Why live events (still) matter

Why bother going to a live event these days? It’s a fair enough question.

Today you can get all the information you need to do your job effectively from the comfort of the laptop in your living room, or your office computer. E-learning courses, webinars, pocket guides, white papers, long-term educational or consulting engagements. The information and know-how are all there. Need to talk through a problem? You can dial in to a regional hospital networking group, or a local chapter meeting of ACDIS, and get connected on Zoom with the push of a button. You can even replicate a good keynote and get pumped with a recorded TED Talk or inspirational Youtube speech.

Live events are expensive. There are admission fees of course, but then flights, hotel, meals. And then there’s the hidden costs. Time away from the office, and being productive. Dry cleaning fees, for those of us wearing suits.

Then there’s the hassles. You can’t check email so easily at a conference, nor can you hop on a call without getting up awkwardly from a chair in the middle of a crowded lecture hall. And even if you’re being good and not checking email, you know all that work is slowly… backing … up … on you. And maybe you’ve got loud neighbors in your adjacent hotel room, and the coffee tastes tinny and thin.

So, why live events?

To be honest, I was having the same thoughts myself, in July and August and September, in the months leading up to the ACDIS national conference in Dallas. Why are we doing this? I thought to myself, more times than I care to remember. Why host an event in these days of easy digital connection, when we ourselves have proven we can do some great virtual events?

Oh, and by the way, we were and are still in a pandemic.

These thoughts were all-consuming. I was concerned, thinking we made the wrong move. I was frankly losing sleep, in the nights leading up to Oct. 22, when I backed out of my driveway and headed to Boston Logan Airport.

Then I attended, and had a WAY better time than I anticipated. And it all came back to me in a flash.

Why live events? The answer is simple.

We’re human beings, and human beings—even the introverted, like me—crave connection, on some level.

No matter how good your computer camera resolution is, you’re still talking at a flat screen, not to a person.

Spontaneous face-to-face conversations spur new ideas, and take you to places you might not have expected.

You can’t pass food together over a computer (if you’ve been able to do this, let me know, I’d love to see your secret). Having dinner as I did with a wildly disparate group of professionals at our ACDIS advisory board meeting leads to new friendships and connections.

You learn differently live than with a recording. Not always better, because you can’t pause a live lecture, and rewind and rewatch, but being in person forces you to pay closer attention. It’s too easy on a Zoom call to keep your outlook open and “multi-task” (I hate that phrase, it’s actually been proven that humans cannot multi-task—nothing actually gets done).

Being with a group of colleagues refuels the passion, and the purpose, behind what we do. I know my tank was nearing ‘E’ from 20 months of near isolation, and I hadn’t realized how empty it was, until it was refilled. It took other people to do that.

And of course, live events get you OUT (don’t we all need that these days)? You don’t get to see new places when you never leave your home—Netflix is no substitute. I’ve been to several awesome cities, thanks to ACDIS, and managed to fold in outings and shows. When you’re in your house too long, the walls inevitably start to close in.

So yeah, packing is a hassle. Clearing your email inbox and putting on your out of office reply (which no one will pay attention to, I’m afraid to tell you) is enervating. Waiting in the security line at the airport stinks, literally and figuratively. No way around that, I’m sorry to say.

But, live events are still worth it. I’m a believer.

I hope you are able to join us in Orlando in 2022.