Virtual is our new reality Desiree Dolecki

Back in February of this year, when I first really paid attention to the term COVID-19, and started to understand its impact, I sat on the 2nd floor of our office, in our conference room, ready for our weekly staff meeting, prepared to give an update on the status of logistics and planning for our fall conference in Toronto. The AME International Conference is the largest lean conference in the world. In its 36th year, it attracts over 1500 lean practitioners and continuous improvement leaders from over 30 countries. It is our signature event, a conference our members and partners look forward to, a conference that my whole job exists around! During this February staff meeting was when I casually, and half-heartedly mentioned this thing called COVID and how it may play a role in creating risk for our in-person events. But no worries, right? Our conference is in the fall. We will have this all worked out by then.

As I think about our journey since February, and the obstacles I have faced as an event professional, I can categorize into 5 challenges.

One month following that staff meeting and the talk of our weekly gathering is around a hybrid conference as the word pandemic is introduced. Yikes! In my 20 years of holding an event professional role – for both corporate and association – I have never been challenged to pivot on format so quickly. “Pivot” and “time of uncertainty” – if I never have to hear these terms again, it will make me the happiest planner in the universe. As it was becoming more and more clear that our in-person conference was in jeopardy, I had to accept these terms and begin our strategy for moving forward. First step was to survey our members and community to get a pulse on how they felt about meeting in person, their concerns about traveling, how they felt about virtual events, what content they were looking for and any gaps in learning we could fill in the time between now and the fall conference. The data collected helped us make informed decisions. Another challenge in the transformation process was the learning curve. All the typical jargon I have been fully versed in over the last 20 years took on a whole new meaning – broadcast, webcast, hybrid, platform, streaming provider, bandwidth, network traffic, on demand, API, background, chat box, encoders, transcoding, network speed, dedicated connection, modem, router, data integration, tech support, PII, GDPR, optimized, digital security, time zones, etc. oh my! The transformation that probably affected me the most was the transition to working remotely and the use of Zoom for all meetings, even a regular old conference call. The world truly went virtual and that meant Zoom was the new standard. So, getting up and taking a shower and putting on (at minimum) a nice shirt, was mandatory in this virtual work environment. After a few Zoom calls with my convention center contact, who I communicated with for months via phone, was now a familiar face during our monthly prep calls.

Another month later and at this point hybrid is not an option so all focus is on totally virtual. What will our in-person conference look like virtually? What value will it provide to our members? How many days should the virtual format contain, how much content, how many hours? After creating a lengthy list of questions that would later be used to define our virtual strategy, I pulled together a virtual committee comprised of a few of our fabulous volunteers and staff. This A-team would help to make the tough decisions about our next steps. In terms of value, the question that kept coming up was how can we charge a registration fee when so much content is being offered for free? For this, I went back to the basics and asked the question – why are we having this event? Answer: our members look to us as industry leaders to share, learn and grow. As our marketing director, Jeff, reminds me, content is king! And we have it. The value prop is there. As a not-for-profit 501c3 association, we know that maintaining a conference that generates revenue is key to ensuring that we have a future. So began the thought-

ful planning of strategy and the realization that we were in a position to headline our conference with keynote speakers that we typically couldn’t afford. In addition, in a virtual format, there was no barrier of entry. We could reach even more members and the communities we serve from around the world.

Fast forward a few more months and the only event item we aren’t talking about in our weekly team staff meetings is in-person events. Virtual has officially become our new normal. At this point I am feeling the effects of information overload. The number of webinars, articles, certifications and other virtual learning available for event professionals is overwhelming. Personally, I watched countless webinars, benchmarked with industry peers on weekly Zoom meetings, read endless articles and participated on social media industry group chats, and sought out every possible opportunity to enhance my knowledge of virtual events. All in an effort to find the golden nuggets of information that would increase by virtual knowledge base. I even found a minute to earn a certificate in virtual event and meeting management. I appreciate how the industry associations and partners worked quickly to turn out content to keep us (first) informed, (then) trained, and (now) updated for moving forward with virtual events as well as towards getting back to the business of in-person events.

I think the hardest obstacle to tackle was all the major adjustments that had to be made to accommodate not only the virtual environment but the stakeholder expectations. First things first, I had to level-set. Collaboration was key now more than ever – with speakers, keynotes, CVBs, DMCs, hoteliers, staff, volunteers, vendor partners, exhibitors, sponsors, attendees and the board on important items like the budget, planning, experience and outcome. With the prominent challenges of creating a conference that encompasses learning and networking, in an environment where you can’t be with each other to have those engaging experiences, it was clear that innovation was needed. In the virtual environment engagement is everything. Engage, engage, engage! Did I mention we need to focus on engagement? Recognizing that not all elements of an in-person event will translate to virtual is critical. Realizing that technology will not always be there to work for us without fault is paramount. The rate of change is rapid and remote innovations are important, down to the virtual delivery method. We began a conversation with our speakers around virtual format and style and a revolution of new delivery methods came about for us – we went from the standard talking head to interviews and storytelling methods.

We must push on. Don’t waste a crisis, as I have continually been told. Virtual events are here to stay, let’s face it. Our 2021 conference will be noting less than a hybrid event. Virtual went from a nice to have to an essential part of the events industry, literally overnight. We have a human need to connect with one another and that need cannot be met through virtual alone.

With talks of a vaccine in the works for this fall, I am certain in-person events will have a come-back, although, IMO, at a slow and steady pace. I am looking forward to the days of being onsite again, the precon meeting, the much anticipated keynote opening session, the smell of fresh lanyards and badges, the daily 80,249 steps around the venue (with blisters to boot), the end-of-day continuous improvement debriefs, the smiling faces of our exhibitors and staff and, my personal favorite, the AME standard conference-closing high-five. Our next in-person conference-closing high-five is in the somewhat near future; I can feel it in my planner bones. And this high-five will mean more to us than ever before – and we will embrace it with familiarity and a sense of back to normal – followed by a spritz of hand sanitizer.