The “new now” leads to the “new normal” which seems to be about two years out—so what do we do “now” to get there? As businesses, what messages do we get out there, what behaviors do we encourage, what bridges do we build?

The coronavirus pandemic has shut down the American marketplace as we know it. The shops on Main Street and within the malls are boarded up, restaurants have become take-out only, and tens-of-millions have been laid off. Eventually, some semblance of an economy will return—but what kind of economy will it be? Derek Thompson, staff writer at The Atlantic, asks these questions and expects that the pandemic will radically reshape American consumption—from the components of our diets to the composition of our cities.

The new normal—America 2.0—what will it look like? So far it seems there will be greater distances and protective shields between us. So how does that work in a restaurant? At a football game? Or a wedding? We’re figuring it all out right now, designing the new economy by necessity.

Find out how to Become an America 2.0 Thought Leader

PIVOT

So, how should businesses best communicate and conduct themselves? A recent study from Kantar reveals that 75% of respondents felt that companies should not exploit this health crisis to promote their brand…. 8% felt that companies should stop advertising altogether… and 77% expect brands to be helpful during this pandemic. So aim needs to pivot from brand promotion to looking at ways you can help and support your customers. Whole Foods, for example, now gives free disposable face masks to customers at all its stores.

And what might the future hold for businesses that don’t see this catastrophe as a time to shift strategies? Mark Cuban said it well on WBUR’s OnPoint radio program:

Their brand is going to get destroyed. How you treat your employees today will have more impact on your brand in future years than any amount of advertising, any amount of anything you literally could do. Because, again, we’re all suffering from this. Every single person is looking to see how their company is treating them, how their employers are treating family members and friends.

Let’s first examine how some companies are pivoting their approaches by reshaping their messaging. Dell Technologies, for example, in a new campaign says their “advisors are here to help, standing by you every step of the way.” Branson says his Virgin Atlantic planes and crews are “ready when you are.” Ford says they know we have “a lot to take care of,” and that they are “built to lend a hand,” so we should buy a car online and pay 90 days later with touchless delivery. NBC says that we “come together by staying apart.” And Quicken Loans lets us know their “first priority is the health and safety” of their “team members, clients and communities,” so if you need assistance with your home finances, you can contact them.

Ride-hailing drivers saw their regular income disappear overnight as stay-at-home orders decimated their businesses, making it impossible to take people to and from offices, airports or nightlife. So what Uber did is pivot. Their drivers are still working, but they are now shuttling health-care professionals to work and delivering food to people through the company’s Uber Eats service.

Domino’s Pizza also pivoted and is now doing “contactless delivery,” where customers don’t have to interact with a delivery person. The delivery people wear gloves, so they’re not actually touching the product. And they don’t even touch the doorbell. They simply leave the item and then send a text message that it’s there waiting. The customer doesn’t have to sign anything or chit chat at the door. The concept responds to the situation, which is that people need to stay away from each other.You can see unique  aircraft models on our partner’s website. You can also buy jewelry at Kate Jewelery and Antha Jewelry shop!

Realize that businesses that are most sensitive and adaptable to keeping people healthy will do the best. Attention to public safety is imperative.

MESSAGES AS ACTIONS

For Merrow Manufacturing in Fall River, MA, their response was to convert their factory so it could produce personal protective equipment. During a press conference held at the facility, Governor Baker said he thinks the company will “become the largest manufacturer of PPE in the country,” while highlighting the “bravery” and the “commitment” of the employees. Part of the initiative is that the fabric comes from Massachusetts manufacturers, which means that this governor is proactively building a home grown supply chain which can produce goods when the borders close.

In the media world, hundreds of publications, such as the New York Times, The Economist, and the MIT Technology Review took down their paywalls on COVID-related content.

Enterprise Rent-A-Car lowered the minimum age for rentals; pre-COVID-19 it was 25, post COVID-19 it’s 18. In an email, the company explained that the reason was because so many colleges and universities were closing and kids needed to get home with their belongings. Other car rental companies followed, pivoting in similar ways to acknowledge the realities of the situation.

