Virtual Meetings - Their Time has Finally Come.

Coronavirus is proving particularly challenging for me because, as a professional speaker and trainer, meetings are my lifeblood. Many speakers and trainers are already reporting increasing numbers of cancellations but in addition to that, this virus exposes us to greater risk than average. I am scheduled to be speaking in London next week, and I am nervous that that may be cancelled, and even if not, I will have to spend 5 hours that day on crowded trains and a few hours with the members of the audience.

Those of us who have to use public transport and attend meetings in our jobs is we are more exposed to catching or spreading the virus than most. But there is an unexpected upside to this. For years we have been extolling the virtues of online meetings, yet they have just not taken off. I always offer a virtual presentation option to meeting planners who have limited budgets, or which would involve considerable travel, but they are seldom taken up.

The economic argument for virtual meetings is unquestionable. Most speakers charge less for a virtual presentation, if it is not being recorded, and there are no added travel expenses. The software to facilitate virtual meetings is easy to use, often free or very inexpensive. If the meetings are held entirely online there is no need to hire meeting space, no travel expenses for the delegates and the meeting takes up less of their time. In addition, experience shows that delegates are likely to be more interactive in a virtual meeting than in a meeting space.

So why, if there are so many advantages, do meeting planners still resist. The answer to that as far as I have been able to determine is RISK. A meeting planner is judged by the effectiveness of the meeting and hosting a virtual meeting, whether that is entirely online or just the speaker presenting remotely exposes them to risk of failure.

What if they use a hotel and the internet connection fails or is laggy? What if they need to install software onto workplace computers? There are so many questions because this is fairly new technology. But the real problem is that many meeting planners have never hosted a virtual meeting so don’t have skills of experience to manage any challenges that may happen.

But faced with a complete or partial shutdown of public meetings, we may now have no choice but to embrace virtual meetings. The advantage of this is that everyone will be more accepting if things go wrong. Suddenly virtual meetings are a necessary alternative forced upon us by external circumstances. Everyone is in the same boat and we are all going to have to help each other to overcome the crisis.

Infact, even if the coronavirus does not result in a lockdown in the UK, people are afraid of the virus. We have seen this from the fact that many Chinese restaurants and take-aways are going out of business because people are afraid to buy Chinese food fearing they may be infected. Interestingly people do not seem to have the same problem with Italian restaurants, so there is clearly a degree of racism involved.

But it’s not just restaurants, FlyBe cited coronavirus as a contributing factor in the collapse of the airline, Virgin Atlantic has admitted to having to fly almost empty planes, people who have recovered from the virus are being hate targeted, and supermarkets are having to ration products in response to panic buying.

Even if meetings do continue, we are already seeing that participants are withdrawing. The huge number of meetings that have already been cancelled or postponed is because attendees are not booking or have cancelled. For the next few months at least we are likely to see a huge drop in meetings of all kinds

There could not be a better time to explore and experiment with virtual meetings. The meetings industry is about to undergo a permanent change, because once meeting planners and speakers have gained the skills and experience in this area, there will be no going back. There are just too many advantages to virtual meetings. 

It will not be the end to physical meetings, because there a great many advantages to meeting up with people. It is difficult to engage an audience as well online as face to face. I recently attended a live webinar with Tony Robbins that was very inspiring, though nothing like the experience of attending a live Tony Robbins seminar. That said, I have probably taken more direct action as a result of that two-hour webinar, than I did after attending a 13 hour workshop.

The video below is a clip from a virtual presentation to the PSA in Scotland in 2018 – I have used this clip to show that it is still possible to fully engage as if in the room, event when presenting virtually. If you are now looking at how to use virtual meetings in your diversity training – contact me for a no obligation discussion.