What will “business as usual” look like?

 “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” Abraham Lincoln

I suspect I’m not the only one who finds him- or herself watching a lot more TV these days. Working from home, it is natural for our professional and personal lives to become intertwined. So when I heard someone on TV say that the printing press is still considered one of the greatest inventions of all time, I could not *not* think about my work. I am a printing professional, after all, and I don’t find this statement a bit surprising. Print has played a pivotal role in mass communication for centuries.

My mind naturally turned to the current situation,  given how important information sharing is right now and what lies ahead in our personal and professional lives. In a time when we are all impacted by and fearful of COVID-19, sharing information is vital. In some parts of the world, people have been locked inside their houses for months, while others are only in the first or second week of taking shelter. Nearly everywhere, people are disconnected from the ones they love. The only thing left is to share thoughts and concerns from a distance.

These days, we are less reliant on printed material and more connected via smartphones and tablets and laptops. These help us keep in touch, which is so vital in a time of uncertainty. In these dark times, we look at ways to do better and be better. And when this challenging period is over, we will be forced to look at ways to do even more. To rebuild the savings lost to stock market crashes and help children get back on track academically. And to find the time in our busy schedules to visit the people from whom we needed to distance ourselves during this crisis.

Companies also face a big challenge. They will need to restore their financial health by any means necessary. One of the ways to do that is to think about new ways of working. To brainstorm ways of improving workflows and eliminating redundant processes. Even if right now we cannot put these ideas into action, we can be devising the plans that we will execute when it is time to forge a new normal.

Perhaps this is the perfect time to investigate the possibilities that we are normally too busy to ponder -- not only as a way to prepare for the future, but as a way to take our minds off the problems of the present. We may not be able to control the outcome or duration of our current predicament, but we can get ready to start building up all that is being torn down right now.

Getting back to my work and the future of output management; normally, LRS would be busy preparing to host user conferences where we talk about ways to improve business processes and decrease costs. Naturally, given the recent changes in the world, these in-person events have been canceled. But the issues that we would have discussed will be as important, or more important, once we all get back to work.

So in lieu of these live events, we will be offering a series of webinars. One might consider them a nice distraction for the time being and a place to discuss ways to help your business in the near future. So keep an eye out for our events page and if you find a topic you want to learn more about, please join us or sign up to receive a recording. The present moment is challenging enough, but we can make the best out of a bad situation by preparing for the future.

Now is the time to sharpen our tools. We’ll be called to use them soon enough, and there won’t be a minute of time or ounce of strength to waste.