2020 certainly hasn’t been the year that we all thought it would be. Rather than continuing the paths that we all were traveling, a number of crises have placed us at a major crossroads in history. The actions that we – both “we” as individuals and “we” as a society – will shape the years to come. I believe that we have entered a period of time that should be called “The Great Reshuffling.” Think of society as a deck of cards, and the COVID-19 pandemic threw that deck of cards on the floor. As we begin the process of rebuilding the deck, we have a chance to put things in a different order that works for more people.
Needless to say, the economy is never going to go back to the way it was before 2020. So far, a good chunk of the jobs that were lost during the initial shutdown reappeared when the economy began to open a couple of months later. Unfortunately, there are a lot of jobs that aren’t going to come back during the recovery. Most of these jobs were created in the bubble of the last 20 years – part time, gig economy stuff. Brick and mortar retail jobs were already on the brink before COVID-19 hit, as a critical mass of people were already doing their shopping online, avoiding the ever-dwindling crowds at malls and shopping centers across the country. Many retailers put themselves in peril in two ways: not embracing the online experience and taking on amounts of debt which were barely reasonable with the sunniest of fiscal forecasts.
The restaurant and bar experience is never going to fully return, either. Larger chains that had already embraced curbside pickup and delivery will be fine. Smaller players are going to be the hardest hit. Already running on razor-thin margins, many independent restaurants have opted to continue carryout and delivery only, not just to slow the spread of coronavirus but to make ends meet during this time of reduced income. Cutting half the staff makes up for diminished sales in many cases, and automating much of the rest of the process helps as well. You don’t have to pay a computer $15 an hour, no matter how loudly those who don’t understand economics chant.
For individuals with any marketable skills, we’re still in a job-seeker’s market. However, it’s going to take some flexibility on the part of the job seeker. Are you willing to learn on the job? Are you willing to move somewhere new? Are you willing to put forth the effort to make yourself irreplaceable? The job market is still on your side. There were a lot of unfilled positions prior to the shutdown, and some of them are still open. There are also new industries popping up in our new reality – they may not be in your backyard, though.
Part of The Great Reshuffling should be a rethinking of skill sets, and the paths needed to reach them. With the second half of 2020’s spring semester moved online for college students and the threat of the fall semester moving completely online while colleges still charge for the in-person experience, perhaps we’ve reached the point where most undergraduate majors aren’t worth the cost. Perhaps this is the point where massive open online courses, or MOOCs, begin to become the standard to fulfilling many of the general education requirements needed to obtain a baccalaureate rather than filling a 300-person lecture hall with disaffected 19-year-olds.
We need a complete rethinking of higher education – making college “free” is merely filling an expanding sinkhole with bags of dirt from the hardware store. There are a lot of problems in the world today, and a great number of young people with a lot of energy. Why are we not harnessing this energy to fix those problems, embracing interdisciplinary independent study programs? For the most part, what we’re doing now is checking boxes off an imaginary list, preparing students for a world of 50 years ago. The events of 2020 have stripped the veneer away from our educational system, and now we can clearly see a rotten core.
If you were furloughed during the spring shutdowns, what did you spend your time doing? Was it something positive, like learning a new skill or helping your neighbors? Or, did you spend your time sitting on your couch, whining and moaning about how things are unfair? Positive versus negative change is the crux of The Great Reshuffling. I believe that those who have and are making a positive difference right now are going to come out on top when the dust settles, years in the future. For many, positive change might be difficult, depending on each person’s life situation. However, negative change can be easily avoided.
Another pressing issue unmasked during the past six months has been our health – or lack, thereof. Much of the death from COVID-19 has been in the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. Many of these underlying health conditions are preventable with proper diet and exercise. Much like the promise of “free” college discussed by some presidential candidates, “free healthcare” is being positioned as some kind of magic bullet that will, with a bunch of hand-waving, fix the American health care system. Even before the 2020 presidential season began, I’ve had a lot of discussions with friends about the economics of health care, and how government-run “free” health insurance doesn’t solve the root issues facing the system.
Much of what we consider “health care” is reactionary – you get sick or injured, you see a provider. Preventative care is ignored for multiple reasons – it’s not covered by insurance and it’s a much smaller revenue stream for hospitals and providers than most corrective procedures. It’s one of many cases of myopic thinking by decision-makers. Eating better, moving enough, and getting a yearly physical not only saves lives, but could save the system millions of dollars over a person’s life. Had we been thinking about this even a few years ago, we would have saved some lives during this pandemic.
