By any measure, 2020 is a yr most would like to neglect. The uncontrollable unfold of the COVID-19 virus and associated financial crises slammed locations and folks in each nook of the globe. Here within the U.S., the federal authorities’s inept administration of pandemic response was almost overshadowed by what was, by any measure, the weirdest election the nation has ever seen (and continues to endure, due to a delusional president and his enablers). Toss in drought-fueled wildfires and a record-breaking hurricane season, and the arrival of a probably recent new yr is precisely what we would have liked.
However, consigning 2020 to the trash bin with little past a brisk “Adios, sucker” is lower than sensible. Though the yr contained harsh occasions and burdens, it additionally offered classes price remembering. Rather than peering right into a crystal ball to see what lays forward in 2021, let’s look within the rear-view mirror to think about what we’re forsaking.
Work is a course of, not a spot
When workplaces are hotbeds of potential an infection, supporting workers working from house (WFH) is a necessity, not a comfort. This is some extent some companies discovered and executed way more shortly and successfully than others. However, the mix of more and more highly effective PCs, peripheral telephones and web companies, together with the emergence of Zoom and different video calling platforms made WFH higher than ever earlier than.
The tech business has preached the gospel of distant work for two-plus a long time, however most corporations continued to imagine workers required typical supervision in native amenities till Covid-19 modified the stakes. The query stays whether or not “returning to normal” means resuming enterprise as normal. It seems that at the least a number of corporations perceive that as long as the method of labor is accomplished successfully, the place the place it happens issues little. If that perception spreads, it would basically change the way in which folks reside their lives.
Security is extra very important than ever
All in all, 2020 was a banner yr for cybercriminals, hackers and state-sponsored cyber-attackers. Ransomware occasions aimed toward native and state governments surged. There was additionally a considerable rise in bold information breaches, together with the FireEye assault revealed in December that some specialists imagine will take years to type out. Problem is that whereas most organizations acknowledge the significance of IT safety, too few are successfully implementing safety options. FireEye is a living proof, the place attackers gained entry to the corporate’s community by duping an worker into sharing his safety credentials. Buying larger, higher, costlier locks is hardly an answer when they are often simply compromised by human error.
Distance studying works, generally …
Distance studying applied sciences have been round for almost so long as supporting distant staff and workplaces. However, 2020 offered much less proof of the advantages of the previous than the latter. The shift to conducting lessons on-line in public faculties uncovered vast disparities between communities, and the impression that insufficient funding has in successfully “leaving behind” low-income kids and households. The transfer to distance studying additionally highlighted foundational cracks at many…
