Coming together is an essential human drive, one that not even a global viral pandemic can fully put a damper on. Many of us have been meeting *more* than ever before as workshops and conferences have gone online all over the world. With vaccines starting to be released in some countries, the question on everyone’s lips is “when can we get back together?” There are lots of guesses but no one knows for sure. If you’re planning events for mid-year 2021, I hope you have a crystal ball *and* that you listen to the rest of this episode.
Meredith Kaganovskiy shares her wisdom and experience with us. She’s a certified meeting professional, a certified digital events strategist and the Senior Project Manager of the DIA Global Annual Meeting. We talk about her herculean efforts in taking a 7000 person-strong flagship event into a virtual one with weeks to spare and dive deep into Meredith's philosophy of experience-driven events planning, as well as her “two experiences, one meeting” motto for the hybrid future on the horizon.
I feel lucky to have been able to work with Meredith and Robyn Weinick, the Global Program Officer on this project as their coach over a few very intense weeks and provide them a space and place to think and build a vision for the experience they were trying to create, working to think past the challenges and restrictions that technology placed on them.
The Hybrid Bridge
Meredith suggests that the old-school way of doing hybrid - a bridge to take questions and insights from the virtual space into the “real” space - is no longer enough. This once “wowed” audiences and helped in-person event planners expand their audiences and reach.
The Virtual-First Platform
Meredith believes that it’s now table-stakes to have a lively, interactive and self-contained virtual platform for remote attendees. The bridge between the in-person and virtual experiences used to be mostly one-way, with in-person taking the lead. Meredith predicts that the hybrid future of events means that the bridge between virtual and in-person needs to be more broad and two-way - a real conversation between equals. And that just like an in-person meeting, a virtual meeting has to provide a range of conversational spaces: from intimate opportunities to connect, to larger arenas for learning and listening, balancing curated conversations and more open-doors dialogs.
Meredith also shares her broader philosophy of event planning, how she visualizes the personality of a meeting and much more. Enjoy the conversation as much as I did recording it.
Links, Key Quotes, Notes and Resources
Connect with Meredith
More about DIA
Meredith’s *first* podcast about turning around the “ocean liner” that was the DIA global meeting:
Minute 9
We talk about how meetings have a personality
“I was always in tune with the personality of the meeting that I was doing”
Minute 11
How events start way before people walk into the doors, physically or virtually.
Minute 17
Making a decision to be virtual or to cancel a flagship meeting in June during the first shutdown in March.
Minute 20
“I'll never forget April 8th, because that's my email went out to the program committee, that this change is happening. We can no longer hold our meeting. The DC Convention Center became a field hospital. We have to go 100% virtual, don't panic.”
Minute 23
“It was important for me that when you clicked in, I started referring to this at the virtual convention center. And when you logged into my lobby, you felt like you were at DIA, even though you were sitting in your dining room, or your home office, or in the kitchen, that you felt like, "Oh, this is different. I'm not watching a recording of something, I'm actually interacting with people. There's a way to connect with people. I'm still viewing content and speakers from around the world,"
Min 31
The “old way” to Hybrid: On “the bridge” between virtual and IRL meetings
“before COVID, really, when you heard things like a hybrid meeting, it meant that there were sessions that were live streamed out to maybe the website of the company or association, and that you could log in and be a part of the virtual audience that's watching a live session happening and groups that did it, well would have that moderator, that would be typing in the chat back to the virtual audience, and during a Q&A would address the speaker and say, "I have a few questions from the virtual audience." And that would be the bridge. And that was like really fancy. That was wow, they're live streaming sessions, which is great, because they get that reach. They brought in another audience that couldn't travel, and that was it.”
Min 35
Flipping IRL and Virtual: Two experiences and one meeting
“the way I see it is that the virtual platform still has a place. It still needs to be embraced, and we need to create environments for two audiences, ... two experiences but one meeting.
And so you're going to have, when we're allowed to convene large groups. You're going to have a smaller group in person than you would have had probably a regional audience, it's going to have to be socially distanced for us.
“So I look at it like this, I have an audience in the physical space, I have an audience in the virtual space, and both audiences need access to each other, and the content that's happening in each place.”
“I want this to be, if you are on site, you are still going to have access to the virtual platform, so you can tune in to see what's happening there, what kind of networking is happening there, what sessions are being offered there, potentially watch parties, if I have, speakers that could not be physically in person, it may be the reverse. I may have a gathering of folks in an area tuned into the platform. So the reverse is happening, where the speakers are living in the virtual space, there's a virtual audience that's in the platform with them, but now I have a moderator connecting folks from a physical location and checking in with their iPads and phones, and so it's both ways, it's happening now.”
