Over the past 9 months, I have done more “zoom” sessions / “virtual events” than I have in the past 5 years. I have seen all the complaints from regular presenters (and attendees) about virtual events, and the flood storm of Zoom requests many have been getting, but personally I seem to be part of the other side of the spectrum as I thoroughly enjoy the virtual events. First and foremost, it helped to relieve stress. To the point where my family noticed a significant change in my mental state/wellbeing, not just the mental aspect, also the physical aspect. It is much easier to have a consistent diet and training regime when you don’t need to hop on a flight to go to an event every other week.
But not only that, I just like the virtual event format. Well, the format which Cormac, Frank, and I developed for our Virtual VMUG Roadshow. Also, the format of the Virtual TAM Roundtable sessions which Cormac and I have been presenting has worked really well. Now, don’t get me wrong. I always enjoyed going to events, having dinner with (new) friends, and talking to people at/during the event… but is it sustainable when you do 20+ events per year as a presenter? And is this model sustainable for attendees when employers are expecting more with less? Not really in my opinion, hence my preference for this virtual world. But that doesn’t answer the question of why I think it has worked for us very well, while it hasn’t worked as well for some others?
First of all, we created a virtual roadshow concept where each session is only 30 minutes, followed by 10 minutes of Q&A or a coffee break for those who need it. This means people only need to stay focussed for at most 30 minutes, then can ask questions, or simply grab a coffee and come back. Also, our focus has been very much on trying to engage with the audience. We present our sessions live and we run our Powerpoint deck (and demos) in a window instead of fullscreen. This allows us to follow the chat and the Q&A window while we present. It isn’t always easy to keep up, but it helps greatly with presenting as it allows us to dive deeper when there are questions or comments during a specific section of our presentation. The other thing that helps is that you will see the name of the person asking the question. This enables you to “personalize” the session by for instance saying “William just asked if it is possible to do XYZ”. This adds a level of engagement to the session, which seems to encourage others to ask questions.
The funny thing is that we have had more questions during our virtual sessions than during (or after for that matter) any “physical” event in the past, and we have had various event organizers mention that these virtual events are much more interactive than they anticipated. I believe this is because people don’t feel like they are put on the spot, they don’t need to get up and walk to a mic to ask a question, they don’t feel like everyone is staring at them. People simply seem to be more comfortable in this setting, especially non-native English speakers.
Personally what I have also found enjoyable is that we see people joining our sessions from all over the world. Yes, we try to limit the size of the group by advertising our roadshow via a specific regional user group. Limiting the audience allows us to answer all questions while still being able to deliver the full content, but in the end, everyone is welcome to join. Also, I have been able to do sessions for regions where I normally would not be able to travel to for just a single 30/45-minute slot, which opens up a whole new market of customers and events.
Now mind, the majority of sessions we have done the past 9 months have been live, and the content and format was developed specifically for the virtual world. We have also done some recorded sessions for these so-called “simu-live” events, and we even tried a recorded version of our own concept, and I agree, they are far less enjoyable. I understand why sessions need to be recorded for a large virtual industry conference, as scheduling would simply be too complex with hundreds of sessions across different timezones. But for a virtual user group event, or any event with less than 200-300 people, I don’t see why you would need to pre-record it. Some virtual events today are very much structured like a physical event, with a full day worth of content, sponsor slots etc etc. If you ask me this doesn’t work. Why not? Who can stay focussed for 8 hours straight watching a screen? Who stays engaged for 8 hours?
This is why I feel everyone hosting events, especially user group events/conferences, needs to rethink their event structure. Does it need to be a full day? Do you need multiple sponsor sessions for this event? Can you get away with 1 sponsor, or maybe none? Can the event be shorter, 2-3 slots? Can you do it live? Can you add a Q&A window? Can you add a chat window? And when the world returns back to normal, if it ever does any time soon, can we keep doing these shorter events virtually? You may ask why would you? Well, as stated above, this allows more people to consume the content, it makes it easier for speakers from all over the world to present at any event, we all avoid the cost of flights/hotels, and then there’s the sustainability aspect, which is increasingly more important. On top of that, as virtual events allow you to attend anonymously, it may increase diversity as well.
I would like to ask you to share your thoughts, please share your thoughts as a presenter and/or attendee! What has worked for you, and what has not worked? How can we collectively improve this experience?
Thanks,
Michael Schroeder says
Hello Duncan
Just a few thougts about the experiences we’ve made in the german VMUG earlier this year.
Around March/April 2020 it was obvious that we cannot host any more on-site meetings until the end of the crisis.
There were travel restrictions by visitors, sponsors and VMware speakers. Sitting in a crowded room with 20+ persons isn’t a good idea either as we know today.
That’s why all german VMUG chapters united and organized frequent but short Virtual-VMUGs.
One speaker – one topic – one hour.
We’ve scheduled our meetings on Wednesday afternoon 5 pm every fortnight.
It turned out to be a good timeslot. Right between office calls and dinner, and short enough to have full attention by our members.
After the March release of vSphere7 there were plenty of topics to talk about and VMware provided us with many expert speakers on their subjects.
With every session we’ve learned a lot. In our first session we didn’t have the host role and therefore couldn’t mute attendees who broadcasted their private calls into the session, which was very annoying for the speaker (sorry for that, Niels).
