Lessons from more than two years as a remote analyst
Pandemic practices to keep post-booster
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Political analysts have largely been working remotely since March 2020. Offices shut down. Events and conferences moved online. Coffee meetings became awkward Zoom calls ending in even more awkward waving.
While we’re now getting back to normal, I’ll be keeping some of the changes forced by remote work that made me a better analyst. As we go back into offices, here are four things that I will (and, from conversations with other analysts, they will as well) keep going.
Be mindful about information sources
Information is the foundation of analysis. We cannot forecast what will happen in politics in the future until we know what is happening now.
When I worked in an office, this was never that much of a problem. Our morning meetings involved people going around a table talking about the news. The few minutes before and after those meetings involved lots of small talk on the stairs. The break afterwards saw analysts standing around the tea kettle. The rest of the day saw lots of people reading different news services and messaging around links to interesting articles.
The entire process was, effectively, an informational safety net. I could read my standard news sources to get the bulk of what I needed to know. Casual conversations would often mention something that wasn’t in my normal informational diet but that was relevant that day. Once, an analyst asked me why then State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki had been fired. She hadn’t, but the question led me to the discovery that she had become a target for Russian media, well before it got written up in Politico:
Her two-year stint at Foggy Bottom drew curious attention from pro-Russian media.
Russian bloggers and networks have roundly mocked Psaki for things she said (or didn’t) while briefing the press on the situation in Ukraine...
Russian broadcaster NTV debuted “Psaki at Night” last month, a nightly comedy news program that Mashable reports features a portrait of the spokeswoman above the host’s desk.
When we moved online, that stopped.
Other than some links that were sent around, we lost much of the casual interactions that provided awareness of information that was out there. Again, we were probably fine for most of the news we get. But those marginal cases - the story that opened a window onto something new, or the tidbit that made everything else fall into case - became easily missed.
For me, I responded by treating my news consumption as a business input to be optimized. What news sources delivered the best combination of accuracy, breadth, and relevance were placed first in the queue. I followed on Twitter accounts that seemed to fill a gap in other coverage. I tried to run through a checklist of a variety of sources before I started writing anything. It was a bit of a hassle, but the conscious effort to constructing a better informational feed is one that I’ll continue revisiting every quarter, even after in-person work comes back.
Formalize the informal
Just as information gathering had been a partly informal process that had to be formalized, there were plenty of other crucial business steps that had never been written down because they didn’t have to be.
I remember in 2019 deliberating over tweaking a slide deck for a particular audience. After a few minutes considering it, I walked across the room to ask a communications expert. A five-minute conversation later, the question was answered and the slide deck improved.
Your workplace probably has plenty of examples like this. During the pandemic, you probably started to see work quality slipping or things falling through the cracks. Inevitably, while working remotely, the only answer was to create some kind of process for it. Maybe it was that all reports had to be listed in a spreadsheet for others to be aware it was ready to be edited. Perhaps it was that weekly meetings were called to get visibility on everyone’s availability.
Those steps were probably a headache and many of your office will be glad to be rid of them. Every bureaucratic box that must be checked increases the work that must be done. There will be a constant pressure to simplify, streamline, and ignore.
However, some of those formal processes were probably necessary. Yes, I double-checked the slide deck, but I didn’t need to. I could have kept it the same and only realized the message was off when presenting to the client and wondering why they nodding off rather than nodding in agreement.
Reach out to others
The only good thing about this pandemic was that I talked with a lot of people I otherwise never would have met.
Conferences are necessary ways to build connections and learn from different perspectives. Despite their hassle, I have never regretted going to one. They are almost always more valuable than yet another day in the office. With the pandemic shutting them down, and Zoom calls not facilitating the same interactions as a continental breakfast buffet outside a plenary session, I thought that part of the job was going away.
Instead, with everyone in the same boat, I discovered that I could email people to ask for a 30 minute video call, and they would usually say yes. These calls led to new prospects and even a new product line. They didn’t need to be in the same city or attending the same conference. All of a sudden, a major barrier to networking had crumbled.
It would be a real shame if, as we go back to in-person meetings, we forget the potential that can come from virtual interactions. (For myself, I’m always happy to hop on a Zoom call to discuss political risk, so please don’t hesitate to reach out.)
Realize that you’re essentially remote anyway
One of the worst things for a political analyst is to be a Chicken Little. You see a news flash, think everything has changed, and dash off a memo to that effect. In a couple days, you realize that the news wasn’t actually that important and the memo is wrong. But then you see another news flash...
As important as staying up with the latest news is, and as important as making connections to other analysts is, the core of the job is thinking about where the current political, social, and economic systems are heading. That doesn’t require any in-person interactions. In fact, relying solely on what you personally hear about is usually a recipe for inaccurate hot takes.
Many political analysts weathered the pandemic with their analysis roughly as accurate as it was before (once you take into account the inherent difficulty of predicting the world of collapsing economies and shuttered borders). If you did, then congratulations. What you gained through meetings, events and conferences may have been helpful, but you found that they were not absolutely necessary to the job. If you live in one location, but are covering multiple countries or globe-spanning trends, most of your work is removed from the places you’re forecasting.
If you want to work a couple of days per week from home, save time on commuting, and not face any drop in the quality of your work, then you should.
There’s a lot that goes into political risk analysis, but, as it turns out, 40 hours a week under florescent lights is not one of them.
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