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Writing · June 2020

Covid-19 musings (two-part piece)

Covid-19 musings (two-part piece)

Covid-19 musings (two-part piece)

If you've been following my writing for some time, you know that I read, a lot. I've spent the past few months, like everyone else, digesting the whirlwind of news, change, and chaos around us. On one side, I'm just trying to adjust the [choose your own adventure: new/temporary/semi-permanent] 'norm' and just hang in there. However, the creative side of me got to thinking - this also may be one of the most transformative periods that I'll ever live through and that got my mind racing. How many times will you live in a period where so much of the world around you is being redefined, re-imagined, and forced to transform or evolve? The world is currently undergoing a transformative period of forced experimentation coupled with the removal of all prior barriers to accelerated adoption of technologies/policies/behaviors that otherwise would never be dreamt of or would've taken years to decades to occur.

What’s going now is perfectly encapsulated by, Vladmir Ilyich Lenin: “There are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen”

But don’t take it from me, people/organizations from all over the world have spoken about how much COVID-19 will dramatically change things. [McKinsey](https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/leadership/the-future-is-not-what-it-used-to-be-thoughts-on-the-shape-of-the-next-normal?cid=other-eml-nsl-mip-mck&hctky=11806845&hdp;hlk target= "McKinsey"): For millennials and members of Generation Z—those born between 1980 and 2012—this crisis represents the biggest disruption they have faced. Their attitudes may be changed profoundly and in ways that are hard to predict. The tourism, travel, and hospitality sectors may see their businesses subject to long-term changes in business and individual travel preferences. Concern over the possibility of other “black swan” events could change how consumers approach financial security—saving more and spending less. Individuals, communities, businesses, and governments alike are all learning new ways to connect: almost everyone knows a story of the grandparent who finally learned to Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime. Morgan Housel: But I think the amount of surprise we’ve all felt in the last month means this is already a life-defining event. The consequences will be different, but I believe more than ever that Covid-19 will end up similar to the Great Depression, World War II, and September 11th in its ability to reshape the world, driven by a generation that will go on to view everything else in life through the lens of their experience. Too many critical assumptions of the future have already been upended for it to be any different. Ben Evans: Some things were very clearly already happening and will now happen faster, possibly much faster, and some things that we’re forced to try now might not have happened without this. But, not all of this adoption will stick once we do get back to normal. We’ll try everything, because we’re forced to, but not all of it will work. So, which is which? Obviously, I wish it was under better circumstances and wish we were able to prevent the loss of human life but I think that now, more than ever, we should all be thinking about the future we want to build or exist in. How do we create and live in a world where it doesn't take a disaster like this to redefine life/culture/business/society? What I've attempted to do in this piece is two things. *Links to jump directly to them

  1. Measure. Track. Observe. Summarize the most promising, interesting, and transformative changes I'm seeing around the world. Thanks to the utility of the internet and many smarter minds than me, this is mostly a compilation of the best research/stats/charts I've seen across the web.
  2. Pontificate. Prophesize. Predict. Synthesize this information and categorize these trends or takes by folks into a "buy/don't buy" for what the future may look like outside of COVID-19. How will the world be different? How will the machinations that society, business, and government run on be different in the future? How does that impact you? How does that impact the collective 'us'? [6/18/20 Update: Part II is now focused on a few trends/industries I’d expect to be big opportunities on the other side of COVID-19 that haven’t gotten as much attention as some of these trends listed in Part I. I also shared some reader thoughts!]

As I got the journey started, I honed in on a few guiding questions. I'd like to propose the same to you as you go through the piece. Shoot me your thoughts!

