Evanston RoundTable, Feb. 17, 2021 Change happens slowly, then all at once, Hemingway wrote in “The Sun Also Rises.” Take the National Health Service in Great Britain. Free nationwide health care had been debated in Parliament for decades, but it took World War II to make it happen. Once the war started and the Luftwaffe began raining German bombs down on English cities, health clinics were quickly established to provide free care. “The wartime period necessitated the creation of the Emergency Hospital Service to care for the wounded, making these services dependent on the government,” according to an article in “Historic UK.” The House of Commons in 1948 easily passed the bill that established the NHS, which has been described as “… the institution which more than any other unites our nation.” Much the same is happening here and now. After years of slow change in American customs and commerce, COVID-19 has had something like the impact of wartime. Great and sudden change is emerging as the pandemic lockdowns and restrictions force changes in the way we communicate, work, and learn. Combining the new with the old will result in a hybrid approach I call “The Age of Hybrid.” That’s … Continue reading →