Permanent behavior change in the age of COVID-19
By: Haje Jan Kamps
Tags: Events, Travel, Startup, Virtual Events, Behavioral Economics

There’s little doubt that the coronavirus pandemic is a multidimensional tragedy. People are sick, dying, dead, or dealing with long-term after-effects from “recovery” that will stay with many of them for the rest of their lives. Layered in with that tragedy is that many national governments have proven themselves to be less than adequate in dealing with a pandemic.

A huge shift in behavior

Nothing in this post is meant to trivialize the loss and suffering the pandemic has caused. And yet, in the complicated latticework of cause and effect, there can be little doubt that we’ve just witnessed five years of evolution in how people approach virtual presence, in a little under three months.

For example; Pre-pandemic, there were three sets of people in my life who refused to do meetings via video conference:

My lawyers , who were of the particularly paranoid type, and claimed that video conferencing wasn’t secure enough.

, who were of the particularly paranoid type, and claimed that video conferencing wasn’t secure enough. My accountant , who had a strong preference for looking me dead in the eyes as he stabs his accusing finger at my tax paperwork to tell me exactly where I had made mistakes.

, who had a strong preference for looking me dead in the eyes as he stabs his accusing finger at my tax paperwork to tell me exactly where I had made mistakes. My therapist, who is deeply wonderful, but a luddite at heart.

As soon as the pandemic hit and the social distancing began, guess who figured it out? That’s right — all three of them, in a matter of weeks.

That is the short term.

‘Remote work’ doesn’t just mean sitting at your kitchen table twenty-two blocks away from the office.

In the long term, it will turn out that some of these changes are permanent. My accountant lives just down the street, so I might give him a pass, but you can bet your top dollar that I’m never again getting in a car to drive for 45 minutes to go talk to my lawyer. I will miss the ridiculously good coffee at their office, but if she can tolerate video conferences during COVID-19, she can figure it out when the social distancing directives are lifted, too.

A large number of office workers have had three months of working from home; and many of them are starting to realize that the benefits outweigh the downsides. This is the beginning of a permanent shift around the attitudes about remote work — that ‘remote work’ doesn’t just mean sitting at your kitchen table twenty-two blocks away from the office, but that workers get a real choice in where they want to live; if you’re not going into the San Francisco office anyway, then who cares if you live just across the bridge in Oakland, in Vancouver, or in Buenos Aires.

For decades, cheap and available air travel has made attending events available for many — but not for everyone, and at a tremendous cost to the environment.

The other change we are seeing is a tremendous acceleration in knowledge about how to connect in the digital realm. We’re seeing a return to phone calls over video calls in some cases, because if you don’t need the visual, then it’s delightful to be able to stare off into the distance or close your eyes instead of being perma-focused on the screen two feet away from you. And when people are doing video calls, the number of people who’ve upped their game with better cameras, light and sound has increased drastically.

Preventing 1.5bn journeys per year

At Konf, we’ve always been big believers in virtual events. In fact, we started the company because we were a group of environmentalists who took a look at the world of virtual events and thought “Hmm. Every year, 1.5bn people travel by planes, trains, and automobiles to go to events — if we can reduce that by even just 1%, the impact will be tremendous.”

The planet has been blessed with five years of human adaptability crystallizing in a matter of months. Even when vaccines are produced, and the pandemic starts to fade from the newspaper headlines at some point in the future, all of that collective learning and adaptation will stick.

Don’t get me wrong; I’d be delighted if I never have to go to another Zoom birthday party. Especially ones for close friends who live within driving distance. But I’d also be thrilled if I don’t have to fly to 20 events throughout the year, and were able to attend those from the comfort of my own home.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m so excited about the world of virtual events right now; As painful as the pandemic has been, the vast majority of people who would go to events and conferences have learned how virtual events can be a great alternative to in-person events. And with the Konf platform, our mission is to make them better than in-person events.

🌱 The planet is breathing a sigh of relief already.