ON THE ROAD AGAIN?

Comparing my business travel behavior of 2019 and 2020 very interesting results are being delivered.

Travel distance 85.000 km (2019) — 2.000 km (2020)

Travel Expenses 8.000 EUR (2019) — 400 EUR (2020)

Number of Foreign negotiations and workshops 7 (2019) — 49 (2020)

The number of working days spent at work was the same.

Same route (work to home, same time of the day) first EUC, second CAR, there are just 24 hours between these videos

The reason for this big difference was (of course) the COVID-19 pandemic that changes completely the way I traveled to work (car 2019, EUC 2020) so as the way I am negotiating with partners and clients (Face to Face 2019, Screen to Screen 2020).

Within four years (2014–2019) I have been able to deliver the INDUSTRY 5.0 speech or negotiate about implementation from 15 countries, Just in 2020 it was 49 and the number of my business network doubled just with 9 months comparing to 9 years. The members represent already 150 countries.

Currently (September 7th, 2020) is Czechia facing the second pandemic wave, and despite that workshops and meeting turning back to physical, as NORMAL but once again it seems to me that the people and businesses forgot that there is another way as well except the face to face meeting. A way that can significantly increase the number of participants, partners, clients without the increasing cost (travel).

Because of not being able to participate in one of the local events personally, I asked the organizer if he considered offering live streaming as well. The replay was negative, because of “End of the pandemic”

But is this right?

Despite many using COVID-19 as an excuse for all fails including the global economic downturn, I have to look at it with the INDUSTRY 5.0 and waste prevention eyes and apply the 6R methodology.

1. RECOGNIZE. The lockdown delivered to all the possibilities to reveal and remember what is important and what is necessary. Many found out that work has to be done, but it must not be done in the office at the other corner of the city, but can be done from home.
2. RECONSIDER. We have learned that run is contra-productive in a location of the flat size so we have learned to walk. Instead of spending hours on the way to our meetings we spend seconds before turning the right app on and join the team. We have learned to speak slowly, reduce the number of charts and the size of excel sheets and present only the important facts in the manner every one on the other side of the digital river will understand.
3. REALIZE. We have adopted tools developed but forgotten. Webcam becomes the rabbit hole and we reached worlds we never expected to visit. Our ability to communicate improved and the boring handshakes and hugs become wanted.
4. We skipped REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE because they become obsolete as soon as we learned to prevent waste happens, having more time, more family, more space, and more value because we have learned to value small and unnoticed higher than big and necessary.

For Thirty Three years we trusted in PROMISES (KYOTO, PARIS, MADRID) and we are asked to entrust lies for another decade. But I think the LEADERS OF THE WORLD choose the wrong timing.

Thanks to the lockdown, the people and businesses slow down having the opportunity to look around. After so many years for the very first time and what they saw shocked them.

Instead of good for all and the planet beautiful as in the memories, there is the image of destruction and global landfill everywhere. Instead of nature, torture, production for the garbage container.

The people and companies start to ask WHY this happens and start to look for the answers. We must not take our cars and spend hours in the traffic to learn what we would like to know. We are just a click away and this is the reason why not in one place, but on one planet the change is requested and this is why INDUSTRY 5.0 and systematic waste prevention is being asked by so many.

We are on the road, but this time no black marks have to remain