It's a Hybrid Life

(An edited version of this article was published in Smart Meetings Magazine in August 2020)
https://www.smartmeetings.com/magazine_article/hybrid-meeting

I get it. There’s a strong desire for things to go back to normal. So many of us watched in a combination of shock and uncertainty as our second and third quarter business just… vaporized. Microsoft announced they wouldn’t be doing any in-person events until June 2021, and other companies followed. Some organizations scrambled to take their events online, others, short on time and feeling like they were out of their element, canceled. On top of that, shelter-in-place orders have us all trapped in our homes, spending a little too much “quality time” with our families, and unable to participate in the activities that usually give us solace.

Who wouldn’t want things to go back to normal?

But what is “normal”? What most people really mean when they say they want things to “go back to normal” is, “I want things to go back to the way they were.” Life, unfortunately, rarely works that way. “Normal” is ever-changing. “Normal” is evolving. We have to keep moving forward because the world’s going to do so, whether we like it or not.

So I get it- I understand when I hear my European colleagues pressing their governments for concrete timelines for re-opening events. But I also shake my head, because we know that’s just not possible with something as unpredictable and evolving as Nature. We have to work with what we’ve got, and not let uncertainty paralyze us. 

The safe bet, for the foreseeable future and possibly from now on, is Hybrid.

Despite the fact that epidemiologists have been warning us this was coming literally for years (I know, I worked on their events and every year it was basically the same agenda), we got caught flat-footed as an industry. Nobody had “global pandemic” on their bingo card. Now’s your chance to prevent that from happening ever again by planning for both an in-person, and online experience.

Step 1: Use this time to experiment with your online audience

At the moment, attendees are still in the “We’re all in this together” phase, for the most part. Once we get into 2021, that might not be the case as much. Think you’re sick of Zoom calls now? Give it a few more months. Now’s the time to try new things and see what works.

Most people look to events, especially from professional associations, for two things: education and networking. You’re going to need to find new ways to do both that account for the shorter attention span that comes from watching an event from home, and the fact that you can’t just open up a bar, put on some music, and “let networking happen”. You’re going to need to force people to mix and mingle, so come up with a discussion topic and randomly divide them into breakout groups. Or don’t do it randomly- use a service such as Mixtroz to divide them up based on how they answer surveys, similarly or differently.

Same thing on the education side. Instead of a tiny talking-head superimposed over a PowerPoint for an hour, try interviews. Instead of polls, try trivia games. Try graphic recording, where an artist live-chronicles the presentation through cartoons and caricatures. I can’t believe I’m quoting Zootopia (darn you, Disney!) but “Try Everything!” Take advantage of the now, to start honing on what works for the future.

Step 2: Start planning your hybrid event

You are a professional designer of experiences. Fantastic! Because you now have two, completely different experiences to design. Here’s the thing- hybrid events have been around for over a decade at this point, just not in a quantity that you probably noticed. Of that small percentage of events, the best hybrid events were the ones that thought through both the in-person and online experiences equally.

You have to think about what the online audience is supposed to be doing, and how they’re supposed to feel at every moment, just like your in-person audience. For instance, if you’re giving your in-person attendees a coffee break, what is the online audience doing? If you’re offering Q&A or polling in person, how can your audience members participate? Do they have a moderator or host to be their voice in the room? Are you warning your presenters that it can take up to 30 seconds for your online attendees to even hear the question being asked, much less formulate an answer and respond? How can they participate in any team-building, and if there’s a networking function, what can you do to help them network as well? Oh right, you’ve already been experimenting with that in your online events. Right?

Step 3: Be ready for the new normal, and the next umm… “whatever”

There are a lot of advantages to a hybrid model: increased attendee reach, opening your event up to global audiences, new revenue streams, and more diverse conversations. The real secret of hybrid, though, is this- if you do the work now deliberately, you don’t have to do it later in a hurry when the next “once in a lifetime” event brings your event’s world to a halt, whether it’s a secondary coronavirus wave, a terrorist attack, or a volcanic ash cloud.

By planning a quality online experience from day one, it’s now just a matter of transitioning to a fully online event. You can use the same platform, you can use the same agenda. The only change is where your presenters are beaming in from. You can be prepared for that too, with backup plans for AV kits (lights, microphones, cameras) for your presenters, or mini-studios in your main offices, if the situation permits. AV companies are already stockpiling more “consumer-grade” versions of their gear for this very purpose, so why not include this in your RFP so you don’t have to negotiate it later?

Not knowing what the future holds can leave you paralyzed with indecision. If you choose to go fully online, that can solve a lot of problems, and you won’t have to worry about virus spikes or lock-down orders. But at some point, you’re going to have to start making decisions on whether or not to have live events again, so you might as well be prepared for all contingencies and embrace the idea of hybrid events sooner, rather than later.

Every day that you delay puts you further and further behind for when things go back to… normal.