LVMH, a French multinational corporation specializing in luxury goods, stopped production of perfumes and pivoted to making hand sanitiser, which they distributed for free to hospitals. Fashion brand Christian Siriano pivoted its mission, and now their factories make face masks and other protective equipment for healthcare workers. The coffee brand Kopiko donated beverages to hospitals in Manila. And the Malaysian burger restaurant myBurgerLab is lending their staff to help the elderly and those with restricted mobility to shop and run errands.

And it’s encouraging to also see large corporations—such as Kraft-Heinz, KFC, and Bacardi—donating millions to recovery and research efforts.

CONCLUSION

The aim for everyone is to get back to normal as soon as possible without putting anyone at risk. The instant rise of Zoom is an indicator of how fast things are changing, so it’s important for businesses in their messaging to acknowledge that the situation is constantly changing. But, even though it’s changing, assure them that you remain dedicated to them by offering assistance, applauding their efforts to keep us all safe, and above all by showing empathy—and that is done by acknowledging the reality of a very hard situation. But your point is that we are all in it together, and our efforts today will be what shapes the future.

And to help us all learn how to adapt to these changes and get to that future, YouTube is offering us lessons on everything from sewing face masks and cutting your own hair to growing your own food and baking from scratch; and their messaging that “we’re all doing our best to get by” and that “we’re all just figuring it out, together” is accompanied by one of the recently used hashtags to reassure us that “right now getting by is more than enough.” Get by #WithMe

So, this Memorial Day, let’s all go with the idea of the “front yard cookout” from Oscar Mayer… let’s roll the barbecue from the backyard to the front, so we can grill with the neighbors on the street and all be a healthy distance apart as we celebrate safely in America 2.0.

Rolling out America 2.0 will not be the “same old” template. Communication will be the key for both returning employees and customers. Companies need to embrace a new mindset, and utilize the thought process to carefully craft public and internal messages that both re-spark interest in goods and services as well inspire employee confidence.  Let BVM help you restart your business.

—————————–

For a good resource on writing your COVID-19 related emails see: How To Adjust Brand Communications During COVID-19

For copywriting guidelines see: Marketing During COVID-19: 4 Essential Copywriting Guidelines

The post MEMORIAL DAY, AMERICA 2.0 AND ROLLING THE GRILL TO THE FRONT YARD appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

What makes a good leader during a crisis? A wrong move could destroy trust and cause confusion, which will only make the problem worse. David Robson of the BBC tells us that a good leader will clarify the problem and unite the population, create trust, be open and avoid any desires to sugar coat. Treat the public as adults. If you don’t, they’ll sense deception, which diminishes credibility and trust for any polices a leader wants to implement.

Some of the best methods to create thought leadership can be found here.

Among McKinsey’s ways to manage a crisis are being able to show empathyand being able to communicate openly. In Forbes we read about the need for accountability. It appears from all assessments that basically what we want in times of crisis is honest, factual information and someone to take responsibility.

These leadership qualities–empathy, openness, accountability–are also associated with women’s leadership styles. This could be the big lesson of this crisis: The leadership qualities we need are those associated with the way women lead. This may help explain why Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand is currently the gold standard for crisis leadership. And judging by their country’s low mortality rates, we could say the same for PM Mette Frederiksen of Denmark, PM Katrín Jakobsdóttir of Iceland, and PM Sanna Mirella Marin of Finland.

Besides the exemplary leadership of PM Ardern, this blog will look at the extraordinary job Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York has been doing at the epicenter of the crisis, along with Dr. Antohony Fauci, the scientific voice of reason who has been providing the nation with clear advice from the White House. For honorable mentions, we’ll look at Elon Musk who’s kicking his factories into gear to make ventilators, and we’ll hear about MA Governor Baker’s backdoor channel to China and the call he made to Robert Kraft to loan him a plane.

