Remote speaking and the future of conferences

In the past few weeks we spoke at over half a dozen conferences in places like Thailand, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Shanghai… with topics ranging from investment, Internet, social media to advertising. It made us feel that the whole conference business is at a crossroad and will have to focus more and more on what make a good conference. In those connected times, most events still fall into the “offline” and “broadcast” category, having no WiFi coverage and no return channel. The audience ends up watching a large screen with a PowerPoint while listening to a talking head. Nothing you cannot get online later on. The networking that follows is often ill-designed: too few or too short breaks, poor attendees identification and overall, a sense of randomness in encounters, which turn the whole thing into a general “how have you been” with people you know already. Is it worth the money and time to hear not-so-new ideas, meet a few friends and a random number of random people? Of course this randomness can be reduced with preparation and clear objectives, but still…

In the middle of this, we were invited to give a presentation for the Global Entrepreneur Week in Singapore. Unable to fly there for a 20 minutes speech, the organizers suggested to do the presentation “live from Beijing” on Skype, with the support of a slideshow. Interestingly, we could see the audience (though it was from behind as the tech desk was at the back of the room) and by providing Skype contact, exchange with the organizer and some participants as public and private back channels. All from the living-room in Beijing :-)

As event organizers ourselves with our monthly Mobile Monday forum, some speakers we would like to invite are often overseas, and the time too limited to provide Q&A and interaction. What if remote presenting was actually the right thing to do? The audience assembled there is around a “community of interest” and has advantage in meeting others in person. With WiFi, they also have the ability to discuss during the event via a common Skype channel or Twitter account (as was practiced during the recent “China 2.0 Blogger Tour“). If keynotes can be found on YouTube or done via Skype – where is the value in listening “live”? How to put to good use the hundreds in the audience, many of whom could easily be on stage and contribute? We look forward to the event that will find a way to tap into this potential.