Gates Package — page 1191

2021 gave us a preview of our more digitized future Even after this pandemic ends, it's clear that much of the digitization it brought on is here to stay. The last two years have led to monumental leaps forward in how we use technology, accelerating changes that would've taken years--if not a decade or longer--otherwise. We've seen rapid, widespread adoption of services that already existed, like ordering groceries online or having meetings over video chat. And we've seen the creation of new innovations that I think only represent the tip of the iceberg of what's to come in the years ahead. Digitization is here to stay, but the technologies we're using will continue to get better over time. We're just at the start of how software will enable innovation. The more we use digital tools, the more feedback we get about how to make them better. It'll take at least a decade to understand the full scope of the pandemic's impact on digitization, but I predict we'll see big changes in three areas. The first and perhaps most significant is office work. The pandemic has revolutionized how companies think about productivity and presence in the workplace. The boundaries between once-discrete areas of work--brainstorming, team meetings, casual conversations in the hallway--are collapsing. We're starting to see structures evolve that we thought were essential to office culture, and those changes will only intensify in the years to come as businesses and employees settle into new permanent ways of working. I'm really excited about the potential for experimentation. Expectations around what productivity looks like have been upended. I see lots of opportunity to rethink things and find out what is working and what isn't. For example, there has been a lot of debate about whether companies should stay completely remote, plan a full return to the office, or find some compromise between the two. Although most companies will likely opt for the hybrid approach, there's a good deal of flexibility around what exactly that approach might look like. What if your employees set their own schedule? Do you have people work from the office on Mondays and Fridays, or do you ask them to work remotely on those days knowing that traffic might be worse around the weekend? I don't see any reason why companies need to make firm decisions right away. As the pandemic ends and things start to become more normal, this is a great time to take an A/B testing