All of these people provide good examples for how to lead in times of crisis. But it would be remiss and disgraceful to leave out the doctors and nurses on the frontlines–they are the heroes of this story–leaders are the coordinators of their efforts, the communicators of their needs, and they are also profoundly important morale boosters for a society that’s overwhelming the medical community–it is the doctors and nurses who are doing the actual fighting in the war against COVID-19. And it is they for whom we reserve the most praise.

*****************************************************************************************************

PM Jacinda Ardern

In times of crisis the message should have five aims: It must offer a credible explanation of what happened, offer guidance, instil hope, show empathy and convince the public that their leader is in control. If you fail on any one, you lose the public’s confidence.

These days, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is the gold standard for crisis management. As exhibited in her heartfelt reaction to the Christchurch shootings and now her extraordinary performance during the COVID-19 pandemic, her clear and compassionate style, make her one of the best examples of modern day leadership. Her message following the Christchurch shooting showed compassion for the victims and delivered security measures to prevent further tragedy. For this performance she received widespread acclaim across the globe.

In this current crisis, before anyone in New Zealand had died from coronavirus, PM Ardern imposed a lockdown: schools were closed, only essential shops remained opened, and borders were secured. As of the writing of this article, three weeks later, data shows that the prime minister appears to have not only flattened the curve, but could even have eliminated the virus from the country.

“Success or failure in times of crisis,” says Suze Wilson, “hinges on getting people to follow your leadership, even though it demands sudden, unsettling, unprecedented changes to their daily lives.” PM Adern’s March 23 press conference concerning the COVID-19 emergency is considered a perfect example of crisis communication. Her daily televised briefings stress her message, and her regular Facebook live sessions endear and calm the public, who are reacting favorably to her transparent style of decision-making. Following on her promises, the government provided an alert system that gives the people a clear idea of what is going on and the reasons behind her actions. Polls show 80% support for the government’s response.

The lockdown Ardern imposed was severe. Swimming at the beach and hunting were banned. But within 10 days the number of new cases fell. Right from the start, Ardern spoke in simple language: “Stay home. Don’t have contact with anyone outside your household ‘bubble.’ Be kind. We’re all in this together.”

Denmark with 260 recorded deaths as of this article, became one of the first countries to lay out plans for the gradual reopening of shops and businesses. “We’ve managed to avoid the misfortune that has befallen a number of other countries,” Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said at a press conference on April 6th. “The only reason for that” is that “we acted early.” Iceland’s PM Katrín Jakobsdóttir has recorded 7 deaths, and Finland’s PM Sanna Mirella Marin’s efforts have kept her country’s number of deaths at 49–which means that these numbers need examining to see if there is a correlation between female leadership and pandemic containment.

Governor Andrew Cuomo

In great times of darkness and chaos, great leaders emerge. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo has become a source of light and reason during pandemonium. Slow, calm, cool, measured and clear. Articulate, simple, and honest. Flanked by easy read to slides projected onto large screens, Gov Cuomo has been taking New Yorkers and the nation calmly through one of the worst crises we have ever faced. He explains the simple steps to follow and takes pauses along the way. Shows gratitude to the medical community. Sorrow for the afflicted. And always steers clear of politics by keeping the focus solely on defeating the virus.

His morning briefings have been watched by millions. It’s become clear that he is on everyone’s side because he fights so fiercely for the equipment that the medical workers need–the tests and the ventilators and the masks–he is always focused on the doctors and nurses fighting the scourge and the resources they need to stop it. To protect lives. The nation can feel that Gov Cuomo is in charge and they know he’s on it–doing everything he can to fix the problems by explaining clearly what we need to do in order to fix them.

And one of the ways in which he has gained so much trust is that he never over sells his knowledge. He is clear to explain that the situation is a place in which no one has been before and therefore we were all figuring it out together–he tells us that there will be confusion, and there will be some groping, but together we will get through. He’s bringing the nation together by being honest, reliable and relatable. He’s reaching out with his heart when he needs to, providing charts to buttress his points, and fielding all the questions that the press can ask, and by doing so he puts fears and rumors to rest.

