Why Some Online Events Fail

Three Problems with Online Events and how to fix them

(The Cone of Silence)

I remember rushing home after school, making cheese and vegemite sandwiches and settling down in front of the colour TV to watch my favourite show, Get Smart.

Get Smart was a classic TV comedy of the 1960s. It was before my time, but I loved to watch reruns after school. It was very exciting for a ten year old boy.

Maxwell Smart, Agent 99 and the Chief were spies battling the forces of Chaos — an international organization bent on world domination and evil.

We are also in a period when we are fighting the forces of Covid Chaos and there has been a huge surge in people communicating through online conferencing applications such as Zoom, Teams, Google Hangouts and more. These new media are supposed to help us but are they any more successful than the “Cone of Silence”?

Since Covid 19, I’ve been researching this increase in use of online conferencing platforms and what it means for social and work relationships. As part of my research, I have surveyed 47 people on their experiences of online events. The respondents come from a range of backgrounds including corporate managers, arts workers, community workers, educators, academics, yoga teachers, teenagers, grandparents and family members. They represent a range of ages and cultural backgrounds.

Just as the Cone of Silence had obvious communication flaws, this new virtual medium has problematic aspects. In this article I am going to discuss three issues identified by respondents and some suggestions for how to address them.

In this new shared virtual space a number of the respondents found that communication felt very awkward and stilted, resulting in an experience lacking in natural flow.

This is not surprising given it’s a new medium and is very different to the usual ways that we come together. People are laid out in small boxes in a grid on hard, flat screens. Social rules, roles and expectations haven’t been established clearly. Many of the usual non-verbal signals such as body language, spatial positioning, and eye contact are largely invisible.

This differs from our usual ways of communicating and so it’s no wonder people feel confused and uncomfortable. Many of the respondents told me that they weren’t sure how to behave, what is appropriate, where to look, when to talk and who should talk. Often they said they felt self conscious and inhibited and couldn’t work out where and what to focus on.

Many of the respondents reported feeling fatigued by online meetings and events. They found it draining to sit on a chair staring into a screen. They noticed tension in their eyes, shoulders and bodies. As a result, they found it harder to focus and much easier to get distracted, zone out and disconnect from the flow of conversation.

This new communication medium is principally visual. This can easily tire us. We were not designed to stare into a screen whilst remaining physically immobile. It creates an imbalance in information input between our visual sense and our other senses which is disorienting. It makes it harder to feel grounded and fully present.

Frustration with the lack of a shared experience in the online medium was expressed by many respondents, with some questioning whether it is possible for the online events to create this experience. Online events often involve one-way communication, with only one person talking at a time. There is a limited sense of how everyone is responding, making it hard to discern the collective group process.

These three problems are significant issues which can severely constrain the capacity of this medium. They apply especially to events and meetings with the purpose of generating connection and new ideas and not just imparting information. Below are some ideas about how to address these issues, that have come from my own experience or from people I’ve been talking with.

Creating Flow

In order to create flow in this relatively new medium, the role of the host is central. The host needs to take the bull by the horns and set the tone, direction and rules. Whilst this approach is similar to an in-person event, it is even more important for online events, where people are feeling especially disoriented and anxious.

Flow in an event is about balancing order and chaos. The host needs to both gently guide the participants with clear instructions and direction, whilst being comfortable with facilitating the unfolding process.

It’s important to help people maintain their energy and not become fatigued. Because people are used to being passive recipients of content on screens, there is a tendency to forget that this is a live medium and not pre-recorded. The host needs to remind people to be actively present. There are a number of ways to raise the energy of an online group:

Whilst many respondents called attention to the difficulty of creating a group experience online, it doesn’t have to be difficult. Surprisingly, online meetings and events can be a forum for creating a shared conversation. The nature of the medium means that only one conversation can happen at a time, which everyone hears. If the host facilitates skillfully, this conversation has the potential to build a group focus comprising the ideas and wisdom of the whole group.

All of the above questions are just as pertinent at in-person events as online events. In both cases the goal of building a shared experience is possible, however the mechanism is slightly different. The online medium enables the host to facilitate a single focused collective conversation which can be more challenging at an in-person event. On the other hand, at an in-person event, it is much easier for the host to sense the whole group experience and the subtle emerging group field.

Whilst many people are yearning to go back to in-person events, there is no question that online events are going to be a permanent part of our work and home lives. There are many reasons for this including saving money, reducing environmental impacts, connecting people across multiple geographic spaces, improved technology and reducing barriers to accessing community and public resources and processes.

A number of survey respondents wrote that they are feeling burnt out by online events and are dreading attending them. It seems that the way online events are being designed is not optimal and may lead to people rejecting them, rather than working constructively within the constraints of the medium.

I have outlined some tentative ideas for how to address the specific shortcomings of the online medium raised by the participants in my online survey. These include ideas for creating flow, fighting fatigue and building group emergence.

So what about you? I would love to get your thoughts. Just like Max, 99 and the Chief, we need innovative communication strategies to help in the fight against the forces of evil and Chaos. Email your ideas to me at thor@leapfish.com.au

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thanks Thor

Thor Blomfield BSW is a community worker, social researcher and writer on Medium. He helps community workers, facilitators and event organisers build healthy and happy communities. In his spare time, he teaches at Sydney University and performs community magic.

Related posts:

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander month (AAPI). While we reflect upon AAPI heritage, it’s also important to acknowledge how broad and diverse the AAPI community is as a whole. We represent…

1 Pelar los limones y usar sólo las cáscaras. Lavar bien los limones, pelarlos con un pelador de papas cuidando que no quede en la cáscara nada de parte blanca (la parte blanca le da un sabor amargo…

Is it dishonest when a street vendor in country charges a foreigner more than she would a local? How about when key points of a contract are stated not in the main part, but in the fine print? Is it…