Main point: "As Walmart looks to compete in retail's delivery wars against rivals like Amazon, autonomous vehicles will ultimately play an important role in its ongoing strategy of improving delivery times to customers. So too will drones, as the company has already agreed to iniital pilots with a trio of drone companies, including DroneUp and Flytrex."
Other items in the article:
"A Walmart Neighborhood Market in Bentonville, Arkansas, will soon start receiving shipments delivered via a driverless box truck, as part of the retail giant's expanded pilot with autonomous vehicle startup Gatik."
"...the Gatik pilot has logged 70,000 operational miles 'in autonomous mode' with a safety driver behind the wheel to monitor deliveries since its launch in 2019."
"Walmart's expansion of initial tests will see Gatik's 'multi-temperature Autonomous Box Trucks' operate that same two-mile route without a driver starting next year."
Main point: "More strategic use of AI systems — through what I call “blind taste tests” — can give us a fresh chance to identify and remove decision biases from the underlying algorithms even if we can’t remove them completely from our own habits of mind."
Basically, it controlling for variables that aren't significant. For example, would an article be more likely to be published just because the reviewers knew who the author was?
The article also gave the example of blind taste tests, describing how people preferred the taste of one drink if they knew the brand name but preferred the other drink if the brand names were hidden.
The article argued for "the value of creating blind taste tests for AI systems, to reduce or remove bias and promote fairer decisions and outcomes across contexts."
The startup had a specific goal: "In partnership with Moovit, the mobility-as-a-service startup Mobileye acquired in May for $900 million, Mobileye aims to build full end-to-end ride-hailing experiences with its Luminar lidar-equipped vehicles using Moovit’s platform and apps."
Main point: "...it [the vehicle] was able to drive autonomously within days of delivering the vehicle thanks to its technology that leverages crowdsourced data to map over 15 million kilometers (~9.32 million miles) of roads daily."
Other things to consider:
"...driverless cars can potentially minimize the risk of spreading disease because of the reduced human interaction."
"...the video shows its vehicle reaching speeds of up to 130 kilometers per hour (~80 miles per hour) and navigating a left turn on green through an intersection, among other maneuvers. It also avoids an opened car door, a bus pulled to the side of the road, and a vehicle that’s parallel parking; executes an unprotected left turn and lane changes on a highway; and moves around stopped emergency vehicles and down a narrow, congested street."
The AND Campaign is explicitly Christian and wants Christians to bring their faith to bear on the issues affecting the cultural and civic life of their communities. If a chapter does start in West Alabama, it would be after the Presidential election so there's no perception of partisanship.
I've talked with some chapter organizers who told me what they're doing in their cities. They shared what moved them to start chapters and what makes their chapters unique in their cities.
Agenda:
• This part would mostly be me sharing what I've learned about the AND Campaign.
○ What is the AND Campaign?
○ What I've learned about the other chapters.
• This would be us discussing the feasibility of an AND Campaign chapter in West Alabama.
○ What cultural/civic needs does West Alabama have?
○ Would an AND Campaign chapter be a value to West Alabama?
○ What kinds of things would a West Alabama chapter do?
○ What kind of work and resources would it involve?
• Wrap up
○ Summarize discussion points and send to attendees.
○ Initial opinion about a West Alabama chapter of the AND Campaign and next meeting.
○ Leroy attends chapter interest meeting with AND Campaign to get more information.
Join me on Zoom on one of these dates/times. Message me via the Contact form on the right to get the link. No age restrictions.
• Monday, 10/19, 7:00 PM Central
• Tuesday, 10/20, 7:00 PM Central
• Wednesday, 10/21, 7:00 PM Central
• Thursday, 10/22, 7:00 PM Central
NOTE: It will be the same content each time. I scheduled multiple days to accommodate people's different schedules. If you're interested in Zooming in, you only have to pick one date/time.
Main point: "With the right set up, the most difficult things—like losing weight—may be easier and more enjoyable than we thought."
The techniques suggested included:
"I concocted a scheme where I allowed myself only to enjoy those kinds of indulgences—specifically I got really into audio novels—when I was exercising. I would come home from a long day and I would find myself looking forward to a workout because I was gonna get to find out what happens next in my latest novel. Time flew when I was at the gym. It was really fun to workout. I call that 'temptation bundling' and I’ve studied it and showed that it’s not just me—it can be useful for other people as well."
