A catch up with Ian from Seager Publishing and his experience of working during the pandemic:

What’s the biggest change/decision for you, professionally, as a result of Covid19 and lockdown?

Honestly, it’s been about six months of daily challenge. We have pretty much re-invented everything, and anything that hasn’t changed will probably change in the near future. That old cliche about change being the only constant is spot on. The first few days gave us some IT issues, then we had to quickly invent and evolve a way of keeping good communication going (we went with Zoom and Slack), then we had to re-invent our workflow, learn to make podcasts, hoot and edit videos while going from a printed magazine to a digital magazine. In 2019 we organised nine small exhibitions throughout Europe. This year we held one in February before lockdown, so we’ve also been creating the tools and developing the skills to hold virtual events.

How have you found remote working/working from home?

Fantastic. There have been challenges for sure, but overall it’s been amazing. In fact, a couple of months in we took the decision to close our office. The enjoyment has not been universal, and making sure that everyone is OK and on board is tricker when you are not in the same room.

Lockdown in general, love it or loathe it?

Both. I can’t imagine doing the daily commute again, but the social side of life and work can be challenging.

What’s your plan for the next 3 months? 6 months?  How much has that changed as a result of the pandemic?

The short answer is we plan to continue to survive. The longer answer is we will be running our first virtual event, we’ll be announcing a series of new virtual events, we’ll be creating significantly more video and audio content and we’ll be changing a couple of the publishing platforms we use for something better suited to digital. The pandemic has massively increased the rate of change. Much of our business came from physical events in the commercial airline world, that’s two sectors that have been knocked flat, so as I’ve said, everything has changed, and everything will continue to change.

Top tip for your peers/colleagues?

Be flexible, be quick, be prepared to learn new skills, be prepared to sleep less and work more, at least for a while.

Thanks Ian!