Technology enabling, not replacing

IAPCO Member: MCI Group Canada Author: Juliano Lissoni, MSc, Managing Director

The COVID-19 pandemic brought an immeasurable amount of stress into our lives. Limitations of movement necessitated by physical distancing took their toll on citizens and businesses alike. While COVID-19 changed how we engaged with our teams, partners, and clients, it did not eliminate our need to meet altogether. With restrictions imposed in every part of the world, players in the events’ ecosystem were being flooded with questions: “Will events go back to the way it used to be? Will events be digital for evermore?. Trying to understand what the future of the events’ business will look like requires us to go beyond technology and have a deeper understanding of our human needs.

The traits that make us uniquely human come from our approach to cognition, communication, and language, including the largely innate and physiologically complex phonation, and the mechanisms of learning. Humans came together at first for security. Our social psychology evolved as we learned how to solve problems using co-operation, and our tribal social instincts helped to design current institutions and social norms.

The advancement of digital tools is helping us to share collective knowledge and re-define the concept of community. Features of other individuals and the environment help to define social situations, affecting our social strategies. Our brains are social by nature and built for relationship optimisation. We are wired to connect.

When it comes to business events, creating opportunities for people to come together in the same space is not about content distribution, it is about reinforcing human connections through social intelligence, and amplifying the effects of knowledge spillover.

The development of our emotions is part of human evolution. Back in time, chasing food, finding shelter, and dealing with all types of wildlife problems, required humans to trust their minds and their thoughts and feelings, guiding them through every situation. Survival was a consequence of trusting the emotional radar and reliance on instincts as first screening for information received. Being in a group has a positive impact on our emotional lives. Emotion influences our cognitive processes with a marked influence on attention, by modulating it, motivating action and behaviour.

Social intelligence has a deep impact in the way we engage. Attending events and conferences, joining informal discussions, and getting to know what others are working on and what progress they are making, are all critical steps for innovation. This knowledge spillover effect is a proven fact of the importance of being physically together at some point.

Digital tools will enhance the way content is distributed but, as creatures with social brains, our evolution requires being together either for triggering the right emotions that makes us feel part of a community, or for how we economically evolve by co-innovating.

It is not all these digital applications we are tired of. We simply crave a return to meetings and conferences, meeting people, and shaking hands, because it is in these environments that we thrive.