  • What are the 5-10 trends you’re observing most during quarantine (business, tech, behaviors, etc.)?
  • What are the major 5-10 changes you see happening post quarantine (markets, business, society)?
  • What behavioral changes have you noticed in friends, family, and coworkers?
  • What psychological changes have you observed in the media, among your closest friends, or society as a whole?
  • What assumptions of the world did you previously hold that were proven untrue?
  • What assumptions of the world did you previously hold that were proven true?
  • What are temporary vs. permanent shifts in your day-to-day as a result of COVID-19? Did COVID-19 accelerate pre-existing beliefs or introduce dramatically new ones? Why?
  • How have your values changed/not changed throughout this whole ordeal?
  • Have your life/work priorities adjusted throughout this? What was most important to you? What is now most important to you?
  • What do you miss most about the pre-COVID-19 world? What do you miss least? What'd you take for granted? What did you overweight the importance of?

Part i: measure. track. observe.

Fair warning: [Published 5/9/20]. Lots of charts, stats, links. Sources are predominately from March and April 2020, so some may be dated. Links to all sources should be included and updated. As I collected stats, charts, takes, and stories, it becoming glaringly apparent that certain industries/topics were a lot more prevalent and impacted than others. This is not meant to be exhaustive but the main categories I segmented the piece into were the following areas (in no particular order):

  • Virtual World / Metaverse / Digital Spaces
  • Consumer - Behavioral Changes and Purchasing Patterns
  • Employment and the Future of Work
  • Government Intervention & the Social Safety Net
  • Business Implications
  • Healthcare: Telehealth / Telemedicine
  • Online Education

Virtual world / metaverse / digital spaces

Consumer - behavioral changes & purchasing patterns

Employment and the future of work

Government: stimulus, privacy, and social safety net

Business implications

Healthcare: telehealth / telemedicine

Education

Part ii: pontificate. prophesize. predict.

[6/18/20 Update] Instead of going through a list of trends saying 'I buy this' or 'I don't buy this' and talking about commonly talked about changes from COVID-19, I decided to make a few predictions on various industries, technologies, or trends that may take off on the other side of COVID-19, either having been accelerated by the onset of the pandemic or as a result of it happening. I tried to focus on trends that were less commonly talked about - so less "WFH/telehealth/online education/food delivery is here to stay", "suburbs > cities", "shared mobility is the future" takes. Hope you find them interesting! Let me know if you agree or disagree. My Predictions:

