In a world of constant news and updates about Remote Work trends, it’s impossible to stay on top of it all. So every Friday moving forward we’ll be sharing our top five picks for articles about Remote Work & Digital Workspaces that we found most helpful that week, with a quick synopsis of why those particular articles caught our attention. Hopefully this is a helpful resource to help cut through the clutter. 
Happy reading!
1) How to choose the best desktop as a service (DaaS) vendor for your business (TechRepublic)
KEY TAKEAWAY: What jumped out to me in Lance Whitney’s great post about evaluating DaaS solutions was this quote from Gartner analyst Stuart Downes:
“Clarify your organization’s desktop strategy to ensure that DaaS is a good fit,” Gartner analyst Stuart Downes told TechRepublic. “Not every application, nor every user, will be a candidate for DaaS. For that reason, a deep understanding of your application portfolio, which users use which applications and the work styles of those users is needed to accurately determine if DaaS-based virtual desktops will meet requirements.”
Downes raises a great point, which is the fact that DaaS (or virtual desktops in general) are not the best solution for everyone in an organization. The reality is that some people in your org may need full virtual desktops, while others just need secure access to their business-critical Windows apps and web apps on any device. And it’s not an either/or proposition – a combination of virtual desktops and virtual app delivery may help you reduce cost & complexity while meeting the needs of all users.
Read the full article on TechRepublic.
2) CISOs split on how to enable remote work (HelpNetSecurity)
KEY TAKEAWAY: While there are no shortage of new surveys & reports about Remote Work each week, this article digs into a new report that specifically looks at the transition to working from home from a CISO’s point of view. The survey revealed that an overwhelming “87 percent of respondents believe remote work has become a permanent workflow in their companies’ operations”, but that there is no consensus on best practices when it comes to enabling secure remote work.
And this was a particularly eye-catching finding:
“36 percent [or respondents] deploy VDI or DaaS. However, of those CISOs that utilize VDI or DaaS, only 18 percent say their employees are happy with their company’s VDI or DaaS solution. Further, dissatisfaction with these legacy remote access solutions isn’t limited to user experience; more than three-quarters of CISOs feel that their return on investment in VDI or DaaS has been medium to low.”
Overall this was a great reminder that enabling productive Remote Work requires solutions that can automate away the complexity to provide a better user experience for both IT and the end user. And the security stats shared throughout the article are a great reminder of why security needs to be baked into the core of any Remote Work solution you choose.
Read the full article on HelpNetSecurity.
3) Cisco finds an increase in security concerns due to remote working (ITPro)
KEY TAKEAWAY: This article reveals some really interesting insights from the recently released Cisco “Future of Secure Remote Work” report, including a link to download that (great) report. Some interesting stats include:
- The top cybersecurity challenge when supporting remote workers is secure access (62%)
- Corporate laptops (56%) and personal devices (54%) are difficult to protect when employees are working remotely
The report is worth a look, and it’s another great reminder of the importance of reducing the attack surface for remote workers.
Read the full article at ITPro.
4) Rise of remote working entices startups to flee big tech hubs (Pitchbook)
KEY TAKEAWAY: Sometimes it’s easy for us to get lost in the technology side of the shift to Remote Work, and this article definitely got us thinking about some of the broader implications of working from home. Many organizations are reconsidering whether or not they need their office space in expensive “tech hub” cities anymore, and more and more are deciding to head to more affordable pastures. Especially considering there’s a growing consensus that remote work (in some form) is likely permanent for most organizations.
Nearly 70% of full-time workers in the US are working from home during the pandemic, according to a recent survey conducted by Owl Labs and Global Workplace Analytics that featured responses from over 2,000 full-time employees between the ages of 21 and 65. And one in two respondents said they won’t return to jobs that don’t offer remote work after the pandemic.
Read the full article at PitchBook.
5) We need more innovation to close the gap between physical and virtual learning (SiliconANGLE)
KEY TAKEAWAY: You can always count on articles from analysts Zeus Kerravala for a well thought out analysis of key issues. Even though the article is about the need for innovation to make remote learning more effective, this is another article that looks at the issue of enabling distance learning as far more than just a technology issue.
We can’t continue to throw generic tools at the problem and expect teachers and parents to close the gap. Instead, the vendor community needs to bring features to their platforms that create a dynamic and immersive experience that doesn’t try to replicate a classroom, but instead changes the way kids learn to keep them engaged in a world that will be predominantly virtual for the foreseeable future.
Lots of great stuff in here. With so many school districts rapidly making the move to distance learning, this article raises critical questions that the industry needs to grapple with to ensure that distance learning can help, not hinder, education in the long term.
Read the full article on SiliconANGLE.