In March 2020, well over a year ago now, the team at ASAM went home. We packed up our computers, cleaned out the fridge and ventured bravely into a new workplace, the loungeroom.
We thought it would be a fortnight, or perhaps a month at most. Certainly, there was no need to cancel the face-to-face events we were planning to fly to in eight weeks’ time. As for our face-to-face programs? Well, surely, we’d be able to reschedule in a month’s time, no problem.
Except a month came and went and the notion that we could temporarily postpone in-person facilitation was dashed. There was no way that people were travelling; not by car, train, tram or plane - to any of the central locations where we would spend a day mingling in a small room and sharing a spread of sandwiches and fruit platters for lunch.
We moved from postpone to pivot, transitioning our learning and development experiences to an online format. There were challenges of course, we couldn’t all look at slides in the same room, the quality of conversation was now dependent on a viable internet connection, and without any break from screens, the temptation to respond to work emails and take calls was evermore present. However, all clouds have a silver lining, and these clouds had particularly shiny ones.
Our interstate clients no longer had to travel through an airport to access professional development opportunities. Our rural and regional colleagues didn’t need to embark on hours-long drives at an unmentionable time of morning to make it to sessions. We adapted to technology and took full advantage of the tools it provided. Not only did we try break-out rooms, annotation and polls, we embraced them wholeheartedly and actively wrote them into programs.
These new tools are both efficacious and democratic ways of determining people’s moods, understanding and thoughts about various aspects of the programs - things that people can be reluctant to divulge in person. Participants quickly moved from hesitancy to actively embracing this new environment.
Those who often miss out; such as people in rural and remote areas, those who can’t take time away from the office, or parents doing the ‘juggle’, were suddenly able to join us, knowing that they could join from wherever they were - no questions asked, or judgement handed down.
We get a lot out of being in a room together. But as we pivot back, after 12 months of meeting in loungerooms, I feel that we may miss some aspects of that time too.