Why face-to-face should be for special occasions

Like most people, I listen to quite a bit of music, but only very occasionally do I go to a live gig or concert; I watch a considerable amount of drama (most of it mysteries and thrillers I’m afraid), but this is on TV, only very rarely at the theatre; and I watch my fair share of sport, mostly on TV but (here’s where I break the pattern), also quite regularly at the Amex stadium in Brighton. The live events I have attended in my life are, in many cases, peak moments of high emotional engagement that I will never forget. The rest is just passing the time enjoyably.

So how does this relate to learning events? Well, traditionally, of course, learning was always face-to-face, because that was the only means possible (as was the case with music, drama and sport - if there wasn’t anything on locally, you did it for yourself). Over time we developed ways of packaging up learning content in books and on tapes and CDs, which freed us up from having to be there on the day when the lesson given. Now, of course, we are more likely to access this material online or download it play on a mobile device. In the past 15 years we’ve also been able to communicate and collaborate with tutors, experts and fellow learners online, in real-time if we want, so why would we ever want to get together to learn face-to-face?

There are, of course, some aspects of face-to-face events which are not really practical to achieve online: activities that involve touching, smelling or tasting; interacting with physical objects, such as tools and equipment; detecting fine nuances of body language; activities that require more real estate than a computer screen. Let’s put these to one side for a minute, because most learning events are not of this nature. So, how do you decide whether to attend a more routine presentation, lesson, workshop, coaching session, or whatever it is, face-to-face as opposed to online?

We can go back to the comparison with our consumption of entertainment. I see there being a number of categories:

1. People (or teams of people) that are so special to you, that at some stage in your life you just have to see them live. There are musicians, sportspeople, thinkers or actors that I would pay almost anything to see live and you are probably the same.
2. Events that you go to primarily for the social contact it provides and because it gets you out of the house.
3. Events which are interesting enough that you’d definitely make time to watch on TV.
4. A third category that you would fit in if you had the time, probably just skimming through or paying partial attention to.
5. Others that you have no interest in at all.

This list can be applied similarly to learning:

1. Events that you would take the trouble to travel to because they may well turn out to be milestones in your life. An example would be a great speaker at a conference or a world-renowned teacher.
2. Events for which the primary benefit is making and renewing contacts. Many conferences and classroom courses fit in this category.
3. Others events for which a webinar or virtual classroom session would be quite adequate.
4. Material that you would rather consume as and when it suits you, and very selectively, including blog posts, books and YouTube videos.
5. All those events and learning resources to which you pay no attention to at all.

Only items 1 and 2 require being face-to-face. Go beyond that and you waste resources on a massive scale.