The Aftermath.

Endemicity, how normal life resumes, when the devastating pandemic virus ends up docile. It is when we end up perceiving Covid-19 the same way we perceive the common flu or cold. A prophecy we all are waiting for, might not happen after all.

The direct and indirect effects of lockdowns are still unknown for most of us, but one thing we can bet on… the new normal will be set upon a context that would not necessarily respect the pre-pandemic status quo.

The COVID-19 has become one of those protracted cases with irreversible consequences, an impact arguably far deeper and more long-lasting than many of recent history. While the pandemic per se might finish eventually; some effects are here to stay. Therefore, one can reflect on changes related to the outbreak.

These changes that started from the redefinition of our place, can impact globalization as a concept, and can consequently influence our perception and priorities. We can link that to the way we designed our lives.

I will start with one major pyramid from the end of World War II: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

For each need we allocated resources, images easy to understand and relate to. Home, office, social, cultural, and public setups became the images/answers to our needs, and we carried that through with the different contexts and evolving formats.

Protracted lockdowns forced us to stay home, now becoming not only the shelter but a place for our safety, socializing, self-esteem, and self-actualization, regrouping all needs of the Pyramid from the very basic to the most refined in one ‘place’.

This would not have been possible without the information technology revolution and the reduction of barriers for remote working, communication, and entertainment. The new physical barrier interrupted tourism, supply chains, and logistics. Companies (and individuals) had a steep adaptation curve to survive. The stress that it caused helped unlock many factors that pre-covid conditions did not favor. Whether or not these phenomena will continue, for how long at the same intensity, is yet to conclude. A virtual world arose, defying the centrality of the place in response to our needs. Consequences?

Virtual Globalization

Globalization flourished over accessibility. Advances in physical infrastructure, due to the industrial revolution, made it easier to have quick affordable transportation between two geographically separate points.

With social distancing and forced working from home, this aspect of globalization was compromised for the sake of safety, accentuating the use of alternatives. Over a prolonged period, technology and communications giants needed solutions to keep up. The trend pushed us to adopt more technology-friendly habits.

This accelerated the world’s dependency on information technology and unlocked many of the then underprepared tools, policies, and mindsets. Advancements in 5G internet, Artificial intelligence, and investments in internet infrastructure catered to these developments. This made sedentary habits more affordable and socially acceptable, eventually increasing automation and robotization.

This undermined geography as an access barrier and pushed further back to sedentary life. The prioritization and cocooning of the once extra-shelter activities into our home is coercing new habits… reimagining a new perspective on how life should be.

Our place evolved, saving us very valuable time but also redefining our space. We are isolated in our basement in the suburbs only physically but connected to the wider world, literally. This perception of space, based on time convenience, needed necessary infrastructure and policies to sustain… and the prolonged pandemic response allowed enough stress to push that further.

Agile Business

The industrial revolution helped Businesses scale, optimize through the different crises before giving birth to the platform approach. A model based on facilitating interactions as an alternative for imposing solutions. This marked a detachment from linearity in how we manage.

Pillars of the global economy alarmed, lead to problems in manufacturing and supply chains. The lifestyle related to social distancing and remote working implied less need for consumption, undermining many facets of our modern life. Questions about value in ownership, and “Woke” consumerism will have their toll on companies producing discretionary goods, therefore transforming the economic composition of our places accordingly. Companies who will not be able to adapt will disappear and with them, the skills and the know-how of their now irrelevant outdated offerings, their employees unemployed unless they pursued different paths.

A new perspective on innovation.

Decades and years of innovation and technological advances made us overvalue our capabilities and undervalue any disruption coming from outside of our own dynamics. We glorified our actions, operational and financial, and dismissed everything else as collateral, let’s have some context.

Until the 1960s and even 1970s, universities were the main centers of innovation, innovation for the sake of knowledge, and experimentation. During this period, leaps were made, finding a cure for cancer was a matter of time, space exploration was underway, advancements in clean nuclear energy as well. We, therefore, grew into this illusion of safety from everything we thought we surpassed.

Then in the 1970s, the corporate world took over, starting corporate innovation. Corporate innovation generated higher dependency on consumerism and profits as its main drivers. We reallocated resources to more “sustainable” models. The process, not the goal, became the business. We made gains and wanted to keep them flowing. The economic model, and everything else consequently, was based on a strict demand/offer ratio that dictated investments and needs.

