If the pandemic has shown us anything, it’s that a lot of the changes that were on the way have been accelerated into fruition. Take fitness—there had already been a trend toward connected fitness (boutique and home fitness merged) and then the pandemic hit, sending this change into overdrive. Carolyn Tisch Blodgett, the former Head of Marketing of Peloton and the rest of the team over at Peloton have seen this acceleration happen in real time. On this week’s episode of Left to Our Own Devices, Erica sits down with Tisch Blodgett to chat about staying connected to community through fitness, seeing women caretakers bear the brunt of the Covid burden, and how technology doesn’t quite replicate the water cooler moments at the office, but can be amazing for connecting virtually to long distance friends and family for rituals like Shabbat dinner.
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Quotes
“I had resigned from Peloton because ironically, I wanted to spend more time with my family. Didn’t realize quite how much time I was going to spend with my family when I made that decision.”
“When I joined Peloton four years ago, when I met Jon the co-founder and CEO and he talked about revolutionizing the fitness industry, and he talked about taking the best of boutique fitness and the best of home fitness and merging them together into this new category called connected fitness, where you could get an amazing workout, like you were getting in a boutique cycling studio, but get it in the comfort and convenience of your own home… That trend had started before, the pandemic obviously accelerated it.”
“We’re the most connected and also the most alone. The things we all took for granted about work of, like, the five-minute hallway conversation, or the, talking to someone over lunch at their office, all of that is gone. And the only connections over work are just sitting, staring at each other through a computer and doing the work.”
“Peloton for so many people, not only has the instructor been that source of connection, but the community of other riders.”
“A lot of companies have now realized what many of us have known for many years, which is, if I’m good at my job, I’m going to be good at my job whether I’m sitting at my house or sitting at a desk in an office. You can attract a much more diverse workforce by allowing things like flexibility.”
“Watching all these moms logging on—most of them work. And they’re all stepping away from their job to log their kids in…I think about the impact this will have on women, particularly caretakers, for the next few years, and it will be interesting to see how it plays out.”
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