OK, let me start off by emphasizing I am not retiring. Don't start any rumors. However, in the last couple of weeks I have had a chance to reflect on my career, and the crazy last few months.
I cry with so many who have lost friends and family to CV19. I get angry and elated and scared with others about our bipolar economy (Wall Street highs in the midst of historic unemployment), the divisive politics, the intense protests, the continued CV19 spikes. However overall, I think I have managed to stay reasonably balanced.
I have had a long, colorful career. Hundreds of wonderful clients, many a Magic Quadrant, 7 books, travels to 45 US states and 70+ countries, 12,000 + blogs, failed startups, way too much time away from family. So, how could 4 months in quarantine compete against those highs and lows? 5 things make this phase stand out
A focus on business acrobatics
Like most, I was traumatized in the middle of March - how could you not be with all the fatalities, the lockdowns, the Wall Street meltdown, the massive layoffs? But my New Florence research was also showing an amazing amount of innovation and heroics in business. I knew there would be enough material for my 8th book. However, I made a fateful decision to not wait for months it takes to produce a book. I decided to record executives on Zoom or MS Teams talking about how they were scaling up or down massively, how they were pivoting to new opportunities, how they were rapidly innovating products and services. I have done many of those sessions, nearly 50 of them are public in this series. I have fed off their stressed, but positive, energy. I have heard awesome expressions from them like "pain is real, suffering is optional". As importantly, it has helped me as an analyst. It has introduced me to how rapidly WFH technologies and related social issues are evolving. It has allowed to track how quickly the healthcare system has learned about overuse of ventilators, how to rapidly increase ICU capacity, how to handle surges with medical personnel across states, how therapies like Remdesivir and convalescent plasma are having a significant impact in acute CV19 cases. That has allowed me to be relatively calm while much of media (and social media) has been hysterical about the recent spike in positives in the Sun Belt. I have been saying - don't look at June/July positives from a February/March Italy/New York lens. I have heard how executives are rebalancing their technology, R&D and other budgets. I have participated in many vendor virtual events with that lens. Some are rapidly evolving, others are still trying to sell what they had in their bag in January. That's a semester of learning I could not have had at any university.
Positive passions matter
I had already restarted the Passion guest series to celebrate the start of a new decade. Starting in March I accelerated the pace. Nearly 50 have contributed about their cooking, birding, charities, I have helped guest writers with background research on how STEM has helped evolve their area of passion. Not only has that kept me and thousands of readers positive, it has given me a more nuanced perspective on how technologies are reshaping various aspects of life, play and work.
Honoring everyday workers
As most of us tech folks focus on digital acceleration, I have actually become much more appreciative of people who have allowed us to easily migrate to WFH. They work near our homes, they bring stuff to our homes, they operate stores, warehouses, plants we could not survive without. We should all be glad they don't WFH. I have been running an Instagram series honoring many of them. As an analyst, it has made me much more aware of the need to balance our enthusiasm for digital with the continued reality of analog/physical capabilities.
TFH - Travel from Home
My wife is a wizard at packing in a variety of activities in a day trip. Read about her passion here. Given travel restrictions we have become skilled at day trips on the FL Gulf Coast. There are so many pretty small towns we have rediscovered which allow us to safely be out and about, then return to the comfort of home. I have been posting in my "West Coast on the East Coast" series on towns like Dunedin, Sarasota, Sanibel, Tarpon Springs, Venice and many others on Instagram.
During breaks in the work week, I have also getting many of my daily 10K FitBit steps while watching the Smithsonian Aerial America 72 episodes on various US states. Between this and our weekend trips, my restless travel genes have stayed in check.
Each visit and episode has also re-introduced me to history. Our people and places have repeatedly bounced back from unbelievable adversity - no reason we will not from this one either. More positive thoughts.
Quality family time
The last time I did not get on a plane for this long was in 1982. This has meant plenty of time and meals with my lovely wife and daughter. My son is working from home in Colorado, and we have managed to play more card and other games with him virtually. We are very blessed.
I am glad the last few miserable months have brought out my internal summer. They have made me a more rounded adviser and analyst, and a much more optimistic human.
Thank you to Paul Greenberg and Brent Leary for inviting to me part of their weekly show this week.
My section starts around 23:00 - I compliment them during my comments for keeping the show light-hearted and positive. Much needed during this crazy time.
I talked about the various Zoom interviews of C level executives I have been doing - the growing list is here and I talk about likely impact on the enterprise software market. I also mention the Passion guest series. The Topsy Turvy blog post I mention is here.
