You are correct this time. The change we have seen already is incredible and much of it is long lasting. I figure that in addition to the actuaries in the basement there are many other statisticians that are also saying, “hole crap! look at this!”
Loaf from home is changing productivity but only in respect to the old established standard. Soon that standard will be gone and the measure will be against the new yard stick; a lesser measure I think.
There will be knock-on effects to collaboration, creativity and problem solving. How iron sharpens iron will change; I expect for the worse.
Our social standards will change, they have already with the type of communication media we use, the loaf from home will make that change more profound.
The loaf from home, work anywhere you want that has an internet connection has already spread the urban economy to rural areas. The nation is quickly becoming homogenized, if only economically where the haves are concerned. The locals are not yet participating in the locale based increase in apparent compensation.
I see the seed catalogs with much of their product already sold out. I can’t recall having seen much of that before. It is indicative of another new way of living. Some of it is back to the past of simpler?
We are in for more shocking change. The move may not be wholesale from urban to remarkably change rural life but it is already apparent and becoming more so. I was once happy that most would not make the effort to live outside the urban environment and was happy so many clustered there leaving areas of less dense population. That is changing. We are becoming Europe with a high population density everywhere and higher in urban areas. Only designated sanctuaries will remain unspoiled. The East Coast and much of California had already become this way, now the rest of the nation will follow.
“Loaf from home is changing productivity but only in respect to the old established standard. “
I can only base on this watching my wife work from home. She was working from home due to her cancer treatment in late 2019. Covid lockdowns brought everyone up to “her speed.”
I have been listening to calls daily as I do my daily “work” in the living room as she works from the kitchen.
The collaboration is very good. They worked across a region so perhaps they already had a good structure—but they exchange informtion and develop ideas pretty well. She is a writer and media person for a hospital—so there has been a lot of “how do we communicate this stuff” throughout the past two years.
What she has not missed are the hours lost on “drop in” time. Where you talk about everything except work. She says she saves hours every week without that. And...I used to work in her office, so I would come by for lunch a few times. Now our lunches are more fun. wink wink.
That said, based on what I did, I would find it maddening. I worked in senior management across a couple of areas (operations and telecomm). There were a lot of productive meetings where we would sit in a conference room and bounce ideas, battle over numbers, and talk sh@t about stuff to come to a solution to whatever problem we had.
I see her organization as more productive in their tasks. But I agree with you, they will see the impact in a lack of “new thinking”, “new processes”, and I cannot imagine trying to develop new capital expenditures. I would hate to be a sales person trying to sell a new feature to a telecom system or networking solution without some of that “looking at the white board at 7 PM” type of stuff going on.
But now I am but “two and twenty...” What the hell do I know?
You are a gifted futurist.
I agree with many of your predictions.