > through hard times. 675 - > And I think gratitude and pasta is another one. 676 - > So he talks about in his books, he's a big kind of community 677 - > fan. 678 - > And he talks about the original word company was from two Latin 679 - > words, which means come, which means together.

680 - > And ponies, which means bread. 681 - > So the original word for a company was people coming 682 - > together to break bread. 683 - > Then it's translated into people coming together with a shared 684 - > objective or a mission could be, you know, to build a product or 685 - > a service or whatever it is. 686 - > But by the way, a professional sports team is a community as 687 - > well, right?

688 - > And their fans are communities as well. 689 - > You can think about them as customers, right? 690 - > So a community doesn't have to be this like kind of kumbaya 691 - > family where you're all kind of like, friends and that sort of 692 - > thing. 693 - > Kaleem: Just going to burn in man.

694 - > Yeah. 695 - > Like you, we don't like community going to burn in man 696 - > with tents and all that stuff. 697 - > Yeah. 698 - > Yeah.

699 - > I get it. 700 - > I get it. 701 - > Suman: well, so no, the reason I went to Burning Man is like, I 702 - > think Burning Man is one of the most interesting experiments on 703 - > community that exists in our generation. 704 - > Right?

705 - > Because if you go there, there's 10 kind of like guidelines. 706 - > One of them is like, leave no trace, for example. 707 - > So everyone is picking up trash. 708 - > The whole thing is like, you cannot like leave any trash.

709 - > So like, you talk about mud, despite all of that, And each 710 - > camp has their own kind of like guidelines. 711 - > So you have to like work shifts, you have to contribute. 712 - > Everyone comes there and it's part of the build process. 713 - > So like that is also one of the reasons I was like, that is a 714 - > super interesting example of a community that comes together 715 - > and builds a full city.

716 - > In the period of a couple of weeks. 717 - > So it is a fascinating kind of example. 718 - > So Mark Levy, who's the head of global employee experience at 719 - > Airbnb, and he's also an advisor at Marco and he, at Airbnb, they 720 - > actually coined the phrase employee experience, and he 721 - > talks about like four types of connection that was important to 722 - > Airbnb, and I might get some of these wrong, but it's like 723 - > connection between the company and the employees, the to the 724 - > employees, the employees to the customers and the employees to 725 - > the community.

726 - > Jeff: You hit it. 727 - > I got them written down right here. 728 - > You nailed it. 729 - > Suman: so, so yeah, not to be like a consultant and there's a 730 - > framework, but like, this can relate to any company, like you, 731 - > if you're trying to solve this big problem and you're super 732 - > high achieving and you're like more kind of hard line, you're 733 - > like we got to crush it.

734 - > That doesn't mean that you don't need that level of connection. 735 - > The connection could look different. 736 - > Right. 737 - > But think about a company like open AI, which is absolutely 738 - > crushing it.

739 - > They have to think about their community, which is cool. 740 - > How do we have the, the leadership of the company kind 741 - > of deliver the message that employees are working on, how do 742 - > employees work together, cohesively, how are they going 743 - > out and selling the customers and how do we get people to 744 - > like, you know, in the broader community, kind of get, come 745 - > along with the vision. 746 - > So it doesn't matter what company you're in. 747 - > If you're just like, this doesn't matter.

748 - > We don't have to invest in kind of connection. 749 - > That doesn't make any sense to me personally, but 750 - > Kaleem: Community connection. 751 - > I love that. 752 - > That's one thing, you know, working with a client where 753 - > we're trying to move away from family as business term, you 754 - > know, cause you can't, 755 - > Suman: yeah, 756 - > Kaleem: I mean, I guess you could fire your family, but.

757 - > Really you can't, I guess. 758 - > So, yeah, we're trying to, trying to step away from that. 759 - > I think one of the things that we're kind of leaning into is if 760 - > you are going to use family, maybe say family first or people 761 - > first, right. 762 - > Like, um, but I really love your tagline to, um, you know, 763 - > transitioning to communities because it really is community.

764 - > If you really think about it, you're all getting together. 765 - > Communities, all people, all coming together for a common 766 - > thing and then you're moving it forward. 767 - > So 768 - > Suman: yeah. 769 - > The also like you spend like 70% of your life at work.

