We end our celebration of the past 25 years in business with our vision for the future.
The year 2020 turned out to be a pivotal one in history. The worldwide protests against discrimination and the devastation that resulted from a lack of a global strategy to deal with COVID 19 were the impetus for both new policy and new technology.
The vast majority of employees around the world no longer congregate at a central location. Those who are comfortable and productive working from home, do so. Others go to shared office locations near their homes, significantly reducing the energy used for transportation. To facilitate this, governments got involved to ensure reliable, high speed, internet services at greatly reduced rates. New laws also required Internet Service Providers to take an active role in reducing scams and spam by reviewing complaints and removing service from known offenders.
Holographic technology was greatly advanced, with meetings occurring via projection and VR glasses, seemingly putting everyone around the same table.
Social media platforms that were unable to moderate, or actually promoted misinformation, discrimination and hate speech, floundered, then failed. Platforms that allowed for decentralized identity (protecting personal info) and community based reputation ranking of content creators became popular. Individuals were then able to moderate and approve messages based on community reputation score as well as content and settings in their decentralized identity systems. Many online communities were created around a single common interest.
Brands were forced to make outright statements about their values and how they promote and sustain action that supports those values. Brand loyalty communities became popular and resulted in customers volunteering their time to do good works funded by the brand. This changed marketing and advertising a great deal, with outgoing messaging focusing first on a cause, and only second on a product or service.
CCOs – Chief Communication Officers – became the second-highest-ranking executives in most companies. For years now, they have posted weekly, if not daily, bulletins to the front pages of their websites, providing updates on their progress as companies and advocates for change.
Which brings us to news of our team members from 2020. Most of those CCO updates are done with a content management system developed by James. Our problem-solving wizard developed the first website using blockchain technology, which made it impossible to hack, and created a very simple content management system for text editing. James retired at the age of 55, bought a sailboat with his accumulated bitcoin, and spends his time traveling among the world’s most beautiful beaches.
Joanne was actually the first to retire from the team though. She became a professional poker player for a few years, and now spends summers in both Canada and Australia, avoiding winter altogether.
Andrew left the team when his digital art became a must-have acquisition for the rich and famous. Like most art in the home nowadays, it is displayed on mounted screens and can be switched to a different image with a simple voice command.
Paul began writing music again and retired when one of his songs went platinum. He moved to BC to enjoy the milder weather.
Mike and Angela found a house on an even higher mountain than they used to live, and enjoy life completely off the grid. Mike goes into the office every once in a while to check on his bitcoin.
Nick and Keara have been very successfully running the business for several years now. They still argue about everything initially, but their debates end in agreement on truly amazing strategies to the benefit of their many happy clients.
Thank you to all of our clients for your continuing support. You make us strive for excellence every single day.
Continued:
The Story of Us 1980s
The Story of Us 1991-1995
The Story of Us 1996-1999
The Story of Us 2000
The Story of Us Early 2000s
The Story of Us – More on the Early 2000s
The story of Us – mid-2000s
The Story of Us – The Interlude
The Story of Us – 2007-2015
The Story of Us – The last five years
The Story of Us – 2045