I was unable to attend the virtual event by MarketingProfs, however I read some reports about it. Most impressive was a demonstration of the power of MarketingProfs brand with their ability to pull in a powerful and relevant keynote speaker and a large pre-registration (only 5% actually showing up is the norm so it helps to have a large pre-registration - that is your permission-marketing list specific to the event). Kudos! I have always been a big fan of MarketingProfs. However some of the comments about the virtual event make me wonder if the structure of the event did justice to their brand. This has nothing to do with technology platforms. It has everything to do with deciding how and how much of the technology ought to be deployed for most effectiveness.
Some of the comments spoke highly about the Chat Lounge, which begs the question - did MarketingProfs cause a distraction by providing access to a Chat Lounge? And some more questions. Did the Chat Lounge take away from the event, from the message of the keynote speaker or from the exhibit hall? Why is text-chat with strangers such a big deal? What purpose did it serve? Does adding Twitter to the mix help or hurt a keynote session? Are virtual trade show providers and other virtual event providers offering too many choices in features, thereby failing to give a quality experience to their audiences? Are virtual event designers depriving their live presenters of high-quality attention because of a highly distracted multi-tasking audience? Are virtual event organizers, in their euphoria over the ability to seamlessly plug in various web services going overboard and offering an all-you-can-eat-buffet that leaves everyone dissatisfied at the end of the lunch-hour?
Virtual event providers have some serious soul-searching to do.
When a tactile (face-to-face) event is held and the keynote presentation is going on, people get to jot down their questions on 3x5 cards, saving them for the end when the moderator collects them or when the microphone is passed around. We do not see people exchanging those 3x5 cards and giving their own opinions on it distracting and disturbing one another right in the middle of a session, do we? When we do a teleconference the moderator opens the audience's phone lines towards the end for questions that are queued up. Besides the distraction factor, it is also disrespectful to the speaker. More so if s/he can not see the audience doing a bunch of other things while the keynote is going on.
"But while it's one thing to accommodate more information, it's another to engage with it fundamentally, in a way that allows us to perceive underlying patterns and to take concepts apart so that we can put them back together in new and constructive ways." writes Laura Miller in her review in Salon of the new book by Winifred Gallagher titled, 'Rapt: Attention and the Focused Life'.
Why not allow participants to focus on the presentation and queue up their questions? Why not save an hour after the event for a live text chat with the presenter, while monitoring twitter conversations as well. Why let the chat lounge be hijacked by sales-personnel who abandon their virtual booths in the exhibit hall to hawk their wares while people are trying to have a decent conversation.
I do not have all the answers, but like in all designing, it might be worthwhile looking to nature for answers - in this case looking to human nature. The exhibitors have a legitimate need to be viewed for the time and money they have invested in setting up and staffing their virtual booth. Attendees have a right to enjoy and learn from the keynote speech, a right to share their opinions, a right to network if they wish to, a right to be left alone if they wish to. Do the virtual exhibitors not have a code of conduct for reference? If not, they must. If there is a way to steer the traffic through sensible navigation that brings out the best of each component of the virtual fair, then it behooves the event designer to offer that as an option to the event organizer while keeping in mind the goals of the event.
On the 10th anniversary of Seth Godin's publication of Permission Marketing, the least we can do is to consider adopting permission navigation in a virtual event.
I believe that as far as throwing technology at users is concerned less is more, and going sequential is consequential (cheesy, I know, but I could not resist the rhyme). If you have virtual events and virtual trade shows or job fairs on your mind, pause and think how to allow your participants to savor every morsel.