  • Digital Networking > Traditional Networking.
    • Stance: I'm incredibly bullish on the digital matchmaking space and the evolution of it over time. For anyone that's used LunchClub or Cuppa, or Sparkly (if a part of a large Slack group), they're a great resource to match up with someone that has overlapping interests, similar career goals, or extracurricular interests. I think digital networking will succeed beyond COVID-19 because I view it as a superior tool to conventional networking. Conventionally, you attend a conference or a networking event or some type of ceremony and strike up 20+ awkward conversations, hand out the business cards you use once a year for said event, and then maybe, just maybe, follow up on 1-2 beneficial conversations that you hope may bare fruit later on. Alternatively, you have a close friend/colleague make an intro. I'm less interested in the latter since that existed long before and will exist long after any type of networking tool becomes the 'norm'. However, I find digital networking to be much superior than the conference-event-ceremony route for a few reasons.
      • Digital networking draws off a database of information you either input yourself (interest, career goals, etc.) or is leveraged off other digital profiles (e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter). This allows for more personalized/customized matchmaking that is likely more consistent with your interests.
      • Digital networking previews profiles of folks before the actual meet so participants have a chance to get smart or read up on each other before the actual meeting. Half the time in-person networking events go awkwardly are because you have no idea what to talk about. With digital networking, you can pull up their LinkedIn, Twitter, Blog, etc. and you are instantly connected to what this person is involved with, fascinated by, or follows.
      • Digital networking can also take advantage of matching algorithms that get smarter over time. As the system gets feedback on your meetings, it can suggest meetings that are more likely to have favorable feedback than ones that do not get any. After most meetings, systems will ask you how'd the meeting go and whether you'd meet someone like that again? The more data these systems have, the better the networking should get.
      • Digital network automatically logs data for you - who the person is, when you met, integrates into your calendar, etc. Over time, I anticipate these systems will get smarter and track topics discussed, send you reminders on follow-ups, suggest intros in their network that may be relevant for you, etc. This is a minor point for some but I've definitely noticed laziness in sending personalized email to 20+ business cards after a networking event or trying to remember who was who and that doesn't exist under this regime. It also makes the process of reaching back out that much more smooth.
    • Final Words: Given these benefits, it makes a lot of sense that the connections you make over digital networking are a lot more beneficial than the spin-the-wheel approach that has become the norm. Digital networking is data-driven, improves over time, has a lot more information that you can extract before and after the meeting, while also easily integrating into the rest of your digital spaces.
  • Malls Are Finally Dead. Conversion to Hybrid Warehouses and/or Suburban office Space.
    • Stance: This one was in the works before COVID-19 but the demise was definitely accelerated by the onset of COVID-19. People don't go to malls anymore. It used to be the way most people shopped, socialized, and connected with their favorite retailers/brands. None of these hold true anymore, for the most part. E-commerce ate brick and mortar's lunch with regards to shopping, people connect to their brands directly or online (DTC packages, social media, websites, etc.) and prefer other forms of entertainment over going to the mall. Anchor mall tenants are going bankrupt left and right (Macy’s, JC Penny's, Neiman Marcus, etc.), consolidation plays are being terminated, and REITs/ownership groups are scrambling to figure out what to do with this premier real estate and I'd offer two potential outcomes:
      • Hybrid Retail Warehouses: This one is obvious but presents a transition step between brick and mortar being wholly consumed by e-commerce but assisting in the process of unleashing e-commerce in full force. Think less shopping presence and more inventory management. This definitely requires some creative financing/ownership structures but I've been pondering whether someone like an Amazon, Fedex, or UPS could buy the properties in full and own the 'warehouses' while brands subleased space for a smaller commercial footprint but rent out the remaining warehouse space to fulfill e-commerce orders. This solves a few things. Companies already have established complex supply chains to get their merchandise to regional locations and this allows them to build on that. Companies can no longer justify needing considerable amounts of mall space since foot traffic has precipitously declined. This allows them downsize their footprint but still use the hub as a smaller marketing effort and retain its ability to serve as a logistics hub. For the shipping/fulfillment guys, it makes their lives easier by not needing to buy, develop, and create a supply chain for new warehouses and allows them more control over working with retail tenants. They have greater control and visibility into the shipping supply chain and also have premier last-mile locations, close to all the consumers they'd be shipping to regardless.
