ISBE member shares their reflections on recently leading a hybrid conference, that left delegates awed at how participatory and inclusive the experience was.
ISBE member Adrian Ashton is also a member of the leadership team of the International Association of Facilitators (England and Wales), and in this guise suggested that their annual conference this year should be staged ‘hybrid’ to allow facilitators the opportunity to better experience different formats and models of engaging clients, events, and meetings in this way.
As the Association is run on a voluntary basis, there was no budget available to hire or invest in technology (other than ‘borrowing’ a couple of spare laptops and old mobile phones) – however, feedback from the conference that saw 30 people in the room, and 30 people joining on-line from over 10 different countries and timezones (!) highlighted that the experience not only exceeded their expectations of how it would feel to be part of a hybrid event, but also that, at times, the way delegates were engaging with each other meant that it wasn’t always possible for them to tell who was on-line, and who was in the room.
Read more here.
Adrian is happy to offer to share further details beyond the outlines shared in his blog post with fellow members about how to design a successful hybrid event, and also how the technology was approached and managed: https://linktr.ee/adrianashton
