We are creatures of habit and crave familiarity in almost all aspects of our lives, including work. We form patterns of behavior, patterns in our approaches towards problem solving and ways of looking at the world, and hold onto them tightly. Most of us had grown accustomed to the daily grind; wake up, shower, dress, grab the keys and embark on our traffic laden paths to the office. We logged on to our work computers, rigidly secured and monitored, by layer upon layer of complex security tools. Our applications were delivered using complex virtualization technologies that frustrated both us and the IT staff who had to support this dark magic. It was clearly an imperfect, underperforming model, but it was all we knew. When work was over, we battled rush hour and headed home. Then the pandemic hit.
I vividly remember the first few weeks. I think most people do. Lots of time spent nervously watching the news, hoping that it wouldn’t get worse, and that we would all be okay. After the initial fear passed and there wasn’t much to do but wait, I started to enjoy the novelty of working from home. Most people I have spoken with did too, at first. No long commutes, no bumper-to-bumper traffic. I was also grateful for the bit of cash I saved from not buying lunches or filling up the tank. Then reality sank in. This was no longer a mere reprieve from that daily grind. This was now the norm.
A Temporary Shift Becomes PermanentÂ
The pandemic had given us space to reflect on our relationship with work. Remote work eliminated the inefficiencies of traditional work models. Survey upon survey has made it clear that for employees remote work has become an expectation, rather than an exception. This new way of work presents new challenges for organizations and their IT teams, but it also presents unique challenges for us as users. All of us have at points struggled with work/life balance, no longer having the office or the commute to clearly delineate between the two. Those rigidly secured and monitored devices were now in our homes, encroaching upon our personal lives. Now we had two computers, one for work and one for personal use. Every IT professional knows that employees use work devices for personal tasks- it’s the worst kept secret in the business. The world had changed, but the way we work hadn’t. A much- needed balance was missing. Work + life, not work or life.
At Venn we quickly realized that the pandemic driven shift to a remote work model was likely here to stay, and that solving the equation of work + life was our mission as an organization. We wondered how a single computer could be leveraged for both work and life, without risking company data or sacrificing performance and familiarity. Could our computers become a reflection of the work from home experience? What if we could work on a sales report and quickly switch to making a mortgage payment on the same computer without worrying that our personal use would compromise? So we set out to solve the work + life equation. Our answer? The Venn Secure Enclave.
Designed for Work + Life
Venn is the secure workspace that isolates and protects work from any personal use on the same computer. It creates a secure, local enclave, governed by company security policies, where work purposed applications and data live. Performance is limited only by the power of the device, and applications aren’t delivered; they’re launched directly from the device. These applications are surrounded by a distinct blue border, creating a visually identifiable delineation between work and life. Everything outside of the border is completely private and excluded from corporate scrutiny.
Now, the Venn platform is how I go to work. After I say goodbye to my wife and daughter before they head out for the day I walk over to my personal computer, read the daily news and launch the Venn platform. With a single click Slack and Outlook open instantaneously, surrounded by the blue border, and I’m into work. If I need to pay a bill, I just open another browser session outside of Venn, do what I need to do and switch back over to work. Most of the time I completely forget that I’m in the workspace because it feels no different than using my computer normally. There was no learning curve. All I needed to know was that the windows inside the blue border were work, and everything outside the enclave was personal.
At Venn we believe in a future where our commutes are a mere stroll to our home offices where we can use one device for work + life. Hang up your keys, ditch traffic, login to Venn, and embrace the new way to go to work.
Looking ForwardÂ
Stay tuned for my next blog where I’ll discuss solving user experience challenges with remote work software, and in the meantime check out our CPO Dvir Shapira’s blog on the third IT transformation to learn more about Venn’s approach to work + life.Â