      • Suburban Office Space: If WFH becoming a permanent trend within corporate workforces, then this makes a lot of sense. Malls are centrally located to populous suburbs and are easily accessible, they are often right next to a whole complex of entertainment/services (bars, restaurants, etc.), and are large, built out structures that are kept up well. If corporations suddenly find a large portion of their workforce fleeing densely populated urban cities but also seeking an escape from their home offices, wouldn't it make sense to create these regional 'town squares'? Humans are naturally social creatures and this seems like a much more linear progression vs. cutting all offices outright.
    • Final Words: There should be a massive market opportunity to repurpose malls into general use warehouses, suburban office space, or another novel idea. There is too much value in having established supply chains, modern development surrounding you, and proximity to potential customers.
  • Virtual Observation (Drones/Satellites/3D-Tours) Become Real Businesses.
    • Stance: Drones were already increasingly becoming a part of military, medical, shipping, and consumer supply chains, and I think COVID-19 only accelerated the adoption and consumers’ willingness to be open to it. The Hustle reported, "The drone delivery biz is flying high right now. Thanks to the pandemic, drone honchos from Zipline to Alphabet’s Wing have been shipping medical supplies, pasta, and baby food. About 20k delivery drones roam our skies today, and by 2026, the research firm Gartner predicts that number is going to hit 1m+" Drones are cheap, effective, durable, and allow owners to have a surprising level of ownership over (cameras, location, etc.). This is the obvious part. Less obvious, in my opinion, are the applications of drones that can be used in many unconventional situations now that COVID-19 has made them reality. The few that come to mind are - Commercial and Residential Real Estate, M&A Due Diligence, and Remote Equipment/Machine Monitoring & Maintenance.
      • Commercial and Residential Real Estate: Conventional wisdom suggests that most homebuyers want to physically walk in and see properties before buying them. However, when COVID-19 struck, people were no longer afforded the freedom of unrestricted mobility, especially so in properties where they weren't owners. Saavy drone operators figured out that you could attach ultra high definition cameras to drones and fly them inside properties to give potential buyers a realistic snapshot of what it actually looks like when you walk through a property. A college buddy of mine has a company that does these professionally. Check these out! Homes, condos, commercial real estate. How crystal clear are those images? That's exactly the same type of visual representation you get during in-person walkthroughs. What's better - you now have a digital recording of almost every square inch of that building/property that you can rewatch and analyze over and over versus relying on your memory and the less than glamorous photos/videos you took on your phones. Don't believe me? WSJ reported on it as well! Coronavirus Has Some Buyers Purchasing Homes Without Setting Foot Inside Them.
      • M&A Diligence: Imagine flying drones through infrastructure projects, or hazardous areas, or plants in remote areas that can give you almost just as beneficial insight and overview into the assets without needing to disrupt the schedules of your most valuable investment team members. M&A deals reserve large budget lines for diligence and think about the leverage you can get from one machine and an operator vs. an investment team needing flights, time spent, transportation, per diem, etc. The trend has already started… Dealmakers Are Turning to Drones to Help Complete Transactions (Bloomberg).
      • Equipment Monitoring/Maintenance: In a similar vein to M&A diligence, imagine having machines that are more cost-efficient, can travel places where employees can't go, do not get bored, and deliver consistent quality every day for mundane tasks like checking on equipment or land. You can fly drones in repeatable, predictable patterns to ensure things are in compliance and again you now have a verifiable ledger of all conducted maintenance & monitoring to analyze in the event something goes wrong or to study best practices later on.
