What will the world and the technology landscape look like in the post Corona virus landscape? Who knows but here are a few predictions

The doomsday predictors who think people will now become recluses, miss a fundamental point. People are creatures of comfort and we will seek to return to normalcy. However certain innocence will be lost. The fundamental change in human behavior that some people predict is going to be a more intense engagement in all things we could not do during the isolation period. However there will be also some more subtle changes that I will try and predict on two fronts below.

First the global changes in geopolitics and second its impact on the technology landscape

? Globally the various governments response to the pandemic will be bi-polar.  Some governments will gain the trust and consciousness of their populations while others will see their populations look at their national institutions with skepticism and disbelief.   Further truth will be blended with conspiracy theories. Conspiracies and pedaling them will move from the fringe to mainstream as a new tool of propaganda by institutions, corporations and  governments to deflect attention from their bad performance.  People will start to believe half truths. Marketing and advertising 2.0 will be born. Propaganda will become mainstream and integrated as a tool of communication.

? The human inequality gap will widen - There will be new restrictions on movement of people and with the economic shock of the Pandemic there is no doubt that the poor will burden the most significant brunt of the shock.   In terms of education, culture, arts, travel and access to health and shelter we shall see a widening of the gap between the haves and have nots. Some countries will accept this multi tier approach to access, while others will resist it by attempts to expand existing or create new universal access programs to education, health, housing and income. It is doubtful that socialism will be able to provide where capitalism failed, however a more pragmatic capitalism will emerge where it will be able to implement a dual class system.

? There will be a move towards a geo global patriotism.   Countries will form lose super block alliances and we will return to a multi polar world order. The rise of China will be accelerated by the miss steps of USA in taking a global stance in fighting the pandemic. However other blocks also will form.  

? The globalization of the post cold world will hit a peak.   There will be a new focus on domestic production and domestic supply chains within the new geopolitical super blocks.   Countries will look to have national champions at the expense of globlization.

These predictions are nothing new and they were all happening before the Covid-19 Pandemic.  However the pandemic will expedite their rate of adoption and accelerate the forces that were the drivers of them. We may ask now what does this all mean to the technology world.   Well once we accept these global forces of change, we can then start to see trends emerge from them and use our knowledge of past technological trends to predict with reasonable certainty certain inevitable outcomes.

Digital adoption

Barriers to digital adoption were fast eroding.  Modern performance centric organizations were all equipped to some extend to be digital.     However the adoption curve will now fast forward to some resistant organizations.  Further governments and regulators will need to adopt a far more digital friendly approach to ensure that their nations will be able to compete and also to conduct business in the new norm.    Many global digital technology brands will see domestic competitors protected by governments.  These digital technology platforms will start to be seen as critical infrastructure much like railroads, airlines, utilities and auto industry were seen in the post WWII economic climate. Propaganda and patriotism will be leveraged to accelerate their growth. Their existence protected by governments.

Performance centric culture and agility

Many traditional bureaucratic and command and control corporations were still surviving and even slowly growing through a strategy of amalgamation and monopolization, although they found it hard to disrupt or compete directly with the disruptive new entrants. In the post pandemic economic situation, the agile performance centric organizations will thrive.   They will be able to respond to the changing landscape instead of following their annual plan and they will focus on their core people and culture to help them plot a path forward.   With the collapse of the bureaucratic an traditional companies, there will be ample carnage and flux for growth.   Finance, HR, Supply chain, Accounting and such corporate services will be ripe ground for innovation and emergence of new disruptive players.  However rather than global digital Titans we will see the emergence of national champions.

Collectivism vs Individualism

The success of nations that fought Covid-19 quickly with minimal human and economical impact will be judged to a large extend on how their collective society was able to come together.   Technology will start to be seen as a necessary tool to help drive collectivism.  From administration of justice to ensuring people behave ethically and uniformly.  Law enforcement and governments will use technology increasingly to help drive collective behavior at the expense of individualism.    We should expect to see AI and recognition software used further to track people and their movement and behavior.  Collective policies will start to be implemented to help the unemployed, uninsured and under served.  To ensure people are not abusing these new policies technology will increasingly be used to collect data about the participants.  The libertarian idealism of data and privacy will take a hit. Increasingly governments and corporations will stroke fear in peoples mind and use that fear to enact ever more aggressive data collection practices in the name of the collective good. Big data and big data analytics will become the norm.

Biotechnological advancement

With so many weaknesses identified in the health care industry, with its supply chain unable to respond to the pandemic needs from a simple mask manufacturing to ventilators and more, we will see the entry of many new players in the bio medical technology field.   The large profit margins will act as an attractive entry point and the disruptive and innovative approach of the performance centric and technology companies will drive much needed transformation in this field.  Many existing champions will need to merge to survive. Others will be targets for acquisition.

Telehealth

With so many people unable to visit a hospital or even a family doctor physically, telehealth got a much needed forced start during the pandemic.   Its ability to provide convenient timely medical help and advice will be seen positively by the masses. People will start to increasingly demand telemedicine.  Thinly stretched health care insurance systems that are now under economical strain will see this as a magic bullet.  Technology titans and the digital champions will quickly roll out platforms and eco system for delivery of telemedicine and digital medical records and privacy concerns of regulators will be side steps in short to start mass adoption. Initial first phase will focus on simple family visits, followed by specialists first visit and other such easy to target use cases. Robotics and complex diagnosis will be slow to follow but may.

Cloud native adoption

Traditional technology vendors increasingly will find it hard to compete.  Many companies saw the risks and gaps in their current DBR / BCP plans.   With a mass virus and inability of their staff to access or scale physical traditional assets, it became obvious that data centers with COT software were inadequate.   Cloud native solutions could burst quickly and need very few people to maintain them.  Companies will accelerate adoption of cloud first solutions.

Robotics and Travel

With the devastating impact of social distancing on the travel industry, airlines will increasingly demand cheaper operating costs. It may be that we see application of drone technology to air travel. Pilot less planes operated from a warehouse with pilots behind joysticks may be a reality before the decades end. Hotel check in counters manned by robots and driver-less cars chauffeuring people around all may become reality quicker than we think.

Remote work

Many of the people who experiment Ed w remote work will start to see it as something they can do at least a couple of days a week. Investment in personal technology will consequently increase.  Corporations will be forced to adopt far more robust work from home policies and tools for motivation, productivity tracking and teaching of WFH become mainstream.  BYOD policies will need to be enhanced to allow a mix of home peripheral devices work with the corporate systems.