Imagine the future first

Before we get to the rest of the newsletter, I thought I’d share our experience working with clients on issues where one side wants to solve a problem by carefully transforming the status quo and another side wants to just throw out the old and put in something new. At Nettleton Strategies, we focus on identifying a common future and then working together with the parties to find the best common pathway to that future. When each side espouses the solution they want before agreeing on the imagined future, it inevitably leads to conflict. Fighting over how to get to a better place often means never finding the path to the future both sides want. Something to think about as we all strive to imagine a future beyond the pandemic crisis, both personally and professionally.

Can this really go on for more than two years?

The May 18, 2020, CEO Daily reports that “Harvard disease researchers say we may need to be intermittently social distancing through 2022. Due to the fact that the world already has almost 5 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, the researchers say it's increasingly unlikely that one strict bout of social distancing, followed by intensive contact-tracing, will be enough to eradicate the virus. A seasonal spread around the world, as with flu, is more likely.”

A Washington Post story says the coronavirus may never go away, even with a vaccine. It says there are examples of these endemics already in existence: measles, HIV, and chickenpox.

A May 27, 2020, National Geo story points out that “the effort of tracing a deadly virus hasn’t changed much since Victorian days.” The effort still involves interviewing an infected person and figuring out who they infected or working backward to find the source.

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More on Fortune 500 CEO’s view of the future

Fortune's CEO Daily asked the CEOs of the Fortune 500 whether they agreed or disagreed with predictions about how the world will change. Here are the ones a majority of CEOs agreed with:

• “Business travel will become less frequent, replaced by video conferencing.” – 91% agreed.
• “Nationalism will rise, and global supply chains will become less common.” – 82% agreed.
• “Government surveillance techniques will become more common worldwide.” – 81% agreed.

A majority disagreed with this one:

• “Trust in government will rise, as a result to their response to the crisis.” – 55% disagreed.

And the CEOs split near the middle on these three:

• “China will be strengthened as a power in the world” – 42% agreed, 38% disagreed.
• “Trust in capitalism will rise, as a result of the business response to the crisis.” – 28% agreed, 24% disagreed.
• “Concern about the environment will fall, as a result of more immediate focus on economic problems.” – 42% agreed, 35% disagreed

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The problem with food – do we have too much?
Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford told Fortune about the disruption the pandemic is causing to the food system. “Production is not the issue,” she said . “We have plenty of food. Part of the problem is we have too much milk, too many cattle, too many hogs. What we have is a distribution problem.” The challenge, she said, is that “over time, these supply chains were made hyper efficient. Everything was ‘just-in-time.” When restaurants shut down and home demand soared, “there was just not a lot of room to change… It’s not easy to change your platform because the margins are so narrow.”

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Pandemic impacts on city services

An article in the May Review issue of The Planning Report suggests the impacts on the economy because of the pandemic will manifest themselves in four areas that will require “the reinvention of city services to meet the needs of today’s urban realities.”

• Cratering Revenue
• Neglected Infrastructure
• Pension Debt
• Community Need

Deloitte and McKinsey, what the consultancies are saying

As leaders take their feet off the brakes and move forward with reentry plans, The consulting firm Deloitte offers five considerations for establishing your next new normal.

• Take a comprehensive view of safety
• Eliminate data filters
• Rethink your management systems and operating models
• Expand collaboration
• Maintain liquidity strategies

Another major consulting firm, McKinsey, reports that “recent data show that we have vaulted five years forward in consumer and business digital adoption in a matter of around eight weeks.” The firm quotes a large tech CEO as saying “We are witnessing what will surely be remembered as a historic deployment of remote work and digital access to services across every domain.”

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Insights on the post-pandemic landscape from the Urban Land Institute

Beth Callendar, the Urban Land Institute’s San Diego District Council Chair wrote a blog about changes to the regional landscape because of the pandemic. She writes that “the changes that were already in motion have been supercharged by the pandemic” and cites four key elements of change:

• People are rediscovering their neighborhoods - “Now it’s about where I live vs. where I can drive to.”
• Public space is becoming more valuable – “a local park, public plaza, nearby beach, canyon trail or open space are havens of escape.”
• There are more demands on the home – “when the design teams for new residential/multi-family projects convene, these concerns (on how a home will be used) will be featured in their conversations.”
• Working from home is working better than anticipated – offices are valuable as places to meet and collaborate, “much of the actual work is place agnostic.”

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New Zealanders don't want to return to the office

Speaking of offices, New Zealand has been the leading country in reducing the prevalence of the coronavirus. The Guardian reports a study of New Zealanders working from home during the lockdown found “many were just as productive as when they were in the office, and a majority were reluctant to return to traditional workplaces.”

Product News

With crisis comes innovation, and the pandemic is no exception. Here are new products that are coming online, time will tell if they are for better or worse.

• The coronavirus Roomba. According to Reuters, Singapore is testing a robot to try to zap away coronavirus with powerful UVC light.” The Sunburst UV Bot can sense whether humans are around so the UV light doesn’t harm people. Cost: nearly $50,000. 
• No. 2 toilet paper brand.  According to Fortune, even toilet-paper start-ups were baffled with the demand on toilet paper. “No. 2, a bamboo-based toilet paper brand popular on Instagram, saw its month-over-month sales on Amazon rise over 5,000% in March, and over 3,000% on its own site. After selling out, the brand came back with 15 times the production—and the company's founder says its growth means consumers are considering sustainable options, even in a pandemic." 
• Surveillance software According to CNBC, the Chinese city of Hangzhou has “unveiled proposals to permanently track a person’s health through an app that gives them a score based on factors such as how much alcohol they drank and the amount of sleep they got.”
• Health worker helmet and tent. According to Science Magazine, a new helmet and tent could protect health care workers from the coronavirus. “They represent a really simple solution to … potentially help with reducing virus transmission and increasing the safety of health care workers, as well as patient safety.”
• Eating in plastic lampshades. MarketWatch reports that prototype plastic shields called “Plex’eat” are being tried in Paris. The shields look like clear lampshades that drop over diners from the ceiling.  
• Plant-Based Protein Companies. Long-held opinions about cruelty to animals in meat-packing plants have now been underscored by COVID-19 outbreaks in those same facilities. Triple Pundit reports that plant-based protein companies have seen a 264% surge in sales as a result.

From the philanthropies

Philanthropies have been investing significant amounts of money in helping to respond to the pandemic, but they are providing good thinking, too.

• “When Americans see nonprofits persevering, that will reassure them that the nation will persevere. That’s easy to forget in these frenzied days, but worth taking a moment to celebrate.” Philanthropy Today.
• “This moment offers the tremendous opportunity to help staff members learn new skills and take on increased responsibility.” Philanthropy Today.
• “Three experts on aging propose that foundations create a “community of grandparents” to mentor Generation C, the young people growing up in the coronavirus era.” Philanthropy This Week newsletter.

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A deadly virus is killing wild rabbits in North America

While we are busy dealing with coronavirus issues, ironically, wild rabbits in North American have a similar problem. Science Magazine reports that a virus that causes a hemorrhagic disease reached Southern California last week. There are two strains. Both types are extremely infectious and persist in the environment, surviving in dead animals for at least 3 months. Predators and insects can spread it through their feces. Scientists believe the virus is now poised to spread throughout North America.

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COVID-19 and climate change