I was listening to a Recode Media podcast episode with guest Paddy Cosgrove, the co-founder of the very large Web Summit conference. In it, he talked about the shift to a 100% virtual event due to COVID, something large event producers everywhere are contending with. He made an interesting point early on that we all realize but few acknowledge or better, use to justify the expense of attending an event – It’s about the social experience. Specifically, he said, “speakers are the excuse” [to attend]. Sure they are knowledgeable and the sessions have rich content but we gain so much more in the serendipitous moments, the re-connection with peers, the dinners, the hallway conversations where new ideas are shared and context built… but blah, blah, blah. Try telling THAT to your leadership who is paying 2500-3000.00 US for you to attend a 3-4 day event away from work. Good luck.
You need to know your leadership. You do you of course but Paddy made it clear, THEY started with social first as they pondered the move to an all-virtual event. Lounges, facilitated 1:1 meetings, round tables, etc. Certainly, all are features of platforms today but let’s be honest, a space on a platform is NOT inherently social, its just an opportunity. I sensed in the Virtual Web Summit that there was a community management aspect where organizers worked to ensure connection was happening consistently and frequently. Additionally, it was happening in different ways with an understanding of social engineering to help people to serendipity but also showing them who they did and did not connecting with and thus learn from.
This all reminds me of two important ideas. The first, by Hugh MacCleod, who said “social forms around an object, not the other way around” when discussing Social Objects. So yes, speakers and sessions and content are important, they are the object, but social engagement is the real prize. Related are the words of Charles Jennings who once shared that “real learning is about experience, practice, conversation, and reflection” (something I come back to a lot). Most events, including designed learning ones, do pretty good on the first two, experience and practice (think presentations, workshops, expo) but fall short in the other 50%, opportunities for conversing and reflecting which builds deeper understanding. The space for these is made but it certainly doesn’t get the same attention as the content.
Virtual events will always have their limitations of course as humans really are built for face-to-face communication. But Paddy’s efforts did get me to thinking that the longer the COVID crisis and fears linger, the more time we’ll have to get virtual events on par with face-to-face conferences, increasing their value as a very cost-effective alternative… one that’s hard for any budget-conscious manager to deny. Therefore, face-to-face conferences, when they return en masse, will need to be redesigned as better social objects if they are to regain their place as the default for professional development… and do better to promote this as THE most important differentiator from their virtual competition.
