In one of many lively discussions with conference participants at Learning Technologies 2010 today, that most obvious of questions arose once again: why should you have to be at Olympia in London, live and in person, in chilly January, to participate in the event. Surely for every one of the 400-odd conference participants, there must be another ten who fulfil the following criteria:
- they want to attend but can’t justify travelling to London, or
- they are interested in attending just a small selection of the sessions, and
- they are prepared to pay to watch a live webcast or recorded video of those sessions that interest them
I know there are all sorts of commercial considerations. Are people prepared to pay for online sessions when so many webinars are free (my guess is yes)? How will exhibitors react to the idea that online participants who won’t get the chance to visit their booths (not great, but then conference participants are only a small proportion of the total exhibition visitors)? On the other hand, speakers will be delighted with the opportunity to reach a much wider audience. Perhaps it’s time to take the chance.
And why is it so synchronous, with multiple tracks? you can time shift your Sky at home, but you can't time-shift to get to two talks at once...
ReplyDeleteDearth of tweeters too, slightly odd with so many people talking about social & mlearning, but not putting 2 and 2 together?
The problem you see I think is rather near a solution. What I would see as the technological design for your proposed distance attendance model would be one or more very capable webcams serving many users over a broadband connection, and the user-end view of which would perhaps have border ads for conference exhibitors.
ReplyDeleteAll of this is probably possible now, but likely at a significant cost, which may only be justifiable for very large conferences. I can see however, specialized conference resource providers renting smaller but highly automated and connected spaces for just the sort of event you envision. This would be a sort of mass telepresence provider.
I would love to attend more conferences and benefit from meeting with like minded people. What would I prefer given the choice? Definately the exhibition for a whole body sensory experience. It's a bit like going to the cinema to see a film rather than waiting until it's on Sky or renting a DVD. I want the 'wide-screen' emersive feel but being able to hear the experience of others as we come out of the auditorium.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I am hardly ever able to attend such events for a number of reasons:
1. They are mostly organised in London or just as far from Shropshire
2. Travel is both expensive and a nightmare
3. I would have to pay extra for accommodation
4. I can't see my organisation paying for that
5. In the case of Learning Technologies - I am currently delivering training on Blended Learning
6. If I wasn't scheduled to train, I possibly would have to take holiday to attend and then points 1 - 3 would be more relevant.
Because the Learning Technologies have two streams of seminars, the ones that usually interest me often clash. So even if I could justify the cost and time off work, I would feel short changed.
I would dearly love to be there this year.
So after that long moan of my current predicament - Being able to view these events asynchronously would be super. I could see synchronous online events working well especially if questions from the wider audience could be answered but I would still have the problem of attending if I was scheduled to deliver training.
As for paying for them - well that would depend on how much and if they can be downloaded to keep. If I'm paying for them, I would expect to be able to continue to view off-line. I would certainly have to be selective as this would be a personal expense rather than a company one. I have certainly spent a lot on my own personal development up until now so would contunue to consider this if, as they say, the price is right.
I think there are some sessions (eg. Josh Bersin's and Mark Oehlert's) where a streamed version would be an ideal fit.
ReplyDeleteThere are others which were more interactive (mine & Patrick's, and Julie Wedgewood's for example) which just wouldn't really work well online.
I think this is an interesting question. I work in education and most people training on learning technologies offer stand and deliver trainings with the use of technology as demonstration only. I would love to attend online events because I could go to a much broader variety of conferences and interact with a wider variety of people. There is so much to be gained from people who do similiar work but work in different fields.
ReplyDeleteSurely there must be some advertising revenue opportunities if you have a virtual foot-fall of 40,000 rather than 400 on site?
ReplyDeleteThis is a point I have often considered for our own conference Clive (IITT's National Conference). I think that as many of our sessions are interactive and designed to involve the audience they would not work. However, some of the sessions, like Bob Mosher's keynote, would be ideal to be streamed.
ReplyDeleteBut the two questions to be answered are: 1> Would the cost of streaming be prohibitive? 2> Would people pay when they are used to getting things free?
If any supplier would be interested in helping me provide this service to members at our next event in September (and the IT Training Awards in Feb 2011), contact me on csteed@iitt.org.uk
I'm sure that it would not take long to find a sponsor for such an initiative... many of the exhibitors would welcome the chance I am sure of Learning Technologies using their software or applications to make the event seminars available online.
ReplyDeleteFor me, I think Learning Technologies need to start sorting the basics first - having given a presentation at the show where the sound technicians could not provide more than one speaker and the tech-guy could not get me internet connection to allow the interactive element of my presentation I think there is much yet to be achieved!
Gary (at Plan)
As for the vendors, they are e-learning and technology related, right? I believe that such conferences could offer opportunities for them to engage participants online in unique ways.
ReplyDelete