Polls currently show that almost 9 out of 10 New Yorkers approve of the governor’s handling of the crisis.

See Governor Cuomo’s coronavirus briefing of Mar 19, 2020 | NBC News (Live Stream Recording) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODj5B_MzyTA.

Dr. Anthony Fauci

When White House briefings get contentious, a little doctor takes the stand. A gnome-like man. He appears kind, he’s gentle, he is soft and the information he shares seems to be true and honest, because he admits to what he knows and to what he doesn’t. He is reliable and factual. And above all non partisan.

In a time when science is vital, when the facts, the steps people need to take in order to remain safe are needed, it’s Anthony Fauci, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who is rising to the occasion. The nation waits everyday to hear from Dr. Fauci. His pedigree is impeccable. His science sound. His voice is kind. And his projections are always reliable, because he never claims anything for which he does not have evidence. Advice is not based on his feelings. He is a medical doctor there to stop a virus from killing people and no one doubts his credentials or his dedication to that mission. Dr. Fauci has won the approval of 78 percent of Americans while just 7 percent disapproved, a Quinnipiac national survey showed.

See Dr. Fauci address the question of ‘when’ we’ll return to normal | Morning Joe | MSNBC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcbIw1unQp4

Sometimes the best leadership comes in the form of action, as opposed to communication:

Elon Musk

Due to a national shortage of ventilators, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that he had bought hundreds of ventilators from China and shipped them to the US. “China had an oversupply, so we bought 1,255 FDA-approved ResMed, Philips & Medtronic ventilators & air shipped them to LA,” Musk tweeted. Musk also said that the company’s factory in Buffalo, New York, will open “as soon as humanly possible” to produce more ventilators there.

Baker & Kraft

Due to a national shortage of personal protective equipment, Governor Baker of Massachusetts opened up a backdoor channel to China, negotiated the sale of nearly two million masks and then asked Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, to loan him a jet so he could pick them up. The Patriots’ owner responded by saying, Yes! “In today’s world,” Kraft said, “those of us who are fortunate to make a difference have a significant responsibility to do so with all the assets we have available to us.”

The biggest problem they faced was getting the legal right to land the plane. Gov Baker, the U.S. The State Department, Mr. Kraft and others sent letters to China’s consul general requesting special permits, waivers to allow a “humanitarian mission” and they promised no member of the crew would leave the aircraft.

Kraft paid $2 million, or half the cost of the goods, and the order of 1.7 million N95 masks arrived. “What we needed,” said Jim Nolan, who spearheaded the logistics as the COO of Kraft Sports and Entertainment, “were boots on the ground to gather the goods and get them to the right place.”

CONCLUSION

On April 7, United Nations’ Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued an urgent appeal for action, calling on politicians to “forget political games” and come together for a “strong and effective response.” “The world is facing an unprecedented test. And this is the moment of truth,” he said.

It’s also been said that it is the times which make leaders and not the other way around–to say that someone rises to the occasion means they do what is necessary to successfully overcome a difficult situation… PM Ardern, Gov Cuomo, Dr. Fauci… are leading in times of crisis, providing security and comfort, clear instructions and empathy. Musk, Baker and Kraft show a different kind of crisis leadership, where it’s not so much the rhetoric as it is the action which leads the way through the crisis. But together they work hand in hand. We need leaders who can unite us to do our parts to help those on the frontlines, and together we’ll defeat the virus.

In times of crisis, new leaders will emerge from unforseen corners of society. Their capacity for  honesty, clarity, and innate ability to show  understanding, compels many to listen. They instill a hope that unites with compassionate phrases such as, we will get through, even though we’re stumbling at times because we don’t know where we are… but if we stay together, we’ll learn, adapt, get through the crisis… and rise.