More About Meredith
Meredith Kaganovskiy is a certified meeting professional, digital events strategist and Senior Project Manager of the DIA Global Annual Meeting. Meredith is passionate about creating experiences and environments that give individuals opportunities to learn and connect with each other and has designed conferences for domestic and international nonprofit associations since 2004.
DIA is the Drug Information Association and has provided the world’s largest global, neutral stage for life science professionals to come together and address healthcare challenges. The Global Annual Meeting brings together patients, industry, regulators, and academia from all angles of the product lifecycle, from more than 50 countries.
Full Transcript
Daniel:
So Meredith, I am going to... rather I'm going to officially welcome you to The Conversation Factory. Thank you for making the time to have this conversation with me.
Meredith:
Thank you for having me.
Daniel:
It's your second podcast interview. I'm excited. So, okay, let's go back to the beginning. Can you tell me your origin story? Like how did you become a Certified Meeting Professional? Ladies and gentlemen, if you've never met a Certified Meeting Professional you're about to. So I mean, how did you find yourself on that path?
Meredith:
I fell into it. I did not know this was a path when... so you start out in college, and you decide your majors, and at that time in my life, I was majoring in marketing, and I was minoring in...
Daniel:
You can do it.
Meredith:
I can't even speak. I'm so excited. I had a minor in fine arts-
Daniel:
It is Friday, by the way, in your defense, we just talked about how yesterday felt like. What was it? Little Thursday? No little Friday?
Meredith:
Oh, Friday Jr.
Daniel:
Friday Jr., that's what it was.
Meredith:
Yes.
Daniel:
It's like dinosaur Jr. [crosstalk 00:01:36]-
Meredith:
Every day feels like a week, especially if you're working from home with your family and you have school aged children like I do.
Daniel:
Yeah. So, you're all good. As you are saying.
Meredith:
I'm all good. Look at this back on track. So I decided I'm going to major in marketing, I was going to do a minor in fine arts, Rutgers was like, "Oh, that's interesting, we haven't had that before. Not sure about that." And I said, "Well, I am. I know this is what I want to do." I was very interested in graphic design and new product development, and while I'm on campus, I'm starting to get involved in different student organizations. And when I say involved, for some reason, I can't just be a member, I end up on the board, because I'm like, "Let's do this, I have this idea," and before I knew it, I was bringing students together. I was organizing activities on site. I was drawing up budgets and defending them to student activities. I was founding organizations, we were having fundraisers for those organizations, and I did not know this was a career.
Meredith:
And then, it's that time where now you have to find a job, I am now competing with 9/11, with folks who have masters, and who are now seeking jobs, and I'm just out of college, and I started seeing event planning and meeting planning, pop up, and I did an internship for meeting planning, and it was awful. I was just booking dinners for doctors in all different restaurants, and I was like, "If this is meeting planning, I'm out." I'm looking to create an experience of some kind, and, learn about what goes into an event, and I'm just making reservations at this point.
Meredith:
So I just had to go back to my marketing roots, and I applied for a job, at an association management company, which I had no idea what that was. I just knew that I worked with a lot of student groups, and they're like associations. So I applied for their marketing position. They saw that I had a meeting internship, and said, "Hey, we have an opening for an assistant meeting manager, what do you think?"
Meredith:
And I said, "Oh, well, I really would like to have a job". So, I went in for the interview, and I had to answer a lot of questions about marketing, because I had so much marketing on my resume, and I said, "It was a great event, marketing". If you have a great experience, and you met other people, aren't you going to talk about that? So that's where my marketing side comes into the play. And nonetheless, I showed them all these floor plans that I designed and how I took over the Campus Center where I set the buffets up, how I got Q102 radio station to come on campus and be part of the entertainment and they were like, "This is great, you're hired". And I've never looked back.
Meredith:
So I've been in meeting planning for over 16 years now, I've always worked with associations and non-profit groups and I love it, I love their mission, I love that I can be a part of their mission, I found myself on medical meetings, the medical side a lot, which is really funny because if you know me, I can't get through any medical show whatsoever. I have so much respect, I could never be a doctor.
Daniel:
You can't even watch the medical shows.
Meredith:
I can't even watch it. And here I am working for transplant groups. And some of those slides are extremely graphic with those, the organs and all that, so-
Daniel:
I can only imagine.
Meredith:
-it was just ... it's really funny that this is who I'm working with. But I get to bring people together. And they're helping each other to save lives. So, I just fell in love with my place in this. And I've learned a lot since then, and I now continue my work in non-profits, where I am now, we have the full spectrum of life sciences. So I've gone from the working with medical, the medical practitioners, to now working with the regulators and the pharmacy companies and the academics, I feel like I've had the full circle now, and it's just wonderful, and I love it. This is who I get to bring together.