    • Final Words: Drones have gotten cheaper, have better cameras, are more durable, and can access difficult or hazardous areas that humans otherwise would not. This makes them incredibly cost efficient and versatile. Commercial customers will delegate tasks to drones that are either dangerous or mind-numbingly boring for a human and the benefits will be tremendous.
  • Technology Enabled Monitoring Becomes the Norm (Thermal Sensors/AI-Enabled Cameras/Biometric Devices). 
    • Stance: This is a subject matter that will become a focus because of COVID. Think about reopening as is - people need to get their temperatures checked, wear masks, keep socially distant from other patrons/coworkers, among much more. Bars, flying, attending sports events/live concerts will be forever changed. I think there will be new businesses that emerge that solve these issues and help do it at scale more conveniently by leveraging technology. Imagine sensors that people walk through that automatically can flag if an individual has a higher than normal temperature. I also think you're going to see a lot more interoperability between biometric monitors and/or physical well-being devices. With the lack of gyms during COVID, people have gotten more comfortable with the idea of wearing biometric devices such as Apple Watches, WHOOPs, Oura rings, or Fitbits. These devices measure anything ranging from physical activity, sleep, temperature, respiratory performance, etc. In fact, some of these devices were flagged as being potential avenues for individuals to monitor potentially dangerous symptoms associated with COVID amidst the breakouts. Given the vastness of data each of these devices collects coupled with reduced customer reluctance to wear or use these devices, I think it ushers in an era of a whole host of businesses that do a few things:
      • Collect/store/analyze your wellness data over periods of time: This aspect is not new from COVID, but is a clear enabler. Most people track health and wellness data points periodically but where this data becomes incredibly meaningful is when it is tracked consistently over long periods of time. These devices have allowed for this to occur seamlessly, often with minimal effort on behalf of the device owner.
      • Connect to EMRs to access all of your medical data virtually: I think the next evolution of these products is to tie in all the newly collected data with existing information on an individuals' health and wellness. Imagine if you could load up all of your historical health records - when you were sick, what you were sick with, height/weight at various points, doctors visits, conditions, etc. and tie that into your day-to-day measurements of your vitals and overall wellness. Imagine the connections you can begin to make: which workouts were most effective at weight loss for you, which diets led you to superior health, etc.
      • Tie into medical monitoring systems for early detection, contract tracing, etc.: There will be people that launch various health wearables - pulse oximeters, glucometers, and blood pressure cuffs, among more - that will let families and doctors monitor their conditions from home. Alternatively, if there are early signals for certain illnesses or diseases that can be monitored remotely, this makes quite a bit of sense.
      • Connect your devices to locations/machines anywhere, anytime: Imagine your [Equinox] app loading in all of your biometric sensor data, auto-logging your workouts, connecting to the machines that you use to log reps and weight and time, and taking that with you to any gym location under that umbrella. Further, this isn’t limited to gyms as consumers have increasingly shown willingness to splurge on larger fitness-related buys for their homes such as Pelotons or Hydrows.
    • Final Words: If the following occur, you will have holistic snapshots of your comprehensive health and wellness over time and logged digitally. Privacy is the big concern on this one and the level and whether we'll let governments and/or large companies invade our precious health data.
  • Erosion of Trust in Institutions Hitting a Boiling Point. Rise of Citizen Journalism.
    • Stance: One thing can be certain, if public trust in institutions and governments weren't already compromised and eroding beforehand, it certainly is now. Between the current US presidential administration politicizing the existence of the pandemic earlier on or the numerous blunders or miscommunications by the WHO/CDC, it's safe to say people are skeptical, dismissive, and cautious before listening to what major institutions have to say. On an unrelated note, but definitely further bringing this issue under the microscope is the conflicts created between people and the government as a result of racial conflicts in America right now. Between both of these seismic happenings, I relied on Twitter and fellow citizens to provide the best crowdsourced information. Whether it was state/federal data being reported and analyzed or live accounts of people on the ground. I often found the best compilations of insights/takeaways/critcisms/etc. from everyday individuals and I heard/read the same from many other folks who felt the same way. I think people are itching for new ways to get reliable, unfiltered news directly from people.
