DECEMBER 2021CIOAPPLICATIONSEUROPE.COM8TECHNOLOGY'S NEW AND CRITICAL ROLE IN A POST-COVID WORLDJohn Stambelos know the timing isn't great," explained Stephen Wood, the managing partner of our Salt Lake City office, "but our lease is up."To say the pandemic has changed the world is a tiresome trope. Traffic, travel and technology have all been altered by Covid-19. Dense traffic and brown smog have given way to fast-moving traffic and crystal-clear skies in Southern California where my firm is based. Empty TSA security checkpoints serve as a stark reminder that airlines are desperate to return to profitability. And video conferencing, once an exotic (if a little nerdy) way to conduct business, is now the norm for professional service firms. Even middle school-aged children now complain of "Zoom fatigue." In fact, the rapid adoption of video conferencing technology combined with expansive work-from-home ("WFH") policies has even led to the rise of so-called "Zoom Towns" vaguely reminiscent of the California Gold Rush. Manhattan and San Francisco are witnessing its inhabitants flee to outlying regions as tech giants like Facebook and Twitter extend their WFH perhaps in perpetuity. Obviously, not every business can operate on a WFH model. But for those that do, life may never look the same. Even before the pandemic, professional service firms (like law firms) started to grapple with the fact that important shifts in workflows (facilitated by "IJOHN STAMBELOS, CIO, QUINN EMANUELIN MYOPINION
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