A view through the monitor

COVID and Webinars - a match made in heaven or hell? We've all seen the memes on social media and I'm sure most of us here have been at one end or the other of the Webinar spectrum. It's an interesting time when content is important, distinguishable information is even more important, and method of delivery is almost democratised. Anyone can host a webinar, invite the world via social media and repeat x infinity. It's empowering, and overwhelming!

As we entered the period of lockdowns/stay at home/circuit breakers the world over earlier this year, everyone scrambled to adjust and accommodate events digitally. Large corporations like Microsoft very sensibly paused engagements while we figured out how we would make this work at scale. I too played a small part in this, and I've learned that this double edged sword is here to stay. We just need to learn how to swing it the right way :)

In the Small, Medium & Corporate segment of customers served by Microsoft, we run 1:many scale executive engagements at our Microsoft Technology Center locations, or more recently in Singapore, our brand new Experience Center Asia. While usually an in-person executive briefing over 2 days, COVID-19 has encouraged us to implement this creatively into a virtual briefing. Over the last 2 months, I have hosted 45 CXO's from countries across APAC in our revamped 4 hours briefings. Here is what I have learned.

Intro

Customer are overwhelmed by the number of meetings on the calendar. This is unavoidable, but ensuring there is a recurring series of reminders appropriately staggered are the difference between this being yet another meeting. I would also encourage hosts to keep time zone in mind, particularly if you have guests across multiple time zones. It is only natural that every attendee expects customized invitations, so keeping time zones in mind in pre-event communications personalized are useful. The other tip I would give is to keep in mind that most email filters filter out mass emails as spam, and corporate filters like in Office 365 go a step further to block potentially suspicious/spam messages. If you were expecting someone to show up based on a calendar invitation and they didn't - check if they received it!

Holding interest

Across the 4 hour format that we've been running, it's natural that attention can wander. One of the things that's obvious is that attendees working from home have their personal lives going on in front of, to the side of or behind them. That's very different from an in-person event so we've found that giving 2-3 breaks in a 4 hour session really help. Customers appreciate being able to stretch, spend a few minutes getting away from their device before coming back refreshed.

The other thing is to pause frequently for questions. Seems obvious, but I can tell you it isn't. Most of the topics we cover are fairly involved, with a lot of information. As hosts and moderators, it's always good to pause speakers who can be focused on rattling through their deck/demo in an allocated time. This is the art to the webinar science, one that I am sure experience will see get better. We also go a step further to personalize questions for specific attendees based on their country, industry and organization every 7-10 minutes, a model that has prompted not only some phenomenal discussion, but also more importantly, cross pollination between customers.

Closing Out

Senior executives will often walk away from an executive engagement with 1-2 things that they know they want to act on now. But given everything else that's ongoing - sending a follow up with specific actions as personalized as possible works wonders. This also leads me to the next aha moment - it takes a small tribe to run these seamlessly! Since this was/is a standard delivery we have people focused on different aspects of the event, from pre-event logistics to intra-event IT support; from notetaking during event, to speaker and slide management. Not all these tasks are done uniquely and often we will have someone owning multiple streams but that's the key - ask for help and run events regularly. The old adage of practise makes perfect is applicable here too, and boy am I thankful for the amazing individuals who help pull these events together at Microsoft.

Outro

I remember reading a hilarious exchange on Twitter in response to a post by Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of India's Mahindra Group, about potential ideas on naming Webinars based on who conducted them! Examples like these show that not only are we in a time of a new engagement normal, but also that today's accelerated paradigm means that evolution also has to follow quickly after genesis.

We will go back to "normal", but when we do, this "new normal" is going to be right there with us. On that note, I invite you to join us for our next Executive Briefing at Microsoft, hopefully we will tick your boxes for a successful remote engagement!

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