      • There is likely a big business in figuring out how to enable citizen reporting/journalism. How can you create a two-sided marketplace where individuals are incentivized and can be rewarded for submitting content, stories, data-points, or camera footage while the other side figures out which of these submissions can feed into broader coverage or be presented in isolation? There is obviously a lot to figure out in terms of incentives, fact-checking, and preventing abuse but I feel like there's definitely an angle to create a news source for the people by the people.
      • Development of a platform that allows public figures to anonymously divulge information. Imagine if we could've received updates from elected officials or top medical professionals during the initial COVID-19 outbreak without fear of retribution or being associated to an institutional brand. Often times, public statements are heavily doctored, modified, or tailored to pander to the masses. I think COVID exposed that often times people just want to hear honest opinions from the experts, without it being filtered by marketing and communications teams. However, our modern societal frameworks do not allow for that. What if we were able to develop a platform that allows for individuals (namely institutional or political figureheads) could honestly share opinions, insights, and feedback without exposing themselves personally?
      • Cameo for Professionals/Experts. Think the strength/platform of a ThirdBridge/GLG in terms of network but accessible by a common citizen. This could push the discourse much further in terms of making reading professionals/experts more accessible to the masses. Additionally, you allow those individuals to get compensated or recognized for their contributions and it promotes their work to the spotlight.
      • Never-ending Niches & Newsletter Bundles. This innovation is already underway and wasn't directly accelerated by COVID but think more people opened up to the idea. People have been curating their own newsletters and audiences for a few years now and we're finally getting evolutions in the products. The internet has made the potential audience for content/media/news infinite with so many more unique verticals and/or niches being carved out by creators over time. You'd expect the natural evolution of this would the best content creators tagging up to sell a bundled service or an effective aggregation tool popping up to make it easier to discover new content and subscribe to multiple sources without purchasing each individually. For example, Tiago Forte just joined forces with Dan Shipper of the Superorganizers newsletter, and Nathan Baschez of the Divinations newsletter, to create a new “super-bundle” called Everything. With this alliance, they are hoping to create a one-stop shop for the world’s best thinking on productivity, organizing, and personal effectiveness for the price of $20 per month. Imagine these 'bundles' but for various, uniquely curated verticals. Imagine if Bill Simmons (sports analysis), Shea Serranno (sports fandom + humor), and Adrian Wojnowski (breaking news) combined for a basketball newsletter/publication. Alternatively, Ben Thompson on Invest Like the Best recently suggested local news curators combined with other regions/towns to sell bundled access to local news. I think this can be a viable avenue for news/media/reporting to evolve in the future.
    • Final Words: This issue is the likeliest to remain a problem for the foreseeable future and requires a dramatic disruption to the content/media/news landscape to be fixed. However, now more than ever, people are calling for modern reinventions to how we engage with institutions, politicians, and media in general.
  • Entertainment/Gambling is A Core Human Behavior. Creation and Gamification of Various Aspects of Life Will Become Viable Businesses.
    • Stance: If it involves a dynamic marketplace or activity, can be broadly viewed by a lot of folks simultaneously, and has distinct outcomes (win/lose, up/down, etc.), it can be bet on and humans will find some way to pontificate on what's happening whether they have expertise on the subject matter or not. The most obvious example of what I'm talking about is the stock market and what's happening when you removed all barriers from a bunch of bored individuals looking for entertainment. Davey Day Trader Global is a media phenomenon now. Axios reported, "Online brokerages have seen a record number of new accounts opened this year, and the big four — E-Trade, TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab and Interactive Brokers — executed as many trades in March and April as in the whole first half of last year, per public disclosures."  There's been numerous articles the past few weeks of how the recent stock market activity might be due to a bunch of hyperactive individuals with nothing better to do which feeds into this idea!
