How to pivot your in-person gathering to remote in 24 hours
The best-laid plans…
After all this time away, we could finally be together again.
Your in-person gathering (whether it be training, workshop, company town hall, off-site, conference, etc) is on the calendar, and around the corner.
Until COVID had different plans. Again. So, what to do?
While it may be tempting to simply replicate our in-person plan, or recite our slides by rote, the pandemic taught us we can do better. Our attendees expect us to do better as well.
Pivot once again we must. Here’s a playbook on how to:
Switch from in-person gathering to remote if you only have 24 hours
Pivot without sacrificing what makes gathering worthwhile: connection and engagement.
How to know if it’s ok to cancel. Hint: it really can be!
What to do before attendees show up (log on)
1. Prime attendees
Athletes warm up before an event, so should attendees. Remember: Gatherings are an opportunity to do something with people, not at them. Otherwise, they can just read the slides (more on this later). Small gestures pull instead of push them in, give them skin in the game, and signal to your attendees you need their thinking so they feel seen.
If you have 24 hours: Send attendees a question to reflect on related to the material you’re going to share. This helps connect the material to their needs and allows room for personalization.
2. Pre-event communication:
In addition to communicating the change in the channel from in-person to virtual, be strategic about why you communicate to attendees before the event.
If you have 24 hours: When pressed for time it’s even more important to get clear on the M.I.T. (the most important thing) of your gathering.
In addition to logistics, answer, “what is the one thing you want attendees to walk away with?”. If you aren’t clear, attendees won’t be either — especially when they can take a lesser risk with their time and simply watch the recording.
How you open
1. Housekeeping:
In an in-person gathering, we may verbalize the housekeeping odds-and-ends like when breaks will be, or where the restrooms are located. Housekeeping for remote gatherings is just as important.
Just as we clean a room so we can relax and not worry, some simple housekeeping can calm the nervous system, reduce the uncertainty and anxiety levels of attendees so they can truly pay attention to your gathering. No mess, no stress.
If you have 24 hours: Add a slide to the front of your presentation that details important must-knows for the gathering:
The name or title of your event
How long the gathering will be ex) 45 minutes of presentation 15 minutes of Q&A
where and how to ask a question
When or if they will receive a recording
Any ground rules, ex) cameras on or off, or up to the attendee. Protip: Ground rules are an important and overlooked opportunity to be inclusive.
Here’s example housekeeping slide from a recent webinar:
2. Sharing the agenda
Typically our agenda slides are a list of topics only shown once at the beginning of the gathering. This isn’t the most brain-friendly choice. Our brains like certainty and being able to predict what’s next. It’s like knowing where the dips are on a rollercoaster before you buckle your harness.
If you have 24 hours: Put an agenda slide between each section highlighting where you are in the gathering.
3. Give people a role
If we don’t need our attendees, there is less of a reason to gather them. It’s not only the experience that’s unique when we gather — our attendees are too. Here’s how to invite others in from the start.
If you have 24 hours: Script the social cues to signal it’s safe for people to contribute. Welcome people and casually chat as they log on just as you would if you were in person.
Add a question or a prompt on the screen for people to pay attention to during the gathering.
Oftentimes we think adding games or icebreakers is enough to give others a role. These may be fun but can also be futile. They help people be less distracted in the moment but don’t necessarily help others care about the subject long term. We can help people not only pay attention but put it to use instead.
“Okay Monday, I see you!” shouted Anthony Veneziale, the MC of hip-hop improv troupe Freestyle Love Supreme at one of their recent Broadway performances. “You play a very important role here tonight”, he continued. That small invitation elevated the audience as if they were lifted several inches out of their seats. They need us, the audience was told. They were pulled, instead of pushed, to pay attention.
What to do throughout
Sprinkle in these techniques over the course of your gathering to up connection.
If you have 24 hours: Try the Socratic method, “I’m sure you’ve been through this before”. Heavy use of the word ‘you’ or ‘we’ have the effect of figuratively reaching into the audience to connect the material with their experience.
Instead of asking, “Any questions?”, use the simple turn-of-phrase, “what question do you have?”. You may be surprised that with a little extra time, the questions come flying out. Often people don’t know what questions are allowed. Give people some examples of what they might ask about so they know it’s safe. For example, “here is a slide of everything we talked about this morning. What questions do you have about what you heard? I bet you’re curious about X, Y, Z”. We often need these additional social cues in a remote setting.
How to close
We often digest or debrief in-person gatherings in hallways or on our way out. We need to leave space for connection in a remote setting as well. Digestion and debriefing help attendees retain and recall information.
There are many ways to leave space for connection. We draw material closer to us when we’re encouraged to use our own experience and share it. It can be done with a simple question or prompt or even a breath.
If you have 24 hours: A lot of great information was surely shared, make sure it’s easier for others to retain it. Add key takeaways of the most important information as a closing slide.
How to know if you should just cancel
Our natural inclination when we pivot from in-person to remote is to either stuff more content in, or to reduce our content.
Instead ask, do we need to gather at all? Despite its allure and potential, gathering may not be necessary, even when we crave it most.
Ask yourself, what’s the effect you’re after, and then follow the motto: pull together, push apart.
If your desired effect is to help people comply or to inform, it’s likely you can shift to asynchronous communication. Especially in a virtual setting, save your synchronous time and energy for when you really need engagement, buy-in, or behavior change.
Virtual and in-person gatherings are not the same. They can’t be. But what is the same is what people want — connection.
COVID has shown us we want to be together, but we also want it to be meaningful.
We may think it’s harder to connect virtually, this is why we blame Zoom or focus our efforts on keeping people from being distracted.
Technology or lack thereof doesn’t propel or fuel connection, it’s us and our choices.
The sudden and abrupt switch to remote means we have an opportunity to make new choices: give attendees a role, help them become active co-creators, and remember that even virtually, especially virtually, gatherings are an opportunity to do things with people, not at them.
Lindsey Caplan is a screenwriter turned organizational psychologist who helps HR & business leaders create experiences that boost motivation, engagement, and performance