We, at APPLICATIO, have now - since COVID-19 stopped face-to-face personal meetings - facilitated well over 25 larger conferences and online events online (between 50 and 120 participants) and well over 50 smaller meetings. Read more about some and only brief insights into our experiences made with tools, methods, and approaches...
When it comes to tools, our experiences include:
- Online tools are nice and well… but the objective of an event and overall facilitation approach is key. Interactivity for the only reason of interactivity might have been fine in the beginning but lost attractiveness quickly
- All the tools we used have their own strengths (and weaknesses). There does not seem to be the “one-meets-it-all” solution
- In many cases we had to use what our clients dictate… IT-security regulations are very individual and as facilitators we must use whatever is required (and thus know all the tools)
- At least for larger conferences a detailed facilitation plan with all links to all tools to be used is key… The more detailed, the better! In many cases lots of preparatory meetings are required to brief speakers, panellist, supporters etc.
- To ensure that all works fine, a detailed agenda for participants (e.g. as PDF), providing links to all tools used in the right timeslot, makes facilitators’ lives easier
- A technical backstopping is very well invested money as facilitators cannot do that “just as a side job” in lager group meetings
- A short technical onboarding, for those participants that are interested, a day or at least some hour in advance is helpful
- “Online fatigue” is increasing and complaints of “how complicated all these meetings are” are increasing (although everyone is used to it by now)… it always helps to compare with physical meetings where visa re required, planes are late, jetlag is common… in comparison online meetings are easy enough to attend
When it comes to tools, our experiences include:
- Microsoft Teams is great for larger events that are to include asynchronous activities (forums, sharing files etc.) and are spread over a longer period with smaller synchronous events
- For “pure video conferences” Zoom seems to beat most other tools (and seems to be best known to most participants) esp. when it comes to simultaneous interpretation, breakout groups etc. (No direct sharing of documents in the chat is a major shortcoming though)
- A Mentimeter here and there is great to collect (also visually appealing) feedback. It seems to work best when participants use cell phones as second device in meetings and scan QR codes
- Miro is extremely helpful for groups that are not too large e.g. for interactive joint brainstorming, co-creation, planning etc., but requires participants to get used to it and from time to time seems to slow down computers (we did not use Mural and cannot compare). We also used it for pure facilitator driven visualisation and lager group discussion approaches (Fishbowl etc.)
- You start working with one screen as facilitators and end up feeling that three screens are hardly enough!