In my last post back in March, I wrote at the bottom about how my next post would be about Women of Influence and not coronavirus.
Oh, how wrong I was. How life has changed for all of us in the past four months.
Not only did we not end up having that event, but we haven’t hosted in an-person event since then (although we did run the profiles in print that week).
I’ll never forget how fast things happened that week. I came down with a minor cold and ended up working from home that Thursday and Friday, so my last day of working in the office was that Wednesday. By the following Monday, everything in Allegheny County was shut down – work, restaurants, retail, and by Tuesday daycare for my son (we chose to keep him out that Monday).
Other than a couple of quick trips to pick up some stuff, I haven’t been back to the office since that fateful week in March. Instead, I’ve adapted to teleworking, managing a team remotely as we’ve covered all that 2020 has had to offer – coronavirus, George Floyd’s death, an economic recession the likes we’ve never seen, coronavirus part 2 and more.
At this point in time, Covid 19 cases are high nationwide, and higher here in Pittsburgh than they were back during the first peak in April. I’ve been lucky thus far in that I don’t personally know anyone who has gotten seriously ill with Covid yet. Restaurants are operating at 25% capacity dine-in (take-out is ok) and teleworking is strongly encouraged. The rules, particularly for restaurants, keep changing, as we highlighted in a recent cover story.
To link to every Covid-19 story we’ve written like I did in my last blog post would be far too arduous (and depressing) of a task – suffice it to say that it has consumed a large percentage of our coverage since March. In fact, it’s rare that the pandemic is not mentioned in a story because it has impacted every industry and everything that anybody does for a living.
The packages that we did early on are worth mentioning. In one, we followed eight small businesses as they navigate through Covid-19, and we will continue to follow them later this year. It was part of a national package coordinated by our parent company, American City Business Journals.
Here’s the first part, which ran in April: Navigating Coronavirus: Eight small business execs share their stories
And here’s part two, which was part of a big national package: Small Business, Big Mission: Navigating coronavirus Part II — Small business owners remain resilient in the face of adversity
The second package I’ll highlight is one we did back in April where we got thoughts from senior executives in the region. It’s called CEO Conversations: Senior executives talk about what’s changed, what’s next and how to manage all the uncertainty
Finally, the last one I’ll mention is Office of the Future. In June, some businesses started to return to the office after weeks of teleworking. While that has been dialed back some since then due to the rise in local cases, people still are wondering what will the office look like not only upon return, but also months down the road.
This package can be found here: Offices, reassembled: Here’s a primer on what offices may look like now and in the future as a new normal emerges
One thing that is certain is things are constantly in flux right now. And that’s bound to continue as Covid cases continue to rise and with a presidential election just around the corner.
With that said, I won’t try to predict my next post this time ….