Nice to be introduced to yet another video platform I have used in the last few weeks - in this case StreamYard. Others have included Zoom, MS Team, Google Meet, ON24. On that point, it was nice to hear Tom Libretto, CMO of Pegasystems talk starting around 55.00 about virtual vendor events like Pegaworld and have everyone on the show discuss how those events are likely to evolve.
I was talking to a neighbor who owns an RV and he told me Kampgrounds of America (KOA) bookings have bounced back. I did not believe him at first, but yes bookings are far outpacing cancellations. So are new RV sales. People can use them for their summer holidays without having to worry about social distancing on planes or hygiene at hotels and restaurants. But wait - look at the interviews I have done in the last few weeks indexed here.
Hear Jack Barrett, CEO of a community bank tell that local hotel bookings are picking up (btw as impressively his bank grew 25% in a couple of months). So does Joseph Rajadurai of Cognizant Travel. Hear Rahul Samant, CIO at Delta talk about new hygiene at airports and on planes.
Used car sales are up. AutoNation had a good quarter. Why? Hygiene again. Avoiding mass transit and Uber hygiene in that scenario. And gas prices are down. Why is traffic going up on the roads, when so many are working from home and when there are so many stories about downtowns and shopping malls dying? Well, WFH only works for digital, white collar employees. Even there, people are competing for bandwidth with their kids and their spouses. Millennials miss the social interaction. Doug Belden, a County official told me we have not even begun to appreciate the costs of social isolation - suicides, domestic abuse, delayed chemo and other therapies. I have seen in my Zoom interviews and vendor virtual events the reality of spotty bandwidth, basic laptop cams which barely produce 720p resolution. Companies will have to think about souping up and fortifying WFH infrastructure. Telecoms will have to upgrade last mile infrastructure - in most neighborhoods they are already 10-15 years old. Don't get carried away yet with WFH projections.
My conversations have provided me fascinating, contradictory data Aneel Bhusri told me Workday saw a million person payroll. Million paychecks at a private company - let that sink in. In contrast, Brian Sommer told me he saw a recent survey at a HR conference where 0% of virtual attendees said talent acquisition was a priority. (BTW you will hear more from Brian and me about the New Normal for HR - see his column here as a start). While there are all kinds of doomsday scenarios about commercial real estate, Parvesh Mahesh of Tavant tells me residential real estate is on a tear. Home closings have continued with innovative ways to get paperwork signed even during lockdowns. Every Starbucks and Chick-Fil-A we have driven by in the last few weeks has had long drivethrough lines. Our local Costco has a whiteboard outside showing which items are out of stock - a month ago there were 20 items on that list. This weekend it was down to 5. Regular Gas at that Costco was down to $ 1.55 a gallon at its lowest. This weekend it was up to $ 1.75.
William Gibson, the science fiction author, is said to have first said in 1993 "The future is already here - it is just not evenly distributed." That future is definitely here now. And it it is definitely unevenly distributed..
People were amazed the BLS jobs report was so positive last Friday (even after a negative adjustment they had to make the next day). I was not shocked - only a bit surprised that it was a month earlier than I expected. I estimated the July report would show an improvement, then steady gains over the next few months. Lots of reasons for my thinking - partly because I think most media and analysts keep focusing on the ends of the wealth curve and ignoring the middle. I have been collecting a bunch of data for a book on what I call the "invisible middle" - it is alive and well and just needs calming down after the initial shock of COVID-19. I say invisible because it is all around us. Costco has nearly 100 million members. Their annual household income is over $ 90K. That's middle class right there. They were the biggest buyers of 50 million cars sold in the US in the last 3 years. Their retirement and housing assets exceed $ 50 trillion in my data.
And a few more trillion that have been pumped into that with PPP emergency loans and stimulus checks. Protests and concerns of COVID flare ups are keeping them nervous. Protests are needed but let’s do them nicely and cognizant they may contribute to the flareups, then get to some serious work, not keep making consumers nervous.
Most vendor executives I have interviewed realize the world has turned. In contrast, many proposals and presentations I am seeing in the field still reflect a yearning for business as usual. How much vertical functionality written a few years ago is still relevant as is? How many CFOs are likely to sign off on 2-3 year projects? See a perspective from Ed Abbo of C3.ai starting around 16:30. I have a conversation coming up with Brad Keywell of Uptake who has been saying similar for years now. How many companies will allow teams of on-site consultants? See the answer from Sarvesh Mahesh of Tavant starting around 18:14 about newer models likely around delivery of projects.
Could the US economy bounce back like a bungee? Maybe, but even then the gains will be unevenly distributed. It's already clear many agile companies across industries have done well and will likely expand their advantage.