Our unrealistic sense of safety persisted. COVID-19 stroke, abruptly contradicting our theories and exposing our operations to worst-case scenarios. The corporatized world couldn’t adapt quickly enough, the outbreak defying the demand-need ratio with its exponentiality.

Now we find ourselves with more questions than answers; will the COVID-19 rebalance innovation between a corporate that can sustain and academic that can accelerate innovation? Will classic corporations even survive the pandemic? We might or might not find answers to these questions.

With the rise of the virtual, comes our retraction and reconsideration of old habits. This reset depends on our reaction to it, Which will have consequences on our opinions, and perceptions.

Does Social Capital trump Political Ideology?

“Make America Great Again” in the United States, elected a businessman to the Oval Office; a Brexit referendum succeded in the United Kingdom to separate the country from its European space; France’s extreme right is gaining more ground at each Presidential election, Le Pen family becoming a fixture in second Face-offs. These gains for the political right were based on alienating views that identify the ‘other’ as the enemy, presenting themselves as rescuers of the real essence of the nation, very close to what Hitler did in Germany and Berlusconi in Italy, not different from movements of religious resurgences.

The COVID-19 challenged National governments who became excessively protectionist, fighting over a scarce supply of surgical masks and gowns. National politicians failed to pinpoint an enemy, highly ridiculed for their early investments in the pandemic. Some blamed foreigners and immigrants, others gave the virus a nationality, trying to use it for an eventual trade war. National Politics proved increasingly detached from the real problems of the citizens. And while they tried, tirelessly, to abuse the situation for political gains, on both sides of the aisle, they couldn’t get much from that. Proving structural limitations of classic politics in dealing with the problems and challenges of today, let alone those of tomorrow.

Covid-19 exposed, decisively, the frontiers of National ideological Politics and their unpreparedness for adequate, timely responses, to our urgent problems. The system simply facilitates a popularity contest, one that prioritizes ‘managing’ a problem, rather than solving it. Winning becomes easier through selling unrealistic nostalgic dreams than any plan for facing future nightmares.

City mayors, on the other hand, took center stages, communicating and informing. They themselves forced social distancing and lockdowns, showing leadership, and spreading more relatable messages to their citizens. Being closer to the communities, meant they were more sensitive and understanding, but most of all, social.

Rise of Social Capital

Social Capital resurged with the information technology revolution beginning of the 2010s. Its ability to lower barriers to create, gave the creative class an understanding recipient of their production, out of which it could have been a bit more difficult to deliver. Creators and cities thrived, showcasing openness, inclusion, and a value chain organized over the re-interpreted subject of shared identity.

The COVID-19 is a stress point for this definition. In times of agony, our relationship with the other differs from that during times of growth. We cocoon, isolate, our perception of scarcity opposes the fundamentals of social capital. We run to the stores for masks to protect ourselves and our families, leaving healthcare workers and hospitals struggling. Corrupt officials might also take advantage of the pandemic, pass unpopular decisions with low public scrutiny. Any kind of behavior that proves egoistic, opportunistic, and against collective interest during hard times, not only can prove unhelpful and anti-social capital, but it can also put additional economic pressure on the already unfavorable conditions on businesses and individuals.

During these times, Social Capital can redefine the relationship between leaders and their citizens. Let’s talk trust, cooperation, and reciprocity with some examples.

Social Capital Helps in times of distress.

China, Germany, and the United States of America. The three countries wouldn’t have had more different approaches in tackling early COVID-19 through their leadership style, and this leadership’s interaction with social dynamics in each country.

China’s Wuhan isolation was described as probably the largest quarantine in the history of the world. The draconian measures taken by the government, including drones and new hospitals, worked. However, the success demonstrated in containing the virus proved beneficial for the Chinese president and showed complete trust on the local and regional level for his tactics.

In Germany, the calm appeal of the former Chancellor to citizens, demanding a reason, and discipline to slow the spread of the virus, is different. Coupled with a well-administered regular grocery store visit spreading reassuring signs of her serene leadership, the chancellor asked its compatriots to “take it seriously”, describing the pandemic as the biggest challenge to the nation since World War II. Merkel used her physicist background to address her country: a matter of fact and reasoning. The German leader succeeded in showing relatability to citizens while avoiding the country sinks in uncertainty and fear, and in that, she thrived.