"...find a way to ensure that for every meal you have options ready that you are going to enjoy even if they aren’t peanut M&Ms [or your favorite junk food]."
"Another big thing to think about is restricting your access to that unhealthy food."
"...the people around us are a huge contributor to our behavior."
"...figure out a third-party perspective on any kind of disagreement you’re currently having with your partner. How would another person see this conflict and what would they think? This can help relieve some of the emotional tension."
"One risk when you make plans to change like this is something called the 'what-the-hell' effect. (I love that there’s an academic term called the 'what-the-hell' effect.) A challenge with this kind of rigid plan is you’ll never actually live up to all of your objectives. A big problem can be when you slip up saying, 'Oh, what the hell, I give up.'"
I've used a similar temptation-bundling technique for exercise. I listen to spy thrillers when Nordic walking. It works well.
Try some of the techniques and share your experience.
In "a study about why and how brains come to believe in gods," the "researchers used cognitive tests to measure the prevalence of the ability known as implicit pattern learning among religious communities in the United States and Afghanistan."
The study "called for participants to press buttons that corresponded with a sequence of dots that quickly appeared and disappeared on a computer screen...Participants with the strongest implicit learning ability were able to subconsciously learn the pattern of the dot sequence, even pressing the correct button prior to the appearance of the next dot. None of the participants were aware that the dots were following a pattern."
There was a "pronounced prevalence of implicit pattern learning among true believers."
Implicit learning takes place without being aware of what's being learned. For example, learning how to ride a bicycle takes place without an intentional transfer of knowledge as in a class or lecture. In the study cited, people weren't being taught the pattern of the dots, and they weren't aware they were figuring out the pattern. They just did it and got better at it.
How does this apply to our lives and faith? Perhaps implicit learners are predisposed to assume there is an order behind the tasks at hand, so it may be easier for them to make the leap to faith in a deity that has ordered the cosmos.
An observation: Will we see a larger shift from church gathered (come to church and experience our programs) to church scattered (church members go into the world to have an impact)? Or will there be a balance in emphasis? Or will we restore the model of getting people into the building?
Business people certainly need affirmation from their churches. For example, most churches recognize someone going into the mission field, they will likely recognize teachers at the start of the school year. However, how many will recognize the real estate agents, business managers, trades people, etc. in their congregations?
English teachers take note: Periods are passé. Will it eventually seep into more formal writing? Right now, it applies to texting. I assume it won't get into more formal writing because punctuation signals what to expect in more complex sentence structures.
"...the evidence suggests lockdowns were an overly blunt and economically costly tool."
"The evidence also points to alternative strategies that could slow the spread of the epidemic at much less cost."
Let the second guessing begin.
Assertions in the story:
"The economic pain from pandemics mostly comes not from sick people but from healthy people trying not to get sick: consumers and workers who stay home, and businesses that rearrange or suspend production."
"...many epidemiologists and economists say the economy can’t recover while the virus is out of control."
There continue to be questions about "what represents an acceptable level of infection, which in turn determines what restrictions to impose."
"...at the outset, their [experts and policy makers] goals were unclear, a confusion aggravated by the multitude of terms used."
Alternatives proposed: "Rather than lockdowns, using only those measures proven to maximize lives saves while minimizing economic and social disruption."
"Social distancing policies, for instance, can take into account widely varying risks by age."
"Research...has shown that 'super-spreader' events contribute disproportionately to infections."
"Masks may be the most cost-effective intervention of all."
"...ramped-up testing could enable the economy to reopen safely without a vaccine."
The rest of the article has information about the decision-making regarding shutting things down or staying open.
One possible outcome of sending workers home that comes to mind: Labor may become more mobile, and I would advocate that. Just as digitization let information bypass older distribution systems, e.g., on demand streaming from numerous sources versus scheduled programming of the big 3 networks. More mobile labor could mean greater competition for their services, which means potential for wage increases and better working climates/organization cultures.
Because it's virtual,
speakers won't have to travel. Also, the event will run 24 hours a day to
accommodate the time zones of all the young people and make it possible to
have speakers from different countries.
There are also four keynote
opportunities.
To invest in these
young people's futures, the sponsorship opportunities defray the direct costs
of the event to ensure young people can attend for free. They will be attending
virtually from around the world.
Bottom line: "...experts still think that even if things are starting to look up now, we shouldn’t assume we’ll be back to normal anytime soon. In fact, economists think there are still significant economic risks despite the tentative rebound, including a second wave of COVID-19, an unwillingness to spend from consumers and an absence of an additional fiscal stimulus from Congress."
