Tag: covid

Rioting and Pandemics on a Monday Morning

It’s Monday morning.

Monday mornings are usually the barometer that tells you whether or not you are happy with your job/career/life/circumstances/etc, etc. It’s easy to be happy on Friday evening, but Monday morning is when the rubber meets the road.

“I believe you’d get your ass kicked for sayin’ something like that, man.”- Lawrence, Office Space

It’s understandable that most of us feel overwhelmed these days when thinking about the week ahead.

But please remember, none of us are going to end systemic racism this week.

None of us are going to end a global pandemic this week.

But, and this is a BIG but, we can all do our part.

We can all perform our tiny, insignificant part.

Fortunately, these insignificant parts, when added together, will make a difference. In fact it’s the only thing that ever did (cue the Margaret Mead quote).

So instead of obsessing over the news, or going down a social-media wormhole-of-despair this week, focus on how you want to improve things. Focus on how you want things to be better, and what your part in that can be, then do your part.

That’s all you can do, that’s all that we can all do. So let’s do it.

The More Things Change The More They Stay The Same

Quarantine has been challenging for most of the world’s population. The global effort to eradicate and immobilize the novel corona virus has been unprecedented. People all over the world have quarantined themselves for months to reduce the spread of the virus. Healthcare workers have been working around the clock.

Needless to say, those of us who have been quarantined have definitely not been as challenged as the front-line healthcare workers, and the essential workers that keep our nation’s food/electric/gasoline/medicine/etc/etc chain operational. (THANK YOU ALL!!) But being locked inside for months with one’s family, even if you love and like them, is challenging.  

Many of us are working the jobs we have always worked and adding an additional job of being a 4th grade teacher, or a kindergarten teacher, of both. Many of us have lost our jobs. Some are trapped at home with an abusive partner or an abusive parent. And even in the best of situations, we’re humans, we miss having contact with other human beings. Needless to say, the entire world is suffering through stress that was unimaginable 6 months ago. We are all currently leading very different lives.

But one thing has remained the same for me and my family… we don’t go to the store. Period.

It started four or five years ago. After Seattle, Southern California was the second, or third site Amazon rolled out Amazon Fresh. Soon after, all of the local grocery stores followed suit with a delivery option of their own. As one of the stock holders of WebVan when it went belly-up, I’ve been anticipating in-home grocery deliveries since the Dot-com bubble burst. With my wife and I being very busy professionals with two young children, we quickly became early adopters of this new service. In our lives, time was/is the most valuable commodity, so soon, we began switching most other shopping to in-home delivery as well.

With all the talk about reopening the economy, talking heads are forgetting one important thing

Consumers will only act if they feel safe to act. Period. This means wide spread testing. Currently, the testing in the United States, per capita, is laughable. South Korea got to where they are through extensive testing. Instead, we used our resources to bail out Fortune 500 companies that have been using their last bail out to enrich C-suite executives.

This is an opportunity for Corporate America to flex their innovative muscle. All companies need to meet the consumer where the consumer is, not the other way around.

Emirates is testing all people before flights. American airlines could do that, but they haven’t.

We live in a densely populated area, near the country’s busiest port, and a busy warehouse district, that made efficient grocery delivery an option, but that’s no reason why it can’t be an option everywhere, including rural America. There’s a reason why grocery stores are big, well-light, and well-stocked, because that’s what the consumer wanted. Now the consumer wants something else. So it’s time for industries to meet their consumers where they are. Many have made this adjustment, but some have not. Yet.

The leaders of Carmax learned a valuable lesson around the turn of the century with regards to their massive dealerships (Gwinnett, Laurel, etc, super-sized stores). They were very difficult to make profitable, so they rolled out more of their smaller stores.

There’s a wise saying among traders… It’s very difficult to predict the future. Being a Futurist is a tough gig. Most of the time they try to pad their stats by making many predictions, and like a broken clock, they will get a few calls correct. But even though predicting the future is almost impossible, this prediction seems to be low-hanging fruit.

Either during this pandemic or soon afterwards, grocery stores, and other merchants, are going to maintain a smaller retail footprint, and use warehouse-to-door delivery more and more. Also, it doesn’t take Nostradamus to see that the check-out person will be replaced at an even quicker rate by automated checkout. This trend has been coming for many years, and the Covid-19 pandemic has poured gasoline on it.

More and more industries will be geared for delivery, which is fine with me. I detest the retail store experience. Parking during the Christmas season—no thank you. Pushing a broken, squeaky cart—no thank you. We are a delivery-only family, in the past, present, and the future. Won’t you join us corporate America?