Opportunities In The New Abnormal

This theme seems to be echoing off of the walls of the world lately: We’re not going back to the way things were. It’s a new normal. No, a new ab-normal. It’s the old “and now for something completely different” schtick. The world is changing, again. And, to a degree, they’re all right. We’re not going back, we’re going forward.

Reid Hoffman’s 2020 commencement speech focused on how chaos creates opportunities. The act of breaking the patterns and habits of the world allows new ones to form. Stuff that previously couldn’t get a hold suddenly can. Not just anything, but think about where online meetings and classes were four months ago. There are tons of examples.

If we’re not going back to the exact way things were (and really, we never are), we’re going forward – into the future. Why not make it the future we want to be in? We don’t have to forecast. We can backcast. We can think about where we want to land and then build the connecting roads, bridges, and tunnels back to where we are.

Why predict their future when we can build ours? This disruption has given us permission to try something different. Chaos creates opportunities, it’s on us to spot and take them.