Don't Close Up Shop, Engage Virtually

Don’t cancel your event or close up shop because of #COVID19, engage virtually. A growing number of cancelations and closures are already affecting our daily lives. My family had to cancel a personal trip to Japan in April that has been in the works for a year to meet up with our son living in Asia. We all have a personal story to share and the impact from #coronavirus is getting more real with each passing day. Whether we agree or not with the response from our institutional and government leaders, without question we face a global pandemic together, and convening for any purpose in a centralized location carries an increased risk of further spread of the virus. Every day we read about another cancelation or closure, from national events like #SXSW, to local school closings like Saint Ray’s in my own backyard of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. What if instead of canceling events or closing up shop due to coronavirus we continued enabling and helping people, only more virtually?

“Even as we retreat from physical interaction, there’s a huge opportunity to actually connect, to learn and to understand.” Seth Godin

As an innovation junkie, I was troubled by the announcement that this year’s South-by-Southwest convening in Austin, Texas has been cancelled. #SXSW has missed a big opportunity, which should have been right up its alley, to lead the virtual way. I understand the decision to cancel when you think of #SXSW as a place-based event. But if you think about it more as a connected community you might reach a different conclusion. Imagine the difference 160,000+ of the coolest, hippest, most creative and human-centered folks from around the world could make right now. If a physical convening in Austin can’t happen this year because of the coronavirus, what if #SXSW experimented with ways to connect, engage and mobilize its community virtually instead? What if all of that talent and optimistic energy could be connected in purposeful ways to help catalyze 21st century solutions to real-world problems we face today in our communities?

Another example and a reminder that we learn faster when disruption affects us personally, is from a school right in my own backyard in Rhode Island. Saint Raphael Academy, known locally as Saint Ray’s, is a highly regarded parochial school in Pawtucket that found itself the unintended coronavirus epicenter in Rhode Island after a group of 38 students and chaperones from the school returned from a field trip to Europe including a stop in Italy. The school shut down when it learned of its first coronavirus infection. Rhode Islanders continue to question the response by both school and state leaders and quickly did the two degrees of separation thing we do in our small state to trace our own personal contacts. We all know someone who was either on the Saint Ray’s trip or who knows someone who was. Regardless of how any of us critique Saint Ray’s response to the local coronavirus outbreak one thing that caught my attention was how well prepared the school is to carry on engaging its students virtually for however long it remains shut down.

In the words of Daniel Ferris, the superintendent of schools responsible for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence including St. Ray’s quoted in the Providence Journal:

“What is remarkable is that St. Raphael developed and implemented its virtual learning day protocol three years ago. When faculty has professional days, instruction continues virtually for all students at home. The students treat a virtual day like any other in-school day, of course, without their uniforms.”

How many of our country’s schools are similarly prepared to continue teaching while their classrooms remain empty? How many urban students across America will fall even further behind because their schools aren’t ready? What if we took advantage of the disruption caused by the coronavirus to accelerate the path to a new education model better integrating both in-person and virtual learning? Don’t design with the school at the center, design with the student at the center.

The same questions can be asked about the preparedness of all institutions across industries, disciplines and sectors. I fear too many institutions across healthcare, education and public services aren’t ready and more and more people will be left further behind by cancellations and closings caused by the outbreak. I wish we were further along in leveraging digital in a more equitable and inclusive way but the unexpected coronavirus outbreak represents an important chance to change our digital engagement game and to get it right. Sometimes it takes something measured in nanometers like a coronavirus to help us start on the path to the big transformational changes we want and need.

Convening for any purpose in a centralized location is being disrupted before our eyes. The disruption we face from the coronavirus outbreak impacts every institution including companies, schools, religious organizations, social service organizations and government agencies. It’s time to step back and to ask fundamental questions about why we convene in the first place. What if the coronavirus is just the nudge we need to accelerate our transformation to the digital world in a human-centered way? Don’t put up a closed for renovation sign, put up an open for digital engagement sign instead. What if we take advantage of the opportunity caused by COVID-19 to change how organizations leverage technology to help more people solve real-world problems and to stay relevant in a rapidly changing world.

Don’t close up shop, engage virtually.