Innovation In The Pandemic Age | III/V
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Lev. I’m a digital operations and organisation consultant, with a focus on innovation and the advertising industry. I’ve spent the last few weeks interviewing experts in various industries and countries. This is the third in the series of articles (you can read the rest of the articles here). These opinions are centered around innovations people have found during these interesting times, as well as views on what will be forever changed in the future. The adage of constraints breeding creativity is definitely holding up in the age of lockdowns and the Covid-19 pandemic. I’ve ensured each article has a cross-section of different industries and countries to provide a range of opinions. I hope you’ll find inspiration on the innovations others have seen that you can apply to your jobs or businesses!
I’ll be releasing a new article every day this week and will link to the rest of the series at the end of the article. Today’s article features contributions from restaurants, performance marketing, advertising, humanitarian & development assistance, law, teaching, and cryptocurrency.
What are the best innovations you’ve seen in your industry to deal with lockdown and social distancing?
What I’ve found really interesting is the creative ways brands have adapted their content in an effort to stay in touch with their audience despite their core offering being unavailable. Let’s be clear, I don’t know anyone sitting around saying ‘gosh all I want is for my local pool shop to entertain me’ so just because you can produce content over this time, doesn’t mean you should. However, there are some lovely examples of how brands have adapted their approach to help solve a real need during this time, and importantly, where they can credibly play. An example of this is Tim the security guard at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. Whilst the museum is closed, Tim Tiller (who has the digital skills of cupboard) has taken over their Twitter account to showcase what the museum has to offer behind closed doors. He is an endearing character as he tries his best to showcase what he is clearly very proud of whilst navigating the uncharted territory of ‘The Twitter’. Another great example is how the New York Public Library has created beautiful visual renditions of the plots of popular books using Insta Stories. Nike helping people to keep moving by giving free access to their Training Club App as well as incorporating your own personal chatbot training. Examples of innovative ways to stay in touch extend all the way down to my son’s nursery school, whereby they’ve packaged daily activity ideas via WhatsApp. (Sadly they don’t deliver wine).
How do you think your industry will be changed post lockdown?
Within the restaurant space, few will deny the importance of an online solution. With a more than 25% increase in food-related app downloads over this period, there will be a natural surge in demand. Tailoring a restaurant for online ordering is a multi-departmental requirement. Everything from how the restaurant is designed, to how it impacts the technical operations, the type of packaging required as well as the commercial implications. With the sudden surge in demand as a result of people wanting to get their fix, it will no doubt put a lot of pressure on the existing structures of restaurant brands which will reveal the strengths and faults across the system very quickly. The other big change will be people related. You see the true character of leaders during a crisis and for those restaurant brands that have gone out of their way to look after their people will undoubtedly have a workforce that is even more committed. Being in the service business, having employees that are the best versions of themselves has a massive knock on effect across all parts of the business. Lastly, I’m interested to see how businesses view partnerships going forward. COVID has bred unusual collaborations purely out of necessity. An example would be AVIS Rentals partnering with retailers to use their parked fleet for online deliveries. This type of thinking may not have been explored if it wasn’t for this period so this new found liberalism may make for some beneficial ventures.
What are the best innovations you’ve seen in your industry to deal with lockdown and social distancing?
Our industry has always been fairly open to digital and remote working, however the last 5 weeks has opened a lot of peoples eyes to this way of working and I think that this change will stay with a much broader set of industries moving forward. People will be a lot more comfortable with less control over bums in seats and more focused on actual deliverables. We have found its possible to run the entire business remotely with a few project management and communication tools. Communication becomes even more crucial than before the lockdown but this doesn’t need to be in the physical space. The best innovation over the lockdown period for us has been the increased dedication and buy-in of employees to using our management and communications software stack and by using these platforms to their potential we have found a possibly better way of working moving forward.
How do you think your industry will be changed post lockdown?
It will be a lot leaner — this is unfortunate for a lot of people and will have a significant impact on many peoples lives. I do feel that as business begins to open again there will be a period where the insights & services in our space will be in demand and the value from digital marketing and data will significantly assist a lot of businesses in getting back on their feet. Fighting smart moving forward will be key, budgets will be limited and every cent will need to show a return in order to be justified. A data-led performance approach will be key to succeeding in this.
What are the best innovations you’ve seen in your industry to deal with lockdown and social distancing?
I’ve noticed an increased willingness to explore the unfamiliar. A lot of the brands I work with are turning to Instagram Live as a way to create a more varied range of connections with their communities. This pivot towards the experimental is itself a type of innovation within the industry — one which I hope will be able to shake some old habits in favour of different, more effective ones.
How do you think your industry will be changed post lockdown?
