What does the post-pandemic future hold for office workers? Will we drift back to old ways of working, or continue with hybrid/remote working? What do the experts advise on how best to adapt?

Joanna Bale talks to LSE’s Connson Locke, Grace Lordan and Carsten Sorensen, as well as Hailley Griffis, a social media management company executive, who believes that offices will soon become extinct.

LSE iQ is a university podcast by the London School of Economics and Political Science.

LSE IQ podcast

Has COVID killed the office?

Speaker(s): Professor Gerd Gigerenzer | Remember the volcanic ash cloud over Iceland? The subprime disaster? What about mad cow disease? Each new crisis makes us worry until we start worrying about the next one. When something goes wrong, we are told that the way to prevent further crises is through better technology, more laws, and bigger bureaucracy. How to protect ourselves from the threat of terrorism? Homeland security, full body scanners, further sacrifice of individual freedom. How to counteract exploding costs in health care? Tax hikes, rationalization, better genetic markers. One idea is absent from these lists: risk-savvy citizens. And there is a reason for that. Many experts have concluded that people are basically hopeless when it comes to risk and, like a child who needs a parent, require continuous “nudging." Against this pessimistic view, I will argue that instead of being the solution, experts are often part of the problem, and that everyone can learn to deal with risk and uncertainty on their own. A democracy needs risk-savvy citizens who cannot be easily frightened into surrendering their money, their welfare, and their liberty. Gerd Gigerenzer is managing director of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, former professor of psychology at the University of Chicago and author of Risk Savvy: How to Make Good Decisions. Wed, 21 May 2014 18:30:00 GMT

Risk Savvy: how to make good decisions [Audio]

Speaker(s): Zygmunt Bauman | The centenary year of the outbreak of the Great War began with a serious debate over the war guilt question. Historians such as Christopher Clark, David Reynolds and Niall Ferguson engaged a wide public audience with their respective arguments. Since then,the focus has been very much on the nature of war itself. In the media, in theatres and concert halls, in stately homes and village halls, the British commemoration of the Great War is strikingly visceral. History, it seems, is less about rationalising past events than it is about accessing the emotional experience of those who lived in it. Yet, 1914 marked the beginning of a conflict that was much more than a ‘national catastrophe’ for Britain. In the words of the American diplomat and historian George F Kennan this was ‘the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century’, the big bang that determined the course of history and continues to define the political reality in Britain, Europe and America to this day. The aim of this conference is to move beyond the parochial and broaden the view of the British debate. Fri, 3 Oct 2014 17:30:00 GMT

Trails of the Great War 1914 - 2014 - Session Five: Reflections on the moral fallout of ‘the great seminal catastrophe of the twentieth century’ - Session 5: … [Audio]

Speaker(s): Professor Danny Dorling | It is widely accepted that high rates of inequality are damaging to society, although some skeptics remain to be convinced. Perhaps it is because the most damaging form of economic inequality now appears to occur when the very richest 1% take more and more, even if the other 99% are becoming more equal. So what exactly is it about inequality that causes most harm? Danny Dorling (@dannydorling) is the Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, Oxford. He advises government and the office for national statistics, appears regularly on TV and radio, and writes for the Guardian, New Statesman and other papers. His new book Inequality and the 1% is published by Verso Books. Professor Corbridge is Deputy Director and Provost of LSE. He is a professor of international development with longstanding research interests in governance and the political economy of growth, especially in India. The Geography and Environment department at LSE (@LSEGeography) is a centre of international academic excellence in economic, urban and development geography, environmental social science and climate change. Credits: Tom Sturdy (Audio Post-Production), LSE AV Services (Audio Recording). Tue, 7 Oct 2014 18:30:00 GMT

Inequality and the 1%: what goes wrong when the rich become too rich [Audio]

Speaker(s): Dr Anthony Downey | Since the turn of the 21st century, contemporary artists have increasingly engaged with some of the most pressing issues facing our world, from globalisation, migration and citizenship to conflict, terrorism and social activism. In this talk, Dr Anthony Downey explores the implications of this development, for both art and politics alike. Art and Politics Now by Anthony Downey is published by Thames & Hudson (@thamesandhudson) on 13 October. Anthony Downey is an academic and writer. He is the editor of Uncommon Grounds: New Media and Critical Practice in North Africa and the Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2014); and co-editor of The Future of a Promise: Contemporary Art from the Arab World (Ibraaz Publishing, 2011). He is currently editing Archival Dissonance: Knowledge Production and Art Practices in the Middle East (forthcoming, I.B. Tauris, 2015) and Mirrors for Princes (NYU Press, forthcoming 2015). He is the Director of the Contemporary Art Masters Programme at Sothebys Institute of Art, London, and the Editor in Chief of Ibraaz (www.ibraaz.org), a research forum on visual culture across the Middle East and North Africa. Credits:  LSE AV Services (Audio Recording). Mon, 13 Oct 2014 18:30:00 GMT