Key points:
They expect "a steep drop followed by a quick partial recovery and a longer period of slower, mixed growth."
It seems "unlikely (33 percent probability) that GDP will creep back up to where it was in the fourth quarter of 2019 any time before the first half of 2022."
Takeaway: "The economists in our survey think the economy has a long way to go before it returns to normal.."
A website that is probably no fan of large financial institutions and their linkages with government described BlackRock's influence.
Important points:
"BlackRock has been called 'the most powerful institution in the financial system,' 'the most powerful company in the world' and the 'secret power.'"
"It is the world’s largest asset manager and 'shadow bank,' larger than the world’s largest bank (which is in China), with over $7 trillion in assets under direct management and another $20 trillion managed through its Aladdin risk-monitoring software."
"Despite its size and global power, BlackRock is not even regulated as a 'Systemically Important Financial Institution' under the Dodd-Frank Act,"
"BlackRock really made its fortunes, however, in 'exchange traded funds' (ETFs)."
"...while ETFs are very liquid, trading on demand like stocks, the assets that make up their portfolios are not. When the market drops and investors flee, the ETFs can have trouble coming up with the funds to settle up without trading at a deep discount."
"BlackRock got a bailout with no debate in Congress, no “penalty” interest rate of the sort imposed on states and cities borrowing in the Fed’s Municipal Liquidity Facility, no complicated paperwork or waiting in line for scarce Small Business Administration loans, no strings attached. It just quietly bailed itself out."
The article's conclusion is provocative: "If the corporate oligarchs are too big and strategically important to be broken up under the antitrust laws, rather than bailing them out they should be nationalized and put directly into the service of the public."
Bottom line: "Guang-Zhong Yang, head of the Institute of Medical Robotics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, says that China’s robotics research output has been growing steadily for two decades, driven by three major factors: 'The clinical utilization of robotics; increased funding levels driven by national planning needs; and advances in engineering in areas such as precision mechatronics, medical imaging, artificial intelligence and new materials for making robots.'"
Supporting points:
Overall, "...rises in research output are closely related to the introduction of specialized robotics equipment in medical-research facilities."
"Between 1999 and 2019, the number of papers published by at least one Chinese author in the combined fields of biomedical engineering and robotics increased from 142 to 4,507."
"In 2019, the number of da Vinci systems installed in Chinese hospitals that year leapt to 59, up from only 8 installations in 2018."
Main point: "AI’s ultimate impact is impossible to predict."
Supporting points:
"One hypothesis is that it will bring us an era of boundless leisure, with humans no longer required to work."
"A more dystopian thought experiment concludes that a robot programmed with the innocuous goal of manufacturing paper clips might eventually transform the world into a giant paper clip factory."
"...we can anticipate the near future of artificial intelligence, including our interactions with this technology and its limits. Most of it, experts say, will be designed to take on a wide range of specialized functions."
Uses of AI:
"Machine learning is one of an expanding collection of AI tools that will help people make smarter, healthier decisions."
“Increasingly emotionally sophisticated personal assistants will motivate us and challenge us.”
"AI is also being used to create therapeutic tools."
Concerns: "Repetitious jobs such as factory work and customer service have already started to be usurped by AI, and job loss is among the greatest public concerns when it comes to automation."
Predictions: "...we will not just trust these virtual entities completely but connect with them on a deeply personal level and include them in our social groups."
Main point: "...income has declined across the income percentiles, and the share of low-income households has risen as those of middle- and high-income groups shrink."
Supporting points:
"...the share of low-income households has been rising at the expense of middle-income groups in a process of secular income decline across percentiles.”
"Japanese companies have also been converting regular workers — who could previously enjoy the comparatively privileged lifetime-employment system — to part-time workers."
"...the disappearance of Japan’s middle class could lead to further stagnation in consumption."
Here's an article about one company's efforts to bypass the tech oligarchs.
Main point: “We’re taking the internet back to a time when it provided this open environment for creativity and economic growth, a free market where services could connect on equal terms,” says Dominic Williams, Dfinity’s founder and chief scientist. “We want to give the internet its mojo back.”
What's being said:
"Dfinity is building what it calls the internet computer, a decentralized technology spread across a network of independent data centers that allows software to run anywhere on the internet rather than in server farms that are increasingly controlled by large firms, such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud."