      • Online Gambling is Here to Stay: COVID-19 forced the closure of many physical gambling establishments and forced state regulators to greenlight various online gambling operations in various states such as Nevada, New Jersey, or others. Numerous players are shifting to online gambling as-a-result of land-based gambling lock down. The genie is now out of the box and I'd expect the growth of digital gambling to skyrocket, especially when sports books return as professional sports resume to normal schedules. Even without sports, WSJ reported back in March, "Stars Group Inc.’s sports-betting app Fox Bet, and PokerStars online poker and casino games reported new customer sign-ups doubled for casino games in the past week, and the total wagered on casino games was up 50% in New Jersey and 40% in Pennsylvania from the preceding week". You can also take a look at online gambling stocks and see the significant growth in stocks such as DraftKings. The move to digital is significant because it does not only displace a lot of traditional gambling, it draws new users that previously wouldn't have participated.
      • Unique, Gamified, Content as a Way of Engaging Audiences: I think you've already started to see it with some forms of content (e.g. the Bachelor/ette) - now imagine highly customized, gamified, personalized arenas for people to speculate on what happens. It needs to be dynamic, view-able, and distinct outcomes. Whoever figures out how to host these marketplaces and incentivize organizers to create pools to speculate should be worth paying attention to.
      • People Love Simultaneous Viewership and Gambling. Mix the two and you set off fireworks. A very obvious vector for this to dive into would be gaming and e-sports - you already have incredible amounts of simultaneous viewership, you have people invested in distinct outcomes, and you have constantly changing settings in games, tournaments, days, teams, etc.
    • Final Words: Day trading has replaced sports betting as a form of entertainment for many Americans during the shutdown. There has to be a behavioral observation that can be translated into a business idea somewhere in that.
  • Digital Verification/Authorization Becomes the Norm.
    • Stance: Whether it's Digital Notary or DocuSign, people have finally been forced to adopt digital platforms for authorization, approvals, and identity verification when dealing with either contracts as businesses or third party verification in the matters of estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney and foreign or international business. These digital experiences are superior in nearly ever facet. They require less time, less effort, are more flexible, can be deployed anywhere, are more accessible, are likely cheaper to execute and more productive (in terms of time, money, people in the loop), and can be scaled much more efficiently.
      • Ark Disrupt wrote, "According to the National Notary Association, most states cap fees on notarizations, limiting their average to $5.21. Given the roughly ~1.25 billion notarizations per year, the market for this service can be estimated to be roughly ~$6.5 billion per year in the US today. Created to deter fraud, notarizations still assure that transaction-related documents are authentic, though less efficiently than once was the case. As transactions have shifted online, notarizations have not kept pace: while required for many large transactions, most still are offline and in person.  DocuSign and Notarize.com are enabling notaries to move online, especially now that states are providing incentivizes to do so. Colorado, Delaware and Virginia, for example, allow higher fees for online than in-person notarizations. We believe that if other states follow, the notarization market could more than quadruple to $30 billion per year." 
      • Robinhood Snacks (on 6/9) reported, "Electronic signature icon DocuSign topped earnings expectations for the quarter, as the WFH/lockdown life triggered a digital shift for businesses. DocuSign's sales grew 39% and it added 68K new customers, for a global total of 661K paying customers. DocuSign's CEO: "We don’t anticipate customers returning to paper or manual-based processes" — even when the corona-crisis is over.  * In 2018, it was estimated that less than 30% of all business paperwork processes are fully digital. Now, many are sending their John Hancocks over the ether. Google searches for DocuSign jumped 50% from February to March, when mandatory WFH policies started hitting.'
    • Final Words: The ship has sailed on this. It is and has been a superior experience. COVID just sueprcharged what is typically slow-moving adoption. Digital Notary and DocuSign, among other digital solutions, that streamline dealing with contracts or business engagements are here to stay. No more need to have people come in person, worry about retaining physical copies of every single document, and worry about any geographic barriers impeding or derailing business procedures.

