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Conferences and Meetings update - Webinar
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Conferences and Meetings update - Webinar
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Upload Date:
2022-05-02T00:00:00.0000000
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Language: EN.
Segment:0 .
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK. Good afternoon. Welcome. We will just give ourselves 10 seconds whilst delegates or participants' machines are buffering to make sure that we start everybody can hear us. OK, excellent. Well, good morning. Good afternoon.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Good evening, depending where you are, where you're joining us from in the world. I'm delighted to welcome you to the first in this webinar series hosted by Society Street following the unprecedented success of the online conference that was put together at the very last minute in March, following the success and the engagement from our delegates, not participants. We want to maintain that energy.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: We want to maintain that engagement and enthusiasm. And so part of Society Street's commitment to doing so is to deliver this series of monthly webinars throughout the year. And as I say, I have the pleasure of hosting and sharing this first session. My name is Andrew Chamberlain. I am the Managing Director of Consort Strategy, which is a consultancy firm based here in the UK.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And I work to support societies, membership bodies, learning institutes, et cetera, in their leadership development, business development. And I will ask my colleagues on the panel today to briefly introduce themselves. I'll start with Alexa.
ALEXA TULLETT: Hi. I'm Alexa Tullett. I'm an associate professor at the University of Alabama, and I'm the president of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, which is a society that started in 2016. And we have annual meetings where we discuss ways to improve research methods in psychological science. We had our first in-person meeting in 2016, and we're about to have our first online meeting this year.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Excellent. Thank you very much. Violaine.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Hi. I'm Violaine Iglesias. I'm CEO and co-founder of a company called Cadmore Media. We are a video host company that specializes in serving professional and scholarly organizations. So we host videos for them, including conference videos. And this is something that we've been interested in in a long time. But obviously, that activity has exploded with the current crisis.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So my point of view here is mostly going to be derived from a lot of interactions that we're having with societies who are planning virtual events who have done virtual events or are planning virtual events in the coming months. So I'm going to be representing quite a few points of view here.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK, thank you very much. And finally, Diane.
DIANE KOVATS: Thanks, Andrew. Hi. I'm Diane Kovats. I'm the executive director of the International Society for Computational Biology. We are a medium-sized member-based organization that service members around the world. We host both in-person events, online, interaction, and digital events. And ISCB will be executing their very first full virtual meeting this year in July.
DIANE KOVATS: So I'm happy to be here and kind of walk you through our strategies behind how we're going to implement that meeting.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Brilliant. Thank you very much. Thank you. So before we begin our discussion, our conversation this afternoon, I first of all want to thank our sponsors, our gold sponsors Wiley and Elsevier. I'd also like to thank Silverchair, Renew Consultants, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, Advantage, AJE Cadmore.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: I'm sorry.I have to apologize. Atypon and Cactus. And, of course, Consort Strategy. Without their support for this endeavor, certainly our conversations and our dialogue would not be as enriched and as valuable as they might be. So I'd like to take a moment to thank everybody for your ongoing support not just last month on the online conference, but for 2020 as part of this webinar series.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: I'll also just highlight for those of you who are watching this live, please do click on the blue chat button to open up the chat. Absolutely, we encourage you to engage with one another as well as with us, the panel. This is very much about sharing our knowledge, our experience, our expertise, and that includes you. We are very fortunate to have nearly-- I think the count this morning was nearly 200 delegates, so participants from around the world.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So there's clearly a huge amount of-- there's a huge wealth, and breadth, and depth of knowledge and experience to share, so do please do so using the chat function. Of course, please be respectful and polite at all times. I expect you all will. If you do have a question-- because we are only using the chat function-- please start with the word "Capitals Question" or comment so that we understand, that our moderators will understand, well, whether you are just passing a comment, or chatting with each other, or whether you have something you want the panel to discuss.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK. So we're here to talk about conferences and events, conferences and meetings. Now, conferences and meetings are the very heart of so many of our organizations. They form the backbone and the foundation of our activities. The ability to network, connect with one another, have a platform for sharing our skills, our expertise, our knowledge, our problems is fundamental to the success of any learned society to any membership organization.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And as we saw in March with Society Streets suddenly scheduling an online platform, that opportunity was pretty much snatched away from us. And we have very, very quickly had to adapt to this brave new world, one that is going to require us to adopt long term in terms of how we provide opportunities for conferencing and meetings amongst our members and across our networks.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So a huge amount has changed in the last six weeks since we held Society Street. And indeed, I would argue things are changing almost on an hourly basis it feels sometimes. So we certainly have a challenge on our hands to establish a new norm to understand and create standards for best practice and innovative practice in the society sector and the association world. But we're very lucky to have three experienced professionals to talk us through today, what's been happening to them since they last spoke at Society Street in March, and how they foresee the development of the conferences and meetings portfolio over not just the next three to six months, but over the next one, two, 10 years, potentially.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So I'd like to start by asking the question, how have things changed? What has been different for you, our panelists, since you last spoke in March? I'm going to start. Actually, Alexa, I'm going to ask you first.
