The Berlin Files #71: better late
The future of work, along with much more on hopeful signals, quarantine life, and radical transformations.
Hi all! Eric here, with a slightly late and somewhat short and sweet edition of the Files for you this week. Enjoy!
Hopeful Signals, Quarantine Life, & Radical Transformations
The Future of... Work & Communication
Photo by Nastuh Abootalebi on Unsplash
Many companies are currently thinking through how to safely bring remote workers "back" to the office. But like with so many other things, post-pandemic life is going to be different than the Before Times.
What Zendesk is in the process of doing is a great example (I grabbed the following from a newsletter from The Information that unfortunately doesn't have a direct link):
Take Zendesk. The 4,000-person software company had been looking at a shift to its workforce a year ago. When the pandemic forced almost everyone home, it sped up what it’s now calling a “virtual first” strategy. While it expects staff will return to offices next year, Zendesk expects many to remain home some or all of the time after that, said InaMarie Johnson, Zendesk’s chief people and diversity officer.
The company, which employs about 1,000 people in San Francisco in a string of offices along Market Street, expects about 30% of Zendesk’s entire workforce to be entirely remote permanently while 70% will work remotely at times.
“We’ve already proven an experiment that many of us can work from home,” Johnson said.
Another huge potential change is the structure of the workweek and even the workday itself. Flexibility in working hours might include better conforming the workday to school schedules, while shorter workweeks might allow for a productive, commute-free four-day workweek followed by worker-friendly three-day weekends that provide ideal work/life balance and the opportunity to recharge.
I mentioned Richard Florida last week. Here's a really interesting thread in which he discusses the future of the office. One thing I had not even considered: bringing aspects of office life outside as we're similarly seeing currently with restaurants.
Related: "How The Coronavirus Will Reshape Architecture."
And meanwhile, look out for much more experimentation on making Zoom-heavy working life a little more bearable -- or perhaps a little closer to replicating real life, non-virtual social interaction. Here's one really interesting example:
Consider the very aptly named Online Town (population: everyone!). It mashes up a standard video-calling interface with a 2D world that looks like a game -- you can wander in and out of conversations, “like Zoom and Pokémon combined.”
People’s voices get clearer as you approach -- replicating the definitely not awkward at all sensation of trying to judge when it’s OK to jump into the conversation.
The Return Of... Restaurants
Check out this interesting dispatch from a waiter at a reopened restaurant somewhere in the United States:
I feel like the fussy customers are worse than they normally were, as if they were saving these thoughts while they were in quarantine and now they’re letting it all out. But I will say that there are people who are so understanding and kind and compassionate. The good ones. We’ve got gloves on, we’ve got masks on, we’ve got long-sleeve shirts on, and we’re running around like maniacs, sweating, trying to accommodate everybody. Any normal, sane human being sees that and says, “Thank you for doing this.”
And meanwhile, "Starbucks is betting on a smaller, more efficient 'Pickup' concept in big cities."
Prevention, Recovery, & Treatment Progress
While other parts of the U.S. are seeing new coronavirus cases spiking, the northeast and particularly New York are showing significant progress and signs that the first wave is in the rear view. From New York's Gov. Cuomo:
California, which has more than 10 percent of the country’s population, has issued a state-wide order that makes wearing masks in public mandatory. I'll be very curious to see what kind of "flattening" effect this will have on the rate of new coronavirus cases.
On that note: "Study: 100% face mask use could crush second, third COVID-19 wave":
The modeling indicated that when lockdown periods are combined with 100% face mask use, disease spread is vastly diminished, preventing resurgence for 18 months, the time frame that has frequently been cited for developing a vaccine. It also demonstrated that if people wear masks in public, it is twice as effective at reducing the R number than if face coverings are only worn after symptoms appear.
More progress on potential COVID-19 vaccine Moderna.
Interesting case study to keep an eye on: the Punjab province in India is seeing some success by maintaining a weekend-only lock down in an effort to prevent the spread of COVID while maintaining the bulk of economic activity.
Finally, treatment involving the "readily-available steroid drug dexamethasone" is looking quite promising:
...researchers claim that dexamethasone reduced deaths by one-third among patients on a ventilator, and by one-fifth among "patients receiving standard oxygen treatment."
Quarantining
I started following All the Right Movies on Twitter recently (which, even in this hyper partisan time, I'm pretty sure doesn't mean "all the conservative movies" but more like "all the best or most engaging or relevant movies or what you"). It's doing some fun stuff, including this "30 Day Movie Challenge" which encourages things like a night for a movie with the best plot twist (I haven't seen The Sting in a long time, come to think of it) or the first movie you saw at the cinema.
The Music Club
I posted an early version of this song several months ago, just as the lock down was beginning across the U.S,. and now we get the more fleshed out version. Both are pretty fantastic in my view, and feel very much of the current times we're living in. In any event, here's Michael Stipe and Big Red Machine with "No Time for Love Like Now."
Now let's kick it old school, with A Tribe Called Quest's "Scenario."
The Comedy Club
I've mentioned SCTV a few times. If you're not familiar with it and you're a comedy fan, I highly recommend learning more about this Canadian sketch comedy classic that launched a host of future superstars.
Here's one of my favorite bits, a parody of a late night horror anthology show, called Monster Chiller Horror Theater: The House of Cats. For my money, it's such a pleasure seeing a young John Candy and Catherine O'Hara doing this kind of sublimely weird comedy. And it's a showcase of how bargain basement budget "special effects" can be used to enhance the hilarity. Also: cats!
Election 2020
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You made it. Now get back to being punctual.
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And one last time…