Meanwhile we’re quite organized and the feedback we get encourages us to go on with it.
Since May we’ve made only one exception from our 1 hour rule: that was the Virtual VMUG roadshow and it’s been a big success.Maybe the rush was related to the lineup? 😉 Thanks Duncan, Frank & Cormac! 🙂
Andreas Cederlund says
In my experience, it’s key that the content is delivered with focus on virtual attendance. I like the idea with shorter sessions, since most of us may sit at home or in a conference room at work.
From a personal view, I see both pros and cons with this situation. It’s good for family and schedules (webinars have always had more or less bad times, so I’m quite used to that and will often watch recordings after), but for the social interaction that’s a large part of these conferences is really missing.. The Exhibitions, 1-on-1 meetings with vendors and customers, diners etc is half the reason I want to go to events such as VMworld.
For me, it works best with mixed content. Being interactive raises my interest, and taking questions continuously is great, it makes for a more dynamic session. However, I find that there’s more distractions at home and at the office, it’s more easy to “just do some work” while sitting at a seminar, so it’s up to other people to respect that as well, which can be hard sometimes.
I appreciate all the hard work all you presenters put in, and the fact that you give up family time to educate the rest of us.
Doug says
Hi Duncan,
I didn’t travel as much as you, but, from a presenter perspective, there is no doubt that keeping a consistent diet and exercise routine is a LOT easier when you’re not on the road all the time! All of those meals out add up and being on a plane is tough (more so now that I am not as young as I was). I do miss being able to explore new places after traveling to events. Lately, however, I found that it was more difficult to make that kind of time: the physical events were being scheduled closer and closer together. Having to rush to the airport straight from one event venue to be able to make a flight to the next one without a break starts to beat you down.
As an attendee, I definitely agree with the shorter sessions to help mitigate the engagement and fatigue issues. Having content broken into “bite-sized chunks” makes it easier to consume, and encourages people to remain present. For longer sessions, I often find myself starting to multitask since I feel like I should be getting work done if I am “just sitting in a virtual presentation” for an hour. I can more easily justify to myself that I should fully dedicate my attention for 20-30 minutes. That alone makes the session more valuable.
The other challenge you address is the Q&A and chat portion. In a live session, having people ask questions during the presentation is great, but it can consume time within the presentation. In a virtual format, if you have two people managing the session, one can handle chat/Q&A live while the other continues to present. The chat monitor can answer questions but can also surface the most common or generally relevant questions to the presenter to address live, or collect them to address at the end. I see this as even better/more efficient than an in-person event.
As you said, structuring a virtual event exactly like an in-person event is a miss. They are definitely not consumed the same way and we should not expect them to be. We need to look at what we can do with these new types of events that we have been unable to do with the in-person events. I do miss the in-person “hallway conversation” aspect of these in-person events, but have not found a suitable replacement. Additionally, if the session sizes are too big, there can be a lot of noise in the chat/Q&A boxes and we lose that personalization that you indicated as a benefit.
From an attendee perspective, I had not thought about the anonymity aspect, but that is a great point: people can attend to check things out without any sort of commitment until they are comfortable enough to ask questions.
I can see a benefit to both types of events, and I suspect a mixture of the types is going to be in our future, even once the pandemic settles down.
Piet Kiekebos says
Hi Duncan,
You’re right. With all the online events , you need an other live to watch. Watch a few sessions online, maybe 3 hour is OK, but all the content is to much.
In my opinion is a live session, like in a real event most interesting. Recorded sessions are like normal documentaries on TV. If you want to train some skills, watch a recorded session. I watch older VMworld recordings with specific info.
The heat of the moment is the best, so try as much as possible to do a live session. Even the location could be a trigger to watch: Watching a round table discussion in live is much better than virtual discussion by Zoom where the presenters are at home. I Liked to watch the VMworld keynotes live on a beamer at home (most US versions). I hoop the coming online version has some professional shots. Not a big TV show from home i hope.
Greetings Piet
Patrick says
As an attendee it’s a mixed bag. In the Fall I’ll usually do 2-3 conferences, this year I’ve been able to sort-of do one every other week. Some vendors have been doing better with this format that others but between all the virtual conferences and virtual meetings in the office I’ve gotten to the point of getting zoomed out.
The other issue is with format, when in an isolated conference room or office where no one else will interrupt is one thing but for those of us truly at home with small children running about its constant interruptions making it impossible to attend live virtual events.
Regular conferences besides the non-material networking, post session talks, and the instant feedback during sessions is also the getting away from the office. While attending virtual conferences some employers just don’t get it’s a “conference” and will interrupt for the problem of the hour so.
Piet Kiekebos says
I tried a few live presentations in a VR auditorium, where the desktop is on the big screen. So a fullscreen zoom session is on a Oculus Quest 2 really sharp. Combined with headphone you can wireless sit everywhere. Even in a noisy environment.
I’am writing a blog about my setup and findings one off these days.
What I miss in live events is , that the event hosts also #WFH . I think it’s more natural if the host and keynote speaker and maybe two presenters are in a small studio and are really on stage. Online but more an event. Killing all the goods from live events because off COVID-19 is not necessary.