ALEXA TULLETT: Great, thanks. So a lot has changed for-- so I can speak about our society, which is a relatively small and relatively new society. So we have one annual meeting a year. And since the last time we spoke, we had gone from being unsure whether we would be having an in-person conference at the end of June to being sure that we're not having an in-person conference. And now, we're doing the conference, an online remote version.
ALEXA TULLETT: So in that, I had to sort of re-envision what our conference would look like. And in some ways, our conference presents some unique challenges because a lot of this format involves a lot of interaction between participants and attendees of the conference. So maybe for the typical client that you would see at an average psychology conference or even an academic conference, generally a lot of that content might be able to be repackaged as like a video presentation that people will prerecord.
ALEXA TULLETT: But the way that [INAUDIBLE] works-- so one unique thing is that a lot of the sessions are being called hackathons, so they're interactive sessions where multiple participants are working together to solve some kind of previous specified problem. So re-envisioning that as an online version involves some kind of interactive online call where participants as well as presenters or leaders are all able to talk and interact simultaneously.
ALEXA TULLETT: Thankfully, we're a small conference, because I don't know how we would do it if we had, like, 200 people in a session. And then the other thing that is a little bit unique about SIPS is that we have a lot of on the fly programming, usually. And probably what will happen for this first online conference is that we'll have to sacrifice a lot of that. So I think one of the things we'll talk about here today is how much of a program can you rescue?
ALEXA TULLETT: And probably one thing that we will not try to manage the first time we do this is, how do people propose sessions during the conference, and then setting up a session? That's what we would do in-person, but that's something that we will probably maybe wait for the next year. I don't know how much you want to talk about the different points.
ALEXA TULLETT: Maybe--
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Well, if I may, we'll come back to the detail of your experience. But I'll just move on now, just to ask everyone this question just so we can get a real sense of what the environment's feeling like at the moment. So I'm actually going to ask Violaine, what are your thoughts on how things have evolved in the last six weeks?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Sure. So the first difference is a little bit obvious. But at the same time, I feel like we're forgetting a little bit is that when Society Street happened, there were a lot of discussions around whether it should be canceled, or whether it should be postponed, or what we're going to do about it. Going virtual wasn't necessarily obvious. And now, it feels like most societies are actually just going virtual.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So at first, there are a lot of conferences that got canceled or postponed. But then I think because both there's more uncertainty in the world, and we know that the crisis is going to continue, so there's no point in postponing. And if you're canceling, you just don't know. Is this going to be the last time I'm going to cancel? So there's more uncertainty. but there's also more time for planning, because we have more of a heads up now, so we don't have to cancel.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: We can actually go virtual. So it's just the trend has really changed there where the default is virtual now. For example, we work with a large society that organizes hundreds of conferences a year. And they've said that the trend now is absolutely clear that everybody's going virtual. The second thing I would say is that there were a lot of uncertainties when we got started with this, and one of them was about attendance.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And I think that what we've seen is attendance generally is up, and it's more from what it would have been for a physical event. It's also way more global. So Society Street is another example. Again, we got four times as many attendees for the virtual conference that we would have had for the physical event. We're also working with a small conference organizer. That's not a society.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But then we're going to have about 250 attendees in person. That's what they had last year. They got 200 attendees and they got 450 online for their online event. And they had people from Bhutan, from all parts of the world, from Africa, from Asia, from people who would never been able to travel to New York. So globalization seems to be very important. And I think that one of the questions that societies are asking is, is this trend towards higher attendance, is that going to continue or not?