COVID19 Disrupt-> Life/Business 5.0

For decades I have helped build brands and businesses to aggressively drive growth. At the core was a simple premise: Innovation Out of Insight (the premise behind Fusion 5, NOW and even our emerging tech venture fund Mtek). Listen and watch for insights from consumers and businesses to then create innovative strategies and solutions that move to a whole new level. 

Example: my focus as a mobile led innovator extended from everything surrounding a mini computer in your hand that empowered the world. Think Steve Jobs and iPhone and the ten year catapult that resulted to life and businesses even now. This was 3.0. (see my Tedx talk )

Enter Life/ Business 5.0:  A natural evolution of data, AI, MTM, new Fin-tech solutions could be called 4.0. Then the biggest disrupter event occurred and is still underway…COVID19 and its life quarantine! It is not even over and you see implications coming everywhere! 

-Mother and c-level friend texting me to connect her to a friend at a children’s product company that helps kids' immune system (as she fights to ward off COVID19 in the NYC metro area). This aggressive flu virus has shifted her life and the entire USA population and likely the world. And it is still months from being over. 

-Implications Coming: obvious already that contact free and clean/surface sanitary is back again (remember your grandmother always said "wash your hands” all the time). Then think: new supply chains and business models. Or the role of online education and for that matter, what is the value of an $80k a year Ivy League degree in this new world. Or think about already shifting Boomer right sizing and Millennials heading to lifestyle desirable Boulder, Austin or Asheville (away from NYC, LA and SF) and what does "COVID19 hot spot” do to that behavior. Or retail, cruises, and airlines in a "6 feet distancing world” ?

Or how about progressing NFC and Apple Pay? Think Radio Frequency enabled engagement. Enter Thinaire "tap and go" solutions. Why now? Because no one wants to touch blindly in the world around them. Aka CONTACT Free! No touching surfaces in stores, venues or in a restaurant. 

The implications are staggering! Yet out of NEED comes OPPORTUNITY! Consider two reference points, one strategic and one tactical from ventures I am active in:

-Innovative Solutions For Major companies: my Mtek role had me leading an ideation session with people involved with the biggest Fortune 500 companies and brands. We were all dealing with the C-virus behavior in our lives as we were focused on solutions for business. Our big take-away: RETHINK, Re-align, Re-invent, Rebound! All in the next 30-60-90 days for remaining 2020 and heading into 2021 and beyond! 

- Tactical Implications From 5 Star & One Sotheby’s: my venture 5 Star is about a new cutting edge approach to higher net worth friends and people shifting to South Florida (a slice of Business 5.0 in the coming). I have been using use drone videos, Matterport and my fav Zillow 3D to smartly market to our prospects (plus new platforms, data, AI and other betas etc). Now in the last two weeks, I/we are using these technologies to do virtual open houses (in 3D), smart/safe 5 point approach to showings, and other tech enabled steps. 

And with our One Sotheby’s team and CEO, we have "Coffee with Nita" on Zoom

with up to 100+ of the best and brightest in Real Estate in South Florida sharing our shifting “best practices”. There you have Real Estate 5.0 in the making! (By the way, you know Zoom, Go-to-Meeting and Tel-Docs are rocketing!)

-And you see the C-virus tsunami impact extending out. Last night I did a Martini Zoom (30 min meet-up on Zoom with beverage of choice) with my Villanova alum friends. As I am talking about C-V implications and 5.0 coming…one friend shares a company his family is involved in. Snap Docs…a new solution that does virtual closings, using AI and latest tech, to do all processing in 11 minutes with no closing agony! (who wants to do a face to face closing ever again!).

There you go. Think of solutions that will be catapulted or created all as a result of COVID19 and its implications to a couple Billion people.

Net message to all: Rethink. Realign. Reinvent. Rebound!