Daniel:
So interesting. So I mean, I want to just double stitch on that, because you mentioned it twice. It's clear that a core value for you is bringing people together. You just sort of did it reflexively in college, and now you do it professionally, which is really cool.
Meredith:
I love that. I've always felt that in a situation where there's a lot of people gathering, like in an event, for example, I always felt like I was never in the moment, I was always watching, observing, seeing the interactions that were happening, and I always felt like, "Why am I so weird?" But, in meeting planning, that's my role. There's a place for me, I get to reflect on the environment that these folks are coming to now, and design against it, and for them. And so I get to bring people together and I just love it.
Daniel:
You do this for fun top, do you like, I mean, I don't know if you remember parties, back in the day, and the before times. Did you throw parties? Are you a party thrower?
Meredith:
I do like to host. Yeah. I do like to host, I'm the person in the neighborhood who is inviting everyone over, family dinners, and for the big holidays, we do a big, we did, we used to. We would do a big Rosh Hashanah dinner, and most of my friends don't celebrate Rosh Hashanah, but they all look forward to coming to my house. We would have 20 folks at extended tables. And so yeah, I do, I love bringing people together and celebrating.
Daniel:
What is the most important Rosh Hashanah food in your perspective?
Meredith:
Oh, I might go with the kugel.
Daniel:
If you don't know, I mean, you offer, is this sweet kugel or is this?
Meredith:
Yes. The sweet noodle kugel.
Daniel:
Noodle kugel. You're making me like you're ... like there's memory tears well, they are in my eyes. If you don't like raisins, it's a hard road to hoe, but they kind of just they plump up in the kugel and they're delicious.
Meredith:
Yeah. I love a good... like the sweet cheese, and the raisin kugel with... and it has to be the extra wide noodles, don't tell my mother-in-law, because her version of it, bad. And my mom actually likes apricots in hers.
Daniel:
That's outlandish. Dried apricot?
Meredith:
The dried apricot.
Daniel:
That's a type of Jew I've never met. That's fascinating. This is like where they talk about... and this is a total side bar, not necessarily relevant to what we're talking about. But food is our central to experiences. It's a focal point. We talk about it, we talk while we're doing it, with our mouths open. I love this vision of the conversation around the kugel, and whether it's the right type of kugel too, to convene around.
Meredith:
We can have a kugel debate.
Daniel:
We can. We can have this whole, like I just turned this whole thing into a conversation about Jewish food, but I don't know about that would be really interesting, only a very small section of people. So, one thing that I heard, which I did not know about you is that you had a background in fine arts. And I heard you say something about how events are like marketing, and so this overlapped. But I'm also wondering how you feel like events are like art, what is the art of bringing people together? What is the art of creating a powerful experience?
Meredith:
And there's so many facets to that. I will tell you, I am not one to rinse and repeat for... so when I worked with an association management company, for example, I worked with a variety of different associations at the same time. So they're at an association management company so that they can share stuff. So usually they're very niche groups. They're not stand alones, like DIA where I am now. But even in DIA, we have so many niche portions of our membership, because we're the full spectrum of life scientists, even then when I worked in the specialty meetings for DIA, I was always in tune with the personality of the meeting that I was doing. And I didn't try to the [crosstalk 00:10:20]-
Daniel:
The meeting's personality, the meeting has a personality to you.
Meredith:
Yeah. It does. The people who come to the meeting, right? It's for them. So I want to gear it towards them and not make it just, oh, another meeting. There are some practical things that all meetings are going to have, right? You're going to have a place where you view the presentations, for example, but how you view them, that's where the difference is. And so I would play with things like that. I would play with... when we just talked about food and how important food is, to some groups, it's really a key thing, and for other groups, it's not. So I was always designing in mind of who was coming to these meetings and these experiences, and so, when I worked with the heart failure nurses, I would design all their food and beverage around them. So, they could practice what they preach, so we would have, instead of the traditional coffee cake at coffee time, I would have some crazy flaxseed muffins, happening with recipe cards available, to take back with them.
Daniel:
So it's the little touches that-
Meredith:
It's a little, yeah, it's the little things. I knew they were coffee addicts, which I could totally appreciate. And so, I would have funny [crosstalk 00:11:41]-
Daniel:
That's your breakfast every morning, as we established before we ...
Meredith:
It's my go to breakfast. So I'd have fun signage about coffee, like not before my coffee and caffeine and... that they would appreciate, that made sense to them that made it fun for them to be on site. If I knew there was this meeting was like a reunion to a DIA global annual meeting, it's very much like a reunion. And so we plan different elements so that you can spend time with your colleagues outside of session, in addition to being in session. And I think that's the key differences is, is knowing, you've heard the saying, know your audience.
