”There’s a time for everything”— that’s my dad’s mantra. And, over the years, it’s sort of become mine too.

So, considering the state of the world right now, I think it’s the perfect time to envision the way we want our futures to look once COVID-19 is safely behind us.

BNP Media, our parent company, did exactly that, and I’m excited to announce that we’re hopping on the digital transformation bandwagon, which means this is the last print issue we will produce.

Now, I know we’re not talking an apples-to-apples comparison if we’re trying to define what the term “digital transformation” means for magazines versus data centers. But, we’re not really talking apples to oranges, either.  

You see, our CEOs started thinking about going digital-only a while ago. They recognized the risks and the rewards immediately. But, instead of focusing on what could go wrong and letting fear hold them back, they focused on how to be successful and implemented strategies that would prepare them to overcome challenges. They didn’t make the decision overnight, either. Once they started thinking about whether or not digital only was the best way to go, they started introducing new features across their brands. For example, you can now follow Mission Critical on all of the social channels — Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; subscribe to The Thought Cloud podcast or our YouTube channel; sign-up for our e-newsletter; shop in our e-store; explore our webinar series; and you get the idea, right? So, the truth is, Mission Critical has always been a digital magazine. The only difference now is that we are no longer offering our digital magazine in a printed format. Not only is this the quickest way for us to deliver information, it’s also the safest.

See what I mean? Next to yours, our digital transformation is more along the lines of an apples-to-pears or clementines-to-oranges comparison.

Before the shelter-in-place orders were issued, I attended a lot of industry events. Pretty much every breakout session and exhibitor booth focused on being future-ready. When I talk with manufacturers and other industry experts, though, they all seem to agree that there’s more talk than action because it’s hard to convince people to adopt the technology of the future when what they have is working just fine. But the coronavirus proved the investment to be worth it for companies that were further along their digital transformation journey and were able to maintain operations with minimal to no disruptions.

Bob Moul, CEO of Circonus, summed it up nicely on Episode 14 of The Thought Cloud.

“There’s an opportunity here for every company out there to sort of really rethink their mission and really rethink what they’re going to look like or what they need to look like on the other side of this pandemic and use it as a way to break through the status quo,” he said. “I mean, the first step in making change, right, is to loosen the status quo. You have a great opportunity here to do that.”

Mission Critical is excited to take the opportunity, are you?