Are you hosting a work or business event or meeting and have found that the Coronavirus
or COVID-19 has thrown a wrench into your plans?
Keep watching.
Hello, I'm Lauren Sergy.
This is Communication Q&A, where we deal with thorny communication and public speaking issues
so that you can have clearer, better communication as well as better speaking in your work and
life.
Now over the past few weeks, of course, we have seen concerns about Coronavirus and COVID-19
increasing, especially in terms of the events and meeting space.
We're seeing very, very real impacts on the events that people are hosting for their industries
or their businesses or work.
I've received a question recently that I really wanted to answer about this.
This question is coming from Sylvie, who asks "Dear Lauren, I have a regional meeting and
professional development event coming up with about 150 people attending.
The COVID-19 has been causing problems.
We're looking at travel restrictions, and one speaker has already pulled out.
The meeting is just a few weeks away, and I'm not sure how to salvage this.
Do you have any suggestions for how we can handle this situation?
Thanks for your advice, Sylvie."
Sylvie, this is a great questions, and just to be totally up front, I'm going to be speaking
about this from the perspective of a professional speaker.
Someone who participates in a lot of events, as opposed to the perspective of an event
or meeting planner.
They are two different angles and two different things you might want to consider.
In terms of what you would want to look into for actually running the event - assuming
that it goes ahead - and how to keep everyone safe and healthy, I recommend you check out
2 fantastic resources.
One is from the WHO on hosting meetings and holding events during the COVID-19 outbreak,
and the other is from Meeting Professionals International, which is their official response
to running events with the Coronavirus being the way it is right now.
I've linked to both those resources in the description down below.
Please check them out.
They're longer documents but are worth a read because they cover really important health
and safety information for anyone who is running a large meeting or hosting an event.
As you and I'm sure many people watching this video have seen and heard, there are a lot
of really big global events - I mean big conferences and trade shows - that have already been getting
cancelled left, right, and centre.
We are also seeing a lot of small meetings and events being cancelled due to travel restrictions.
And you yourself mentioned that you already have had a speaker pull out because of this.
This is to be expected right now.
It's unlikely that many events or meetings are going to be able to avoid different kinds
of impact, especially when you have people travelling in from across the region, country,
or from different countries.
So we're looking more at strategies for how to mitigate and how to make the most of what
you still have going on in terms of your event.
My first piece of advice to you for dealing with this is to Go Local.
This recommendation is good for events such as yours, smaller events that are mostly happening
within one region, as opposed to, you know, being a nation wide or international sort
of event.
By Go Local, I mean look at finding speakers, trainers, and experts that are in your own
backyard, who could come to speak at this event.
Very often when we're looking for speakers, for different people to come in and give their
expertise, we think that we need to look at other cities, or even other countries to find
someone really interesting who is going to captivate and engage our audience.
But as a professional speaker, I can tell you right now that there are likely many people
in your own backyard who can give outstanding presentations, who have fantastic knowledge
and wisdom and insight to share with your people, who would be more than happy to come
in and speak at your event - even if it's to cover at the last minute due to a cancellation.
You can look to organizations such as the Canadian Association of Professional Speakers,
the National Speakers Association (down in the US), or the Global Speakers Federation,
which is an international speaker body to locate speakers across the country in whatever
region or country you may be in, who can come in and give an outstanding performance that
will engage the attendees at your meeting.
Number two is to Go Virtual.
I will tell you right now: videoconferencing is awesome!
If you haven't considered doing it before for your meetings, I definitely recommend
looking into it as a very viable option to keep this meeting, this professional development
event, going and viable.
Videoconferencing technology and the quality of the connection and the streaming is only
getting better and better.
Many speakers and trainers, such as myself, have developed specific programs - specific
keynotes, seminars, and online training programs - that are intended to be delivered over videoconferencing.
So we have virtual keynotes and virtual seminars set up and ready to go.
In fact, some of my favorite experiences have been in giving virtual keynote presentations
where I was speaking to an audience distributed across the country.
Many hundreds of people called in to take part in this event and in these seminars,
and you know what?
We had a great time together!
It was very interactive because we had the right sort of videoconferencing setup going
on.
I was able to take questions, I was able to speak to people, to pull in callers so we
could have back-and-forth conversations right then and there, live during the event.
It was a great overall experience that brought a lot of value to everybody involved.
So if there is the option to say to the speaker who cancelled "Hey, can you do this as a virtual
keynote?" then talk to them.
Explore that as an option with them, because that could still create a really, really great
experience for the people who are still showing up to your event live as well as for people
who might not have the option to travel themselves.
There are a lot of inexpensive videoconferencing software options available if you don't already
have one set up internally.
My favorite right now is Zoom videoconference.
And full disclosure: this is NOT a sponsored content, this is not a paid endorsement for
Zoom at all.
It's just a system that I use and a system that I found very reliable, that I like.
In response to the coronavirus and COVID-19 outbreak, Google has made their Enterprise
level videoconferencing software available for free to all GSuite users.
Now again, this is not a sponsored post and I have not checked out the software myself,
but I've heard that it is an outstanding option - one that even if you do not have a lot of
videoconferencing software available to you, if you are a Gsuite user you can jump on and
use.
They're making this option available to people up to July 1st, so if your event is taking
place before then (and you mentioned, Sylvie, that your event is happening within the next
few weeks), this could be something you look in to.
Your last option and the least desirable and realistically most expensive option is to
Reschedule the event altogether.
If you are looking at rescheduling your event, give it a really long lead time.
We just don't know how long the coronavirus outbreak is going to be impacting events and
people's ability to travel.
You might be looking at rescheduling as far ahead as, you know, 8 or 10 months out in
advance at this point.
If you are looking at rescheduling your event, this is a very good time to look into the
option of hosting it as a virtual event - kind of going up to tip number two that I spoke
about.
If you give yourself a few months to get everything organized, you can put together a really slick
online summit that means you won't need to worry about whether or not the event is going
to be cancelled or rescheduled again.
I've taken part in many online summits myself, they are a wonderful experience and a really
good alternative to needing people to meet in person - especially when you're looking
at the possibility of future cancellations and more travel restrictions down the road.
If you are thinking of re-tooling this event to an online event, you know - going through
the whole rescheduling process and going for an online event or summit, you might want
to consider seeing if you can find a professional who specializes in hosting and running online
events.
A meeting planner for the online space.
Professionals out there do exist, check out your local MPI chapter, ask around and see
if anyone in your area is experienced in hosting online events, and I'm sure you will be able
to find someone who can help you reschedule your event and re-tool it as an online summit
so you don't need to run the risk of rescheduling again.
There you go, Sylvie, three options for you in terms of dealing with your upcoming meeting
and the cancellations that have happened or could potentially happen.
Again, those options are to Go Local, to Go Virtual, or to Reschedule.
I'm sure that in there you will find a way of making your event happen in one form or
another.
Thank you so much for asking this question.
To everyone else out there: how have you been dealing with travel restrictions and with
event cancellations or reschedulings in your own industry?
I would love to hear your stories down in the comments below because as we share this
information we only get to find more tips and tricks for dealing with this from people
like you, who have dealt with it before and who might have some advice to share.
Thank you so much for tuning into this somewhat impromptu Communication Q&A.
Again, I am not in my usual recording studio but I wanted to get a response to this question
out quickly while it was still very much top of people's minds.
In the meantime, I hope you stay healthy, keep communicating, keep talking.
We're gonna be able to pull through this together.
Take care, everybody.