###

CODA: As of the final draft of this article, NPR and The Boston Globe have reported that: many of the masks brought to the U.S. by the Patriots plane were not the industry-standard. Hospitals in Boston and beyond decline to use and remain reluctant about them; and the devices Elon Musk gave away aren’t powerful enough to use in the ICU–health officials have warned against using them because they could spread the virus further.

The post Anatomy of COVID-19 Communication Leaders appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

By Michael McCord
Published: June 2007

So you think it’s easy to go out on your own and start your own business and be your own boss?

Just ask Dale Allaire and Mike Emerton, former Cabletron alums (is there anyone in the Seacoast region who isn’t?) and veteran public relations and marketing mavens who founded Portsmouth-based BridgeView Marketing LLC late last year.
Ask them about the joys of starting a business from scratch with their own money — “we cashed in a few 401ks,” Allaire told me — and then having to work even more hours than before.

And ask them as well about having, well, to deal with matters left to others in their former corporate lives. Such as hauling the office water supply up a few flights of stairs.

“We have to do everything,” Allaire told me recently when I stopped by to visit the duo in their small offices on separate floors of a Market Street building. “I took it for granted when I worked in the corporate world that you have all these people doing all these things.”

Those business essential “things” include billing, hooking up the computer networking system and yes, even hauling up water for guests.

But if you ask them if they are having the time of their lives — for the record, Emerton is 40 and Allaire, 39 — they don’t hesitate for a second. Of course they are.

They are having a good ole time despite working 60 to 70 hours a week and occasionally wondering at the beginning of their venture how much of a paycheck, if any, they might draw (they have a thing about paying without question their contract employees first, second and third before they get a penny). Now they have time to coach a Little League team and spend time home, luxuries not always found in their former corporate-regimented lives.

They are also excited because they are in the process of building a better mouse trap. Or in this case, a “new style of agency” to serve the high-tech industry of the 21st century.

Their office has a view of the Piscataqua River and the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge, the inspiration for their company logo and reflective of their ambition to, Allaire said, “bridge the gap of sales and marketing.”

“It’s a unique model,” Emerton explained. What they offer is one-stop, integrated, and outsourced shopping for companies in need of help but unable to fund their own shops.

BridgeView offers graphic design, corporate marketing, media relations and inside sales experts. The flexible model includes the founders as the company’s only full-time employees: they have a growing corps of specialist contractors who work from home in what often amounts to full-time employment.

“They are captains’ in their skill sets,” Emerton said. By not having major office overhead or associated employee costs, “we can keep costs extremely low.” What this translates to, they tell me, is more money for their contractors and the ability to offer clients expertise “at half the cost and double the services.” The contractors, reflective of “the huge talent pool” in the Seacoast region, Emerton said, have no shortage of deadlines (and so far, work) but the flexibility to meet them on their own.

This model, Emerton said, will allow the company to grow or deflate as necessary depending on market conditions. The result has been client growth that has surprised even them. They have 14 clients, including their first, Treeno Software (formerly Docutron Systems), and Emerton said most have signed repeat contracts for more services. Other local clients include Great Bay Software and Pannaway Technologies, where Allaire worked before starting BridgeView.

The brain and skill division between the two — who first met at Cabletron in the mid-1990s — has also been choreographed. Allaire has brought in a majority of the clients while managing the day-to-day affairs. “He’s an incredible salesman,” Emerton said. As for Emerton, when he’s not working as the IT guy, he’s a return-on-investment expert.

“He’s the thinker,” Allaire said. “He has a great ability to work internally with our clients and get them to expand services … plus, he’s really easy to play jokes on, which brings some comic relief to our long days.”

The comic relief cuts both ways. If you want a real laugh, Emerton tells me, he suggests checking out Allaire’s distinctly retro wardrobe.

