What will the new normal look like?

Remember the frenzy of weekends in Prague, Venice and New York? Lazy days on the beach in Bali, Thailand and Hawaii? The commute of Gold Card business travel in endless new time zones?

Will the self-isolation trend prevail, or will we go back to travel?

-Why does it matter? For airliners, hotels, restaurants and service sector associated with travel and living life out it is immediately recognizable in their wallets. For construction companies, followed by producers of material for construction, automotive, aviation the appetitive for investments are the underlying projection of the future developments. Back in -08 the demand for cars stopped from one day to the next. In -20 demand stayed relatively high whereas demand for new airplanes have all but stopped. 

Last year we spent a great deal on our homes, setting up hone-offices, renovations, extending or upscaling to larger accommodation. Will the future home be including space for a home office in the blueprint? Further why live in the city when the restaurants and shops are closed or gone into bankruptcy? Better of living cheap on the countryside. 

How will demand of housing and underlying infrastructure change. Where to invest? Housing sector and connectivity solutions versus hospitality and mobility sector. 

Will there again be Networking, gone are the days of exhibitions, mingle, networks of likeminded where you meet and create new venture. Say what you like but mingle over Teams or Zoom isn’t my idea of creative fun. For me it is all about pooling resources and talent in a room and come away with constellations of resources, (personnel, equity, inspiration) creating the next venture. 

If not, is it a generation thing? Will gen Z and beyond finding the Zoom, Skype  and Teams sufficient to build and maintain creative clusters? Is it time to accept being a dinosaur on the verge of extinction? 

In addition to the above trends we have a mega-trend that can not be underestimated in the divisive global distribution and struggle for world leadership divide between North-South and West-East that is higher than ever. The divide between the rich in north hemisphere and developing south, like the new Africa. Combine that with the fact that by 2050 more than a quarter of the world’s people will live in Africa. In addition Chine is set to take US position as number one economy during the 2020's.

Let’s talk about that in next chapter…