In 2021, Don’t Ask What Will Return. Ask What Lies Ahead

The English naturalist Charles Darwin famously helped us understand that the survival of any species – including our own – hinges precariously on the ability to adapt. 

In 2020, this innate capacity to respond to our changing environment was on full display. We adapted across almost every aspect of culture, creating a watershed moment for tech innovation along the way. I cheered the many (and ongoing) advances, counting them as a silver lining amidst the pandemic’s difficulties. I love the word “tech-celeration” to capture this period of innovation.

In the wake of such forward progress, I find it ironic to encounter so much discussion about which parts of post-covid life will return in 2021. Will workers return to offices, will shoppers go back to stores, will groups gather IRL again?

I see these as false choices and indeed the wrong questions to guide leaders into the year ahead. Instead of thinking about when and how life will return “back” to normal, let us look forward to consider the new options created by pandemic tech-celeration.

We must leave behind binary questions and instead participate in building a less neatly categorized, but wholly more exciting post-covid world.

Allow me to tell you about the new fusions I see and provide some innovation sparks that illuminate the possibilities.

Fusion 1/

People won’t be together or apart; they will seamlessly blend their physical and virtual worlds

The pandemic taught us we could easily, virtually connect with our friend across town and our favorite musician across the world. In the year ahead, we will retain the expectation that any place or occasion can be accessed through a screen. 

“Zooming” is now an eponym, and we will continue doing it for social, medical, educational, and professional occasions. Most if not all live events will retain a virtual component. Innovators across the landscape will continue exploring ways to re-invent IRL experiences for virtual participants. 

As people gain comfort with virtual interactions, they will want more sophisticated avatars and consume more virtual goods. Gaming platforms will emerge as an influential backdrop for corporate and cultural interactions. And, the appetite for immersive tech (AR & VR) to feed virtual experiences will grow, fueled by its movement from clunky glasses to smartphone screens. 

Implication: 2021 ushers in a mixed reality world. People now see a blurry (eventually disappearing) boundary between virtual and physical places. Companies must do the same. 

Innovation Sparks: 1) Bigscreen TV VR Co-Watching 2) Direct to Avatar Economy 3) James Beard VR Dining Experience

Fusion 2/

Homes won’t be sanctuaries or proxies for third spaces; they will continue to do it all

During the pandemic our relationship with “home” was fundamentally altered. For many, our dwellings ceased to be a just a landing place and became for a time our whole world.  

There were two meaningful sides to this shift. On one hand, people developed a new appreciation for an organized and comfortable home, reflected in a resurgence of domestic endeavors. On the other, they adapted their understanding of what a home is for and transformed homes into proxies for third-spaces like schools, restaurants, gyms, and spiritual centers. 

Even as people spend more time out in the world, they will continue to call on their abodes to be both sanctuary and third space stand-in. This will create new consumption behaviors and needs that will be an innovator’s paradise. Some of the current offerings around meals, décor, cleanliness, and wellness are the low-hanging fruit, but these likely only scratch the surface.

Implication: Every company should invest time and resources to understand how the post-covid home impacts their business. What home-related goods, services, and experiences can you provide to meet emerging needs? 

Innovation Sparks: 1) Tempo Fitness Studio 2) Just Kitchens Cloud Kitchen 3) Return of Weekday Breakfast

Fusion 3/

Shoppers won’t choose online or in-store; they’ll blend the best of both formats

We saw eCommerce soar amidst pandemic-driven shutdowns, and experts expect the momentum to continue. Notably, 70% of U.S. consumers who tried a new online shopping behavior during the pandemic say they intend to continue it. However, retailers also anticipate a return to stores in the year ahead.

So, what gives; how will consumers toggle between their online and offline shopping worlds? I maintain that they won’t. Rather, they will expect to blend the best of both formats.