770 - > So something like, I forget the exact amount of time or hours, 771 - > but you spend a tremendous of your life at time, of your time, 772 - > like waking hours at work, so you don't have to necessarily 773 - > like, like the people you work with and wanna go for dinner or 774 - > drinks afterwards. 775 - > By the way, I think that's a good thing. 776 - > Right. 777 - > It's not a bad thing.

778 - > It's a good thing. 779 - > You might as well, like in my mind, she was like, I might as 780 - > well, I don't be best friends with everyone. 781 - > Yeah, that's not true, but I've plenty of great friendships that 782 - > I've built at work, but you do have to respect each other, 783 - > right, in order to do good work. 784 - > And so that's, that's, I think, a non negotiable, but.

785 - > Jeff: So I'm curious on your feedback forms. 786 - > What is the thing when they're going to the airport that they 787 - > say was the most impactful thing of the week? 788 - > You know, I think of Brian, when he talks about his offsites with 789 - > his teams, he talks about the cooking and making meals 790 - > together and, the spending time. 791 - > Is there, you know, two or three things that are just consistent 792 - > winners and bringing people together and building a sense of 793 - > belonging.

794 - > Suman: Yeah, I think it's all a means to an end. 795 - > So you could do something that's like really fun. 796 - > But then the objective of that is to share some type of mement 797 - > with someone, right? 798 - > That could be work related to you solving a really complicated 799 - > problem, right?

800 - > Some of the most effective offsets, even for our personal 801 - > team, is we're coming together. 802 - > And we do like kind of product ideation sessions with our team 803 - > and bring in cross functional folks so they can create 804 - > something that then we'll go build that has been kind of 805 - > extremely, people get super excited about that, but anything 806 - > I would say the biggest impact is like you meet someone new, 807 - > you share like an authentic kind of experience with that.

808 - > Brian talks about this too, by the way, I think, Zillow charter 809 - > works just published this. 810 - > Where the natural inclination of someone, if you're with a big 811 - > group, you're going to like, and you're friends with clean, when 812 - > you go to these types of things, you're going to hang out with 813 - > clean, you know? 814 - > Yeah. 815 - > So then ways to kind of like create.

816 - > Kind of structured serendipity where it's like you actually 817 - > interact with someone that you're on the sales team and 818 - > you're talking to someone on the engineering team that is great. 819 - > And we just did a webinar on cross functional collaboration. 820 - > And 1 of the great things is we had Weller, who's a senior 821 - > engineer at Marco, Hannah is on the product operations team, and 822 - > then Allie Brown, who's on the supply team. 823 - > And they're now, they work super well together.

824 - > They're collaborating super well, but all of that, like 825 - > Hannah actually met Weller at one of these offsites that we 826 - > did, developed a friendship with him. 827 - > He's a Brazilian. 828 - > So he used to not be super confident going and like just 829 - > chatting with someone because English isn't his kind of first 830 - > language. 831 - > And now he's, they're working super well together.

832 - > So that actually manifests in like business results because 833 - > now they're working together and they're friendly and they, it's 834 - > going super well. 835 - > So, I 836 - > Kaleem: you're right. 837 - > I've mentioned this before, but there's a book, I might get the 838 - > title wrong, but like, Why Are All The Black kits Sitting At 839 - > The One Table? 840 - > And that basically is, it's very similar, right?

841 - > Like, you know what you know, and you kind of gravitate 842 - > towards the people that you're, you have some sort of 843 - > relationship with. 844 - > I do want to kind of ask you your opinion. 845 - > I have a feeling now you're going to answer, but I gotta ask 846 - > you anyway. 847 - > You know, so at Blend we talk a lot about connection because 848 - > again, that's 60 percent of the challenges that companies have 849 - > around connections.

850 - > So, you know, as we're consulting with them and helping 851 - > them improve their employee experience, that's a big 852 - > challenge. 853 - > So we kind of coined this concept of, you know, creating a 854 - > social connection strategy. 855 - > This idea that you have, you know, we kind of group these 856 - > connections in the three big buckets. 857 - > You have professional connections, mentors, 858 - > colleagues, coworkers, et cetera.

859 - > You have lifestyle connections, which are hobbies, things, 860 - > friendships that you do. 861 - > And then intimate connections, which, you know, people get a 862 - > little wary of a little bit when you're talking about intimate 863 - > Intimate, connections, right? 864 - > So romantic relationships, religions and intimate 865 - > relationship, politics is an intimate relationship, but they 866 - > are there, right? 867 - > What do you think the role is of the organization and the 868 - > company?

