I'm still somewhat surprised and confused by the discrepancy between online and in-person events.
I used to be an avid supporter of doing things online. My work? Mostly done with online tools either in the browser or with a need for at least occasional sync to some server somewhere online. Meetings? Well some people live on another continent, so of course the meetings are video calls. That was the norm, not the exception in the past decade or so. Even many of my friends are thousands of kilometres away and so we text, video call or send voice messages, all the time!
To me, this is normal and has so many advantages - often it's asynchronous so I can fit it in my schedule with ease and if we want to speed things up and have a closer, more focused exchange we can increase the communication bandwidth with video and voice in a synchronous call. Neither of us needs to do time-consuming and costly travelling, it's great.
So why not also do it for events?
Well. As an event organiser I always felt online events are clunky and more difficult. I find a venue, get some catering and invite a few hundred people. We have a stage, a projector, microphone and speakers and we're off to the races!
Online on the other hand you need to make sure all your presenters have a stable connection, good microphones, you need to find a reliable streaming platform and it's all been a hassle every time. So I mostly blamed the issue with online events on the clunkiness of the tooling.
My experience with online events has been this:
- bad audio quality
- audio and video out of sync
- all sorts of technical difficulties
What if online is the only way?
In 2020 this changed a bit. We kinda had to go online with our events. Lots of new tools popped up and promised a better experience! And I think it's true, in the months following the pandemic shutdown for all in-person events, my experience with online events changed.
Most of the technical problems went away, video streaming and often even recording became the norm and these things worked fine for the most part.
Some tools even tried to provide the "hallway track", the moments where people more or less randomly meet between sessions, during lunch or coffee breaks, and talk to each other about all sorts of things. Most tools also had some sort of audience interaction tools with things like polls, Q&A, chat and so on. So, one might think, the experience of in-person events finally was elevated to the online age?
The odd disappointment
In my opinion? No. Not at all.
I don't fully know why it's not the same, but it just isn't. Once we got out of the inclement weather that was technical difficulties, we had events that worked. Somewhat. But not really.
It didn't quite feel right, no matter the format or platform. When I'm at an event, I feel like I'm part of something bigger than just myself. The whole experience - being part of a large group, the presentations, the random meetings with people you know and new people alike, the whole time it feels like you're in a bubble that everyone at the event shares.
Wait, everyone? This is something I noticed before online events were the default. Multi-track events didn't feel as intense and focused as single track events. And I prefered the single track in-person events, because no matter who you'd run into: You had a somewhat shared experience in terms of having gotten the same inputs. Interestingly, different people took away different things from each session and that made for really interesting discussions and reflections. When people you run into were in different sessions, you'd hear about something through their lense, but you have no own perception to have this kind of conversation.
The secret ingredient of in-person events
And that's where online fell flat most notably, for me at least. It feels like I'm getting the insights, just like I'd get them from an in-person event, but this reflection, these exchanges and conversations were missing. Entirely. No amount of tooling, chats, polls, Q&A could fix that.
I thought, that maybe this kind of speed-dating approach where you're randomly paired with other attendees for a fixed time slot into a 1:1 conversation as a replacement for the "hallway track", would fix it. But it doesn't. And this is something I noticed. As we're usually in our familiar setting during online events, our attention is under much more pressure than at in-person events. For me, at least. I know, a bunch of people are answering their emails or dropping in and out of the event to take calls, but in general, at least for some of the sessions, people sit in a room, focusing on the session.
In online events I noticed that my attention - as well as other people's attention - seemed to be limited to 15-20 minutes, rather than the more usual 30-45 minute slots from in-person events. And I felt that. If something went on for longer, my mind would wander. "Oh, I still need to bring my plate from lunch into the kitchen and clean it. Hm, while we're at it, what will I have for dinner?" - none of these thoughts ever crossed my mind in a dedicated in-person event.
The secret of in-person events, to me, seems to be that they put you in this bubble of a shared experience with a group that is a mix of people you know and new folks with shared interests. And within this bubble, it's easier to exchange ideas, make connections and learn from each other.
What can we do?
Well, I think there are a few take aways for me when it comes to events:
- The way we take in new information is fundamentally the same as before 2020, but events aren't the primary way to do it anymore.
- Online events need a very, very different model to make sense
- In-person events do make a lot of sense, despite the increased cost and complexity, but they've changed since 2020 and need to consider adjustments as well.
This leeds to a few things I'm taking into account when it comes to events in the future.
Sharing information and learning
I think if you want to learn something new or share information with a larger audience of people, it makes sense to use online video on demand. Events could use their brand and establish themselves as a curated repository of what used to be conference sessions, making it easier to find the content people are looking for in a place they already know. Some conferences are doing this already. But this also offers the opportunity for speakers to build their brand and establish themselves as experts in their field by using social media and video platforms to share their content broadly, without having to rely on the attention and approval of these established event brands.
Using on-demand video content also has the advantage of allowing for pausing, replaying and timing the delivery according to your own schedule. It also allows sharing it with your team more easily. The downside is that it might be harder to find your audience or the content from people you've not heard of before.
Different style of online events
When information-delivery isn't exactly working well for online events, due to limited attention and better, more flexible options available (on-demand video), what should an online event look like?
My answer? Much, much more interactive. I've tried this multiple times with the Virtual Webmaster Unconference events (I've started in 2020, but also did them in '21, '22 and '23).
These events work very differently - they're online discussion groups. A bunch of people comes together to join a bunch of discussion sessions where they're encourage to express their ideas, questions or opinions on the given topic of the session.
This was received very well and, with the right facilitators, these sessions ended up being really interactive, interesting conversations. We all convened afterwards and the designated note-taker shared the takeaways and highlights of each of these discussions, so that was really nice!
These discussions only really work if they're live, synchronous and non-recorded, so people feel like they can and should use the given timeframe and can do so without worrying about things being taken out of context afterwards.
I really like the format, but it's been difficult to put these events together, but who knows? Maybe I get to do another one next year? I'll certainly try to get that going again...
The changed nature of in-person events
I realised that, while people still are eager for and expect presentation sessions at events, I find the biggest value comes from networking at and around events. I get to meet new people and make connections I wouldn't otherwise make!
I also think with venues getting more expensive, events might try to do things more focused and maybe this will boost the single-track nature? I might also be completely wrong on the single-track thing, because a bunch of really nice events had been multi-track. Either way, I'm seeing some events doing more in terms of planning off-stage parts of the events with more attention. Social events, meetups, activities - I think they're on the right track. Offer something that video on-demand can't.
Wrapping it all up
Okay, after dumping my thoughts into this post, here's what I'm keeping in my head.
I think that dissipating knowledge is well-suited to be done on video platforms, so you can reach more people in a way that better fits their own schedules. You also make your knowledge more broadly available and affordable. That's good.
In-person events, on the other hand, could try to focus on the shared experience participants have. And maybe instead of offering a stage for a few, carefully curated ideas from a few selected individuals, focusing on exchanging ideas and providing a space for discussions between as many people as possible is a good path forward?
Last but not least, I think the space of useful, engaging online events hasn't fully been explored yet. So let's see what else is out there?
Let me know your thoughts as well - did you experience a cool online event? Are you back to going to in-person events? If so, what drives you towards them?
