I Don't Know

During a recent phone conversation with a good friend, she mentioned how almost every conversation involves some brief pause followed by the conversation trailing off with some version of “I don’t know.” Before our conversation was over, she ended up saying it as well, after which we had a great laugh. I think most of us have probably said it during these crazy times.

True. There is a lot we don’t know. Our daily routines have been turned upside down and what seemed certain proved to be anything but. Jobs, meetups with friends, CAI in-person events, crazy rush hour traffic, you name it. Gone. However, in thinking about it a bit more, I think there is a lot more we do know than we don’t know.

We know we are resilient as an industry. For proof, just look at how our communities, management companies and business partners have navigated our current world. As a prime example, I had never heard of holding a board meeting via Zoom – maybe a conference call but never a video meeting. At this point, we’re even talking about holding annual meetings online. What in the world?! This is fantastic. Hopefully we will build off of this and use it as a tool to help limit the dreaded late night meetings.

We know that many of us can be very productive from a home office. True, it may seem that work is encroaching into our personal space but that happens anyhow with our almost always on smartphones. I’m not ready to swear off going into the office but I do love the idea of having more flexibility in the future.

We know we need each other. In our previous world, we were all so busy that our industry events sometimes almost became a chore to endure. Now I relish the thought of reconnecting in person and engaging in some “meaningless” conversation. I’m realizing the meaningless often leads to meaningful.

Finally, I know I’m proud I chose this industry as my profession. Think of all the innovative ideas that have been tried, discarded, revised, adopted over the last two months. We are anything but stale, at least if we’ve engaged and wrestled with our brave new world.

All told, we know a heck of a lot more than we don’t know. 

Don Plank