About

Don’t underestimate tech production for online meetings

We’ve all been to an online meeting or webinar where things have definitely gone off the rails. There's that great video of the news presenter from the BBC that has his children walk into the room and be distracting. They're great to giggle at – seeing other’s misfortune but they also secretly make the hairs on the back of our neck stand up, “Oh, I hope that never happens to me”.

These are crazy times and we are all doing things in a way we never expected. If Covid hadn’t struck, my company would be in the midst of wrapping up one major face to face conference and in the throws of finalising another. Sadly, these wonderful opportunities to see our colleagues, peers and friends in a learning environment have, for the foreseeable future, disappeared. Even though we can still meet to a degree, many people are nervous and others simply don’t have the funds to pay for professional development.

We have been looking for ways to fill the gap and have fallen into a roll that no one ever knew would be needed. We have been running technical production of online meetings. What on earth is technical production and how could anyone actually need that – don’t you just hit the button and join the meeting? Let me tell you a story…

The Dilemma.

We were recently contacted by a skilled professional facilitator who had to run a session with 40-50 senior professionals from the arts world. These are visual people, who spend their lives curating, watching and critiquing visual and literal arts. To add to this pressure, the State Minister was also coming to give an address. The Facilitator was use to running interactive workshops and he wanted to do this again. To have groups, mix them up, join them together, get them to work together in a way that many of them hadn’t done before. The trouble is.. his Zoom skills were limited to “just hitting the button and joining the meeting”. This meeting had to run smoothly.

The facilitator’s job in a session is to guide the group into achieving common goals and outcomes. To do this, you need to give the group 100% of your attention. You need to listen to what people are saying and then weave that into the session to be built on and agreed upon. You simply cannot give 100% attention when you're stressing about setting up break out rooms, taking notes from the chat box and letting VIP’s into the room at the appropriate moment – even playing a set of music exactly timed to 10 minutes so people know when afternoon tea is over, it’s all too much.

That’s where we came in. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bigger sense of relief on someone’s face when I said “Oh yeah, we can do all of that – no problem”. I watched his blood pressure visibly subside. We were able to run complex groups of putting people into groups of 2 for 2 minutes and then combining those groups into groups of 4 for a further four minutes – all whilst keeping certain personalities separated. We let the Minister in on time, gave him a spotlight, so that he wasn’t a tiny little square amongst 40 others. We were also able to compile notes in real time, typing into a shared powerpoint slide so the group could see and agree on the outcomes as they were discussed. We were able to compile a report of what was said on the day, typed into the chat box and a copy of the recording – ready to go the day after the session. 

How did it go? 

Well, the Minister was very happy; the Facilitator (and I) were heaped with praise at the end of the session for such a fun, interactive and seamless event; and best of all…. The Facilitator has now been asked to quote for 10 further round tables flowing on from this initial session because everyone loved it so much. The client (a State Government) is so happy and sees the value in having someone push the buttons, that they feel our service is an integral part of running the sessions. We were also asked to participate in a further 2 hour session the week after by one of the attendees who happened to be running a session with the Facilitator. This went so well, we were asked back the following week for a full day to spend with their Board and Executive team to run their strategic planning. The Facilitator’s client were so impressed, they were very happy to pay an additional fee to have us there to ensure things didn’t go sideways.

What’s the moral of the story?

If we were running a face to face meeting – we wouldn’t try to be all things to all people… so why do it now that we’re virtual? Pushing buttons may seem easy but we all know, it’s fraught with danger – in Zoom… “Exit rooms” is next to “End meeting for all”… one small slip and you disconnect everyone. You can only give 100% attention to those on the screen if you’re not stressing about all the setup in the back end. Let someone else have the responsibility to ensure everything happens exactly how it should as this will directly reflect on the person running the meeting. Do make sure you use someone who has the skills and is well practiced in the magic of button pushing and knows all the secrets such as sharing music in the correct way so that the sound quality is there.  These are the times where it’s ok to ask for help – and working with others can be rewarding… we’ve seen it result in more work and a reputation that makes us blush.

Quote from the Facilitator’s client:

Many, many thanks for your terrific work on Monday. You make it all so seamless when I absolutely know what a fuddle we'd be in without you pulling all the levers and pushing the buttons. We're hugely grateful for your support and speedy turnaround of the summaries as well. Caro Llewellyn, CEO, the Wheeler Centre.