869 - > Especially in a remote company specifically. 870 - > What do you think the role is for a company to ensure that 871 - > their employees have these connections and does Marco 872 - > experiences provide opportunities for people to kind 873 - > of learn about the culture of a community? 874 - > Right. 875 - > Learn about these other things just outside of work, because 876 - > everybody's focused on how can I just know my coworkers?

877 - > What, what about those other connections? 878 - > Suman: Well, I would say we don't just focus on social 879 - > connections and I'll answer your question. 880 - > But my kind of thing is like, even just to take a step back, 881 - > if you're a remote or hybrid or in office, we also are kind of 882 - > like ambivalent towards that because the whole reason you 883 - > have office space in the first place, by the way, is so your 884 - > employees connect. 885 - > Yeah.

886 - > Like, so 887 - > Kaleem: We forgot about, that. 888 - > We forgot about 889 - > Suman: no, so like we, we did this whole thing on like the ROI 890 - > of like gatherings and what the analysis shows is Companies on 891 - > average spend like, especially in the Bay area, maybe one and a 892 - > half to three K per employee per month on rent, furniture, 893 - > consumables, all the stuff that's like associated with an 894 - > office. 895 - > Now you're spending less. 896 - > And so, cause people are like, well, I don't, should I really 897 - > be investing in this like, in people are investing more in 898 - > team travel, but the reason is like, by the way, on the net, 899 - > you're probably saving money.

900 - > Right? 901 - > So you got to think about your budget and your ROI on like this 902 - > spend ultimately one of the big reasons you spend on this kind 903 - > of stuff. 904 - > Is to connect, like that is literally why you pay for office 905 - > space actually. 906 - > Right.

907 - > So you can be in the same base and deal with people and begin 908 - > work done and so forth. 909 - > So for Marco, like it could be work related, right? 910 - > Like we do plenty of things where it's like a sales kickoff 911 - > or a leadership team offsite, which is like, that could be 912 - > super work related from a connection standpoint. 913 - > However, even within that container, you're like, cool, 914 - > there should be to your point, different types of kind of 915 - > connection.

916 - > I think that's really up to the company, to be honest. 917 - > Like you could, like, you think about Brian Armstrong at 918 - > Coinbase, he's like, we're not talking about politics or kind 919 - > of religion or these types of issues within the workplace. 920 - > I actually kind of probably am on towards that side of the coin 921 - > in terms of like, the workplace shouldn't necessarily be a 922 - > conduit to like, talk about politics or something that like, 923 - > actually, you should have a place.

924 - > And the reason is like, You should have a company where 925 - > people are allowed to have different points of view, I 926 - > think, right? 927 - > I think there definitely is value from a just culture and 928 - > education standpoint to do things around celebrating each 929 - > other's history and culture and so forth. 930 - > That's a positive, right? 931 - > Cause that is more just like celebration and allowing you to 932 - > like show up as your true self within work, which is a big part 933 - > of your life, right?

934 - > So that stuff's great, right? 935 - > Like, and there's no negative. 936 - > Thing to celebrating black history month or I'm Indian, 937 - > like bring an Indian food to the rest. 938 - > It's like, that's great.

939 - > Right. 940 - > Cause that's a part of, um, you know, your identity and you 941 - > should be able to share that. 942 - > I guess to answer your question, I think a company should be able 943 - > to decide what that looks like, right. 944 - > And there are a certain minimum viable kind of like you should 945 - > invest in social connection because there actually are 946 - > business outcomes that come out of that, because like there's a 947 - > Harvard business school, did this paper where People, your 948 - > attention and your productivity and all these factors are like 949 - > way more likely to be high if you have a best friend at work.

950 - > Right. 951 - > So if someone's like, well, I don't actually give a shit. 952 - > Like, why do you need to be friends with people at work? 953 - > Kaleem: Seven, seven times more engagement.

954 - > I think there's the stat I use that in my slides. 955 - > It's seven times more engagement. 956 - > If you have a best friend at work, it's crazy. 957 - > Suman: Yeah.

958 - > So we talked to like people leaders, but also finance teams, 959 - > like CFO, right? 960 - > Okay. 961 - > Well, I'm going to do this. 962 - > And I'm like, cool.

