Our world has changed forever and the earlier you learn about the changes, the better prepared you will be when we return to our new normal. Below you will find “5 new human truths that experiences need to address”
COVID-19 is the biggest global event—and challenge—of our lifetimes. As such, it is changing human attitudes and behaviors today and forcing organizations to respond. However, the need to respond won’t end when the virus’s immediate threat eventually recedes.
Imagine it’s September. Things are back to normal. We can meet face to face. Travel is possible. Toilet roll is easy to buy. But things have changed. COVID-19 has forever changed the experience of being a customer, employees, citizen, human. Expect to see behavior change at scale for some time to come.
What will have changed in the way we think? How will that affect the way we design, communicate, build and run the experiences that people need and want? The answers to these questions will lie in the way people react and how individuals, families and social groups—all sources of creative innovation—hack new ways to live.
The cost of confidence
The erosion of confidence will make trust way more important than ever before. This will necessitate a “trust multiplier”—action that, to be effective, rebuilds trust quickly and credibly. Focus will be on confidence-building through every channel. Justifiable optimism will sell well. All of this may change the nature of what we regard as premium products and services.
The virtual century
The enforced shift during the worst of the pandemic to virtual working, consuming and socializing will fuel a massive and further shift to virtual activity for anything. Anything that can be done virtually will be. Winners will be those who test and explore all of the associated creative possibilities.
Every business is a health business
The concerns about health amplified during the crisis will not ebb after it is over. Rather, health will dominate. A health economy will emerge with opportunities for all to plug into. Every business will need to understand how it can be part of a new health ecosystem that will dominate citizen thinking.
Cocooning
Desire for cocooning, along with opportunities for those with creative strategies to enable it, will move centerstage for the same reason. Winners will be those who zero their sights on the home. At the height of the crisis, many—workers, especially— are spending more time at home. After, this pattern will endure with meaningfulness and comfort carrying a price premium.
The reinvention of authority
A reinvention of authority is likely after the effect of travel limitations, self-isolation and lockdown officially mandated by many governments. This is likely to be the trickiest of the five human implications as its impact could go one of two ways. If governments get their handling of the crisis broadly right, expect top-down control to be back in fashion; if not, the reverse. This is likely to vary by geography. What role will companies play?
