First Week of December 2020

First week of December 2020 @ Business Daily

I can empathize with the editor who suddenly realized that December is here and had to start summarizing the “remaining” stories to fit in the paper before the year ends. It is pretty difficult to isolate the top stories from the important ones and then establish which have the highest impact. COVID-19 has probably been the top story throughout the year, but the important stories are the lives impacted and livelihoods changed. John Creswell says research of the future is about “numbers and stories”. The data on layoffs, profit warnings, fatalities, tax and technology give us a heads up on the direction things seem to be taking, but the emerging stories of how people are coping and others moving on with life “regardless” of the pandemic are the ones that create the future. This second group have decided that life cannot be put on hold and therefore are planning, training, developing and working towards the future with hope and determination - whether they get the vaccine or not. Somehow life must go on and that seems to be the message. While scaling back and repositioning is now a major occupation of all industries bracing themselves to operate under depressed economic conditions, there are those who are taking on new challenges with the eyes of visionaries and see opportunity where others see problems. The numbers in 2020 tease and challenge us to examine whether the glass is half empty or if it is half full.

Allan Bukusi

Sources – Business Daily