To contact BridgeView Marketing, go to www.bridgeviewmarketing.com

The post Marketing experts set up shop with a view to the future appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

The fight against the novel coronavirus [COVID-19], perhaps the worst scourge since the influenza epidemic following World War I, will take the best minds and equipment that the public and private sector can muster.

This is why at the end of March, the White House joined forces with Big Tech to pool supercomputing resources. A new initiative will give researchers access to computing power which goes far beyond the average device and may lead to the discovery of new treatments and vaccines. The initiative called the COVID-19 High Performance Computing Consortium was launched by IBM with the help of Amazon, Microsoft, and Google.

“America is coming together to fight COVID-19, and that means unleashing the full capacity of our world-class supercomputers to rapidly advance scientific research for treatments and a vaccine,” said U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios in The Technology 202.

How It Works

Researchers can apply for access to the supercomputers to run AI-assisted simulations for such things as simulations of specific molecules related to vaccine development and new therapies. These types of supercomputer simulations can rapidly help predict mutations and evolution of the virus— at a blistering pace that is impossible for ordinary computers because of the number of variables that need to be considered. Another example is predicting the positive and negative effects of specific drugs. This is a computationally complex problem because it requires simulating the structure of molecules and their chemical features.

“These high-performance computing systems allow researchers to run very large numbers of calculations in epidemiology, bioinformatics, and molecular modeling. These experiments would take years to complete if worked by hand, or months if handled on slower, traditional computing platforms,” IBM said in a news release.

Microsoft and Google will provide research grants to use high-performance computing. Microsoft says its in-house data science experts will be available to team with researchers. In addition, Amazon Web Services will provide credits for cloud services and technical support to researchers to accelerate COVID-19 research and development.

Academic partners include Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). The Department of Energy National Laboratories, the RPI Science Foundation and NASA will also participate.

The announcement of this initiative follows the release of the COVID-19 Open Research Database, an open-access project from the National Institutes of Health that provides data from more than 44,000 articles about SARS-CoV-2 available for AI analysis.

Another supercomputer collective joining the battle is the C3.ai Digital Transformation Institute (DTI), which brings the skills and compute power of the AI company C3.ai with various academic institutions and private companies.

Thomas M. Siebel, founder and chief executive of C3.ai, told the New York Times, the first part of the company’s name stands for the convergence of three digital trends: big data, cloud computing and the internet of things, with A.I. amplifying their power. The institute will seek new ways of slowing the pathogen’s spread, speeding the development of medical treatments, designing and repurposing drugs, planning clinical trials, predicting the disease’s evolution, judging the value of interventions, improving public health strategies and finding better ways in the future to fight infectious outbreaks.

Some of the ways AI Techniques Seek to Mitigate the Pandemic Include:

• Genome-specific COVID-19 medical protocols, including precision medicine of host responses.
• Biomedical informatics methods for drug design and repurposing.
• Design and sharing of clinical trials for collecting and analyzing data on medications, therapies, and interventions.
• Modeling, simulation, prediction of COVID-19 propagation and efficacy of interventions.
• Logistics and optimization analysis for the design of public health strategies and interventions.
• Rigorous approaches to designing sampling and testing strategies.
• Data analytics for COVID-19 research harnessing private and sensitive data, including the role of edge computing/IoT for gathering data.

Conclusion

“Ultimately, we need a cure. To be able to tackle that, we need to accelerate science,” Dario Gil, director of IBM Research told the Wall Street Journal. “We do have an extreme sense of urgency.”

Supercomputing power coupled with access to a vast data set for experts to mine is a formidable force on the front lines in the war against the novel coronavirus. The machines to which researchers will have free access include two of the world’s most powerful supercomputers from IBM: Summit, at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Lassen, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The call is for the world’s leading scientists to join in a coordinated and innovative effort to bring advances in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet of Things, to help design the thinking needed to defeat this pandemic. If this virus is one of history’s meanest, then we’re currently throwing all the supercomputing power we’ve got at it.

Let us hope the same technology which can defeat the world’s best Jeopardy, Chess and Go masters will be able to defeat this virus too.