Much better to be prepared for any scenario. As the Disney song goes
Once a year we turn all Paris upside down
Every man's a king and every king's a clown
The problem is it may not just be a day - it could be a year or even a decade.
This is where my analyst training kicks in. Challenge clients to look at multiple scenarios and assign likely probabilities. Not easy - but how often do you find yourself positioned for so much success or risk as much failure?
I look forward to the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder letters and I have excerpted from many over the years on this blog. Warren Buffett is a phenomenal investor, but I enjoy even more the historical perspective he brings.
So, it was a treat to watch the webcast of the shareholder meeting on Saturday. The travel restrictions during the current crisis worked to the benefit of all of us who cannot go those annual events in person.
Just the fact that at 89 he could present and answer questions for 4 straight hours is inspirational. He also keeps his sense of humor. First time in his life he says he has used slides. And points out his long term partner, Charlie Munger, who is even older at 96 is now a big Zoom user:)
He kept talking about the "American Tailwind" ...how we have bounced back many times, usually much stronger than the stumbles we have had. It was calming to see his slides about the losses of young, productive men during the Civil War. Puts in perspective the mortalities during the current crisis. He also compares how much we have bounced back economically since the Great Depression. And how, since the founding of the country, our wealth, diversity and other metrics have dramatically improved. Here are some of the slides he presented.
I would recommend watching his entire history lesson. It starts around 1:00 in the replay video at bottom and goes for about an hour. The rest is about his investments and procedural stuff since it was a formal shareholder meeting.
I am a self-confessed "glass is half-full" optimist, but in these trying times, I seek out positive humans and I am finding plenty of them.
For starters, I am grateful to the contributors to this year's Tech and my Passion series. I was planning to run one guest column a week over 6 months but I have significantly accelerated the flow. By next weekend I will have posted 25. It has been a very nice distraction for readers. And even more for me as I research each of their passions and help them improve their columns. You can see the index for this year's posts here.
Our neighborhood and many others around the country had a Chalk the Walk day. Our paths continue to show the creativity of our young ones even a week later. Color always cheers up my FitBit.
Photo Credit Dana Schwenn Wood
More color as many neighborhoods around the country are sprucing up their gardens. Here's my wife Margaret. The neighborhood cat, Shadow supervised her keeping the prescribed six foot separation.
We went shopping at Home Depot and Lowe's for her gardening needs. Seriously, if your town's shelter-at-home rules allow, head there - their spring flower collection will cheer anyone up.
I have been getting plenty of jokes about the economy we find ourselves in. Jokes are always welcome!
Bill Kutik shares how his neighborhood continues life while respecting social distancing guidelines.
Talking of happy hours, my former and current analyst friends have been hosting virtual ones on Zoom.
The EIs had an appropriately titled "Very Irregular Happy Hour".
Photo Credit Ray Wang
Gartner alumni met in a "Socially Distanced Happy Hour". This group is older than the EIs and I thought would be more somber. Nope - it was so lively you had to wonder whether we are in the middle of a global crisis. Word is getting around and many more are expected for the next one.
photo credit Tom Austin
David Deal reminds us in this Facebook post that many people are sharing negative virus related stats on social media and that is crowding out a lot of amazing work being done by many to combat it:
"I am not advocating for people to stop sharing COVID-19 related information. Bottom line, though: if you know someone who is not taking this pandemic seriously, reach out to them and have a conversation. Facebook may not be the way to help."
Finally, my friend in Minnesota, Brad Callahan recorded this lovely song. "It's past the time for complaining...we are all in the same boat..." He will gladly work with you if you want to use creatively in a live video. You can email him here.
There are plenty of scary stories about coronavirus. I am no medical doctor - so take all the precautions they are recommending. Fortify your immune system (on that, VC Steve Jurvetson shares his daily list of supplements), wash hands regularly, practice social distancing, work from home if you can etc. etc.
However, through my career I have seen many scares (many tech related) - I was at Gartner during the Y2K run up and advised hundreds of companies, I wrote a calming book about automation in the middle of the job loss panic a few years ago, I have taken flights to those parts of the world when people have been panicked about some Iran, N, Korea threat. I must be one of the few people who is looking forward to having the 737-MAX back. Over the years I have written plenty about innovations in that jet like this one here
You could say my angels have watched out for me. I just think I am a analytical and glass half-full kind of guy. My wife disagrees - thinks I am a worry wart when it comes to many things.