Meredith:
But if you want to keep people looking forward to your event, before content is even released, you have to be thinking about their experience from the moment they, if you're talking about the physical event, the moment they walk in, and what their journey is going to be. If you're talking in, you really want to go a level up, then you're talking about from the moment they know about your meeting is going to happen, and what that whole cycle looks like leading... now what's the lead up? What's the build up to your event, and they get to the event, they experience the event, and then what happens after the event? Like what's this relationship look like?
Daniel:
Yeah. The whole cycle.
Meredith:
The whole cycle. And that's something I take a lot of joy in stepping back from and looking at, and thinking about what experience do I want these folks to have? Even before, they walk in through my doors.
Daniel:
I feel like this may be the artistry part is, is there's a real balance between all of these elements. If you just focus on the big picture, I feel like you miss the care that goes into crafting these individual moments. But if you just obsess about crafting the individual moments, you can lose the whole work.
Meredith:
Yeah. Sometimes you have to focus on the big rocks before you fill in with all the details, right? I had a mentor tell me that once. One of the things I love though, is when you come on site, you feel like you are in... so if we're talking about the DIA global annual meeting, you feel like you're in DIA. You walk in it-
Daniel:
Maybe we should talk a little bit about that, for people who don't know what DIA is, and what kind of work it does, maybe you can share a little background about that.
Meredith:
Sure. So DIA stands for the Drug Information Association. We are well over 50 years old. And we bring together the full spectrum of the life sciences community. That is everyone who, works in pharmaceuticals, regulatory, the academics and the researchers, the patients, all different aspects of the life scientists community. And we say we're the crossroads of science and passion and when we come together at the global annual meeting, it's just amazing to see folks who touched so many aspects of life sciences working together. So I will see the folks who are in regulatory spending time with the folks who are our statisticians, who are in the research realm or our patients, are visiting the patient track or they're going to the safety and pharmacovigilance track. They're gaining perspective outside of their own interest areas, at this meeting. So it's just-
Daniel:
Now, and can you give people a sense of the size and scope of this annual meeting?
Meredith:
We are about 7000 people, and we are out five days, that's about a five day meeting. If you count the pre meeting, short courses, that happen.
Daniel:
Which we do obviously.
Meredith:
So, there's the pre-day, but we have a big Sunday for us, we do a big opening plenary to kick off the meeting on Monday, and then we run straight through until Thursday afternoon.
Daniel:
When did you realize that that meeting was endangered by the pandemic?
Meredith:
So this meeting means a lot to our society, to the portfolio work. We have meetings that happen year round, our specialty meetings, we also have annual meetings and specialty meetings happening in other countries, we have offices in other countries, but the global annual meeting is the biggest meeting.
Daniel:
It's like the culmination of all the other, all everything sort of comes together.
Meredith:
That's what I say. I call it the culmination of all the work that is being discussed in our specialty, whether you're on this in the States or across the pond, we have had all those conversations are converging at the global annual meeting. So, end of February, going into March, it started to become a concern. Now because we have offices that are in Europe, and are in Asia, and so we're hearing firsthand from folks who are experiencing COVID, before we are. So come March, we were having some pretty major discussions on the impact this could have. And on that time, if you remember, everyone was talking about, "Oh, a 14 day shut down, and then everything's gonna be okay." It's almost laughable now. And so, June, could be a whole different picture, this is the June meeting.
Daniel:
Right. So there was some optimism of like, well, maybe...
Meredith:
Well, exactly. And, going into making decision, also like what's the convention center doing? So, our office that plans the global annual meeting is in the Philadelphia area, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey, were being quite aggressive with their plans for protecting folks with COVID-19, which I love, you too, right? Because I'm in New Jersey, you're in New York?
Daniel:
Yeah.
Meredith:
So I was happy to see that, but DC, where the meeting is being held, they're a little bit more relaxed and getting there, DC, Maryland, we were watching very closely those states to see when are they going to start shutting down more things? Is this going to affect the convention center? Can we cancel the convention center? These are all conversations that are happening, and, we're trying to literally keep things as is in that moment, because we didn't want folks to get too wrapped up in talking about it.
Meredith:
So, we almost came to a standstill on the planning side, where we slow down the communications with the program committee, and the speakers because we didn't have answers. We were just trying to assess what is actually happening here. How bad is this? I mean, I remember being told don't wear masks, stop buying masks, the meds need it. So, we didn't have a full grasp of how serious this was. And by the top of April, it was okay, we're making the decision to go 100% virtual, which is eight weeks out from the go live date for this meeting. And at that time, we are now, what does that mean to go virtual? Did we even have a solution? You cannot do a 7000 person meeting in Zoom.
