What are you doing with Hybrid events?

goofy old picture of Nancy
Old picture to connect with the fact that I last wrote about hybrid meetings in 2013!

Hey friends, at least the seven of you who still read here – wink wink. I’m working on some writing about doing Liberating Structures online and one section which needs inspiration is a short section on hybrid gatherings. I last wrote about hybrids in 2013 so it has been a while. I’d love any of your favorite pointers. THANKS IN ADVANCE!

UPDATE: Please read the fab comments from my friends below. There is actual useful insight but it is in the comments!!!

11 thoughts on “What are you doing with Hybrid events?”

  1. I am avoiding them! I stay in my lane. But when I work with them I bring in Amanda Fenton. You should interview her and get her take on hybrid events, accessibility and equity. She has been deeply diving into this work for the last number of years and is REALLY GOOD AT IT.

    1. Chris, yes, yes, Amanda! This is why I need my global distributed brain. You are also referenced in the piece I’m writing, thinking about how digital tools manifest (or not) as containers! Thanks! (And yes, I’m staying in my own lane… simply wandering!)

    1. D’Arcy, lovely to read you, joining Chris in TWO OF THE SEVEN RESPONDING! That makes it a glorious day. Thanks for the links – I’m off to check them out!

  3. Hi Nancy, I am three of seven here! It looks like in your photo you are holding chocolate, true to form.

    In my current work at Open Education Global, we had the world wide pandemic trajectory of moving an annual in person conference to an online one, and back again. The message stuck with me that the opportunity to participate in an online version made a difference in people to be part of it who normally could not because of costs and limits on travel. I did not want to lose that as we “went back”.

    For our 2022 conference that was in person in Nantes, France, I attempted a term I made up, an “AND Conference” where rather than trying to replicate the conference format of presentations, it was more a folding in of an unconference approach, and creating activities, ways to cross connect those “In Nantes” and those “Not in Nantes” (that included me, I was getting over my own covid wave 2 months prior, so I chose to be in the latter group).

    https://connect.oeglobal.org/c/oeg-2022/70/

    It was more adhoc, but my aim was to make it less of a binary participation. Much was influenced by over years pre-pandemic experience with the Virtually Connecting approach to bringing hallway conversation type opportunities at in person conferences
    https://virtuallyconnecting.org/

    My colleagues though seem to have gravitated back to the traditional familiar approach to conferences, I just try to push things at the edges where I can.

    I have been in some disappointing online sides of Hybrid conferences, to me, it is a mistake to try to replicate the conference presentation-oriented format online. What is forgotten is that when you participate online, you are doing so in the midst of doing all the other things you normally do (work, cook, walk the dog, be a human to your family).

    My thinking was influenced by this mid-pandemic series by Dominick Lukes, mostly where he outlines the affordances of in person conference spaces (e.g. hallways)

    https://medium.com/techczech/moving-events-online-platforms-strategies-and-challenges-97464cdc0f2a

    I’m eager to read more blog posts!

    1. Alan! #3! #3. You seven are all dear to me. 😉 My experiences of the whole pre/post pandemic swings (online! offline! blended!) are very similar. I have lots of thoughts. And feels. I feel the inclusion aspect online, especially for work like you and I do (not corporate!) is a primary driver for advancing the online and hybrid practice. And on the “feels” side, I think there is a huge snapback because people missed going somewhere, away from their work and day to day, to interact in both an immersive and social space. As you note, hybrid and online still is fully interwoven in our day to day – at least for most of us. Yet it remains a very privileged stance. From people who work in the social good sector, there are some real values clashes and disconnect with what we practice and what we preach. I can no longer rationalize getting on a plane for 9 hours to facilitate half way round the world when we are talking about climate change, right? Yet I so yearn for that travel, the new space and place, that experience. We are dealing with some loss but we don’t talk about it.

      Wow, am I rambling or WHAT! Thanks for the links. I will follow them. And what will come back somewhere down the line is part of a publication about meaningful engagement online where hopefully we can walk our talk and have good, even great experiences!!!

      1. I too am an a mixed place. I treasure the memories and experiences of going places (I miss Villa Gans and Tacos La Choza!) but find I do not relish being one of the conference travel junkies. I am cautious now. I went to a “first since” on in October, my org’s one was in Edmonton. The “feel” of being there was fantastic, but I was less emnthralled with the intense cramming of sesisons and sitting in chairs, there was not sufficient unstructured time.

        I do not think it’s binary, we can create blends but I am troubled by efforts, again, to make the online aspect so trying to model the in-person (talking over slides). Like you say, that’s mostly what our regular work has moved to.

        But we can devise new ways that are less either/or (hence my attempt to say “AND”) especially since the majority of possible interested people in the world would never have the means for a jet trip.

        The desires for some to “return to before” bothers me much.

    2. Another thought/question, Alan. With your virtually connecting work, did you steward the tech configuration and then did you reuse/modify that configuration? Do you think having something handy might make people include more virtual participation in blended contexts> A friend this morning was sharing her insights about how we do/don’t include disability accommodations even when they are fairly simple to do UNTIL someone says “HEY you need to make this work for me.” Hybrid should not be some obscure practice if we hope to integrate it. Or maybe we are supposed to marginalize it. Evil grin.

      1. Virtually Connecting had a broad level of volunteer participation, much to the credit of Maha Bali and Rebecca Hogue who began it in 2014. There were planning documents, and a set of structures in place to run things (to show you how old it was that was the era of … whatever the Google on Air thing was called, though it did shift to zoom)., Are you saying was it replicable? Indeed, there was a means to propose a conference where it should have presence, a call for volunteers to be an on site “buddy” running the session and a virtual buddy and others to be there as participants. Then there was effort to find key people at the conference, presenters, keynotes, to ask to give an hour to converse. So different people organized the different sessions.

        It truly was much of the experience and value of hallway conversations. People who could not ever go to conferences could get a sense and value from what was shared. Many who did the onsite hosting described an elevated conference experience, often they would say they never would have had a chance to talk to the Big Keynote person or connect with others were it not for this basically simple thing- turn on a camera and have a conversation.

        It inspired the work I did co-teaching the Networks Narrative Course (~2017-2022) with Mia Zamora at Kean University https://netnarr.arganee.world/

        We hosted these “Studio Visits” where we invited in as guests some key people in the field, it was hosted from the in person class, but we also had remote guests it in too. So yes, we were able to convene conversational sessions with creative media practitioners like Howard Rheingold.

        The activity dwindles out pre-covid, and most people are doing their other work but I am sure heavily influenced.

        I don’t think it takes super sophistcated technology, more a crazy willingness to try something new.

        1. Making it easy matters. I’ve found having “virtual visits” both to people’s places and simply with them has been really powerful and places of learning.

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