By the time you read this, 2021 will either be in its last gasps or thoroughly expired. As with 2020, many of us might be muttering, ‘good riddance’. It wasn’t all bad, though, right?! The vaccination campaign finally arrived in SA, after all. Let’s keep that in clear focus, and gloss over the loadshedding, Digital Vibes corruption saga, Facebook (AKA Meta) files leak and whistleblower revelations, and other such downers.

The end of a year tends to make us introspective. It’s the perfect time for a mini life audit. If I was auditing 2021, something I’d celebrate (and keep) is the cementing of remote work into our business culture, as well as the mainstreaming of the tech that enables it. The legacy of 2021 may well be the actual and meaningful digitalisation of our lives. Arguably, it was the Covid-19 pandemic’s unpleasant extended stay that pushed us beyond the short-term workarounds of 2020, and into the territory of ‘a new way of living’.