Daniel:
No.
Meredith:
I mean, we're talking about, I have over 300 sessions that take place, there's a full exhibit hall, there are networking sessions that are happening, there's all kinds of events and activities associated with this meeting. How do you translate that to a virtual experience now, at the time virtual meetings were webinars. The large streaming-
Daniel:
Which your company did?
Meredith:
We did, yeah. And we did webinars, but, webinar, I would say 200 folks maybe, to attend a webinar. But, how do you recreate what folks know and come to love at DIA in the physical sense to the virtual. We were lucky enough to have an existing vendor, who is our general service contractor, who said, "Hey, we started working on a virtual platform". And what is a virtual platform? So we, start looking at the demo, what this site does, it's basically a website that has the ability to do presentations through sessions, for example, and create session rooms and create virtual exhibit halls and kind of like a virtual concourse.
Meredith:
So we started, moving that way, and I'll never forget April 8th, because that's my email went out to the program committee, that this change is happening. We can no longer hold our meeting. The DC Convention Center became a field hospital. We have to go 100% virtual, don't panic. We are going to get through this. And, soon after that, we realized that we needed to touch base with the speakers and chairs to see can we still participate in all this? What's happening in real life right now, everyone's life's being turned upside down, there was no expectations that everybody would be able to participate, when I say everybody, we're talking upwards, 6 to 700, speakers, chairs, and so we began the process of surveying, who can still participate, from that we started to rebuild the entire program, because not everything could be translated and go to the virtual platform.
Meredith:
My committee did that within a three week time period, and we had about six weeks to build, and then execute this meeting. So there was a lot of learning and doing at the same time, and then my favorite doing then learning at the same time, because this is how I'm imagining this working, and hoping that I am guiding a lot of people in the dark right now. And asking them to trust me that we're going to recreate something in a virtual realm, that's going to be similar to what you know and love about DIA.
Daniel:
It's heavy stuff. I know,-
Meredith:
It is.
Daniel:
-it was a really intense moment.
Meredith:
That's when we met.
Daniel:
That's when we met. I mean, what was that experience like for you? I mean, I feel like the conversations that you and I had with Robin, working through some of these questions of how to design the experience, they were hard questions, there were a lot of unknowns.
Meredith:
Yes, there are lots of unknowns, the uncertainty was palpable. And if you can imagine meeting planners or type A plus personalities. We like to have everything in its place, it's verified, it's nice and ready, there's no question. And now I am adjusting to being okay with the amount of uncertainty that exists and showing my okayness so that I could reassure the folks that were following me, that we were going to be okay. And so when you and I met, I felt it helped center me, because I am flying an airplane in a hurricane that needs to be rebuilt, while in flight. And, when we would meet, you would say, "Okay, put that aside". All the technology and the translating, and you would say, "Let's talk about moments of truth," for example. What makes DIA, DIA? And from there, what can we bring into the virtual meeting? That was one of my favorite conversations, was looking at that arc, and looking at what can I not lose by doing this, and I'm glad we did that because it made the difference in this just being some kind of virtual experience to transporting people to I feel like I'm at DIA.
Meredith:
It was important for me that when you clicked in, I started referring to this at the virtual convention center. And when you logged into my lobby, you felt like you were at DIA, even though you were sitting in your dining room, or your home office, or in the kitchen, that you felt like, "Oh, this is different. I'm not watching a recording of something, I'm actually interacting with people. There's a way to connect with people. I'm still viewing content and speakers from around the world," our philanthropy project, we kept that we tied it into our exhibit hall gamification, and so that was important, because there were so much going on at once. Everything felt like it was on fire or a priority. And so this would be, I think you referred to it as, like a respite, from that.
Daniel:
Yeah. Honestly, I'm really glad I was able to, the time was a bit of a buffer, in the insanity, like you said, to slow down, and to just focus on the experience of the people. I feel like one of the biggest aha is, you kind of tipped to it much, much earlier in our conversation. I remember when we were sketching out the experience arc, and there was this idea of they have arrived and they feel like they're in the right place, this amazing moment of coming in and being like, "I'm here, and I feel like, this is where I want to be." And that's such a huge and important thing, especially with virtual meetings, because there's so many distractions, I remember, what was the thing that you all did with the tell your dog, you're on vacation?
