08 Feature
September, 2020
Design factor
online
Sasha Frieze, MD at The Business Narrative,
offers practical strategies for creating online
events that deliver on objectives
Words
Sasha Frieze
The pivot to online or hybrid conferences
can feel daunting. You want
to deliver client value, but you may have
a lot of questions. How do you design
your event, so it still fulfils its objectives;
are there strategies for keeping
your conferences exciting, engaging
and energetic; how do you create opportunities
for participants to genuinely
connect with each other and engage
with your great content; is there a way
to re-imagine networking online; and
can sponsors have meaningful experiences
and make meaningful connections
that meet their business goals?
Over the last four months,
we have been researching, learning,
and leveraging our decades of
physical event design experience
to create 10 guiding principles for
designing online events that deliver.
1. Know your event objective
Great events deliver on their purpose.
It seems even more important now to
sense-check in the move to online that
all your stakeholders are aligned on your
event objectives and how you will evaluate
success. We use our Event Narrative
Framework methodology to work
through event purpose and design. We
are all likely to be delivering online or
hybrid events for some time and will
want to demonstrate measurable results.
2. Content is king
Conferences have always been about the
content - your on-the-pulse keynotes,
those thoughtful firesides, fascinating
panels, and that’s exponentially
true in the ‘next normal’. Your delegates
attend because you are convening
the right people talking about
timely topics, and content-rich events
transfer online better than many.
Online conference content needs
to be even more tightly curated:
conference programmes with shorter
and more focused sessions; delegates
attention spans may be pulled
in multiple directions, so you may
want to direct sessions and script
panel outlines to ensure that focused
content keeps people’s participation.
3. Think creatively about event
design
In the early days, back in March, some
organisers were simply transferring
their physical event online. The opportunities
for online are varied, reaching
a wider geographical audience, no
travel limitations, no room-size limitations
and enhanced event sustainability
all help re-imagine events.
We are looking at modular content,
timing shifts to attract international
time-zones. However, an event is
about gathering; bringing people
together at a time and in a (virtual)
place, and so an online focal point
makes sense, albeit with content
possibly spread over a slightly longer
period, and with breaks, including
engagement and networking possibilities,
to reflect participants homebased
lives. To create the momentum
of an event, a short time period (day/
week) rather than a month of webinars,
might create more of a buzz.
4. Know your audience
While physical events are often about
‘time out’, away from the office, online
events are ‘time in’, and so you are
vying for your participants’ attention
and may need to rethink how
people are consuming your content.
Of course, everyone is different.
You may have multitaskers,
listening or watching while also