963 - > Well, there's actually a lot of business value to like investing 964 - > thoughtfully in these types of things. 965 - > Like Bain, for example, is always like glass door, best 966 - > place to work, all this kind of stuff. 967 - > The first thing you do at Bain is you go to something called 968 - > associate consultant training. 969 - > It's always in Cape Cod and it's global.

970 - > So Bain has a ton of different offices. 971 - > I didn't work directly with Rob, he was in the New York office, I 972 - > was in the Texas office. 973 - > But I have developed friendships, relationships, been 974 - > in weddings, invested in, had people invest in my company that 975 - > I met at Bain. 976 - > So it is like, that's, and by the way, like, 977 - > Kaleem: new higher cohorts, new higher cohorts are critical.

978 - > Yes. 979 - > Suman: yeah, but then you think about like, oh, why invest in 980 - > this stuff? 981 - > It's like now I'll talk about Bain during this podcast and 982 - > people are like, Oh, interesting. 983 - > I'm a college person I'm thinking about going to work at 984 - > a consulting firm.

985 - > So you develop a certain affinity And if you're like an 986 - > executive down the road and you're like, I got to hire a 987 - > consultant and you enjoyed your time there, who are you going to 988 - > choose? 989 - > You're going to choose that firm, right? 990 - > So it's short sighted to, I mean, every company should 991 - > decide, but you should think about kind of that stuff and 992 - > figure out the right balance for your company. 993 - > Kaleem: Makes sense.

994 - > What is 995 - > Jeff: All right. 996 - > So when we're getting towards the end of our time, so we have 997 - > the hard question for you, tell us what comical or inspiring 998 - > moment you had while working remotely, 999 - > Suman: Yeah. 1000 - > So the first time I was working remotely was when I was wearing 1001 - > on Marco, right. 1002 - > So.

1003 - > It's actually funny because this is for an event we were doing 1004 - > for Bing. 1005 - > And so initially when you're starting a startup, you got 1006 - > Kaleem: right. 1007 - > Suman: to look like an idiot. 1008 - > And in this case, I look like an idiot, but so we, so I remember 1009 - > we, we basically were doing these like cooking classes and I 1010 - > was like working to like manually ship these kits with 1011 - > this.

1012 - > Like the chef who she basically didn't have it dialed in terms 1013 - > of like shipping food kits. 1014 - > So then I'm working with this junior person at Bain, and it's 1015 - > actually the head of the technology practice at Bain, all 1016 - > these like senior partners. 1017 - > And then they would basically ship them meat and it gets 1018 - > spoiled. 1019 - > And then I'm like, Oh, crap.

1020 - > And then I'm getting this woman that I was working with was 1021 - > like, assuming like all that. 1022 - > This is terrible. 1023 - > Like what's happening. 1024 - > And I was like, I'm going to like, Instacart everyone food.

1025 - > They're like, we don't want any more of this spoiled meat. 1026 - > We are, we, you got it. 1027 - > They were like, let's just do a cocktail making class. 1028 - > So then I hit up Kate and I'm like, this is a disaster.

1029 - > She, this is actually a funny story. 1030 - > So 1031 - > Jeff: How many people, How many kits were you sending out? 1032 - > Suman: this, it's like 20 kits or something 1033 - > Kaleem: So, So, just, just, they opened the kits and it's spoiled 1034 - > Jeff: It's just rotten 1035 - > Suman: the, the meat is just, okay. 1036 - > Yeah.

1037 - > So by the way, just to be extremely clear, now we've had 1038 - > our hosts and for any of these experiences, people have figured 1039 - > out the shipping thing. 1040 - > So let's just make that super quick. 1041 - > So then, I call Kate and I'm like, we gotta like, Just do 1042 - > this cocktail making class. 1043 - > I don't know.

1044 - > We'll figure it out. 1045 - > She responds and she's like, I met her, my, her, her father had 1046 - > a construction site in San Francisco. 1047 - > She had thrown out her back at the construction site that day. 1048 - > So she's like, I can't like move or walk.

1049 - > So I just grabbed everything in my apartment, like all the booze 1050 - > and the utensils I had. 1051 - > And I was like, I'm going to go to her restaurant. 1052 - > And I am not a mixologist. 1053 - > I was like, I'm going to do this class.

1054 - > I think I'll figure it out. 1055 - > And so, and these are, 1056 - > Kaleem: spoiled me already. 1057 - > so 1058 - > Jeff: To keep it simple, gin and tonic. 1059 - > Suman: yeah, so we, exactly.