"The dominance of a few companies, and the ad-tech industry that supports them, has distorted the way we communicate—pulling public discourse into a gravity well of hate speech and misinformation—and upended basic norms of privacy."
"Dfinity is introducing a new standard, which it calls the internet computer protocol (ICP). These new rules let developers move software around the internet as well as data."
"...a decentralized internet may lead to a decentralized form of governance, in which developers and users all have a say in how it is regulated."
It remains to be seen whether Dfinity will be successful. It also remains to be seen whether ideology will drive development of algorithms.
Main point: "Smart Cybersecurity is a logical reaction to try to manage risk by lessening security gaps often posed by reliance on manual processes that are impacted by a continual cybersecurity skills shortage and the administrative burdens of data security management."
The contributions are in:
Artificial intelligence: "Computing systems that employ AI and ML are becoming more pervasive and critical to cyber operations and have become a major focus area of cybersecurity research development and investments in both the public and private sectors."
Machine learning: "Machine learning can provide the fastest way to identify new cyber-attacks, draw statistical inferences, and push that information to endpoint security platforms."
Automated and adaptive networks: "oth AI and machine learning can be core components and support applications of automated and adaptive networks."
Supercomputing: "Detecting cyber threats can be greatly enhanced by having an accurate model of normal background network traffic."
Read the article to get details on each technology.
Main point: "While training is essential to learning, spending a chunk of your life trying something over and over doesn’t mean you’ll go pro."
Other points:
"..rehearsal time accounted for only about one-quarter of any disparity in skill level."
"Other factors—like age, intelligence, and natural gifts—all played big roles in setting apart the better from the best."
"Genes in particular shape physical and intellectual acumen."
The article's headline makes the idea sound more provocative than it really is. Of course, there are other factors involved. I like to think of it in terms of the triple-T triangle.
Training: 10,000 hours and all that.
Talent: The genetic component was mentioned earlier.
Technology. Not mentioned but important. For example, musicians need the best instruments, athletes are particular about their equipment, and scholars rely on computers to support their research.
Put them together, and you have a framework for determining what it takes to achieve mastery. It's a combination of those 3 factors.
Takeaway: "But
to truly flourish, we still seem to need people, people we trust and can relate
to."
Points:
"My experience with
Woebot got me thinking more about artificial intelligence as a possible
cure — or balm — for loneliness."
"…it was a moment when I
wished for the kind of support you can get from a good romantic partner,
the kind of person who makes you feel strong and seen. I didn’t have one
of those, so on a whim, I messaged Woebot. I knew he’d be around."
"By the end of the
conversation, I’d actually laughed a lot and felt significantly better.
Woebot checked in regularly after that, for months, just to make sure I
was OK."
"If we had social robots
during this lockdown time — if people had access to technology that could
interact, a robot that remembered our inside jokes and could keep us
company, not just answer a command — would we be emotionally healthier
right now?"
Read the article to
find out more about the current state of development and prospects for the
future.
At a minimum, Woebot
might put advice columnists out of work.
Main point: "... machine-learning software to measure how quickly employees complete different tasks and suggest ways to speed them up. The tool also gives each person a productivity score, which managers can use to identify those employees who are most worth retaining—and those who are not."
As workers have gone home during the pandemic shelter-in-place directives, there "has been accompanied by a reported spike in the use of surveillance software that lets employers track what their employees are doing and how long they spend doing it."
Other systems workers have on their company computers:
"Hubstaff is software that records users’ keyboard strokes, mouse movements, and the websites that they visit."
"Time Doctor goes further, taking videos of users’ screens. It can also take a picture via webcam every 10 minutes to check that employees are at their computer."
"Isaak, a tool made by UK firm Status Today, monitors interactions between employees to identify who collaborates more, combining this data with information from personnel files to identify individuals who are 'change-makers.'"
The CEO of the company making the productivity measuring system promises employers "Imagine you’re managing somebody and you could stand and watch them all day long, and give them recommendations on how to do their job better."
Changes are already underway in the agricultural sector: "...GPS-guided tractors can already plow fields with only a semi-attentive farmer at the wheel."
One question is how well received this is by farmers. The Hands Free Farm leader says farmers demand it, but one farmer said, "If you have that, it does me out of a job."
The example in the article is a way to look at your mindset and perspective. The writers uses it as the basis for a 3-step approach to adopting technology.
