The Engagement You’ll Find at Our Virtual Events

A record number of participants turned out for a discussion group with one of our speakers, Tom Kouloupolous, futurist and chairman and founder of Delphi Group, during our April virtual summit, CIO’s Future of Cloud and Data. Nearly all of the almost 300 viewers of his virtual session on “Living in the Cloud” jumped onto the Zoom call where they could ask questions. And ask they did – we couldn’t get to all of the questions they had about digital selves, the intelligent cloud, privacy and personal data ownership, and others, in the 20 minutes we’d allotted. The great thing was, participants started answering one another’s questions, adding such value to the conversation.

Indeed, interaction is what makes a virtual summit a conference vs. a webinar. In the early days (rewind three years), digital event platforms rolled out like candies on a conveyer belt, each one promising interactive elements to encourage people to talk with one another to simulate a “real” event. There were discussion tables where you’d click on a chair and your photo would appear on the seat; a Zoom-like call would launch when someone else joined you. These looked so cool, they were bound to take off! But people were shy and didn’t want to be the first at the table, or when the call launched, everyone on it only wanted to listen, not speak. Similarly, the ability to make a video phone call sounded great, but no one used it. 

Text chat was different. All along, our IT audience – used to chat boards and message groups, Slack and perhaps social media – has enjoyed saying hello when a program starts. They ask questions when we have time for Q&A, often getting more attention from a virtual speaker than an in-person one since the format discourages “that guy” who pontificates and never quite gets to his question as a session winds to a close onsite. Whether because of the seeming anonymity or the ease of typing out a thought, this format engages people live. We’ve gotten great feedback on it.

Our next virtual summit, CSO’s Future of Cybersecurity, is June 8, when we’ll have a live Q&A with Ann Marie Sastry, a tech CEO, board director, inventor, and educator. And it’s not too late to hear Tom Koulopoulos’ keynote, where like the futurist he is, he covered far more than cloud itself (register here to gain access). This event will stay “live” on the platform for another two weeks.  

Do join us – for a “real” event.