Meredith:
Oh, that genius, that letter came from Kurt who works in our marketing team. And he wrote an open letter to his dog. And when I saw that, I wanted to give a snarky response from my cat. And I just thought it just spoke to acknowledging the world that we're now living in. We're not working at home, we're working with home. And so I loved that acknowledgement of the time that this is happening. And folks, we did accomplish, I mean, folks felt like they arrived. It's like they reached DIA, and they were cheering us on. We knew this hadn't been done like this before. We're very upfront about the newness of it and what we were trying to accomplish, and for the most part, it was achieved. It was just amazing, once we got underway, I was like this is happening. This is really happening, and then, behind the scenes, kind of felt a little normal. I mean, with the exception of the fact that I'm on three different computers and my cell phone, talking with teams, talking with staff who are monitoring sessions.
Meredith:
To me, that was almost like a sense of normalcy, because when we're on site, there's AV issues. We can't find a speaker, it was just doing it in a different way, and it felt like we were sitting in the same room somehow, even though we weren't all different places, all different states. And it was just very surreal. This was all happening, and you could see people interacting with the platform and what you created and finding their way. And for a meeting planner, when you see attendees finding their way, finding their tribes, of people that they connect with, it's like the most amazing moments, it's the super bowl for a meeting planner.
Daniel:
Yeah. Well, I mean, this is going back to the beginning, like the joy of convening, the joy of bringing people together. One of the things that I remember coming out of some of your work, I remember you brought the range of conversational spaces that you were creating this PDF that sort of showed people you brought that to one of the coaching calls, to try and communicate to people that there would be these large experiences and these intimate experiences and I feel like one of the things you did really, really well was to create so many different types of opportunities for people to connect.
Meredith:
That is my favorite infographic. I'm very visual. There's the other art side, no surprise, I like to see things. And so the infographic that we designed, it showcased all 9, 10 different learning formats that we have, but it organized it in a way that was from, we call it passive, so that it was like a large audience. So it's passive/large audience and that's your opening plenary session where you would see a keynote, for example, and you're sitting in the same room as thousands of other people. All the way down the line, to the more interactive sessions that are small, and so that would be like your round table discussions, for example, or viewing a poster presentation. Poster presentations at the very end, because a lot of times, that's a one-on-one connection that's happening. And it just shed all the range in the middle. So if you went to a content hub, it's a 30 minute rapid insight session with 30 to 50 other attendees in a casual environment.
Meredith:
So we highlighted the environment, audience size, the type of learning, whether you're going to be passive in listening or active in you're actually speaking and have a voice in that session. So that folks can mix and match and design, what met their needs. The way I learn is different than how my neighbor learns. And so we want to give you that opportunity to experience learning your way. But also, I have to say that when you have thousands of people in a convention center, it can feel lonely. Sometimes you don't know how to connect with other people or find people who have the same interest as you do. And so I became this campaign for the inroads. How do we protect inroads? How do we help people cut through the thousands of people. And that meant creating activities like the round table discussions or an engagement exchange where no more than 50 people can participate, and you're sitting at a table with nine other colleagues working on a problem together. So that's the fun part. That is, designing all these different ways for folks to engage with one another, and the content and their learning, because our meeting very much is about learning. Yeah. That's what we do.
Daniel:
I want to talk about how all of this translates into this next uncertain world that we're stepping into, the potentially hybrid world. And I feel like there's fewer patterns of what success looks like. I feel personally, when everyone is digital, it puts everyone on the same footing. And we all remember, I remember, trying to run workshops where we're all in person, and there was like one or two people who were like, "Can I call in?" And I'm like, "No, you're going to have a terrible, terrible experience. Unless we dedicate somebody to carrying you around on a laptop, and being your hands and moving the sticky notes around."
Daniel:
And that was a really degraded experience, for those people. The only way they could participate is if they got help to get access. What's so interesting about the all virtual world is that it allows everyone to participate across the world, it allows people to participate if they have mobility issues of any type, it really feels like we've made everything more accessible. And what I noticed in hybrid is that it feels like an accessibility issue. The people who are... if there are fewer people remote, and there's more people in person, the people who are remote, feel excluded, because they can't participate in the same ways. There's an imbalance in the capacity to participate. And I can feel this is, I don't mean to trigger any emotions for you. This is like, what are you thinking is going to help bridge some of these experience gaps?
Meredith:
You are right on. I too turned away folks that wanted to dial in to my workshops, because I knew it just wasn't designed for that and you would not be happy with the experience. So right there with you. And before COVID, really, when you heard things like a hybrid meeting, it meant that there were sessions that were live streamed out to maybe the website of the company or association, and that you could log in and be a part of the virtual audience that's watching a live session happening and groups that did it, well would have that moderator, that would be typing in the chat back to the virtual audience, and during a Q&A would address the speaker and say, "I have a few questions from the virtual audience." And that would be the bridge. And that was like really fancy. That was wow, they're live streaming sessions, which is great, because they get that reach. They brought in another audience that couldn't travel, and that was it.
