15
Oct 2009
Hybrid meetings and blended event experiences are the buzz of many organizations this year.
But, are they as important as some say or is it just hype? (Get ready, this is a long post. Stay with me, it’s has some interesting research though!)
Along with the buzz, you’ve probably also heard several reasons not to integrate virtual experiences into your face-to-face meeting. Here are some of the naysayer’s mantras:
- Adding live streaming or virtual attendance will cannibalize our onsite attendance.
- Virtual experiences do not promote networking and learning.
- It costs too much to add a virtual element to our annual conference.
- There are too many distractions for people attending virtual events.
- You can’t control the audience when they attend virtually and therefore the value drops.
- Virtual attendees start chatting with each other and don’t pay attention to the presenter. It’s just like they’re passing notes.
- The back channel is rude and disrespectful, and promoting it is a fail. It can be highjacked by spammers and inappropriate talk.
Whether it’s hype, buzz, concerns or complaints, here are four reasons, from recent studies, that show the positive impact on learning by adding virtual experiences to your face-to-face meeting or events.
Online learning of polylogues creates hyper time and increased learning.
- A 2009 Department of Education study shows that adults in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction. (Holy Kaw Batman. That can’t be true!)
- Giving virtual attendees control of their interactions with each other, the media and the content enhances learning. (That’s right, go ahead and lose control of your attendees. They’ll learn more without you in the way!)
- Online learning is superior to face-to-face instruction. (Wow, the U.S. Department of Education said that!)
- Source: U.S. Department of Education, Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies
- Research published in the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication shows that online a polylogue (multiple people talking with each other simultaneously) is better than a monologue (speaker presentation) or dialogue (turn-taking interactions).
- In face-to-face presentations, words follow words, paragraphs follow paragraphs, people’s thought patterns follow a single, one-way linear medium—the presenter’s speech–, which discourages flexible, open-ended, multidirectional and multidimensional thought.
- Face-to-face presentations demand that an attendee follow an authoritarian, straight-line, fixed point of view and the medium can become stronger than its content.
- Attendee engagement during a face-to-face presentation demands turn-taking interaction, a dialogue, where the process of taking turns may become more important than the message and comments may be out of snyc as a result of waiting for one’s turn. (We’ve all been there where we’re dying to add a comment, ask a question or ask for clarification. By the time we get called on to speak, we’ve forgotten what we were going to say or it’s no longer relevant to the discussion.)
- Virtual experiences where attendees can control their conversations and participate in polylogues of words and images increase learning and retention. (Ok, here’s the proof that chats, like Twitter chats are better than monologues or dialogues.)
- Source: Comparing How Students Collaborate to Learn About the Self and Relationships in a Real-Time Non-Turn-Taking Online and Turn-Taking Face-to-Face Environment
- Supersynchrony, as Dr. Davis Fougler calls it, allows attendees to control of level of synchrony with parallel interactions, which magnifies learning opportunities and retention.
- In face-to-face presentations, the majority of the interactions are between the presenters and the attendees, basically one-way and expert centric. Sometimes, presenters involve audience engagement yet conversations are still one-way dialogues between two people.
- Virtual experiences promote supersynchrony that creates hypertime, bending time so to speak, by allowing for additional data flow to the attendee and increased productivity. (There’s your new word for the week, supersynchrony.)
- Virtual or online presentations give attendees the ability to break and restore communication linearity. Participants can scroll back from the moment the statements was posted, while interacting presently in the here-and-now, resulting in several conversations happening all at the same time (which are archived for later use). (I know, go ahead and say that’s too much noise for you and you need to focus on one thing at a time. There’s a time and a place for that too.)
- Such hyper synchronous, multi-layered online interaction not only connects each participant in a web of discussion, it affords each participant time to respond during the online synchronous discussion and time to reflect and digest what was said in the archives. This increases interactivity, learning, retention and is a better than face-to-face learning. (For all those naysayers about Twitter chats, here’s the research to back it. Just because YOU don’t like it doesn’t mean that it’s that everyone doesn’t like it. Get out of the way and let your attendees interact with the content and each other.)
- Sources: Building Time Machines: Thinking about the future of interpersonal communication and International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Volume 6, Number 2.
- Hybrid events, blending virtual and face-to-face actually drive face-to-face event attendance and purchases.
- In 2009, Cisco Live, Cisco’s annual customer conference, had 10,000 people at their face-to-face event and another 4,400 with virtual experiences.
