#7: hunker down

G’day

It’s time to hunker down. In the space of a few weeks, our company plan has gone from managed growth to survival mode. Decision-making everywhere is going to be paralyzed for a little while.

It feels like this is the next phase in the backlash against globalization that raged through the late 2010s, manifestations of the inevitable tensions that arise when a world of close to 8 billion people becomes ever more connected.

As per Darwin, those who survive are not the strongest or the most intelligent, but the most adaptable to change. 

ABOVE THE LINE

• #virtualconferences

BELOW THE LINE

• viral content
• wfh: do the laundry
• and finally...h/t remo

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ABOVE THE LINE

#virtualconferences

Thousands of conferences, meetings, gatherings are being cancelled because face-to-face is now toxic. Mobile World Congress, South by Southwest, the Geneva Motor Show. Carnage for the event industry and the cities that host them. Collision, a tech conference of 30,000 people held in Toronto in late June has been renamed “Collision at Home” and it is going online: 

“Think of it like working from home: join the event online from wherever you are in the world.”

Sounds great… many other conferences have proclaimed virtuality too: NVIDIA, Dell World, Google Cloud Next even the International Communication Association conference. 

Challenge: content is a secondary consideration for conference participants. Mostly it’s the serendipity of it that makes people cough up for the ticket, the airfare, the hotels. Being in a foreign city for a couple of nights, scanning the programme, meeting up with old colleagues and contacts. People and companies will pay for that. Watching stuff online, meh. Go YouTube. 

TED is the best virtual conference in the world. While tens of thousands of people might participate in the irl TED and TEDx conferences each year, hundreds of millions of people watch TED content online. The secret: for much of its 30 years, TED has prioritized virtual content. While the live experience may well be awesome for the elite who pay upwards of $6,000 to participate, stage design, lighting, cameras, timing, production, even sponsorship, all is done with the virtual viewer, who pays nothing, front of mind. 

Compare that with the current state of the virtual conference industry, about to be hit by a whirlwind of demand it is ill-equipped to deal with. Your entry-level branded central hallway with some virtual breakout rooms, plenary sessions webcast with some widgets like chat and voting will run you about $20,000, just for the virtual infrastructure, never mind the content. It will take minimum 4 months to pull together. Digital content skills are radically different to the ones in your events team.

To that you need to add real-time virtual interaction that’s not clunky. Given that most conference calls start with 10 minutes of “who’s on the line? Which platform are we using? I can see you but can’t hear you, you’re on mute” shenanigans, there is some cause for skepticism.

How could we create the serendipity of human interaction in a virtual environment?

There are two industries that know how to do this. Gaming. And porn. Just saying. 

Even Facebook's Oculus vision of the virtual future is one without pants:

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BELOW THE LINE

?? Viral content

Kudos to Dante Licona and the digital team at IFRC for investing in TikTok early and being in a position to leverage that into some truly, ah, viral content:

Which organizations are using TikTok well and creatively?

Here is running list of English-language publishers and journalists on TikTok.

???? wfh part ii: do the laundry

So the whole of Italy is working from home. It is likely that soon you will be too.

wfh is a mental game. Focus on outputs not inputs - in the office it might be how long you sit staring at your screen or how long you were in meetings. At home, it is what you got done. That can include doing the laundry and making dinner, as long as you deliver against your work goals too.

In #6 I provided some resources for individuals and organizations new to working from home.

I worked from home as an individual consultant for 12 years a decade ago, before all the amazing tools for virtual working like Zoom and Asana and all those platforms existed. When I went back to work for an organization I couldn't believe the investment in presenteeism, meeting time, corridor chats, coffee. All that could be returned to you, and more, as you readjust your engagement with the workplace and its culture.

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???? Hey if you read this far, do me a favour and click "like". This is a data experiment I'm doing.

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??????and finally... h/t Remo

Remember these facemask device openers:

When I published #5 I rudely failed to tip my hat to natural-born curator Remo Guiffre for the device face masks piece. Remo, for those unfamiliar with his work, has built TEDx Sydney into a global brand. His eponymous brand of merchandise is the physical embodiment of the man’s creative energies.

As far as the faceid masks are concerned, plot thickens. Linkedin gives this warning:

And when you scroll down the faceid page, safely opened in a secure browser, you get this:

Good advice.

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Until next week. Stay safe and keep washing those hands.

Mike