For the USA, former President Trump dismissed the virus’ seriousness, not unlike many other world leaders at first. It was on the 3rd week of February 2020 that he warned the American public of the risks and called for social distancing and staying home. Critics argue the culture of the Trump White House contributed to the crisis, which undermined the perception of a leadership capable of facing the pandemic.

Regardless of whether the feeling of togetherness spread by Angela Merkel and protectiveness by Xi Jinping affected the spread of the virus, the way each head of state approached their citizens reaffirmed trust between them and revalidated the contract between the people and their heads of state. This was not the general trend worldwide and, in many cases, leaders were among the victims of the pandemic.

Social Capital saves money.

Some countries forced a certain lockdown with very strict rules (France, Italy) while others prioritized “herd immunity” (Sweden, UK). The discussion here is not about which is better, but highlighting the kind of responsibility governments gave their citizens as ‘participants’ in the fight, and the expectation that came with it. Adopting loose restrictions, the Swedish authorities bet on the fact that people will act responsibly and respect the rules. Citizens became themselves in charge of stopping the spread and subject of presumed reciprocity.

Following an expert’s theory and emphasizing the scientific hypothesis, the induced reciprocity between government, citizens, businesses, and institutions facilitated the model, making Sweden the Guinea pig for such an experiment. This saved the government amounts of money that it would have otherwise invested in implementing a forced lockdown measure while generating comparable results.

How does Social Capital function?

It can be tricky to directly relate Social Capital to economic consequences.

It’s when trusting that your government will contain the pandemic, makes you less impulsive in running to buy bread and toilet paper. Knowing your local grocery store won’t take advantage of the situation, make illegal gains, and liquidate expired products, also gives you a feeling of cooperation, that despite the pressure, we are trying to persist (together).

It’s when recognizing that your compatriots are responsible not only for their health but also yours, makes it much more important for you not to break this chain.

For Governments, communicating on a peer-to-peer basis helps in facilitating strategies and objectives instead of coercing them. Even if rules are put in place, like lockdowns, factual calm communication, responsibilisation, and reciprocity decreases the feeling of imposing and can make society less resistant. This saves amounts of money from financing forced lockdowns and checkups, artificial inflation from impulsive consumption, and most importantly, it reinforces the normalization needed to sustain the economic cycle.

Normalization has its limits on such a disruptive scale, so what the New Normal might look like? And how would it affect us?

Endemicity

Virtual, agile, and hybrid innovation. Our retraction will have consequences that can shake the very basis of the modern economy and its geopolitics. Home might become everything we might need, which in result, means a leap for robotics, automation, and Artificial Intelligence, as well as 5G and internet infrastructure; all this while connectedness and communication might change in definition. The principles of our world might change accordingly. Time and Place might fade furthermore for the sake of Space.

Robots are taking over our cleric jobs, artificial intelligence is dominating our intelligent jobs. That leaves us with one option: be the social creatures with the soft skills, creative minds, and the right questions. This is where automation has its limits and where we can thrive as humans moving forward.

Innovation is not a profitable choice anymore, but a necessary race, with challenges growing all the way. And once we resume, undeterred, debating climate change… We will understand and act on the fact that the earth and its dynamics are not a collateral cost, but our natural habitat.

In times of such uncertainty, preserving a solid social graph that highlights transparency, collectivity, and complicity, might prove essential. Business models cannot afford the absence of these characteristics at the core of their cultures. Finding a cure for Covid-19 and surpassing the proliferation of its mutations is a matter of time, but what will stick is our shared experiences, responses, solutions through it.

Humanity’s destiny then will rely on the organisms that can present the right space for minds to prosper and answer tomorrow’s questions, regardless of their geography and political orientations. The only thing that matters is the quality and depth of their questions. Innovation and Creativity will thrive in the right Space, same as productivity and scale thrived over time.

Social dynamics, therefore, will be important in driving the conversation, and communities will then search for allies based not only on political or ideological similarities, nor sole economic complementarities, but on cultural, historical, and social ties that could prove equally, if not more, relatable.