I hope you made a snowman today. The upstate shuts down when it snows, and we woke up with a nice layer of the white fluffy.

My first thought was, “Wow, it has to be staggering how much in productivity the upstate loses when it snows.”

If you’ve lived here for any amount of time, and you’re from the north (that’s about 80% of you), you know that Greenvillians don’t go anywhere if there’s a hint of snow-and that includes work, school or even church. This place shuts down and locks down (the trash is still at the curb-no trash pickup when it snows I guess).

But in the end I thought this, “Merge is really fortunate, because like the mailman-rain, snow, sleet or shine-we can work.” With a quick text message to all employees, they instantly knew to just stay and work from home.

And this isn’t just for Merge-this is for new economy companies-those of us who are fortunate to work with ideas and intellectual capital. Such hiccups in the weather, supply chains or lead paint from China don’t hinder us. We can continue to work. We can continue to be productive.

Think: How can your company move from the old economy to the new? It can be done-and must be done at some level to remain competitive. Today is the perfect example. Those companies whose workforce continued to work just gained an edge on their competitors whose employees had the audacity to call in to say they couldn’t make it to work. That is so unbelievably foreign to the new econonmy company.