ZDNet – The COVID-19 virus and our reaction to it have accelerated an emerging shift in our conventional ways of doing things. “Companies that return to the old ways without understanding that shift are likely to fail. The Next Normal is vastly different than the normal before the pandemic…To repeat, as soon as we stopped forming in groups, the economy fell apart. And it wasn’t just the economy. Despite all the obvious differences between commerce, education, healthcare, entertainment, travel and hospitality, religion and other institutions, they were all organized in the exact same way; a commercial, cultural and social world based on physical grouping, aggregation, massing, or centralization of employees, customers, students, patients, worshipers, travelers, fans and spectators, old people, prisoners, and others, into controlled environments where the associated functions (employment, commerce, education, healthcare, religion, etc.) took place. In a nutshell, our economy and our Old Normal were built on and were dependent on centralization. The second part of the story, the part about our current state, is more complicated. It’s complicated because it wasn’t planned, intentional or chosen, and because it isn’t “normal.” We are, in effect, in an extended state of emergency, an abnormal or exceptional set of circumstances. No one believes that this is a way to run an economy or live a social life…”