Step 1: Assess Your Mindset
Step 2: Find a framework that combines human and machine intelligence
Step 3: Train people to activate data for decisions
The writer's conclusion: "...quadrants reduce complexity and provide a framework for making decisions based on the information we have and our values. And they help us explain — both to ourselves and to others — why we made the decisions we made both now and in 10 years from now."
Main point: "As the Covid-19 pandemic looks to likely accelerate the rate and pace of technological change, what can we learn from the Industrial Revolution that can help us better face our emerging AI revolution?"
Highlights from the article:
"...there’s a significant time lag, between the broad acceptance of major new transformative technologies and their long-term economic and productivity growth. "
"The life cycle of such historically transformative technologies consists of two phases: investments and harvesting."
"...transformative technologies require massive complementary investments, such as business process redesign, co-invention of new products and business models, and the re-skilling of the workforce.
"...The more transformative the technologies, the longer it takes them to reach the harvesting phase when they’re widely embraced by companies and industries across the economy.
"The time lags between the investment and harvesting phases are typically quite long."
“Historically, the way people have adjusted to technological change is by acquiring new skills."
The modern skillsets will need to include the so-called "soft skills" and certain broad business skills that include the ability to:
Align objectives from top to bottom
Integrate diverse organizational functions to accomplish a goal
Manage the activity to a successful conclusion, which includes measuring progress and results
An unspoken skill is being able to understand systems, a holistic perspective that understands how the different parts fit together.
I recall Memorial Day, 1995 at the Flanders Field American Cemetery and Memorial in Belgium. A Belgian school girl recited these lines: “In Flanders fields the poppies blow / Between the crosses, row on row,” lines that reminded us of what was sacrificed: “We are the Dead. Short days ago / We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, / Loved and were loved, and now we lie /In Flanders fields.” Belgian school children sang the United States’ national anthem and lay poppies at each of the 368 graves of US soldiers who fell in World War I. The Belgian organizers placed wreaths at the memorial, punctuating the fact that we Americans were guests at that ceremony. You see, the Belgians, like other Europeans, organized and ran these Memorial Day ceremonies to express their gratitude for our nation’s sacrifices in two world wars to liberate their lands.
How then can we show gratitude to the fallen and their survivors?
President Franklin Roosevelt wrote in a letter to Thomas and Alleta Sullivan, whose five sons served and died together on the USS Juneau in World War II, “I offer you the condolences and gratitude of our country. We who remain to carry on the fight must maintain spirit, in the knowledge that such sacrifice was not in vain.”
Our entertainers offer other expressions.
The character in Saving Private Ryan played by Tom Hanks charged Matt Damon’s character to “Earn it.”
The characters of the TV series 7th Heaven performed acts of service in a fallen soldier’s memory.
Gary Sinise uses his Lieutenant Dan role in the movie Forrest Gump as a platform for promoting veterans causes.
Of course, Bob Hope spent a lifetime of Christmases entertaining our forces around the world.
Over the years, however, I’ve come to learn the greatest expression of gratitude for so great a gift isn’t repayment. It’s demonstrating a changed life that comes from accepting the gift, using the gift, and passing it on.
By accepting the gift, we honor its purpose. Those who died in battle joined the military for different reasons but readily accepted the ideals of duty, honor, and country. We too can accept those ideals as our own. West Point’s Cadet Prayer says it well, “Encourage us in our endeavor to live above the common level of life. Make us to choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong.”
After accepting the gift, we use it by fulfilling its purpose. We can fulfill that purpose by engaging and serving our communities and our country; that is, we citizens can bloom where we’re planted.
We pass the gift on by sharing its purpose. We can model those ideals at home, at work, at school, and around the community because the words we speak and the things we do will, on other days and in other places, will bear fruit in the lives of others.
Let’s therefore honor the fallen for what they have given us – a life of freedom, a country where we can exercise it, and lessons we can apply to our lives – and prove ourselves worthy of those gifts, purchased at a price we remember on Memorial Day.
An article
by Andy Crouch is getting some attention. He described the COVID-19 pandemic as
"an economic and cultural blizzard, winter, and beginning of a 'little ice
age' — a once-in-a-lifetime change that is likely to affect our lives and
organizations for years" and not something we just need to endure until we
can get back to normal. He argued "The priority of leaders must be to set
aside confidence in their current playbook as quickly as possible, write a new
one that honors their mission and the communities they serve, and make the most
of their organization’s assets — their people, financial capital, and social
capital, leaning on relationship and trust."
Key
points:
The pandemic isn't like a
blizzard we just need to endure until it's over.