- Along with traditional back channel chats during presentations, Cisco provided live group video chats after keynotes specifically for virtual attendees to ask experts, Cisco executives, and speakers questions and to provide more in-depth discussions. These tools also allowed smaller groups of virtual attendees to break off into private chats and return to the larger chat as needed.
- 80% of the virtual attendees said they are likely to purchase a product from Cisco.
- 34% said they were likely to attend the face-to-face event because of attending the virtual experience. (Who wouldn’t like a 34% increase in face-to-face registration!)
- They had 21,000 virtual sessions views, 74 blog posts written and 4,000 virtual booth visits.
- Source: Once You Go Hybrid You’ll Never Go Back
My takeaways from these studies:
- Allow attendees to pick their learning preferences. It’s fine if someone wants to use a computer during an event, follow the back channel or just passively listen. Respect all.
- Event organizers must begin to create more networked learning and less monologues in conferences. Start thinking about adding “social” elements to the face-to-face experience.
- Event organizers should see events within the larger context of a community ecosystem including virtual and face-to-face experiences.
- You can’t control learning whether at your face-to-face or virtual event and you never did.
- Adding a virtual element to your face-to-face event, can have a positive impact on attendance at the next event. See virtual experiences as marketing for future registration, not something that discounts the face-to-face experience.
So what say you? If you’re still with me and read all of this!
Category: Associations, Education, Event & Meeting Planning, Social Media, Web 2.0
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8 Responses
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Honestly, this is old news Jeff.
I’m kidding with you, but only slightly. At the sweet, young age of 19, I was the Department Coordinator for the Curriculum & Instruction department of Invest Learning – an educational software corporation for adolescent and adult learners. We served the highly desirable markets (ha) of Corrections, Adult & Alternative Ed and At-Risk Youth. I was immersed in the theory, design and deployment of systems for these learning styles.
As such, I read study after study that demonstrated the value of our technologies, that took learning from a linear, “turn-taking” classroom setting to a multi-dimensional, interactive platform. The results from the users of our software were almost alarming. I spent many days visiting sites where inner-city learning centers were using the Invest platform, my life forever moved by the end-user stories of real-life success and personal triumph – simply because of the beauty of education and especially of alternative education design. (Small disclaimer: I am Phi Beta Kappa, a pure lover of learning.)
So, long-winded reply to a long-winded blog…basically, I think I wholeheartedly adore what you have to say Jeff. It’s all so very true and valuable. I mean, even if we refer back to our PMM textbook, we’ll discover, “Adults learn more when engaged in the learning process on many different levels. Music, color, movement, and interaction are all factors that work together to create the optimal learning experience for meeting attendees.”
I will, however, stick in my heels that there must always be the iconic vision of a teacher, facilitator, moderator or other thought leader, who stimulates the desire to learn and grow – an individual who can growl us into stretching our limits of thought. For how else are we to grow? We must have a human being or beings whose energy stimulates our desire to learn, grow and become more than we currently are. Of course, technology has always worked to eliminate the geographical distance to connect us to our own Socrates…but no matter what, technology is merely a tool and then only a tool if manipulated by the proper hands. For, without a need, technology will always be just a toy.
A virtual or blended event will always require the brilliance of a forward-thinking, intelligent human being.
One final thought? I will say I don’t like the term “vindicated” as it implies a wrongdoing. I would suggest more of “affirmed”, “supported” or even “vitalized”. But just saying.
Jeff Hurt, you are gradually becoming my meetings industry Socrates of sorts. Thank you, thank you for your MidCourse Musings.
Midori Connolly, Chief AVGirl
http://www.twitter.com/GreenA_V
Another very thought provoking post, Jeff! Also, great additions from Midori!
For the most part, I get and agree with what you wrote here. Here’s a few more thoughts:
1) When you have a mix of skill level in attendance – novice to expert – you really need to be sure that the conversation and interaction is targeted to one side or the other. If the minority are expert, but they control the dialogue, you could end up with a session that bombs. Identify, structure and promote the session for a primary target audience.
I’m thinking that novice to intermediate learners, are more likely interested in hearing an expert and soaking it all in. They’re sponges! Conversely, intermediate to expert learners will get more from the multi-directional conversation.