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And it seems because there's it's new. Everybody's going online, and then there's fatigue that comes in. It's like, OK, I actually don't want to sit at my desk for 10 hours today. But I think that because of this trend towards globalization, that's when opportunity that societies have to kind of sustain the attendance, just because there's a huge pool of potential attendees for every conference now.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: I've got more thoughts about formats, but I'm going to save them for later.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK, thank you. What's nice so far is that both of you have already echoed some of the chat I can see and some of the questions that are coming through from our participants. This is excellent. There's clearly already some alignment globally in terms of how we're foreseeing the future of conferences and meetings. But Diane, I know that you've had a hectic, turbulent, busy, and terrifying six weeks.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Would you like to explain to us how life has been for you since we last spoke in March? Sure, Andrew. When we met in March, ISCB was still in the process of assessing all possibilities. Do we cancel? Do we create a hybrid meeting? Do we bring this 100% virtual? Since then, our board of directors did meet, have a very lengthy discussion.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And as a society, we made the strategic decision that it was very important for us to still fulfill our mission. So we did decide to move the meeting 100% virtual for 2020. And recognizing the partnerships that we had already in place, the location we were scheduled to be in Montreal in July, we actually reached out to them and said, we have an opening in 2024. Do you have availability?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So we've rescheduled the meeting to take place in Montreal in 2024 as part of our strategic decision to move forward. What I didn't anticipate-- and when we spoke last time, I kind of outlined how we were going to execute the various components of the meeting, what sessions would be Livestreamed, which sessions would be pre-recorded and broadcasted on the schedule, how we were going to do the posters. What I didn't anticipate is as I was going to the stakeholders on how to manage the hundreds of comments, and, why can't we do it this way?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Why should we do it that way? Come back. And the biggest challenge since we met was, how do we monetize registration and show value for the meeting, but also recognize that people aren't traveling, and they don't want to sit at their desks, like Violaine said, for 10 hours a day. So after about a 12-hour-- and I'm not exaggerating that-- 12 hours of conversation, we finally put together a very robust registration package which tiered pricing to make sure that the meeting was inclusive globally.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So we have price points for low-income countries, price points for middle-income countries, and price points for high-income countries. We also as a society made the decision that we would invest 25% of our reserves into the meeting this year to keep registration prices low. We saw that our abstracts weren't picking up as high as they were in the past. In fact, we were down about 45% in our abstract submissions for 2020.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So we were very, very conservative in our approach and knew that for us to execute our mission, and to bring science, and provide a platform for dissemination of science, we would have to make this investment, and that's what we chose to do. We're fortunate that we did have a significant amount of reserves to do that. As a society without a publication that kind of supports operations, it's been scary to say, yeah, I'm willing to take 25% of that away.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: But we also knew that this year, we would really have to support our membership, and the goals of membership, and those scientists being able to share their research. the long-term implications are, though? I mean, it's a brave move. It's certainly the right move to invest 25% of your reserves, assuming one can afford to do that.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: But what's the long-term implications in terms of that? And I'm really I'm really interested in you mentioned how we monetize the value of all of the member experience, of the event. And I have strong opinions, and I've written articles about the monetary value of online meetings. But in your opinion, how do you foresee the long-term implications of 2020, using 25% of your reserves?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: You can't do that extra. You can't keep doing that every year. So how do you think you'll progress on in 2021 to increase the fees for attending these meetings, be it physical or online?
DIANE KOVATS: Yeah. It's a great question. I definitely see our business model shifting dramatically. ISCB does more than just one conference, so we have three other conferences on our schedule for 2020 alone. We are already in the process of assessing the goals and the missions of each of those conferences and starting to work out hybrid models. I think this is a very exciting time for associations.
