Digital nomads meet in Guangzhou.

Meeting#

The conference lasted the entire weekend (November 18-19, 2023), but due to time constraints, I only attended the activities on Sunday. The activities of the day included:

A booth for digital nomads (pictured is Dahui, the founder of Electric Duck)
A debate centered around the theme of digital nomads
Sharing sessions by digital nomads about their work and lifestyle (pictured is Inka, whose experience illustrates the idea of traveling during non-holiday periods to meet other "non-office workers" and learn how to "earn money while lying down")
Guest roundtable discussions
Discussions among the attendees

Overall, the schedule was tight, with a large amount of information packed into the event. My brain was constantly in a high-load state 😄

Our Living Room & 706#

ELI5: "Our Living Room" is a high-end subletting project.

As the leading host(s), they would first rent a suitable house for multiple people to live in, and then sublet it. Compared to regular shared rentals, "Our Living Room" has a larger living room/common space. The founder's vision is to create a living room similar to "Friends" that can also serve as a co-living space for digital nomads and a hub for regular sharing activities.

The concept of digital nomads is still relatively new for most people in China and the Chinese community. Many people, like me, are still observing from the outside. Although there are already mature digital nomad bases in places like Dali, Anji, and Hainan, visiting these places to see the lifestyle of digital nomads can be costly for regular workers. Our Living Room provides a stepping stone in cities where workers gather; even if you haven't become a digital nomad, you can live in Our Living Room to experience the lives of digital nomad tenants and the co-living lifestyle. Even if you don't move in, you can gain a general understanding of co-living spaces by participating in daily sharing activities.

Currently, as part of the 706 Youth Space Program, "Our Living Room" is starting in cities in China (Beijing/Shanghai/Shenzhen) and gradually expanding to major cities worldwide (Toronto/Tokyo/Paris, etc.).

Blue Clothes and Youzao#

ELI5: China's version of Upwork, a remote on-demand hiring platform

In addition to basic job postings and applications, Youzao focuses on personal branding and influence building to reduce the need for repetitive proof of capabilities, such as memorizing interview answers or solving coding problems. Users can build their own communities on Youzao to expand their influence and monetize their knowledge. Newcomers to freelancing can quickly enter the field by joining communities of "experts."

The founder, Blue Clothes, has worked at several top internet companies but has always been rebellious and wanted to break free and create something of his own. After leaving Baidu, he spent about half a year independently developing a small product but was not satisfied with the final result. He realized the limitations of working alone and understood that quitting without proper preparation only added to his anxiety. When he left the big company for the second time, he already had a clear product idea (Youzao) and had gone through preliminary validation.

According to Blue Clothes, all the full-time workers at Youzao have been working without pay from the beginning until now. I really admire their passion and determination. The first version of Youzao has already been launched, and I hope they will achieve success.

Consensus#

Based on conversations with guests and participants of multiple digital nomad conferences, I believe that the following consensus has been reached subconsciously:

Work Organization: There will be more and more self-employed workers in the future, and they will not work alone but cooperate in new forms that are not employment or cooperative societies.
Social Life: Living alone or in regular shared rentals can be lonely, but with a decrease in the desire for marriage and childbirth, more young people will try co-living with more shared living spaces.
Building Resilience: Awakening to the importance of accumulating "resources" that can still be useful even after leaving a platform.
Non-traditional forms of communities will play a larger economic role. In fact, we can already see the beginnings of this trend, with various atypical game social events being organized at a high cost.

In my opinion, these consensuses may not only apply to digital nomads but also to the general population in the future.

Hopes#

There were many valuable insights shared during this event, and the guests were impressive. However, many of the presentations were parallel and not recorded, which resulted in missing out on a lot of information. The online live streaming was also not satisfactory. I hope that future digital nomad conferences can be arranged more reasonably.
Through conversations with many participants, it is generally believed that it is difficult to find co-working spaces in Guangzhou that have stable internet, provide small meeting rooms, and discussion spaces. There may be some good options in places like Dali and Hangzhou Liangzhu, where digital nomads gather, but these places are far from the city center, making it difficult for many non-local nomads to access them.
Towards the end of the conference, I happened to come across a representative from Brix Labs doing promotion. I had seen their job postings on LinkedIn before, and I thought they were specifically recruiting for web3/crypto-related jobs (similar to CryptoHire), so I didn't pay much attention. The speaker mentioned that Brix Labs is like a combination of Deel and RippleMatch in China. After looking at their shared Feishu documents and knowledge base, I think they have done a good job and are suitable for newcomers to the digital nomad lifestyle. I am happy to see more organizations in China that make the digital nomad lifestyle possible.
In addition to industry diversity, I hope that future conferences can invite speakers from different functional roles. For example, based on common functional classifications, most of the speakers at this conference seemed to be in sales and operations, with fewer representatives from other roles such as marketing, human resources, customer service, legal and compliance, finance and analysis, and R&D (engineering, product design, UI/UX, research).

Afterword#

I learned that the opportunity for this event came from an article by RW Lab on WeChat. Initially, it was mentioned that there would be a week-long digital nomad summit in Dali in mid-November. As Dali is the best place for digital nomad development in China, I had always wanted to go but couldn't due to lack of time (~~annual leave~~). Also, I had other commitments at home (Guangzhou) during that time, so I thought I could only watch online.

Unexpectedly, the event was not allowed to be held in Dali, and it was moved to Guangzhou. Furthermore, the United Front Work Department of Guangzhou unexpectedly became the organizer, and the event was even highlighted in the Guangzhou Daily newspaper. I am delighted to see the support from the local government for digital nomads and freelancers, and I am even happier that I was able to attend this event in person (despite the change in organizers).