As certainty becomes a luxury, adaptation becomes a necessity. This phenomenon is altering and dividing public opinion around such a varied range of challenges that we in the communications space need to become masters at identifying what people really need and matching that. Brands who deliver any less than that might find themselves stuck in the mud. Those who survive will adapt at a rapid place. I definitely think those who understand the art of human experience (employee & customer) will come out on top.
What are the best innovations you’ve seen in your industry to deal with lockdown and social distancing?
Monitoring and assessing food and nutrition security of vulnerable households is a resource-intensive and timely activity most often done through in-person interviews at household level in rural and remote communities. Lockdown has meant that field staff can no longer travel to rural locations meaning that food security situations and the impacts of COVID on food security is not well understood. To adapt, we have implemented mobile vulnerability analysis and mapping that uses mobile technology to remotely monitor household food security and nutrition, and food market-related trends in real-time, providing high-frequency, gender-disaggregated and operationally relevant data that supports decision-making. This mobile monitoring approach allows us to get a lot more data quickly allowing to understand local impacts rapidly. Whilst mobile monitoring is not necessarily an innovative approach in some countries and industries, applying it in developing countries with poor infrastructure and other challenges is an innovative achievement.
How do you think your industry will be changed post lockdown?
Our core business is delivering food and cash to those in need. Firstly, the largest impact will be the increasing number of food-insecure people globally in need of support. Interestingly those poorer communities that are more reliant on subsistence agriculture are arguably in a better position than those in urban environments requiring to purchase food. Secondly, how the organization gets the food and cash to distribute will be affected. In terms of how donations are received from donors, sadly as economies are impacted there will be less to donate and countries less likely to donate food needed for their own countries. Innovative financing mechanisms would be required to meet the increasing demands. This finance mechanism should include more private sector sources and promoting contributions in cash. Cash is a preferred humanitarian assistance modality. Thirdly, how the organization distributes food and cash to beneficiaries will be impacted. Purely from a logistics point, large distributions where many people queue and mix will no longer be possible. To adapt, cash distributions should be promoted through mobile money mechanisms to avoid this issue and also allow beneficiaries flexibility in buying what they need. I think mostly importantly, the impacts of COVID on society as a whole has highlighted the importance of robust social protection systems that are well financed and allow for quick distributions at scale. Huge areas for growth resulting from this would be mobile monitoring of people in need to identify how badly affected and how much is needed as well as payment solutions.
What are the best innovations you’ve seen in your industry to deal with lockdown and social distancing?
The legal system as a whole is very outdated when it comes to the digital realm. The High Courts have recently implemented Caselines, a digital platform which allows for the digitizing of the entire court process, making it possible to conduct hearings and even full scale trials completely digitally. As a result some High Court matters have been able to proceed unaffected by the pandemic.
How do you think your industry will be changed post lockdown?
More attorneys are now gravitating towards digital cloud-based tools and platforms such as Litigator to both streamline the litigation process and allow parties to continue with their matters uninterrupted. Our firm has also made a shift towards cloud-based contract repositories which provide access to up-to-date legally compliant contracts without our clients having to physically consult an attorney. Unfortunately, as a result of our outdated legal institutions, and as our laws still require that many of the legal processes are physically served by a sheriff of the court, the legal fraternity has experienced large delays in legal matters. The industry as a whole has seen the potential in progressive digital innovation and expansion and are now more willing to bridge the digital learning gap and adapt to (what is for this industry) a new way of working.
What are the best innovations you’ve seen in your industry to deal with lockdown and social distancing?
We have found socialising to be an important area to focus on during lockdown, as this is a key area of our students’ growth. We have created meetings with our sports teams/tutor groups where the whole point is to catch up, see how everyone is coping, and just hang out for 30–45 min. Due to the fact that many of our boys struggle with data costs we teach how to reduce the amount of data used when learning online. Screen Castify is great for teaching concepts in under 5min.
How do you think your industry will be changed post lockdown?
Google Classroom will become standard with pre-recorded lessons and all other resources being available at all times.
What are the best innovations you’ve seen in your industry to deal with lockdown and social distancing?
Greater reliance on digital project management tools (such as Google Sheets, Microsoft To-Do, Trello, Click-Up, & JIRA) with the biggest change being the amount of information and detail included in each project. We’ve combined these systems with digital communications systems (such as Slack, Google Hangouts and Zoom) to form powerful whiteboard brainstorming sessions. The key here is a combination of screensharing and screen annotation.
How do you think your industry will be changed post lockdown?
Working remotely is purely based on trust and moving from measuring hours to output. This shift will push employees to use their time in a smarter, more efficient way. Businesses can also start to take advantage of the potential cost savings of a remote office. This combination could lead to financial growth while maintaining productivity. The outstanding problem revolves around continued company culture and how this will affect employees.
That’s it for this round of interviews! You can read the rest of the articles here. If you’re interested in chatting to any of the interviewees, please drop me a line.