Daniel:
And the moderator would help bring their voices into the room.
Meredith:
Right. And that was the bridge, and that was hybrid meeting and it was like, okay, they have it or they don't. Well, now-
Daniel:
Because it was sort of a nice to have.
Meredith:
It was nice to have, yeah exactly.
Daniel:
In the old world. Yeah. It was a plus.
Meredith:
It was a plus, and so with COVID-19 happening, meetings and everything just being shut down, it really pushed the agenda of this virtual realm, expanding into meetings, small and large. It was always unknown that, this was a possibility, some folks were actually doing it, limitedly it wasn't the preferred way. And the technology wasn't quite there yet. And so, I like to say, we survived the first wave of virtual meetings, we did a really quick turn, we made it through, now we have a lot of experience to bring in with us into our 2021 planning. And that's right now, we're really designing a meeting that didn't exist before. We can't, I mean, could you do the hybrid as it was? Groups are going to do that. But the way I see it is that the virtual platform still has a place. It still needs to be embraced, and we need to create environments for two audiences, but one experience or two experiences but one meeting.
Meredith:
And so you're going to have, when we're allowed to convene large groups. You're going to have a smaller group in person than you would have had probably a regional audience, it's going to have to be socially distanced for us and our research, we're working heavily with the convention center to figure out how many rooms can I run, how many people can I have on site, and I know I'm going to either offset that with the virtual platform, so that I can A, offer close to the amount of content that I traditionally offer, and B, bring in the audience size that we traditionally have, or maybe more because that reach, like you just mentioned, with the virtual.
Meredith:
So I look at it like this, I have an audience in the physical space, I have an audience in the virtual space, and both audiences need access to each other, and the content that's happening in each place. And for folks, because you can't see me on you're listening to this, I have my hands crossed, because I'm also, I'm so visual, I'm showing my hands are crossed in two different directions.
Daniel:
So you want there to be some, cross pollination between those two audiences?
Meredith:
Yes, 100%, I want this to be, if you are on site, you are still going to have access to the virtual platform, so you can tune in to see what's happening there, what kind of networking is happening there, what sessions are being offered there, potentially watch parties, if I have, speakers that could not be physically in person, it may be the reverse. I may have a gathering of folks in an area tuned into the platform. So the reverse is happening, where the speakers are living in the virtual space, there's a virtual audience that's in the platform with them, but now I have a moderator connecting folks from a physical location and checking in with their iPads and phones, and so it's both ways, it's happening now.
Meredith:
And so those are the kinds of discussions that we're having, because I need folks, I want folks to have access to everything in both places, and to feel that they can tune in to something that's happening live in the convention center, but also tune in to what's happening live on the platform, and also playbacks and different chat room opportunities and different lounge opportunities, also with social distancing, as well, we may have folks that are more comfortable sitting in a lobby or their hotel room tuning into a session if they feel there's too many people. So that's what we're exploring right now, and I'm used-
Daniel:
I'm sorry for interrupting you, because you said, one idea in two different ways. And I just want to clarify, which one do you think it is? Is it two audiences in one experience? Or is it two audiences and two experiences?
Meredith:
So, to me it's two experiences, but one meeting.
Daniel:
That, okay. Thank you. I get it now. Two experiences, but one meeting.
Meredith:
Yeah. So I need to pay homage to what is capable in the virtual platform to make it the best virtual experience for that audience, but also, for the folks that are physically in the building, we need to make their experience, great too, and make adjustments and maybe different offerings to safely convene.
Daniel:
So why bring physical back in? If it adds complexity, why not just double down on virtual and take what you've learned, and make it better? Make it bigger, because I know that the platform originally, limited the number of speakers you could have, there's no reason to have that limitation going forward. You could just make a better virtual meeting.
Meredith:
That's true. And, that's not off the table, because we are investigating all different scenarios right now for 2021. I think it comes down to, there are a couple of considerations that are at play here. One of them is, replicating the hallway track. That experience-
Daniel:
Yeah, we have a lot of conversation about that in our coaching calls...
Meredith:
yes we did! Because that is the most difficult to replicate, that feeling of I just went to a session and leaves a room and I'm going to talk to people. I'm going to see people and I'm going to share my excitement. I'm going to physically convene with someone, meet them, I'm going to go to the exhibit hall and connect with exhibitors and solution providers. Replicating that in the virtual spaces is very challenging. There's also the engagement level. You're not as immersed in what's happening at the meeting, because you didn't actually go somewhere. As much as I want to transport you, you're staring at your screen, you're interacting because your colleagues are all eye on you, your dog or cat has come into the room, a child, so you're more likely to get up, go do something else. And when you're physically in a meeting, that's less likely to happen.
