How Virtual Do We Want Our Future to Be?
This article appears in the Zoom Newsletter - September 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically changed the lives and behavior of people across the globe. We have had to adapt to different ways of shopping, learning, socializing, working, celebrating, doing business, and much more.
This report, prepared and commissioned by Zoom, based on survey data and findings provided by Qualtrics Research, focuses on the impact that video communications have had on our day-to-day lives. We explored a variety of use cases for video communications and how they were used and perceived in ten different countries that spanned the globe. The survey results acknowledge the extraordinary challenges the world has faced and how video communications have helped maintain some semblance of normalcy and continuity of life’s important activities.
Although there’s been a high level of appreciation for this alternative to “in-person” living, over one year into this shift, we’re now wondering - what’s next? How much of this virtual life will we want to keep beyond the pandemic?
This report seeks to capture the current sentiment toward video communications from the perspective of everyday folks - employees, parents, students, teachers, consumers, and everyone in between.
We all know what happened in 2020, but what did we learn?
The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that no institution or individual alone can address the economic, environmental, social and technological challenges of our complex, interdependent world. The pandemic has accelerated systemic changes that were apparent before its inception. The fault lines that emerged in 2020 now appear as critical crossroads in 2021. The time to rebuild trust and to make crucial choices is fast approaching as the need to reset priorities and the urgency to reform systems grow stronger around the world. (World Economic Forum)
it is the time of the year when we look back and reminisce on the good and not so good that happened in 2020 is no different, however, we had absolutely no idea what this year would bring. We can focus purely on the negative, but we will let the national press deal with that element.
What did we learn?
New terminology entered our every day vocabulary - Pandemic, Furlough, Unprecedented, Working From Home, Self-Isolation, Social-Distancing, R-Number, Lockdown, Flattening the Curve, Zoom, Coronavirus along with Covid-19. Our conversations were regularly peppered with these references as we came to grips with the impact and subsequent consequences of the virus.