1060 - > So then we had a, this guy, um, on our, Kevin Blake, who's a 1061 - > magician, And he made like, he made a ton of money on our 1062 - > platform during COVID. 1063 - > He's an exceptional magician. 1064 - > It sounds kind of kitschy, but he's like a badass. 1065 - > Like he's, so I called him and I was like, Hey man, I need a 1066 - > favor.

1067 - > Like we have something, we have this event and like, we can't do 1068 - > it. 1069 - > Are you available? 1070 - > He's like, when is it? 1071 - > I'm like, it's in like 15 minutes.

1072 - > And he's like, okay, I'm going to go to my studio. 1073 - > And so then we get, I get to the thing and I turned on the zoom 1074 - > and I was like, so this is all part of the experience. 1075 - > You thought you were doing a cooking class, you're doing a 1076 - > magic show, and here we have Kevin Blake, and he gets on and 1077 - > he crushes it. 1078 - > Kaleem: Well, what 1079 - > Suman: was 1080 - > Kaleem: with the drinks?

1081 - > What did you do with the drinks? 1082 - > Cause you, you grabbed, 1083 - > Suman: I had to have a drink after that experience, that's 1084 - > for sure. 1085 - > So I 1086 - > Kaleem: that's, 1087 - > Suman: drink because I have like 10 stories, I have like 10, 10 1088 - > similar stories. 1089 - > Jeff: They didn't even, they didn't even know about the 1090 - > mixology chapter that just kind of slipped in and out before 1091 - > they even 1092 - > Suman: They didn't, no one really knows about this story.

1093 - > Yeah. 1094 - > So I was sweating bullets. 1095 - > I'm like, Oh my God. 1096 - > And then the partner, the partner's like bringing their 1097 - > kits in there, like, this is so cool.

1098 - > But that was a stressful experience for sure. 1099 - > Kaleem: Your former company. 1100 - > Wow. 1101 - > What is, what a story, bro.

1102 - > Thank you for sharing 1103 - > Jeff: Lemonade out of lemons. 1104 - > I love it. 1105 - > Suman: Yeah, it worked out it could it could have I mean could 1106 - > you imagine if Kevin wouldn't that would have been a disaster 1107 - > Kaleem: Well, you had the drinks ready to go. 1108 - > You had the drinks ready to 1109 - > Suman: Yeah, 1110 - > Kaleem: have, 1111 - > Suman: yeah Jeff it would've been here's how you make a chin 1112 - > tuck Yeah.

1113 - > Jeff: and got sick after the fact. 1114 - > I mean, there's all kinds 1115 - > Kaleem: well done. 1116 - > Jeff: bad things that could happen. 1117 - > Kaleem: Well, you figured it out.

1118 - > You figured it out. 1119 - > Got to pivot. 1120 - > Jeff: That's why I tell people dancing is important. 1121 - > You got to learn to dance.

1122 - > You got to be comfortable because stuff changes. 1123 - > All right. 1124 - > So where can people find you? 1125 - > Where can they reach out?

1126 - > Where can they learn more about Marco experiences? 1127 - > Suman: Yeah. 1128 - > You can go to markoexperiences. 1129 - > com first and foremost.

1130 - > I'm active on LinkedIn, so you can search Suman Siva, S U M A N 1131 - > Siva, S I V A. 1132 - > On LinkedIn, Twitter, all this, all the things, but yeah, check 1133 - > us out at marcoexperiences. 1134 - > com. 1135 - > We help companies save time, money, make their group 1136 - > experiences off sites on sites better, more effective.

1137 - > So hit us up and, uh, appreciate your time guys. 1138 - > This is fun. 1139 - > Kaleem: Oh man. 1140 - > Thank you so much, bro.

1141 - > We'll definitely make it out to one of those experiences. 1142 - > I want to check it out. 1143 - > So I appreciate you coming on The 1144 - > Suman: The Turkey one. 1145 - > We got 1146 - > Kaleem: Yeah.

1147 - > Suman: one coming up right up for 1148 - > Jeff: I'm bringing a deck of cards. 1149 - > I'm bringing a deck of cards. 1150 - > Kaleem: Awesome. 1151 - > Suman, thank you so much.

1152 - > We'll talk to you all soon. 1153 - > Peace.