• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, March 1, 2023

For the last few years Adland veteran Matt Seiler (who was CEO at PHD, UM and Mediabrands among other senior industry roles) has been at executive recruiter Raines International, heading up the firm’s marketing, media and entertainment practice in an “Executive-in-Residence” role. Part of his remit includes working with the senior team at Raines to develop new capabilities with the help of AI and other technology.

Seiler also serves as Co-Board Chair at Stax Media Holdings and Executive Board Member at The8App,

Earlier this week Seiler sent MediaPost the results of a recent Raines survey of 700 executives across multiple sectors and verticals about the impact of COVID on their work and lives. The qualitative survey asked: “Since COVID, what has changed for now vs. for good (i.e. permanently)? And what, of these changes, IS good?”

In the accompanying word cloud, the firm visualized responses with word size representing relative frequency of use across all replies. The more frequently a term appeared in the response dataset, the larger it appears in the word cloud.

Though respondents were “varyingly enthusiastic” about recent changes in communication, travel, and work-life balance, the firm concludes that “it seems that one thing is for certain: change is here to stay.”

Responses were bucketed into one of five categories including:

--“All Video All The Time.” Zoom and technology were found in 93% of respondents’ answers.

--“No More Commutes!” 73% of respondents talked about remote work and the future of the office.

--“Best People Wherever They Are.” 100% of respondents who discussed recruitment considered remote work a change for the better.

--“What To Do With All This Space.” “Work” was the #1 most-repeated term in the analysis, occurring in 70% of all responses.

--“I Have A Real Life!” 75% of respondents said that greater flexibility, balance, and/or freedom are here to stay.