Lockdown and technology
12 May 2020 | Written by Philip Stoddart
Covid19 and the world wide pandemic has already, and will continue to change the way that we all use technology to communicate. How we work both inside and outside our offices and other workplaces will never be the same again.
Clearly no one could have predicted the changes to our lives and our work that has happened across the world since March 2020. There has obviously been much tragedy and loss, on a scale that many in our lifetime have never seen. This has extended to government controls and restrictions on how we travel, interact and the choices we can make.
Lockdown : “the confining of prisoners to their cells, as following a riot or other disturbance”
The impact to people’s work lives has been colossal, for many of those people who have still been able to work, lockdown has replaced the term WFH (working from home) as countries have mandated people stay at home, work at home, and have very little or no contact with people other than immediate people they live with.
With all of this, there was one single activity that became the new normal for people to communicate and interact, and that was video calls.
Zooming became a verb, many people who had never really embraced or adopted video either jumped in with both feet or had it forced upon them. Interestingly, the use of video became as much a social thing as it did a work thing, something that has helped people accept what might become a new normal in their ways of life.
Taking a step back and looking to understand what has both made this adoption happen so extensively, and why people who had previously resisted gave in and became video friendly.
Video uptake in reality was driven by two key factors.
Platforms became free (or free to use for this period)
No choice if you wanted to see people and not just hear them
Whilst not only a socially responsible thing to do, making video platforms free to use for this period was the best marketing and adoption mechanism that video vendors could have sadly wished for.
Zoom again took the lead, and like many saw exponential usage and growth of their services (with associated problems as well). The “cloud” helped deliver all this capability to people world wide, yes with hiccups, but the internet and connectivity has largely held up.
This last point is key. For years, many technologists and business people have thought that the cost of deploying video at scale was too high, and the impact to performance, networks etc too great. The internet and video was one of the few things that didn’t stop in this pandemic, whilst yes, some services reduced quality, availability was generally good, and more than good enough for most people to accept and use it.
The lack of alternative options to communicate has also meant that those even most resistant to video communication have accepted that if they want to see someone, video is the only way. People are still learning the best way to “Zoom” .. cameras, lighting etc, and whilst there have been some shocking examples, people are getting better.
Now we have a large proportion of people that can, and have been, communicating relatively effectively over video whilst on lockdown, so how will this change what we need in offices, as very slowly a new normal of work emerges?
For a start, people aren’t going to rush back to offices, either because of health fears, transport issues or just the lack of desire to be around lots of people, and questioning the necessity of being in the same place as other people on a daily basis.
There will be people for whom lockdown has been a living nightmare of confinement that will relish the escape back to somewhere that isn’t home. Technology will need to better bridge the gaps between people in a workplace, and those remote that neither need or want to be back in an office.
Prior to COVID-19 spaces with video conferencing were either seen as special or had limited availability. Now there will be a demand for any space where people can work (and people may still need to be physically 2m apart) to enable video communication with those people that are still remote. Video communication in these spaces will need to be easy to use, effective and efficient for people both in the space and remote.
Two or three people hunched over a laptop in the office just won’t be accepted, from a health perspective first, and also because it’s just not a good way for more than one person to be involved in a video call. The over used term of collaboration spaces will need to be safe for people who can be physically present, as well as inclusive for people that aren’t there.
All of the aspects of space design, acoustics, lighting etc will play a much bigger part as meetings habitually include persons that are remote, who will demand the best experience and engagement possible.
Hopefully as time progresses, and the health risks of travel and sharing spaces reduces, then longer term the spaces used for bigger group meetings, town halls, conferences etc will still need to cater for people who can’t or don’t need to attend in person.
International organisations and meetings will present an even greater challenge, as the desire, ability and comfort of air travel is likely to be something that many people will want to avoid, or at the very least minimise as much as possible. There will be little joy, pleasure or kudos in the accumulation of air-miles just for the sake of a meeting.
People will still want to meet in person, but the frequency of getting everyone together will be reduced, and the company that demands people attend in person potentially seen at best reckless, and at worst discriminatory.
What next? Free services will need to be paid for, investment in spaces will need to be justified against reduced revenue and a shrinking global economy. However, the new normal will be people demanding that their choice to be remote, to work and to communicate is respected and supported.
The new normal isn’t a return to the old normal. 2020 will be the one of the biggest changes globally to how we live our lives and work together.