We need to prepare for worse
because "even as we weather the current blizzard, and convince others
that a blizzard is upon us, all of us should be preparing for a winter in
which countless aspects of our society are reconfigured."
Another prospect is that of
an ice age. Recalling the history Little Ice that lasted 300 years, Crouch
pointed out the 18 month duration in producing a vaccine. That's longer
than a blizzard and winter season.
Why is
this important?
If the disruption keeps us
from educating children effectively (according to one education theorist,
children who don't get a chance to learn how to read well between the ages
of 7 and 9 never acquire fluency in reading), there could be long term
cultural and human negative impact.
Flattening the curve means
we'll also extend the curve. In other words, the disease will remain for a
longer period until the population develops general immunity or a vaccine
is developed.
The extended time period also
means economic disruption will go on longer.
How
should we then live?
Crouch maintains "most
leaders must recognize that the business they were in no longer
exists."
The first step is realizing
"If your nonprofit organization depends on gathering people in medium
or large groups — and it is truly daunting to consider how many do,
whether for fundraising banquets, afterschool programs, or in the case of
churches for corporate worship — you are not in the same business
today."
AS a result, "You have
to build a fundamentally new deck [the set of Powerpoint slides that
describes what your organization does and how it does it] that reflects
the new realities of the community you serve, and the tools that are
available to you today."
As you rethink your
organization, you need to go back to the foundation, the "one
paramount resource that by the grace of God may still be available, which
is trust."
The foundation of trust means
"the people who will help you chart the course toward fulfilling your
mission in the coming years are the people who you have the deepest trust
with today — those currently on mission with you. And so all the efforts
of leadership right now come down to maintaining and mobilizing
trust."
Leaders have a particularly
tough job because "Trust is also built through one of the hardest
tasks of leadership: taking steps to reduce costs and manage cash flow, so
that the enterprise can survive."
In
general, Crouch presents the challenge of "nested, interconnected
realities — as leaders we must react swiftly to the blizzard that is already
upon us, and pivot to survive the inevitable winter under severe conditions,
and reimagine our organizations to outlast the rigors of a possible little ice
age" and realizing "that their organization’s survival in weeks and
months, let alone years, depends far more on radical innovation than on
tactical cutbacks."
Here are some points from the article. Read the article to get all the details.
The pandemic is pushing us to remote solutions because "the expert advice—not least from the National Institute of Health’s chief immunologist, Anthony Fauci—is for people to engage in social distancing and 'telework' in order to slow the spread of Covid-19. As I write, more than 300 million students around the world are out of school; many are telecommuting to classes. And millions of adults are working from home."
Telecommuting hasn't been widely adopted yet. Some background information suggests "Remote working remains limited in value for much of what people need to do—and especially for replicating the intangible productivity of personal interactions."
Another limitation of telecommuting is it's "only marginally useful for many critical industries and infrastructures" like running machines, delivery, etc.
The article also reviewed the use of tech to defeat diseases and concluded "when the next one [pandemic] comes, silcon machines may finally give humanity the tools it needs to win its Sisyphean battle with viruses."
Raising awareness
about how integrated robots are in our supply chains.
Robotics executives have been
calling users to assure them the robotics companies would keep the robots
operational.
Robots have made it easier to
retool and repurpose production lines to support new requirements for
products to help deal with the pandemic.
Being able to function in the
cloud has allowed robotics companies to deploy robots without having to
send people onsite because customer companies are currently not allowing
people onsite.
Perception of robots by the
general public may become more favorable because of how robots are helping
with retooling production lines in support of pandemic response.
There is a mix of effects on
industries depending on the nature of the business. Food and beverage
industries are working hard, so robots could help with production.
Essential businesses are doing well, but non-essential businesses are
hurting. Also, anything facilitating work at home, medical care, and
disinfection is in higher demand.
Medium-sized companies seem
to be more active than larger companies.
Companies may be bringing
operations back to the US.
Robotics companies are
expecting a post-COVID-19 surge because of pent up demand.
Unlike the Great Recession of
2008, the executives expect a lasting effect from the pandemic on how we
see the world and do business.
There will be renewed
interest in business continuity.
The big question is whether
increased demand in certain areas will continue post-COVID-19.
Decontamination robots could become a real demand, but it's not clear if
other things will continue in demand.
A new normal is coming: how
we can get better at using the collaboration tools we have and how we can
increase efficiency; the impact of greatly increased communications tools
and capacity.
