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Re:Coronavirus may mean automation is coming sooner than we ... by uses on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @02:07PM (#22948442)
From what I've seen the thinking about permanent change is more that, massive changes are being made now, and inertia will mean those changes will stay in place, because they'll actually turn out to be better anyway. It's just that the cost of implementing or even considering those changes was too high before, but it's necessary now.
Re:Coronavirus may mean automation is coming sooner than we ... by WorldMaker on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @02:32PM (#22948694)
I think a lot of that is going to depend on the types of investors left in the stock market and the types of Highly Paid Consultants that Sell Their Vision after all of this.

At the moment it seems equally likely that some companies come out of all of this with the "lesson" that remote work caused their downturn in productivity and stock value (who can remember that every other company experienced the same when your investors only care "what have you done lately?" and "what have you done 'proactively'?") and we'll quickly see a return to "everybody needs to be in the office together" culture back backed by the same consultants that learned the wrong lessons after Marissa Mayer's Yahoo! house cleaning and were still badly ratcheting companies towards as miserable as possible colocation strategies.

It seems about 50/50 to me right now which group will prevail. At least with US public traded companies the only inertia seems to whatever shiny fad stock traders are enamored with versus whatever misery HPCs manage to sell on golf courses in C-Suite handshakes. (ETA: Some of whom, the worst stock investors and HPCs are the same people, of course.)

Re:Coronavirus may mean automation is coming sooner than we ... by perl4ever on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @09:54PM (#22952120)
Well predicting some companies will do something can't be wrong.

But working from home will expose a lot of stuff that can be done from home, a lot of employees who turn out to prefer working from home, and a lot of CEOs and accountants and so on will realize a lot of money can be saved on real estate. People are being quoted in the news along these lines, you don't have to anticipate it.

Re:Coronavirus may mean automation is coming sooner than we ... by anpago on Thursday April 23, 2020 @06:27PM (#22962283)
Agreed but it will also expose many who simply can't work at home also.

I am a advocate for working from home. But I know plenty of people and roles who are suffering a great deal from working from home.

Re:Coronavirus may mean automation is coming sooner than we ... by ajsnigrutin on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @03:10PM (#22949077)
I just hope more companies consider working from home even after this. I've talked with some buddies of mine, and i've heard massively different results (from productivity a lot higher than on-premises work (one of the companies is a shared-space coding house... so it's very understandable), to practically zero productivity (public sector, they've actually hired a private detective due to issues)..

I know working from home all the time is not optimal, but reducing the "drive to work" days and replcing then with "work from home" for people who prefer that would be great.

Re:Coronavirus may mean automation is coming sooner than we ... by perl4ever on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @09:52PM (#22952106)
Stickiness; hysteresis.

I'm thinking of how you have something like a powder or gravel, and you shake the container and it levels out like liquid.

Re:Coronavirus may mean automation is coming sooner than we ... by kyawzazaw on Wednesday April 22, 2020 @04:23PM (#22949780)
Can you list out some of those changes?