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We started hearing in January about the CoronaVirus, aka COVID-19, but now it has become a big reality in our face, and we are all impacted. “Impacted” being the keyword. What is the impact you are having, and how ready are you or your company to deal with this situation.

I have started this post to share thoughts on the workplace readiness related to the CoronoVirus. I like to talk more about the Digital side of the world and how we can improve things and make a better world (challenging task – but we can try).

I like to hear your thoughts on Awareness and Actions leading to Readiness.

Awareness: How aware are you about the situation? Do you know where your employees live and how close they are to the impacted areas? How do we put all the news and alerts we are getting into a place where we can ingest this. In this world of technology, we should have a smart system telling us situational awareness. The phone tells us about a meeting at a specific place, and the time it’s going to take to get there. But not an alert or some blended information on what the status is around that place. We do get into privacy, but we have enough information on mail, etc. to decipher intelligence. After all, we are in a world that is about acquiring knowledge out of the data collected. 

Actions: What actions are companies taking to deal with the situation. Are they activating a Disaster Recovery Plan? What is a DRP for a modern workforce in a Modern-Day Architecture? If and when so many employees work from home, what will happen to the bandwidth. How are you dealing with the situation? Is there special cleaning being done? We can all ask questions and throw the responsibility for everything on the employers or the government, but the problem is what is logical. What actions should be taken? Work from home is an option, but how do employees and employers make it more effective so that it leads to quality work. Cloud/SaaS has completely changed the world of “work from home” and Disaster recovery plans, but the key is the culture and effectiveness.

Readiness: The Digital world is making a significant impact on the awareness of the situation, but I think a lot more can happen from technology to deliver valuable information to the end consumer.

Sourcing of Information: the topic is not different than our typical digital oil field solution or a data lake solution. Finding all the right sources of information and putting them together and building one view of information. We have to develop some common verified platforms which provide consolidated and quality data from different agencies – federal/state/local and even more like hospitals, etc. and putting all of this information into a structured way that provides you hierarchical information. 

Push vs Pull: All the information that is relevant to you is pushed to you rather than you having to pull the information and make sense out of it. It’s like the Amber alerts; the concept is excellent but needs some expansion to provide more information relevant to you.

I am leaving it open. Thoughts are welcome. I am sharing this dashboard, which is published by Johns Hopkins University. I think very relevantly and informative. But I imagine probably a 1000 more layers of information which are selected deselected to the correct user and doesn’t become information overload. Share your thoughts…

Varun Garg

Varun Garg

A tenured architect and technologist with a proven track record of leading companies into the future. With a firm affinity for technology, ensure organizations are leveraging the latest and greatest technical advancements to impact all levels of business and operations. A thought-leader and business influencer, have built a strong reputation for transforming companies and teams through the use of technology and data. Through the use of machine learning, able to change the vision and direction of companies due to enhanced functions and operations.