Coronavirus has already profoundly changed the way we work and Aikwit is no exception. We started working from home last Thursday to help stem the spread of the epidemic. Fortunately, we made a strategic decision in January to start using the Microsoft Teams communication platform available as part of our Microsoft Office 365 subscription.

Despite having this advantage in getting used to the new working conditions, we would not have been able to get it to work without additional organization and a certain level of self-discipline. Instead of an in-person early morning meeting over coffee, we have a daily video call at 9am where we make a plan for the current day and chat about yesterday’s events. We think it’s important that the call is not only a voice call, but rather a proper video call, so that we see each other at least once a day. If necessary, we also meet later in smaller groups.

We even use Teams for conversations and meetings with clients. Teams offers a useful feature called Meet Now, which allows us to simply share a link with the client to a virtual meeting room.

But Microsoft Teams is not only a video chat platform, it provides tools for just about any type of business communication. At Aikwit, we organized our work into Teams according to different areas of work: sales, project management, research and development etc. In this way, we have ensured that communication on specific topics remains within teams and is not fragmented between different emails and instant messaging platforms. On the other hand, we use Chat for general conversations about where to go for lunch (currently, nowhere 🙂), what we did over the weekend and so on.

The coronavirus epidemic is certainly a very serious matter that raises a great deal of uncertainty. But it is also an opportunity: maybe we will realize that many things can be done virtually. Or as the New Yorker cartoonist put it on Twitter:

#stayhome and stay healthy!