I write this, as I normally do, alone in the den with soft Spanish guitar music playing.  Linda is in the living room listening to an audiobook from the library while she knits. So things are normal except they are not at all normal. The whole country is social distancing in the effort to slow the spread of COVID-19.  Life here and around the world is very much not normal right now. 

Tens of millions of people who used to go to work every day are now working from home.  Millions of people became unemployed and filed for unemployment benefits. Tens of millions of students who used to go to school every day are now online learning from home.  Gyms are closed and thousands are now doing virtual workouts. Online shopping was popular but now millions more of us are shopping online. Take-out has been around for decades but now millions of more people order food from their favorite restaurant and eat it at home. 

We are told the COVID-19 pandemic will get exponentially worse before it gets better. The good news is by all accounts, it will get better.  Eventually, when enough of us will either get a vaccine or survive being infected thus being immune, the pandemic will calm down to the point that our health care system will be able to cope. I hope everyone survives and the economy again flourishes.  

In the meantime, lots of people in lots of ways increased the use of connected technology.  More people are streaming shows, ordering online, working from home, distance learning, virtual workouts, facetime with friends, online banking and the list goes on. Every one of these activities existed prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, the use of connected technology increased by orders of magnitude due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Tens of millions of people who never or rarely worked from home are now working from home.  They remotely connect to their organization’s system. Soon, they will be comfortable with video conferencing.  Gone is the commute to work. They will get the hang of it. They are learning to message about that thing instead of mentioning it the next time they saw you in the hallway.  

Once the pandemic subsides, many of the people who are now new to working from home will continue to work from home.  Once the egg is scrambled, you can’t unscramble it. When most, or even many of the people in an organization are comfortable with working from home, working from home becomes a very normal way to work.  

The same thing will likely happen in education.  Distance learning works. People learn online all the time.  During the crisis, millions of students and thousands of instructors will experience distance learning. Sure there will be hiccups but most issues will be overcome. 

I certainly do not know how much of the distance learning will continue after the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, very likely much more distance learning will happen than happened pre the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Distance learning will not completely replace brick and mortar schools. There is a major socialization component in attending schools with other students.   However, if there is an increase in distance learning, many students will likely be spending less time in the physical school.  

Most people will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid change.  It can take months, even years to implement a technology change in most organizations. Because of this pandemic, a major technology change happened for tens of millions of people over a weekend with little or no planning.  

I worked on the project which is currently being used to get unemployment benefits to the masses.  The nice thing is online systems are not so much volume sensitive. So when in one week the volume of people filing for benefits changed by about a hundred times, the system handled it.  But when we implemented the system dozens of employees chose to retire or leave the agency rather than learn the new system.  

Right now every newscast is about what is changing.  This pandemic will very likely be at the root of some very fundamental changes in how we all interact.  In many ways, life will not be the same as it was. That said, after a whole career in change management I believe the best way to deal with it is not to worry so much about what is changed.  The real trick is to concentrate on the new thing.  

The difference between working in the office and working from home is not really that relevant.  What is relevant is how to best work from home. The change already happened. The only question is how to make the best of it.  

The COVID-19 pandemic changed so much. Nobody asked if we wanted the change.  Nobody asked if the change is for the better. It changed, that story is over. The question is really about how we move forward.  You can not unscramble the egg, you can though make an omelet with a scrambled egg.  
The closer you look, the more you see.

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