Curatti

The Post-COVID-19 World Will Be Full Of Innovation!

  • Andy Capaloff

    • What percentage of the world is on lockdown right now? Well, that depends on when you’re reading this. We’re living through a time that will be taught in history classes for generations to come. Through adversity comes times of great growth. It’s no coincidence that the most exciting and relatively wealthy time that our world has known, started in the 1950s and reached a peak some 10 to 15 years later.

    The Second World War sparked scientific innovation that continues to this day. It also created a level of economic equality not seen before or since. The arts, and to my mind, music, lagged behind, but also hit heights not seen for perhaps hundreds of years.

    For sure, this period has challenged us. But it is for us to turn those challenges into positives.

    What will happen to us in terms of work, learning, science, the environment, the way we live, and so many more aspects of life?

    There’s reason for some optimism that a better world will emerge, once the COVID-19 pandemic recedes. Here are some of my thoughts. I know you have yours though, and really want to hear them!

    Working From Home

    Work-from-home has been a long time coming. Pity it took the fear of a killer virus to force so many companies into finally accepting its inevitability.

    This will have a number of ramifications:

    Less office space needs leading to:

    To service this, we will need:

    Social Business and Selling From Home

    To be sure, many small businesses have operated out of home offices for a long time. But this pandemic has meant that those whose business has always required an in-person Human touch at some point, have been forced to adapt. Everything mentioned above will be the new norm for social business and social selling.

    With companies now seeing that they can get groups of people into virtual rooms, there’s every reason to presume that some of those companies will opt for the cheaper option of virtual, or partially virtual sales meetings and training sessions.

    Less In-person Meetings Even Post-COVID-19

    As stated above, this lockdown will have informed companies that there are viable alternatives to some in-person meetings.

    To that end, you can expect:

    You may also want to read: The Importance Of Video Calls – Now More Than Ever

    Conferences, Shopping Habits and Where We Live

    This is one area in which avatars will become very big – but not just yet. In the future, it will be possible to attend conferences simply by entering a virtual conference room. You’ll be able to ‘meet’ the other attendees and ‘press the flash with them.

    This technology will stretch to home shopping. For example, your avatar will be able to window shop in a virtual mall and try on a pair of virtual shoes.

    In the shorter term, as a friend suggested, we can expect some conferences and meetings to convert to AR. On Zoom calls, we can see the other participants or their avatars, in little boxes.

    Using AR, we could see the participants in a virtually defined space. Soon enough, we could expect to be able to ‘walk up to’ other participants and speak directly with them. Indeed, this would be a forerunner to hologrammatic calls and conferences, where images surround us without the need for headsets.

    In the longer term, less in-office work will lead to a more widespread workforce and a new flight towards further-flung suburbs and villages

    The transportation industry will adapt to these changes with new shuttle van services

    Imports, Exports, and The Environment

    People will now be seeing that some goods that their country is a net importer of, still export some of those goods. Case in point, the US with face masks. This is terrible for the environment and there should be moves to cut out the unnecessary movement of goods.

    Example, with purely made up numbers: If the USA exports 50 million face masks in a normal year, but imports 100 million of them, think of the benefit to the environment if the 50 million it sells, stay here, so that the country needs to buy 50 million less!

    A new job to service this would be Import/Export Logistician. They would work out the movement of goods around the world and determine how some goods movements can be stemmed.

    Home Schooling and Learning

    Home Schooling

    Will there be more homeschooling? Obviously, an overwhelming percentage of families will go back to their pre-COVID schooling. But I still suspect that home-schooling numbers will show a marked increase once things reach their new normal. And this offers opportunities to teachers who can devise good programs. These could include one-on-one and group teaching. They will certainly include curriculum help and time-management suggestions.

    Home Learning

    For anyone working from home – whether for companies, their own small business, or side-projects, working from home is a challenge. Actually, the challenge extends to those working in offices, who are trying to learn at their desks rather than in classrooms.

    We know that distractions exist, and that these make learning anything outside of a classroom less effective. How do we get around that?

    Well, as anyone who has taken part in a video call can attest, when you’re looking at people, you concentrate more on them and less on anything external. There are already programs that track whether you are looking at your computer. Expect these to be incorporated into all forms of home learning. If you take your eyes off of the screen for more than a few seconds, the class will stop!

    You may also want to read: The Challenges Of Working and Learning From Home [Interactive Q&A]

    Elder Learning

    As more older people come online for video calling and want to stay online and learn more stuff they can do, there will be more need for coaching, and for training videos. And for this group, the written word will also be important. So the manual may make a mini-comeback!

    Miscellaneous

    The ‘face mask barrier’ has been broken. You can expect to see them widely used during future flu epidemics.

    Internet shopping: If only a couple of percent of the people who have taken to online shopping during the pandemic stick with it, that will mark a serious and sudden shift in shopping habits. It seems fair to guess that this pandemic will have a serious impact on many brick and mortar businesses.

    Beyond continuing medical breakthroughs, can anyone really guess what will happen with healthcare, other than that it will be reevaluated?

    Worker’s rights, including safety and emergency pay, will be seriously examined in the face of the poor conditions reported at some companies.

    Unfortunately, the last two points will depend on the November elections. I don’t think either should be based on politics, as surely, all humans can see that these things are currently inadequate in the USA. Sadly, however, reality and history suggest that politics will indeed play a part.

    You may also want to read: Will The Post COVID-19 World Be a Better Place?

    What Do You Think?

    Do any of the above ideas excite or scare you?

    Can you see ways in which these changes will create new opportunities and jobs?

    Do you have other thoughts on short and long-term changes to our way of life that COVID-19 will speed up?

    Please tell us in the comments.

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    Featured image: https://pixabay.com/photos/seedlings-sugar-beet-shoots-seed-4186033/

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    Andy Capaloff

    Andy Capaloff is the COO of Curatti. Prior to moving into the world of Content Marketing, Social Media Management and the day-to-day running of a Digital Marketing company, Andy spent over 3 decades in various aspects of IT. It is here that he honed his writing and technical skills, and his ability to ask uncommon questions.