We hear a lot these days about “returning to normal” and even “the new normal.” My sense is that the Covid-19 pandemic will ultimately be seen more as a punctuation mark than as a temporary aberration. We will not return to the past, but will need to create a new future.
One reason is that the pandemic is forcing us to accelerate our adoption of communications technologies. We see it not just in the technology itself, but how we are using technology to accommodate the new social restrictions. Increasing number of adults in all sorts of jobs are working from home, for instance, conducting meetings via computer conferencing systems like Zoom, sharing documents via email, etc. We can expect that organizations will see a value in this beyond the need for social distancing and encourage some staff to work from home more often after the pandemic itself subsides. This, in turn, will encourage the creation of work teams that go well beyond the local physical community, encouraging companies to hire staff who will continue to live at a distance from the workplace and, in the process, further encouraging the globalization of both the culture and the economy.
We also see the beginnings of a vision of education as schools re-convene this fall and mix in-class with “remote” learning. Many schools are offering three options: full in-classroom, a hybrid in which students study online four days a week and meet together once, and fully online instruction. As institutions, their community constituencies, and students—become comfortable with these new options, it will generate a generation of students for whom remote working is a comfortable environment. When they graduate, those students will be more comfortable in professions that allow them to work from home.
These two factors have put pressure on our current infrastructure, as witnessed by Zoom’s national “crash” as some K-12 schools and higher education institutions reconvened this week. The pressure is on to create a stronger infrastructure for synchronous remote communications—what we used to call teleconferencing. The new expectation will be that students must have universal access to classes and that professionals must have universal access to their work environment. It is also easy to imagine the pressure on online publishing and international sharing of open educational resources (OERs) in this new educational “normal.”
At the same time, technology is eliminating geography and ethnicity as a way to define the limits of community. The new normal of working at a distance will create new kinds of professional communities that are not defined by location but by the work itself and the broad societal impact of that work. All of these factors will need to be addressed as we work to establish a new normal.
The pandemic is occurring during—and perhaps accelerating—an important generational change, as Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) move toward retirement, giving GenXers and Millennials room to grow into their careers. The oldest Boomers are now 74; the youngest are 56. They currently account for only 21.9% of the total workforce, and the vast majority will retire within the decade. Meanwhile, the Pew Foundation reports that GenXers (born between 1965 and 1980) and Millennials (1981 – 1996) each account for a third or more of the American workforce. Most members of this new workforce majority grew up during the technological revolution. For them, email, the web, Zoom, twitter, etc., have been the norm most of their lives. They will be quick to adapt to a new education and work environment embedded in the new technologies and to foster other social innovations in this new environment.
In short, the new normal will be one marked by continuing change. The immediate challenge will be to remind ourselves of the foundational principles on which the new normal must be based and to articulate them for this new environment. As we move through the pandemic, it would be good to keep an eye out for innovations that could—or should—be part of the new normal, whenever that may come.
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