With that preamble, let me share some balanced perspectives I have watched/read about the spread of COVID-19. Every one of them profiled is a doctor. The first one has been at Ground Zero in previous SARS, MERS outbreaks and the recent coronavirus one in China. The second one specializes in infectious diseases at Harvard and has dealt with many threats like anthrax, Ebola and Zika. The third was former head of the FDA - start around 5.45 in the video.
You may not agree with any of them - but this is a STEM and innovation focused blog and I would be remiss to not share a balance to all the pessimistic perspectives out there.
Folks this is not the Black Death - the European plague in the 1300s. This is not the Ebola outbreak in W Africa in 2014. This is an aggressive virus and yes, much deadlier than the common flu. But then we are taking way more aggressive measures than any threat in history. I wrote here about all the brainpower applied and innovation coming from the global response to the threat.
So, please spend half an hour on these three resources. My biggest fear is in our panic we overburden the healthcare system and that ends up with the real collateral damage - people who truly need help get crowded out.
Be careful, but don't panic. And yes, have faith in your angels. I do in mine.
Lots of innovation coming out of the current crisis - and it is coming from all over the world. While some of these technologies and policies will likely be used for surveillance and other concerning applications, overall I am optimistic we will come out of this challenge with a huge wave of impressive innovations.
Here is a just a small sampling.
From China
Robots used to deliver medicine, food, and disinfect rooms.
While a manual read of a CT scan can take up to 15 minutes, AI can finish reading the image in 10 seconds.
Health officials have asked citizens to scan QR codes as they go about their days. The QR codes are in taxis, office lobbies, tourist attractions and college.
I eagerly await a few annual letters, but two in particular - one from the Gates Foundation, and one from Berkshire and Warren Buffett.
This year, Melinda reflects on two decades of the Foundation.
Along with Bill, she elaborates in the letter here
"If you’d asked us 20 years ago, we would have guessed that global health would be our foundation’s riskiest work, and our U.S. education work would be our surest bet. In fact, it has turned out just the opposite.
In global health, there’s a lot of evidence that the world is on the right path—like the dramatic decline in childhood deaths, for example. When it comes to U.S. education, though, we’re not yet seeing the kind of bottom-line impact we expected. The status quo is still failing American students."
I especially liked the section on climate change. It's blunt - "We need zero-carbon alternatives in every sector of the economy, many of which don’t exist yet." None of the glib "renewables can get us there" talk. And "But solving climate change will require more than just mitigation. We also need to take on adaptation (to a warmer world"
"In reviewing my uneven record, I’ve concluded that acquisitions are similar to marriage: They start, of course, with a joyful wedding – but then reality tends to diverge from pre-nuptial expectations. Sometimes, wonderfully, the new union delivers bliss beyond either party’s hopes. In other cases, disillusionment is swift. Applying those images to corporate acquisitions, I’d have to say it is usually the buyer who encounters unpleasant surprises. It’s easy to get dreamy-eyed during corporate courtships."
and with his usual modesty, this
"Since 2011, we have owned Lubrizol, an Ohio-based company that produces and markets oil additives throughout the world. On September 26, 2019, a fire originating at a small next-door operation spread to a large French plant owned by Lubrizol. The result was significant property damage and a major disruption in Lubrizol’s business. Even so, both the company’s property loss and business-interruption loss will be mitigated by substantial insurance recoveries that Lubrizol will receive. But, as the late Paul Harvey was given to saying in his famed radio broadcasts, “Here’s the rest of the story.” One of the largest insurers of Lubrizol was a company owned by . . . uh, Berkshire. In Matthew 6:3, the Bible instructs us to “Let not the left hand know what the right hand doeth.” Your chairman has clearly behaved as ordered."
Read them both fully - I think it will be worth your time.
Le Tote, which recently bought the struggling Lord & Taylor from HBC, opened a pop-up shop for the department store chain in New York City for the holidays, its first Manhattan presence since the store closed in early 2019. Kids’ apparel brand Gymboree, which filed for bankruptcy in early 2019 for the second time in two years, will live on in the form of shops within 200 Children’s Place stores. And Barneys New York, once it is done liquidating its stores, will have a presence at a number of Saks Fifth Avenue stores, including the fifth floor of the chain’s Manhattan flagship.
These cases, along with the recent small-scale comebacks of FAO Schwarz and Toys “R” Us, all show how much life there still is in many storied retail brands, corporate mismanagement and choking debt loads aside. So while the so-called retail apocalypse has claimed a number of chains, many are being welcomed back with open arms by consumers.
How many colors are there in the human rainbow? By Angélica Dass’s count, at least 4,000. Since 2012, the Brazilian artist has been photographing people of every color and matching each subject’s skin tone to hues from the Pantone printing color chart to codify a unique chromatic inventory.
