The New Normal And Online Engagement

Posted on July 23, 2020

In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are now in a ‘new normal’. The pandemic has forced us to change how we work, how we live our lives and how we interact with others.

I spoke recently at a forum discussing the shift to online interaction and community engagement in this ‘new normal’. The talk can be viewed in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1gqxN6PrVg&t=12s

The rapid adoption of online tools in a variety of settings – from telehealth, teaching and collaboration – reinforces one of my favourite maxims that necessity is the mother of invention.  With the old ways of doing things face-to-face no longer viable, we have been forced to adopt new approaches that we may previously have resisted, sometimes quite strenuously.

And not only have we adopted these, some of us are now strong advocates of incorporating online methods in whatever new normal emerges. That is, by being forced to change our behaviour our attitudes towards online engagement and collaboration have also changed. Such conversions run counter to the traditional theory that attitude change leads to behaviour change – it is often the reverse! Witness conversion of some clinicians from telemedicine atheist to true believers in the course of a few months.