2) I love Live streaming and twitter chat, but not when it distracts the in person attendees or presenters. I think a happy medium is to have a moderator monitor the twitter stream and engage the speaker with pertinent questions and feedback. Education needs to be prepared primarily for the in-person attendee and secondarily for the virtual participants.
3) If session outcomes are well defined (should be), it’s real critical to make sure that the interactive learning doesn’t short change attendees from receiving the advertised outcomes.
4) I attended a session on Second Life – Virtualis in DC last month. To my surprise, the session included two additional panelists who spoke to us virtually from their office. It actually was way cool…seeing their avatar and hearing their voice while sitting in a meeting room worked real well!
Looking forward to following additional comments on this topic!
Dave Lutz – @velchain
[...] is the original post: Midcourse Corrections » Blog Archive » Virtual Meetings Vindicated … Comments [0]Digg [...]
Hi Jeff –
Great Analysis and Tons of super data! As you know I am a fan of the Journal of Computer Mediated Communication Article.
In my mind, there is a strong case here for integrating event technology, leveraging virtual elements and updating event formats to make them more social.
Personally, I don’t think that there is really enough attention paid to the attendee and their needs. (Your post makes a great case for this). Here are some additional arguments:
(1) 70% of our learning is Social and we only remember about 20% of what we hear. Our learning is much greater when we “do” and “teach.”
(2) Out of an average of 6 hours of learning more than 90% of the session time is speakers talking to participants.
(3) Adults have 20 minute attention spans, yet the average session is 60 minutes.
(4) In the Forbes Report on the meetings industry, the Managers that were interviewed even agreed that “information dissemination” was not worth meeting face2face. They recommended virtual in this case.
Given all of this – why aren’t we getting attendees to spend more time talking, sharing and learning from each other?
- Sam (@samueljsmith)
PS Here is reference to some of the stats that I mentioned: http://interactivemtgtech.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/do-you-allocate-enough-time-for-interaction/
Jeff – Thanks for a very valuable post. Given that online education has been around for well over a decade now, you would think that knowledge about the effectiveness of virtual learning and communication would be more widespread, but it simply is not. And it’s not just the organizations that could be embracing these approaches that are skeptical – it’s their members. I do a lot of surveying for organizations that are considering adding virtual elements to their educational offerings, and it’s pretty much a given that their audiences view any form of education delivered online as being of lower instructional value than face-to-face offerings.
One important change that I usually see occur when organizations really dive into adding virtual elements to their events or pursuing full-blown e-learning is that they have to think about learning strategies and the design of learning experiences much more than they have ever had to before. The impact of this greater focus on strategy and design (and the higher learner engagement that results) really can’t be underestimated. It is one of the key elements that contributes to findings like those you report from the DOE. – Jeff
@Jeff Cobb – Thanks for adding to the discussion. Yes, event organizers and education professionals have to start thinking about the education design of their learning experiences. In the meetings and events world, that is often an extemely important strategy that is overlooked or unknown. Integrating technology into face-to-face and community experiences is causing a shift in many meeting professionals thinking.
@Sam – I just love it when you start sharing education learning tidbits with us. Now, we just need to discover creative ways to get more “social and informal” learning strategies into face-to-face conferences and events, as well as our virtual experiences.
@VelChain – I like point number three to make sure that the marketed outcomes are met. I think the challenge is to define some outcomes that can be met with audience engagement, and not depend entirely upon the “sage on the stage” but the “guide on the side.”
@Midori – Ok, so you don’t like my term “vindicated.” I chose it because I was seeing a lot of backlash against adding virtual elements to a face-to-face presentations. Also, I was seeing people stating that virtual “took away from” or watered down the face-to-face education. I do like your term “vitalized.”
Also, thanks for sharing some of your background. I think those of us that have entered the meetings and events world that came from an education background view the meeting experience differently. We tend to focus on the education design of an event, whether virtual or face-to-face. What a great experience you have with a mix of education, meetings and events, AV and the green eco-friendly lifestyle. Thanks for adding to the conversation.
Virtual Meetings Vindicated. Studies Find Learning Online Better Than Face-To-Face Instruction…
Hybrid meetings and blended event experiences are the buzz of many organizations this year…
Here are four reasons, from recent studies, that show the positive impact on learning by adding virtual experiences to your face-to-face meeting or events.
…
[...] Related to this question, I also recommend an excellent recent post on Midcourse Corrections in which Jeff Hurt outlines some of the studies that have suggested that online instruction is often better than face-to-face instruction. [...]