Art and Politics Now [Audio]

Speaker(s): Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick | Editor's note: We apologise for the audio intrusion in this podcast. The chair's introduction has been removed. We know a lot about Stalin but less about the team – Molotov, Kaganovich, Mikoyan and the rest of a group whose membership was roughly but never quite equivalent to the Politburo – that surrounded him for 25 years. They went with him through collectivization, the Great Purges, the Second World War, and the travails of the postwar period, coming through the purges relatively intact but, in the case of Molotov and Mikoyan, barely surviving Stalin’s attempt to oust them in his last years. There can be no doubt that Stalin was the team’s boss, but what was the function of the rest of the team? Were they just yes men? If so, how do we explain their success, as the new “collective leadership,” in achieving a practically blood-free political transition, complete with a consensus reform programme, when he died? Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick is Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of the University of Chicago and Professor of History at the University of Sydney, where she now lives. Professor Vladislav Zubok is Professor of International History at LSE.

Stalin's Team [Audio]

Speaker(s): Dr Robin Archer | Why did radicals retreat on the eve of the Great War, even where opposition was strongest? What are the lessons for us today? Robin Archer is Associate Professor in Political Sociology and Director of the Ralph Miliband Programme at LSE. Anne Phillips is Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science in the Department of Government and Professor of Political and Gender Theory in the Gender Institute at LSE. The Ralph Miliband Programme (@rmilibandlse) is one of LSE's most prestigious lecture series and seeks to advance Ralph Miliband's spirit of free social inquiry.

The War that Was Lost [Audio]

For more episodes visit http://lse.ac.uk/iq. To subscribe on iTunes visit http://apple.co/2r40QPA or search for 'LSE IQ' in your favourite podcast app.

Welcome to LSE IQ, a new monthly podcast from the London School of Economics and Political Science. This is the podcast where we ask some of the smartest social scientists - and other experts - to answer pressing questions about economics, politics or society. 

In this episode, Jo Bale investigates how big company bosses continue to command ever increasing salaries despite shareholder rebellions, government intervention and public criticism. She talks to Sir Vince Cable of LSE's Institute of Global Affairs, Deborah Hargreaves of the High Pay Centre, Dr Dirk Jenter, Associate Professor of Finance at LSE, Professor Sandy Pepper of LSE's Department of Management and Max Steuer of LSE's Centre for Philosophy. 

To subscribe on iTunes please visit - https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/lse-iq-podcast/id1223817465

Or search for 'LSE IQ' in your favourite podcast app or add our RSS feed -http://www.lse.ac.uk/assets/richmedia/webFeeds/lseiqpodcast_iTunesStore.xml

For further information about the podcast visit http://lse.ac.uk/iq and please tell us what you think using the hashtag #LSEIQ https://twitter.com/hashtag/LSEIQ?f=tweets

Why is CEO pay so high?

To subscribe on Apple podcasts please visit http://apple.co/2r40QPA or search for 'LSE IQ' in your favourite podcast app or visit http://lse.ac.uk/iq

Welcome to LSE IQ, a new monthly podcast from the London School of Economics and Political Science. This is the podcast where we ask some of the leading social scientists - and other experts - to answer intelligent questions about economics, politics or society. 

It is with alarming regularity that reports of prison violence, overcrowding and concerns over the impact of funding cuts are hitting the headlines. With 46% of all prisoners reoffending within a year of release last year, the system could be considered not just expensive and unpleasant, but failing. In this episode, Jess Winterstein takes a look at the prison system in England and Wales and asks, is our prison system broken?   

This episode features: Dr Simon Bastow, LSE Fellow, Department of Management; Professor Nicola Lacey, School Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy at LSE; and Dr Sharon Shalev, a fellow of the Mannheim Centre for the Study of Criminology and Criminal Science at LSE and founder of SolitaryConfinement.org

For further information about the podcast and all the related links visit http://lse.ac.uk/iq and please tell us what you think using the hashtag #LSEIQ.

Is our prison system broken?

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is a world-leading university, specialising in social sciences, with a global community of people and ideas that transform the world. Our podcasts focus on the social sciences and the world today.

Risk Savvy: how to make good decisions [Audio]

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