The post SUPERCOMPUTER v. NOVEL CORONA appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.

Here are some of the ways High Tech is helping:

Facebook is providing user data to help predict the next hotspot. Facebook is also donating $100 million in cash grants and ad credits for small businesses, and giving a $1,000 bonus to each of its 45,000 employees. Further, Facebook banned ads and commercial listings for hand sanitizer, surface disinfecting wipes, masks, and COVID-19 test kits. Rob Leathern, Director of Product Management at Facebook told NBC, “This is another step to help protect against inflated prices and predatory behavior we’re seeing.” Facebook is also combating the spread of coronavirus misinformation with accurate information from health organizations by putting the latest news and updates about the pandemic at the top of the news feeds. The new feature was built in association with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization and will include real-time health updates and offer resources and tips on how to stay healthy and support your family and community.

Google is offering location data from its Maps app, which may help understand social distancing requirements. Google also launched a website offering education, prevention and local resources related to Covid-19. The website has videos, a global map showing confirmed cases by country, and information about Google’s other relief efforts such as the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund, which is raising monies to mitigate the virus’s spread by supporting medical facilities and personnel.

Amazon is significantly expanding its U.S. workforce, opening 100,000 new positions in its fulfillment centers and delivery networks to keep up with the surge of demand. They also prioritized household staples, medical supplies and other high-demand products coming into their fulfillment centers. They also stepped-up efforts to ensure no one artificially raises prices on basic need products during the pandemic. Their Whole Foods Market division adjusted store hours to accommodate customers who are age 60 and over, who are invited to shop beginning one hour before the store opens to the general public. Also, Amazon is investing $20 million to accelerate diagnostic research, innovation, and development to speed understanding and detection and other innovative diagnostic solutions to mitigate future infectious disease outbreaks.

ServiceNow has released emergency response Apps to help government agencies and enterprises manage complex emergency response workflows—these apps are available free of charge. Jennifer McNamara, Chief Information Officer of Washington State’s Department of Health told BusinessInsider, “By leveraging ServiceNow’s Now Platform, we were able to digitize processes that allowed us to quickly resource critical Incident Management Team positions. This automated a manual and labor-intensive process that was fraught with errors while also providing real-time visibility into resource allocations.”

Expanding Medical Coverage

The White House caught on to telemedicine’s potential to mitigate and contain by expanding Medicare coverage for digital doctor visits and basically removed privacy hurdles so doctors may use popular video apps such as Apple’s FaceTime, Google Hangouts, Microsoft’s Skype and Facebook Messenger’s video chat feature. But it prohibits doctors from using apps that have public broadcasting features such as Facebook Live, Twitch and TikTok.

“The reality is that clinical brick-and-mortar medicine is rife with the possibility of virus exposure,” Dr. Jonathan Wiesen told Time. “The system we have in place is one in which everyone who is at risk is potentially transmitting infection. That is petrifying.” Instead, he’s suggesting people could call telemedicine centers and describe their symptoms to doctors who could determine whether they need COVID-19 -testing—without exposing anyone else. The data could then be mined to predict the movements of the epidemic in a population.

Conclusion

Doctors and patients will have easier ways to connect, emergency responders better ways to communicate, scientists better data to analyze. New and better ways to combat the virus are here. But these High Tech solutions come with the risk that these services could be used without protection, that companies will keep data in insecure ways. Hackers, who are already preparing for a surge of digital doctor visits, could easily search medical records.

Everyone understands that this pandemic is unprecedented and calls for novel action. However, lawmakers want to protect consumers and customers from companies that seek to profiteer off people in desperate times, as well as protect public entities and private organizations from malicious actions such as ransomware attacks. If privacy can be protected and security assured, then big tech certainly has a big role to play in helping stop the crisis.

The post BIG TECH’S BIG ROLE IN THE PANDEMIC BATTLE appeared first on Bridgeview Marketing.