Hybrid Programs: Lessons learned and moving forward
Going back to normal means going backward. The new challenge is moving forward and integrating what we've learned over the pandemic. Learning how to produce and facilitate meetings and events in the virtual environment has been the challenge of the last two years. How can we create powerful hybrid experiences allowing in-person and virtual participants to interact on a level playing field? It's more than just people gathering around a screen.
IntoWisdom Productions worked with The Association for Experiential Educators (AEE) to create KA (Kick A**) Hybrid experiences for their international conference in November. There were two challenges we faced in developing these programs. The first was technical. The people in the room and online all need to be seen and heard. The other challenge was facilitating two very different audiences, the in-person and the virtual. Both types of participants need to be tended to.
We produced over 25 sessions for the AEE conference. We overcame some of the technical challenges of the venue and learned a ton about improving both the technical capabilities and the facilitation challenges.
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The biggest lesson from producing the KA Hybrid rooms is the new skills needed to be effective in the hybrid context. The easiest group to deal with is the people in the same room as the facilitator. This is very familiar ground. But if we only tend to that crowd, you will lose the virtual participants. Everything we learned from the past two years about virtual facilitation must be applied to engage people online. There may be groups of people sharing a room joining virtually as well. This requires additional competencies as well.
The conference showed that the hybrid context can be effective. It also revealed massive room for technological improvement, program design, and facilitation. We continue to learn from experience.
Let us know if you want to chat about what we're learning or if you would like to set up KA Hybrid meetings for your organization.