When it comes to eCommerce, this will manifest as a rejection of the online shopping grid and a desire for more engaging virtual storefronts. And, it will mean a growing appetite for innovations like livestream shopping, personalized video shopping, AR experiences, and social retail.

 In the physical world, shoppers who invest the time to visit a store will enter with high demands. They will look to retailers to integrate data to provide a personalized experience. They’ll expect burgeoning innovations like touchless retail, decentralized POS, and augmented merchandising to mainstream quickly. And, they’ll appreciate expert human service and an element of retail serendipity as icing on the cake.

Implication: Retailers should focus on how to cross-pollinate their best practices in 2021. How can you create richer virtual shopping experiences, while bringing the best of pandemic-driven tech innovation into physical stores?

Innovation Sparks: 1) Showfields Magic Wand Mobile App 2) Canada Goose VR Store 3) Beautycounter Hybrid Stores

Fusion 4/

Work won’t be at the office or at home; it will be everywhere

In 2020, employees worldwide pivoted to work from home in the face of office closures. Amidst this massive HR experiment, many organizations saw productivity and satisfaction soar. Today the genie is out of the bottle, and most companies foresee a lasting shift to remote work. However, the time apart also highlighted limitations of remote work and reaffirmed that most organizations do need IRL spaces for collaboration, training, and relationship building.

This creates an historic opportunity to reimagine a hybrid work world. Managers can offer employees an unprecedented amount of choice about where and when they work. Concurrently, they have a blank slate to re-create the office of the future. 

In the year work officially escapes the confines of the office and spills into every part of life, leaders will also have new responsibilities to help employees maintain balance. I experienced this future while navigating China’s WeChat work culture and logged some lessons learned. In a nutshell, setting boundaries, naming priorities, and prioritizing relationships will become more important than ever.

Implication: Leaders should shift their focus from where work gets done to think about how it gets done among a hybrid office team. What tech and training tools do you need to support collaboration? How do you attract and retain talent no longer bounded by zip code? What kind of physical office spaces foster wellbeing and strong relationships?

Innovation Sparks: 1) Miro online whiteboard 2) AI tools measure remote satisfaction 3) Gather game-based platform

Fusion 5/

CEOs won’t focus on profit or purpose; they’ll pursue both with equal rigor

In 2019 the WEF declared that “Profit with Purpose” was set to become the new business norm. That very same year, the Business Roundtable released a statement signed by 181 CEOs redefining the purpose of a corporation to promote an economy that serves all its stakeholders, and companies have since been taking incremental steps to make this a reality. However, I believe the pandemic increased our shared sense of responsibility and hastened the urgency to act on a wide range of issues. In the 2021 Edelman Trust Barometer, 86% of consumers said they expect CEOs to take action to tackle challenges around Covid, diversity, and the environment in year ahead.

This presents both an opportunity and a mandate. Leaders will continue to pursue profits, of course. But we must strengthen our resolve to tackle social issues with the same tenacity. 

Examples of how this looks in practice abound. One close to my sphere is PepsiCo’s path-breaking Winning with Purpose initiative, which focuses on accelerating the company’s growth by making a difference in our society, including recent commitments to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, reduce single-use plastics and lead plant-based protein innovation. Wal-Mart CEO Doug McMillon used this year’s CES platform to highlight his company’s tech initiatives to combat diversity.  And at Davos, the WEF launched their “Partnering for Racial Justice” program to drive meaningful workplace change. 

Implication: Speaking in Davos, Dan Schulman called the idea that purpose and profit are at odds “ridiculous,” and I couldn’t agree more. This is the year to shift from concept to practice. What meaningful steps will your organization take? 

In the year ahead…

I believe the most exciting possibilities lie not in looking backward to consider when normal life will return. Instead, we will find them when we set our gaze forward to explore the exciting new options around how we live, work, learn, and consume in the post-covid world.

Let’s retain the adaptive mindset we have honed over the past months to grow and flourish FORWARD.

Originally Published #ontheblog