Last week was an interesting and somewhat grueling week for me, attending back-to-back, multi-day virtual conferences for two separate organizations I’m affiliated with. These were high-level conferences that one would normally fly to and pay dearly for hotel, meals, et. al.
Both were amazingly effective – the technology, with a few minor hiccups, worked amazingly well considering there were around 200 attending one and over 80 attending the other.
This is not news that a resort hotel wants to hear. Or the airlines. Or the liquor industry. Or the – well, you get the point.
Perhaps my biggest take away was that I experienced a better learning experience as a result of this being virtual than if it were across the country in a (typically) frigid hotel ballroom. The individual sessions were recorded and made available for further review. The participants provided .pdf’s of their presentations. In all, an opportunity to take the learning deeper than being live.
The obvious downside is the diminished ability to develop relationships with other attendees, although we did the best we could with “breakout rooms” the conferencing technologies provide.
The conference attendees were resume writers, LinkedIn strategists, coaches of all sorts, writers, wellness practitioners – a mix of folks dedicated to providing some level of service to others, all with the same thing on their minds:
Timely…maybe always timely. Best wishes, Patti