Along came a pandemic and forced the automotive industry—among most others—to shut everything down and send employees home for months. But something interesting happened; companies were amazed by how much work was getting done. So many companies—PSA, for example—are thinking about offering employees the option of working at home even once the pandemic will be over. They’re already dreaming of reducing the amount of office space they need to spend for.
Some jobs, of course, have to be done on site—nobody’s got an assembly line in their living room at home—but a surprising amount of deskwork can efficiently be done remotely. What’s more, sudden necessity has quickly increased the acceptance of online meetings, and that seems likely to persist past the pandemic. People who never before used video conferencing are now becoming proficient at connecting over Skype, Zoom, FaceTime, or another such service. We’re learning how to connect reliably, how to adjust the camera and get the lighting right. The resultant face-to-face interaction is sufficiently good and productive that executives want to see this continue even once the lockdowns will be lifted. They foresee big increases in productivity and great cost savings by eliminating a lot of travel and commuting.
And what about congresses and workshops? With virtual conferences like Ecomotion and EPIC, there’s not so much conviviality as we’re accustomed to in live events—but an online event is surely better than a cancelled one. The EPIC online technology conference was fascinating. We couldn’t have face to face meetings or networking, and we couldn’t visit expo booths, but even minus the in-person perks it was a fruitful event. This week we bring you summaries of some of the lectures—take a look at the high-level contentl; the benefits of coöperation between the lighting and photonics communities is plain to see: the lighting industry offers big markets for new technologies from the photonics industry. Let’s see how we can facilitate the connections!
I would like to apologize about the postpone to next week, the report of Marelli Automotive Lighting. We needed one week more to polish this report, adding more information.
Sincerely yours