DIANE KOVATS: I think quite honestly, we were stuck in the 19th century when it came to conference planning for associations. And so many of us were scared to take that leap to move to more digital offerings. So I think what's happening, it's really forcing us to move forward and take that leap. So reentry is going to be very difficult. So many countries and states have so many different rules and regulations that you have to follow.
DIANE KOVATS: I think we're going to have to be very thoughtful in how we approach this. Some of the ideas we're having are some hub and spoke models where there's a main hub of people gathering, but we also set up spokes where people can gather in their universities or within their labs and then connect into the hub. And the presentations go back and forth. So you don't get that huge community networking feel, but those who can't travel or were capped at registration restrictions, that we can still adhere to the protocols and government regulations that are presented in front of us.
DIANE KOVATS: We may have to change our membership model to recover the 25%. I'm hoping that how low we set the registration rights really encourages membership, because driving the members and increasing membership helps bring in some of that revenue that will help some of the other operations. And then there are things that will have to be cut. We'll have to cut, pull back on some other programs.
DIANE KOVATS: But for I think for ISCB moving forward in the future, it's always going to have some type of in-person and digital offering for all of our conferences, not just ISMB, which is our biggest one of 2,000.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah, yeah.
DIANE KOVATS: Even the smaller ones. And maybe even some more meet-ups. Maybe this is going to give us the opportunity to allow our communities to have monthly mini conferences that we wouldn't have done before.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Alexa, does this resonate with you on what Diane is saying? Do you see that within your organization as well?
ALEXA TULLETT: Yeah. So we were in a fortunate position, at least for this year, in terms of finances. So we also had enough in our reserves that our approach was to change registration to be free for the online event. But we gave people the opportunity to donate their registration fees. And I think maybe, like, there's graded ways in which you could do that.
ALEXA TULLETT: So the way that we did it was automatically, we would get a refund on your registration, and you could then opt in to donate your registration fee. And we've got approximately, I think, 10% of our registrants chose to do that. You alluded I think if you had less financial leeway, you could have a different system where you have to opt out of donating your registration fee, or you get some kind of partial refund.
ALEXA TULLETT: So that's how we approached that. And then also, I mean, one of the questions I think is the most interesting that both of you have alluded to is this idea of what do you maintain going forward, and how do you manage your expectations? I mean, I think, like, as [INAUDIBLE] have noted, necessity is the mother of invention. So we might not have ever learned all that we are learning about online conferences if we weren't forced to.
ALEXA TULLETT: But its something that our membership has been interested in for a long time. So that's one thing that we're thinking about going forward is, I like this hub and spoke idea. But how to maintain some of the online content while also maintaining an in-person event. And I think we'll talk about disability later, too. How do you make sure that one event doesn't end up being sort of the main event, and other events and being subordinate events.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah.
