25 Jun 2020 – ‘Change is like death. You don’t know what it looks like until you’re standing at the gates.’ – Jurassic Park Fallen Kingdom. We have long been told what the ‘Future of work’ could be. [Read more]

And what changes could be coming; what are needed for us and others to cope.
That the future is in our hands, and our destiny rests with us.
We have taken things for granted, and not acted as fast as we should have.
We took things easy; and now we are paying the price.

Covid 19 is here, has wreaked much havoc, on health, lives, families, enterprises,
communities, institutions, reputations.
It has exposed our weaknesses, how ill prepared we are.
How all those pronouncements of ‘protocols are in place’ are just empty words.
And, for all those, CoVid 19 is mercifully starting to concentrate our minds.
Maybe.

CoVid-19 has imposed many changes in many areas.
It is also accelerating adjustments which should have been started or done months, years ago – computer processing, enabling quick identification, building databases.
Learning, applying, adapting, new, actually-old elsewhere, technology.
We are not even talking about artificial intelligence, person-machine interface, or robots;
just the rudiments of a digital future.
It is hihglighting the idiocy of manual operations.
It is forcibly dragging people, companies, institutions,
including that unwieldy, misguided, struggling task force and its health component,
screaming into the 21st century.

One good thing is the response to the sudden, explosive, immediate, need for information.
Demands have multipled, overtaxing, and finding wanting, the creaking infrastructure and processes
and those in charge of them.

Progressive people and thousands of private institutions are responding magnificently.
People are willing and seeking to learn new things, to do things differently, to focus on things that work, not just the easy, the handy, and the convenient.

Deprived of physical interaction, people are resorting to distance learning, remote work,
online meetings. People are reaching out. Webinars are exploding.
Just like having to decide which suits us best among many alternatives googled on the internet,
one has to choose from so many offerings, events happening in one day or other,
some taking place at the same time.
So many choices of platforms and good practices vying for our attention,
our ‘likes’, our patronage, our embrace.
We are further inundated by developments, seemingly unthinkable, not accessible, in the past,
or deemed to be too far off in the future.
We are learning that either we adapt, we are quick or we are dead.

Sad that not everyone could share.
The great divide exists, and, for some things, is even widening.
Behold: there are those without comms devices, with devices but without access,
with access but unable to afford, able to afford but struggling,
struggling but learning how to apply technology in their everyday lives.
Not only for gaming, tiktok, and fun (which is important),
but also for work, advocacy, campaigns and for changing the world .

Well get the hang of it one day.
And it will be as if we’ve done it forever.