This all returns to the dichotomy of positive and negative change. I’m proposing positive change – mostly on an individual level, because it’s the aspect over which we have the most control. You are able to change your diet and increase the amount you exercise. You have more agency over your situation than you think. You have the ability to spend money only on the things you need and not insist on spending money you don’t have on things you want in the moment. Something we learned from our current situation is how to truly separate the things we need from the things we want. During The Great Reshuffling, will we see a societal shift toward frugality, like people who grew up during The Great Depression? The sooner we can get away from online “influencers” displaying conspicuous consumption, the better.
Part of your personal reshuffling should be to remove yourself from social media to the greatest extent possible. Over the past few years, social media has turned into a cancerous cesspool of reactionaries, searching each day for another wrongthinker to destroy. Just a few days ago, I watched someone I know get “canceled” in real time by an online mob, for the crime of posting a few zesty jokes. It didn’t surprise me that one organization threw him under the bus the way they did in order to appease these activists (who, I’m pretty sure have never actually attended the meetings of that organization.)
Now is the time to disconnect from most social media and make yourself uncancelable. Quietly remove malcontents from friends-only areas and lock down anything even remotely objectionable. If you’re looking for work, you unfortunately have to have a digital footprint – make that footprint as vague as possible. Spend a few bucks now and secure a domain and Web space with a basic landing page with your resume – it’s all you need to be searchable in Google. (If you need help with any of this, I know a guy who can help you.) Public Facebook pages and spicy tweets from 11 years ago are the quickest way to get canceled in 2020, and it’s only going to get worse as the weak-willed continue to take a knee.
This is the time for every individual to take some personal responsibility and embark on a course of self-improvement. The only force holding you down is you. Not the system, not some imaginary group of people, not any politician. Your actions and activities determine your course in life, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you. If you get angry and loot and burn down your own neighborhood, don’t then sit and wonder why businesses won’t invest in your community and you’re forced to grocery shop 5 miles away. Negative actions cause negative outcomes, much as positive actions lead to positive outcomes. Stop listening to those who say you can’t – listen to those who say you can and will.
It’s a hard pill to swallow – there is going to be a lot of pain in the short-term in order to make things better for the long-term. Jobs are going to disappear forever. Lifestyles are going to need to permanently change. Some industries are going to vanish, while new sectors of the economy will appear with potentially new skill sets required. Doing what your parents, grandparents, or older siblings did may not be a viable option any more. We’ve been riding an unsustainable economic and societal bubble for decades – we need to begin to build something better now before it’s too late. Hopefully, it’s not too late already.
How does this all relate to entrepreneurship – the supposed focus of this blog? (Yes, I know I’ve drifted a bit from the original point of this blog over the last few months. It’s difficult to write about an entrepreneurial journey when I haven’t left eastern Iowa since February.) If there’s one group of people who need to step up in the coming months and years during The Great Reshuffling, it’s innovators and entrepreneurs. There are opportunities to make life better for everyone and solve the world’s most pressing problems. Now is the time to think big and think long-term.
But, how do we think long-term if short-term planning is nearly impossible? I think of Brad Feld’s book Startup Communities and his idea of the 20-year plan to build a startup community from scratch. The Great Reshuffling involves building a lot of things back up from scratch since the deck of cards was dumped on the floor. Think of what you’d like to see a generation from now and then figure out the steps you need to take in order to get there, all while understanding that things could be shut down again with very short notice as they were in March of this year. What can you do now during this time of uncertainty that you will not have to repeat if things shut down and reshuffle again in the next 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months? There are most certainly tasks you can accomplish now to build a solid foundation for your vision, regardless of future shutdowns.
The sooner we can get back to a place where well-meaning, productive people can get on with things, the better we all will be. I’m going to continue doing what I’ve been doing for years – bringing positive people into my local entrepreneurial ecosystem, and doing my best to keep the negative influences out. Entrepreneurs helping curate their local ecosystems will help bring us back from the brink. The hope is that we will set a precedent for others who want a better community, and the energy and motivation to do just that will radiate out from our projects.
If you share my vision, I’d be happy to help you. Let’s reshuffle together.