Reader ideas:

I wanted to shout out some of the incredible responses I got from readers. Sharing highlights of some of the best below. Sean T., San Francisco, CA

"Media's ability to spin the narrative and influence viewer's perspective has been at an all-time high. Turn on Fox, nothing is wrong. Turn on CNN, we all have 45 days to live. Very interesting to see how something that is impacting the entire world can be portrayed so differently depending on the TV channel you flip on. Also really brings into question what news sources you can trust during a time like this and what facts are real"  "People are willing to gamble on literally anything. When sports come back I think gambling will be at an all-time high" "Never realized people's need to be constantly stimulated and entertained; I feel like people have really struggled with keeping themselves entertained. Not sure if this a positive or negative, but has been interesting to see how people are handling this quarantine and how they fill their days" "While 'deglobalization' may not be the right word, I think the US government is going to take a long and hard look at how dependent we are on China and how to fix that. The fact we relied almost entirely on China for the incremental PPE we needed was really alarming, and if relations were to go south there and something like this happens again, we would be in for a world of hurt" "WFH is going to much more widely accepted. We talked about this, but Friday WFH policy will be much more prevalent. I do wonder though what effects this on like the real estate market, "morning essentials" (i.e., Starbucks) and whatnot" Matt H., Chicago, IL "Film: The entertainment industry is shattered at the moment. All production (Film/TV) has come to a complete halt for the last 2+ months. The way we film & produce movies will become streamlined and more efficient. Smaller crews (SWAT-like teams) will be necessary." "Film: Streaming services have thrown a hard-hitting dagger (yet again) into old Hollywood. More and more individuals are consuming their video content via Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime... Directors/Actors are going to sign streaming deals instead of major studio deals i.e. their movies will go directly to streaming instead of theaters." "Society: People will have an increasingly negative outlook towards media & news outlets. This pandemic has exacerbated & made it transparent the negligence we have seen from our leaders." "Education: Nobody should be attending college in the fall. There is no reason to be spending $30k-$60k on attending Zoom meetings. New forms of education will emerge & parents will take the leap into homeschooling. Individuals will start to realize that they might not need to make a 4-year investment in college when they could easily get a similar education at home using the internet." Anonymous, Los Angeles, CA "People/colleagues/employees without kids have a huge advantage during the lockdown in terms of getting work done.  It’s literally night and day.  For one, they don’t have to deal with setting up zoom calls for their kids’ classes, online homework, lunch meals, etc. Second, those without kids are literally working 15 hour days because they have nothing else to do. Just an observation but I’ve been surprised how many people are logged in and active on their Bloomberg terminals on Saturday or Sunday nights. I have talked to many investment professionals across the spectrum and without fail everyone that’s single or kid-less is working nonstop. You do have to wonder if this will create a hiring advantage for younger employees or people without kids." "Actually think that when we get past this and can go out of the house with ease (maybe it takes 12 months), people will actually realize that insourcing everything in your life is really hard. For people with the financial means that have had to drop their nanny, cleaning lady, etc because of covid (not wanting outside people in their house) you actually realize how much work it is when you have to clean the house on your own, etc. even cooking every meal for 80 straight days makes you realize that outsourcing food prep (restaurants) has tremendous value. And it’s not just ordering for delivery. You still have massive clean up time even when u order delivery. My wife and I spend 5 hours a day in the kitchen with clean dishes and clean-up, groceries, cutting vegetables, etc. that’s why, as weird as it sounds, I think people will realize how much they appreciate the restaurant experience beyond just the fact that the food is good and you get out the house. The alternative, cooking every meal, makes you realize that insourcing sucks. Look don’t get me wrong, restaurants will take a long time to come back, but Mark my words, when we do get past this, restaurants will have a multi year  renaissance. Just my take. I could be biased by the fact that we are feeding 5 people for every meal in my house, but anecdotally, I think others agree" Fadi S. Chicago, IL Redefinition of experiences: The trend of experiencing our surroundings – proliferated by influencer culture, and likely bolstered by our own desire to “prove” that we’ve “experienced it”– is evolving; specifically the definition of “experience”. Becoming more restricted to the confounds of our homes has made us reaffirm the simple idea of a home that made us fall in love with the concept in the first place. For example, cooking at home more and sharing that and our skill sets with cooking with friends has become a staple in how we show “experience”. Part of it is due to inaccess to restaurants, but I feel part of it is also each of us trying to prove that we can function in even simple ways. Another example - creating a sense of experience and connection through virtual communications instead of strictly in person. The definition of dating fits perfect here since the stories of individuals going on virtual dates that haven’t totally bombed has become more common. Coupled with the fact that we work far too much in the States, maybe this will be a great balance and outlet for someone that considers themselves a workaholic and wants to create connections in a way that doesn’t demand that they follow the traditional dating mold. Overall, how we capture the essence of “experience” will continue to evolve as each of us come to grips with what we’re comfortable doing and some not wanting to fully give up the sense of peace they’ve attained through the absence of social pressures. Social media for Discourse: We’re becoming more socially conscious at a macro scale, and using social media to more effectively push local agendas to the center stage. Unfortunately, I think part of this is because we’re all contained and we’re less distracted. I imagine once options for entertainment open up again, we’ll swing back to highlighting what’s top of mind via the news outlets along with our fire brunch, instead of using social media to spur meaningful dialogue.