Meredith:
So folks, I think, miss that, they miss taking that time away, from their everyday to day, to be somewhere else to learn, and to reconnect with colleagues. On the exhibitor side, the exhibitor experience has been very challenging. Exhibitors feel, when they are in person, and they're more connected with our audience, and this is in general, because I'm hearing from all different organizations, and what they're experiencing. And so, in general exhibitors, they miss that face to face connection.
Meredith:
They miss being able to showcase their personality, right? And how their booths are built, how they're designed, what attracts people. When they're in the virtual environment, you may have a page listing of all of your exhibitors and you see their logos, but it's not the same. They've now almost been equalized, in a sense. So that's definitely, when we are looking into making this decision, we're talking to all our stakeholders. So we're talking to exhibitors, we're talking to attendees, we're talking to speakers and planning members and leadership, because it's such a big decision, on whether we are able to go, even consider hybrid. And the other part is there's financial implications too.
Meredith:
Many organizations are contracted years out. A meeting our size, is contracted years in advance. And so, there's that as well. I would say at the top of our list is safety though. That will be its priority one, regardless. I do think that if groups aren't able to go hybrid in 2021, you will see that in '22, because I think the virtual component is still going to be with us. I think being with large groups of people it's going to take a while to re-adjust back to that.
Daniel:
It's such an interesting roadmap. One thing we haven't talked about, and we're running short on time is, the planning conversations. Talking to all these stakeholders and facilitating this dialogue, to get to agreement. Who gets to make the ultimate call? With the consideration that you need to have all these stakeholders on board. You're facilitating some pretty big conversations with these people.
Meredith:
We are. We're doing focus groups, we're doing surveys. Ultimately, we are doing, we are on the ground, talking with stakeholders. We are documenting all of their feedback, we're preparing reports, summarizing their feedback, we're doing risk mitigation plans and risk assessments, and all of this is prepared and handed over to leadership where they will continue the conversation with our board of directors, and that's where the decision will be made. I'm privy to the front line and having all these conversations and being able to factor in their thoughts and feelings into my plans.
Meredith:
And right now I'm planning for two scenarios, right now, at the same time with my Planning Committee, I'm very transparent with everything and why we need to plan this way, and, when we're looking at making decisions, and here's what we need to do in the meantime, because our timeline for content is now. This is a big moment. For our program, we are selecting sessions, that will be in the 2021 program. I meet next week with my program committee, that's 60 volunteers, servicing 13 different educational tracks, and we're guiding them into making the best possible decisions for their tracks, we've implemented caps and how many sessions they can have, which is new, but they understand that we need to have some guardrails up so that we can manage more what we have to plan with, so that I can safely do a hybrid meeting, and or go all virtual, and we're trying to plan once and not have to redo the program again. So...
Daniel:
Wow. For other people who are listening to this, any sort of parting thoughts? What haven't we talked about that is important for people to remember if they're thinking about, as I'm sure many people are, this hybrid future, that's coming up, what some sage advice from someone in the trenches, such as yourself?
Meredith:
I would say plan virtual first, even though you are considering a hybrid, you know you can guarantee the platform is going to happen. You can't guarantee that the physical meeting component is going to happen. So the way I look at it is what are my capacity for sessions in the platforms? And how can I organize my tracks, my educational tracks, and I know if it will work in the platform, I can make this work in the physical space, too. I'm actually earmarking what sessions would go to the physical space if we can make that happen, so that I'm not making adjustments to the program itself, but I would plan on what you can count on versus so make sure will work in the virtual world, with the hope that you can put some of this into your physical space and then live stream it back to the platform.
Daniel:
Plan on what you can count on. I love that. And, I'm really leaving with this two experiences, one meeting. I'm sort of what's bubbling in my mind is it sounds like you're talking about Virtual PLUS. Right?
Meredith:
Yeah. Yeah, especially I guess Virtual PLUS, I love that, because, whether you are physically in the building, or virtually attending, there's going to be the plus of connecting with one another, and the activities that are happening in another place, so, I think that adds some excitement, to what we're trying to do.
Daniel:
Meredith, I really, really appreciate you sitting down and talking about your wisdom, your experience and your journey. I'm grateful for the time.
Meredith:
I am too, thank you. Thank you for asking me to share my story and the work that we're doing that the association is doing, and I hope it does help other planners out there in their journeys to figuring out what's next for meetings.
Daniel:
I think it will.