SOCIAL DISTANCING?

Coronavirus pandemic is seen as 'an opportunity for us to digitally transform': Slack CFO

Slack CFO Allen Shim tells Yahoo Finance the coronavirus pandemic will cause many corporations to rethink what the modern day workforce should look like. He is on the mark.

Two decade old emailing is dumb. Quick response workplace productivity tools such as Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google hangouts are what is needed more in offices and homes to support the quickening pace of workflows.

“We have talked about this as a new category. It’s a way of acknowledging that modern work requires modern tools to collaborate and be flexible and agile. I think people have seen this [coronavirus outbreak] as an opportunity to re-evaluate the way they’ve been doing business. Email is two, three decades old, which is primarily the way we collaborate. This is an opportunity for us to digitally transform,” Shim said on Yahoo Finance’s The First Trade.

Shim came to Yahoo Finance fresh off a much better than expected fourth quarter earnings report Thursday evening. Shares did fall 15% today as the company’s fiscal 2021 outlook for billings growth let some on Wall Street down.

Shim says Slack has seen a nice uptick in free users amid the coronavirus outbreak. Zoom CFO Kelly Steckelberg told me the same thing a week ago. The question on the minds of many investors in both names — and others like it in the workplace productivity space— are whether free trials could be converted to paying customers across large organizations. Slack and Zoom are taking a cautious approach right now in trying to monetize these new customers, which are probably dealing with incredible stress on their businesses due to coronavirus. It’s the right thing to do.

But without question, the coronavirus situation has exposed tremendous flaws in how companies continue to operate in a tech laden 2020. Why are we still sending emails? Why are we still meeting face-to-face — on different floors — for almost every single meeting? Why are we spending so much money on coast-to-coast travel to meet people when a simple Zoom call would work just fine and save a ton of money?

Changes are on the way to the workplace. And that may be the only good thing coming out of the coronavirus.

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/coronavirus-pandemic-is-seen-as-an-opportunity-for-us-to-digitally-transform-slack-cfo-152701415.html

KEK. Code?

Storm hitting California with up to 6 feet of snow possible

A large and potent storm system on the West Coast is already bringing very heavy snow to the northern and central California Mountains in what looks to be the most significant storm so far this season for parts of the state.

Since there is a good amount of instability in parts of the region, snowfall rates could be quite intense with locally up to 4 inches per hour possible this morning. This will make any travel in the region extremely dangerous.

Heavy rain is also starting to spread down the coast with localized flash flooding possible. Additionally, gusty winds over 40 mph will be possible in parts of central and southern California as the storm slides into the region.

The heaviest bands of rain will move southward towards Southern California Sunday night and into Monday, with locally 2 to 4 inches of rainfall possible. Heavy snow will continue for the Sierra through Monday as some snow also will develop in some of the southern California mountains.

The precipitation should decrease in coverage on Tuesday as the system moves deeper into the intermountain west. Locally, 4 to 6 feet of mountain snow will be possible in the northern and central California mountain range and 2 to 4 inches of rain will be possible in the California coast. Up to a foot of snow will be possible in the Southern California mountains.

As we head into the middle of the week, this storm will begin to interact with another storm that in the central U.S.

Late Tuesday and into Wednesday, there will be two distinct areas of unsettled weather. One being heavy rain and thunderstorms in the central U.S., especially the southern plains, as well as regions of rain and mountain snow in the intermountain west.

Then on Thursday, a more prevalent storm system will take shape with widespread mountain snow from Montana to New Mexico and heavy rain and strong storms for the plains and Midwest.

ate Thursday and Friday, the storm will then race off to the north and east and likely bring a round of snow to parts of the upper Midwest.

Additionally, a line of strong storms will form along the cold front that will move into the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, eventually reaching the east coast by the end of the week.

The main threat that could result from this storm system is several rounds of heavy rain in the southern plains and parts of the Midwest. This could lead to increase flooding potential as get towards the end of the week.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/storm-hitting-california-6-feet-snow-possible-112943372–abc-news-topstories.html