By Kieron Byatt , PaperCut: Know what I love about sports? Name the craziest game you can think of… Chances are not only does it exist, but it has thousands of fans the world over. 
That’s how I feel about print. It’s the Jelle’s Marble Runs (competitive marble racing, yes, really) of the IT space: an overlooked world with dedicated geeks all around the globe.
In any sport, the beginning of the game year is marked with tips by fans and commentators alike: educated guesses on what the season will deliver.
So as a sports fan and print geek, I wanted to offer my personal 7 picks for print and IT in 2022.
1. Hybrid working: lockout is the new lockdown
Two years in and the end to the COVID-19 pandemic still isn’t quite in sight.
You’re probably sick of hearing about hybrid working, because it’s unsurprisingly here to stay. But, for me at least, I feel like it was (under many a breath) being embraced as a “temporary” new future.
Contradictory as that sounds, while many workers and managers may have stated “we’re embracing hybrid working”, for many the subtext was a whispered, “for now.” Even while some companies announced indefinite WFH models (before the Omicron outbreak) many of those same companies were divided on long-term remote working.
The quiet hope was that once this pandemic was over, while WFH flexibility would still be in full swing, the majority of workers would be office-based. I want to use the present situation here in Melbourne as an example. We’re not in a lockdown, but low social mobility would suggest we are. With our current Omicron outbreak, even though our economy has opened up, many individuals are participating in self-imposed stay-at-home restrictions.
What we’re currently witnessing is not a lockdown, but a lockout. I know that sounds like a bunch of, “Well, duh!” But I’m calling that in 2022, many businesses are going to seriously shift their thinking from “Hybrid working forever” to “Nah, really, hybrid working forever, forever, forever ever, forever ever…”
What does this mean for print and IT? Offices and workers need to revise and recheck their policies around the office and device access. Crucially, enabling devices and equipment for home use ‒ including printing.
2. Label and packaging printing the focus for enterprise and SMB
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Source: PaperCut
