A virtual flight with Living Digital perfectly sums up the year of living digitally

by: The public servant next door | | Share

Duration: 10 minutes, 10 second(s).

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It’s pretty common now to use hyperboles when we speak. I often tell my friends – it was literally the worst. I mean, sure it was a terrible date, but was it literally the worst? Probably not. When one replies, I’m dead (spelling may vary) after witnessing something incredulous, is one actually dead? I hope not.

But sometimes, in very rare instances – some might even say in extraordinary circumstances – what seems like a hyperbole might be the truth. Like the statement:

The pandemic changed everything.

Think about December 2019, which was when Living Digital last had an event, in person, with over 200 people in attendance. Like, actual people. In close quarters. People, like, just sitting there next to each other. And talking and laughing and discussing – in all likelihood speaking moistly – and enjoying an amazing event as if the world would always go on as such?

In December 2019, where were you? And now? Are you there? In 2019, where was the world? And where are we now?

Air LD VN takes off

The Living Digital event this year, aptly, and not without a dose of wistfulness, packaged as a flight on “Air LD VN,” featured four sessions, each addressing some of the important issues that came to light during the pandemic: news coverage, mental health, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and collaborating in the virtual workspace (giving us a sneak peek at gcxchange, a new shared space for public servants.)

With 140 people on board, the flight took off with a fun animated safety video – one that instructed us to stow our emotional baggage under our seats. It was a nice touch – everyone knows that after this pandemic, no one’s emotional baggage will fit under any chair.

Since I was taking notes to write this article, I couldn’t quite sit back and relax as the animated flight attendant instructed, but the tone of the video definitely gave me a sense of relief – maybe we were starting to pull far enough away from the pandemic that we could kinda (maybe) laugh about it. Isn’t that what they say? Tragedy plus time equals comedy?

The people on the news and in the news

It’s easy to forget these days what the news is made of. During the pandemic, especially, it was hard to tell what news was real, and fake. Misinformation was shared and reshared all over social media, especially in the early days of the pandemic. There was so much uncertainty. And so little real information to hang on to.

The first speaker, Graham Richardson, knows this firsthand. He’s the evening news anchor at CTV Ottawa. “People were so hungry for news,” he says. He notes that even in these days when many think of social media as the main source of news, it was real people that people reached out to in their moment of need. “The phones were ringing off the hook,” he says.

And for Richardson, the connection to his audience was just as important. He recalls a viewer calling, crying, about the death of their parent in a long-term care home. His voice falters. “I’ll never forget those early few weeks.”

Richardson tells us about how CTV was able to pivot to deliver the news non-centrally, and how we just never know what the future holds. “I thought the biggest news story of my career was going to be 9/11,” Graham says.

Embracing uncertainty

“We have to embrace uncertainty.”

It’s Senator Stan Kutcher – a mental health educator, advocate, doctor, senator, and our second speaker. He’s answering the last question of the session: what one piece of advice do you have for us?

“Life isn’t certain. The most important thing in people lives, they never planned for. They just happen. We have to realize we know very little, even about things we think we know a lot about.”

“Life isn’t certain. The most important thing in people lives, they never planned for. They just happen. We have to realize we know very little, even about things we think we know a lot about.”

This hits me hard because it’s something I’ve been constantly failing at. Embracing all the life-turns we had in the pandemic. All the three week increments of wait-and-sees. It’s been a lot.

But discussions like this remind us that adjusting our way of doing things must include how we think and speak about it. In fact, Senator Kutcher spends a fair bit of time making sure we use the right words to talk about mental health.

“Mental health and mental illness are not the same,” he says. “How we say things matter. Like emotional states. Over the last years we have defaulted to using pathological words for normal emotions.”

He further explains, “Mental health is not about feeling good. Situationally appropriate negative emotion is a good thing, not a bad thing. They drive our adaptation to solve the problems of life, and as we solve those problems, we develop competency which leads to resilience.”

A place where we belong

In recent months, a lot has been said about diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Indeed, there are many ways to talk about it, and many solutions have been proposed. How can we hire more inclusively? How do we deal with racism, and unconscious biases? What actions can we take against microagressions?

All good questions. But these aren’t Denley McIntosh’s questions. He’s a D&I Leader, Strategist, and Senior Advisor for the Ontario Cabinet Office.

Instead, he asks us to consider something much more foundational to creating a truly diverse and inclusive workplace.

Creating a sense of belonging. Building a place where we all belong.  

“People are leaving their jobs not because of money but because of belonging,” says McIntosh. “Non-white and multiracial people are more likely to say that they left because they didn’t feel like they belong in their companies.”

It’s a question of culture, and seeing diversity and inclusion as a means to an end.

“Diversity and inclusion is a means to an end, and the end is belonging. We must move towards belonging. Not only feeling included, but feeling connected, which speaks to the mutual identity being formed in that diversity.”

“You’re part of the department but not a part of the culture. You’re not connected,” he continues. “Diversity and inclusion is a means to an end, and the end is belonging. We must move towards belonging. Not only feeling included, but feeling connected, which speaks to the mutual identity being formed in that diversity.”

McIntosh began his session with Bob Marley’s One Love, and he ends it with the theme song to the 80s sitcom Cheers – where everybody knows your name. And you know he’s challenging us to do something much bigger, dig much deeper to make our workplaces into a place where everyone can belong.

Connecting in a remote world

Working from home is probably one of the biggest changes – and challenges – we experienced due to the pandemic. And it’s no secret that it’s not been easy staying connected while working remotely.

“Enter gcxchange, the new GC wide platform that allows departments and public servants to share news, information, announcements and collaborate in one place. Think of it as all the existing GCTools, combined into one single sign on platform.”

Enter gcxchange, the new GC wide platform that allows departments and public servants to share news, information, announcements and collaborate in one place. Think of it as all the existing GCTools, combined into one single sign on platform.

Living Digital’s Melanie Love and Isabelle Plamondon tells us that the purpose of the tool is to break silos, and connect public servants and their work in a common, open space. It was a great sneak peek – coming to all departments in January 2022.

Air LD VN lands

After a three hour flight, Air LD VN lands safely, and I am left with the feeling that a) I haven’t taken enough notes, and b) there is a sense of hope in this virtual flight – one makes me wonder if years from now we could say, The pandemic changed everything. And it would be the truth.

 

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