I was talking with a colleague of mine earlier in the week about organisations and their return to work (return to office) time lines. Around the world we are seeing varying pace and volume of teams attending the physical work place (in context of the typical office environment), countries, states, cities and industries are all moving at different and possible unknown rates. COVID-19 and the term unpredictable are synonymous today, our discussion was around who is doing what, and it resulted in a few key questions being raised about what would you/ your organisation be looking for to comfortably say we can safely allow large scale return to office (for those who can/ want to).
We came up with the following criteria:
rates of community transmission in the city/area
other occupants in the building
access to transport and parking
ability to socially distance at your desk
cleaning and ppe availability
I know full well there are other concerns and criteria out there, I would really like to know what comes to mind for you, when contemplating safe office occupation?
As a tech advocate, I am always looking for the next tool/ application, communication platform that tries to make life easier, more efficient to enable fast sharing of information (as I believe that is end the end goal of most tech innovations). I will freely admit my bias to adopting faster than most, or at least investigating new applications/platforms for must haves (data privacy, resilience, availability and ease of use) as opposed to the "why not".
Recently I was exposed to a very prominent example of this. In Australia the Federal Government commissioned and released the COVID Safe mobile app to support contact tracing efforts in the fight against COVID-19.
Context (from a personal experience): I recently had cause for concern that I may have contracted COVID-19 (spoiler alert, I did not) I was one of the few persons venturing back into the Sydney CBD as Government Restrictions began to ease in early in June, two weeks and after a scratchy throat for 24 hours, I decided to go get tested. Less than 48 hours I received my negative result via SMS.
During the time between being tested and receiving my results the concept of contact tracing ran through my head like a Shinkansen bullet train, where had I been the last 14 days, who had I spoken with, met etc...
I then remembered reading about the BlueTrace protocol developed by the Singapore Government earlier in the year, that utilises low energy bluetooth to log devices that come in contact with each other, in an encrypted fashion, enabling fast contact tracing by authorities if an individual is confirmed positive and agree to share the data logged on their phone.
Why didn't I have the app installed already (If i am this early adopter): a few less impressive reasons resulted in my indecision to install and register the app, it was from the Government and was fairly new to market, initially I was actually quite impressed with how well privacy considerations had formed the foundation of the apps design and simplicity of the concept they were employing to assist in efficient contact tracing where required. I have a clear memory of downloading the app soon after release, yet a conscious thought to wait a few weeks to see if anything emerges of concern.
The day I got test and started thinking about where I had been, I opened the app, registered and have had a sense of calm ever sense, those I work with and socialise with will know well my thoughts on this for lack of better words socially responsible initiative.
I since have realised the political weight that comes with this specific example that likely influences many decision, however I'm not looking to debate the pros and cons of COVID Safe here.
The discussion I would like to start is framed well by the above example:
For you, your teams and social networks, what are the factors you consider before installing and taking advantage of a new technology platform and more importantly what are the common "why not's" you find yourself up against?
As a tech advocate, I am always looking for the next tool/ application, communication platform that make life easier, more efficient to enable fast sharing of information (as I believe that is end the end goal of most tech innovations). I will freely admit my bias to adopting faster than most, or at least investigating new applications/platforms for must haves (data privacy, resilience, availability and ease of use) as opposed to the "why not".
Recently I was exposed to a very prominent example of this. In Australia the Federal Government commissioned and released the COVID Safe mobile app to support contact tracing efforts in the fight against COVID-19.
Context (from a personal experience): I recently had cause for concern that I may have contracted COVID-19 (spoiler alert, I did not) I was one of the few persons venturing back into the Sydney CBD as Government Restrictions began to ease in early in June and after a scratchy throat for 24 hours, I decided to go get tested, less than 48 hours I received my negative result via SMS. During the time between being tested and receiving my results the concept of contact tracing ran through my head like a Shinkansen bullet train, where had I been the last 14 days, who had I spoken with, met etc...
I then remembered reading about the BlueTrace protocol developed by the Singapore Government earlier in the year, that utilises low energy bluetooth to log devices that come in contact with each other, in an encrypted fashion, enabling fast contact tracing by authorities if an individual is confirmed positive and agree to share the data logged on their phone.
Why didn't I have the app installed already (If i am this early adopter): a few less impressive reasons resulted in my indecision to install and register the app, it was from the Government and was fairly new to market, initially I was actually quite impressed with how well privacy considerations had formed the foundation of the apps design and simplicity of the concept they were employing to assist in efficient contact tracing where required. I have a clear memory of downloading the app soon after release, yet a conscious thought to wait a few weeks to see if anything emerges of concern.
The day I got test and started thinking about where I had been, I opened the app, registered and have had a sense of calm ever sense, those I work with and socialise with will know well my thoughts on this for lack of better words socially responsible initiative.
I since have realised the political weight that comes with this specific example that likely influences many decision, however I'm not looking to debate the pros and cons of COVID Safe here.
The discussion I would like to start is framed well by the above example:
For you, your teams and social networks, what are the factors you consider before installing and taking advantage of a new technology platform and more importantly what are the common "why not's" you find yourself up against?
