Will COVID-19 Change Us Forever?
It’s hard to see the future, but it is easy to see trend emerging. And like 9-11 changed airport travel forever, COVID-19 is changing us the same way. 
One trend that is beginning to take hold is wellness. Wellness is not new, but our new level of hand-sanitizer wellness is new. Cleanliness will be a on everyone’s minds (and hopefully curb all kinds of contagious diseases). Hand sanitizer is being used at record levels. Some will return to less hygienic habits after the crisis abates, but most will carry a heightened awareness and anxiety about all diseases that are transferred person to person.
That means new thinking about spaces in our businesses from lobbies to lines. Staying healthy should be effortless, but obvious to a public with heightened awareness. People will reward organizations that adopt efforts to stem germ transfer.
The real question will be how one social effort conflicts with other social efforts. Grocery stores will no longer allow reusable bags to be brought into the store due to cleanliness issues. How will that conflict with those who want save the environment. So is it better to be clean than green? In the case of shopping bags, clean will win out for now.
Stakeholder (and employee) safety will be a new mantra for organizations for years to come.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.