The project, titled “Humanæ,” has traveled the world and is featured in this month’s issue of National Geographic, which focuses on the idea of race as a social construct, rather than a biological one. Dass also gave a 2016 TED Talk on the subject (see below)
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer
OK, let me start off by emphasizing I am not retiring. Don't start any rumors. However, in the last couple of weeks I have had a chance to reflect on my career, and the crazy last few months.
I cry with so many who have lost friends and family to CV19. I get angry and elated and scared with others about our bipolar economy (Wall Street highs in the midst of historic unemployment), the divisive politics, the intense protests, the continued CV19 spikes. However overall, I think I have managed to stay reasonably balanced.
I have had a long, colorful career. Hundreds of wonderful clients, many a Magic Quadrant, 7 books, travels to 45 US states and 70+ countries, 12,000 + blogs, failed startups, way too much time away from family. So, how could 4 months in quarantine compete against those highs and lows? 5 things make this phase stand out
A focus on business acrobatics
Like most, I was traumatized in the middle of March - how could you not be with all the fatalities, the lockdowns, the Wall Street meltdown, the massive layoffs? But my New Florence research was also showing an amazing amount of innovation and heroics in business. I knew there would be enough material for my 8th book. However, I made a fateful decision to not wait for months it takes to produce a book. I decided to record executives on Zoom or MS Teams talking about how they were scaling up or down massively, how they were pivoting to new opportunities, how they were rapidly innovating products and services. I have done many of those sessions, nearly 50 of them are public in this series. I have fed off their stressed, but positive, energy. I have heard awesome expressions from them like "pain is real, suffering is optional". As importantly, it has helped me as an analyst. It has introduced me to how rapidly WFH technologies and related social issues are evolving. It has allowed to track how quickly the healthcare system has learned about overuse of ventilators, how to rapidly increase ICU capacity, how to handle surges with medical personnel across states, how therapies like Remdesivir and convalescent plasma are having a significant impact in acute CV19 cases. That has allowed me to be relatively calm while much of media (and social media) has been hysterical about the recent spike in positives in the Sun Belt. I have been saying - don't look at June/July positives from a February/March Italy/New York lens. I have heard how executives are rebalancing their technology, R&D and other budgets. I have participated in many vendor virtual events with that lens. Some are rapidly evolving, others are still trying to sell what they had in their bag in January. That's a semester of learning I could not have had at any university.
Positive passions matter
I had already restarted the Passion guest series to celebrate the start of a new decade. Starting in March I accelerated the pace. Nearly 50 have contributed about their cooking, birding, charities, I have helped guest writers with background research on how STEM has helped evolve their area of passion. Not only has that kept me and thousands of readers positive, it has given me a more nuanced perspective on how technologies are reshaping various aspects of life, play and work.
Honoring everyday workers
As most of us tech folks focus on digital acceleration, I have actually become much more appreciative of people who have allowed us to easily migrate to WFH. They work near our homes, they bring stuff to our homes, they operate stores, warehouses, plants we could not survive without. We should all be glad they don't WFH. I have been running an Instagram series honoring many of them. As an analyst, it has made me much more aware of the need to balance our enthusiasm for digital with the continued reality of analog/physical capabilities.
TFH - Travel from Home
My wife is a wizard at packing in a variety of activities in a day trip. Read about her passion here. Given travel restrictions we have become skilled at day trips on the FL Gulf Coast. There are so many pretty small towns we have rediscovered which allow us to safely be out and about, then return to the comfort of home. I have been posting in my "West Coast on the East Coast" series on towns like Dunedin, Sarasota, Sanibel, Tarpon Springs, Venice and many others on Instagram.
During breaks in the work week, I have also getting many of my daily 10K FitBit steps while watching the Smithsonian Aerial America 72 episodes on various US states. Between this and our weekend trips, my restless travel genes have stayed in check.
Each visit and episode has also re-introduced me to history. Our people and places have repeatedly bounced back from unbelievable adversity - no reason we will not from this one either. More positive thoughts.
Quality family time
The last time I did not get on a plane for this long was in 1982. This has meant plenty of time and meals with my lovely wife and daughter. My son is working from home in Colorado, and we have managed to play more card and other games with him virtually. We are very blessed.
I am glad the last few miserable months have brought out my internal summer. They have made me a more rounded adviser and analyst, and a much more optimistic human.
Image credit
August 06, 2020 in COVID-19 related agility/innovation, Industry Commentary | Permalink | Comments (0)