Hybrid Events: Attention by Default to Attention by Design

At an in-person event, we are lucky we exist in the attention by default world. The audience has invested in being there; we create 'track traps' in our seminar programmes, so even the dullest presenters get a shot at 'attention by default' and feel good.

It is unlikely that someone who has flown halfway across the globe (yes, that will happen again) would pass through registration and leave unless they happened to work on The Enterprise. In which case they could say, "BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY", and they wouldn't have taken a flight in the first place - but that tech, I have been informed, is a way off.

Attention By Design - The New Challenge for Hybrid

The online world is brutal. I remember running a webinar with an excellent starting audience drop down to less than ten after the most extended company history introduction ever. The pandemic may have upped the presentation skills as, for a time, you could fill your entire day watching 'exciting live webinars featuring an expert deep dive with some acceleration' but then again, maybe not.

We do, however, have a renewed aspiration to figure this out and layer our in-person events with a vibrant online audience that actively and positively contributes to the event as a whole. I am not sure polling the audience to death equals engagement or is the answer, by the way.

Attention by design requires five things

1) Content designed and delivered for attention

2) Presenters who understand the new form

3) An online experience with just the right hooks to create interaction

4) Automation and triggers to hook participants into multiple content assets

5) Enabling technology that creates the right join between the physical and the virtual

The data alone from the successful delivery of this experience is bankable. I will talk about this more in future posts and some of the really cool ways this increases the value of your data.

Hybrid Events require an operational change

What is exciting is that the technology is affordable and within reach; if we look beyond the monoliths and adopt a microservices approach, we can deliver a digital experience that fits our aspirations like a glove.

However, if we look at the list above again, the most challenging problem is NOT the tech but figuring out how to drive it and fuel it with the right content USING the right technology.

The more significant and underestimated challenge is realigning operations behind this model. That has certainly become evident from the Digital Experience Workshops using the CVI + CVO Framework I have been running with my clients.

It is important not to approach the potential of hybrid events from a position of fear. Fear, for example, of cannibalising the on-site audience but the aspiration to build something your customers' customers will flock to and put you in a position to understand their audience better than them and enable you to commercialise the digital experience.

Whoever you work with, make sure you define the digital experience you want to create before you look for any tech. That is what I designed the CVI + CVO Framework to help you with. When you have a clear vision in place, you can ask the right questions to technology suppliers, specialists and your delivery and content teams.?

You will also be in a position to find new partners with the skills needed and activate them behind your new Commercially Valuable Outcomes (CVOs) - it's there for the taking.

I have left out lots of learning from running over 400 webinars and what people are now calling 'virtual events'. If you want to know more, book in a digital jumpstart. You can do so, by following this link.

Thanks for reading and if you have anything to add, please do so in the comments.