Let’s be grateful we had Zoom and that it was free!

Today, I checked the COVID statistics and I marveled at how far we have come.  From thousands of new infections every day to now just about 1.3% testing positive.  How grateful I feel.  Don’t you?

My gratefulness doesn’t just end with the fact that we have been able to contain the COVID giant from wiping out humanity, it also extends to the fact that, at the time COVID hit us hard, technology had progressed and advanced so much that many of us were able to keep our careers going and keep our social lives in tact because of it.

Email was widely used in the office, but email does not allow for the type of collaboration and discussion necessary to complete most intricate projects.  Zoom’s “share screen” was invaluable in making sure that colleagues could get together and mimic the work environment in a productive way.  Charts, slides, attendance lists, you name it…all could be shared just as they would have been in an office environment.  And, the white board, could be pulled up and used to brainstorm through any impasse amongst team members regarding a project’s strategy or design.

Without Zoom, birthday celebrations involving friends and family members nearby and abroad could not have taken place.  The creativity in Zoom backgrounds and games played virtually was enough of a reason for many of us to call into these celebrations and just bask in a couple of hours of fun. 

How could grandmas and grandpas have attended Thanksgiving 2020 and Christmas 2020 without Zoom?  The elderly, our most vulnerable, were specifically advised not to have in-person interactions.

Also, Zoom gave us the chance to chat, catch up and opportunities to share in our collective grief about the fact that the youngest amongst us may never know what it was to live completely free before COVID.  These talks were life-sustaining and kept us going.

I asked one of my associates how she was keeping her close friendships alive during COVID.  She giggled and said that she and her group had weekly Zoom calls and that it was the best part of her week.  How would we have been able to maintain connection without the invention of this easy-to-use, free tool?  I, myself, could not imagine getting through COVID without having access to my bi-weekly meeting to play games virtually, laugh and just “smell the roses” with fellow human beings.

Now, as we’ve collectively gotten savvier in our use of technology, some of us have branched out to other platforms – MS Teams, Cisco Webex, GoToMeeting, StartMeeting, BlueJeans – but it all started with Zoom for most of us.

So, let’s raise a glass to Zoom and thank them for keeping us all going!