I’ve written up a detailed guide to Moving Events online on Medium. It consists of three parts:
In this part, I look at much more detail than is typical in this context at what makes in-person events different from online events and why that makes online events much less common than might be expected. I propose that it is because there are many more things happening in a physical space than is apparent and virtual event organisers or attendees often don’t take them into account. I compare the physical and virtual affordances and show the gaps in our mental models of both.
I also look at this issue from the perspective of the institution from which the conference attendee received funding/permission to attend.
In this part, I compile a list of tips and suggestions for event organizers based both on reports of people who have run successful events. I try to link these to the challenges outlined in part 1 and add more tips to address the affordance gap.
I also offer suggestions to virtual event participants and more importantly to institutions who wish for their members to attend virtual events. My perspective is that virtual events can only succeed if the entire ecosystem is aligned around them.
In the final part, I review the decisions event organizers have to make when choosing a technical platform. I then give examples of different types of platforms and offer a brief review of both general-purpose video conferencing platforms (such as Zoom) and some special-purpose online event platforms.
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