ALEXA TULLETT: Which it might be unavoidable to some degree. But obviously, you don't want some people to feel like they're more included or more central to the event than others.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. I love that Diane's optimism thinks that if we were only in the 19th century, I'm surprised that we would be that far advanced in terms of some of the practices in our sector. But I admit to listening to Diane and Alexa, I'm curious because there seems to be a suggestion particularly, Diane, what you were saying was that, well, we'll need to offset value by reducing membership fees.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Because there's a, in my opinion, a misconception. But there's certainly a perception that perhaps value isn't as strong delivered online as it is through physical face-to-face traditional-type events. And so we need to offset that by incentivizing our members to say, look, we know you're not going to have a face-to-face, so we'll drive down prices to make it attractive to you. But Violaine, you said that you had some really good-- I know you've got some opinions and ideas about what future delivery models could look like.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And for me, I'm a former association chief executive. so I absolutely know that the reality is we need to run. We may be not-for-profit, but we're also not-for-loss. And as organizations, we need to use our events program as an income generator as much as anything else. So Violaine, in your opinion, how can we offset this perception or how can we counter this perception that value isn't necessarily the same if we're online as opposed if we're in the same room sipping champagne together, which I'm guessing Diane and Alexa's other networks do?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: [LAUGHTER]
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I think it goes back to the question of why do people go to conferences? And the two things that are always at the top were networking and content. And in the case, I think taking conferences online brings an opportunity to present the content better. So content is actually, if you think about the experience of walking into a session, and sitting down, and listening to somebody. And then at the end of the session, it's always going to be the same two or three people who stand up and ask the question, because there's even a bit of a hierarchy when it comes to, am I allowed to ask a question?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Am I too junior for this? Am I a sponsor? Can I do that, et cetera? So this kind of is a bit stifling, the traditional session format. And online, you can actually do that better. So you can attend all of the sessions, if the conference is done well. You can pick your sessions better.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: You can go back to them. You can also interact with the speakers in a way that I think is more level than if you go to a conference. Again, if you're a newcomer to a conference, you walk into your room, and everybody knows each other, and it can be really intimidating. And the internet really levels that. Once you get into a chat room, you can just say hello, and it's not the same as saying hello in person.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So there's a lot that's just better online, and I think that we can take advantage of that. There are some things that are not as good, and you're never going to be able to replace the networking. There's just no way. I was thinking about that. We were talking to Society just yesterday. And they were asking me, oh, you know-- because we were talking about their sites.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And they were asking, where do we put the attendee list? I was thinking, you know what? The attendee list actually doesn't matter as much in this case as it would as a sponsor, because typically I would go in and I would make appointments. And now, I'm not going to make an appointment to a conference to somebody who's coming online. So I have to find a way to interact with the attendees in ways that I think are going to be new, but mostly that need to leverage the power of the internet.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So one of my soap boxes is you can do many things on the internet if you use it the ways that infuse in ways that are similar to how you use it in your daily life. So for example, Netflix is great. Everybody loves being able to watch things when they want to watch them, and nobody wants to watch TV anymore. So why would you want to actually sit down and listen to a [INAUDIBLE] as it's being given?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Or the flipped classroom model is another thing that I think that we can explore. So for example, you've got your recording. You watch it first, and then you have the discussion afterwards. It's the same thing that kids in class who listen to their lesson, and then they have a discussion with their teacher, which is funny, because the flipped classroom has been kind of coming in the past few years.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But now with online education, it's just here. That's how my kids do it. So another thing that I wanted to highlight is you can actually leverage things like chats, because I don't know-- I'm not allowed to look at the chat room right now, which is super frustrating. So I want to participate in that. But chat is what the internet does well.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: We communicate through just written texts. Get Twitter, for example, email, et cetera. That's how we do it online. So I think formats that can leverage all of this and that don't try to just recreate what the 19th century event was, but online, that don't try to do that, they can have a better chance at highlighting the value of the conference.
DIANE KOVATS: So if I can, Andrew, can I just make just a few comments here?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Please do.
DIANE KOVATS: Building on this discussion. I think the valuing of the conference is very, very difficult, because associations that do not have the ability to rely on publishing proceeds and publishing revenues really hurt a bit because they're still competing with all these other organizations who are out there who are either able to offer it for free or offer it for $49. And I think that was the challenge that ISCB was having.
DIANE KOVATS: Of the 3,000 members involved, so-and-so is only doing it for 200. And then really communicating back to them, look, we're going to try to make this as low as possible. But you have to understand that this still costs money. And I think just being very clear in the communication to your delegates and your community, that this is not for free. Every platform costs money.
DIANE KOVATS: And the more fancy bells and whistles you add to a platform, that's even going to be more. And then it gets to the point of, OK, now, we're moving in online. That sponsor or exhibitor experience is so different. So there are platforms out there where you can create an avatar, and you can navigate through and have these physical booths that you visit, and then the sponsor can talk back to you. But a lot of associations aren't going to be able to afford that technology.
DIANE KOVATS: So how ISCB has handled that sponsor element is we've actually offered to our sponsors, we have an exhibit hall. You can go in, and each sponsor has a description of their organization, their logo, and a video that they prepare, that they record to really explain who they are. But we also have that one-on one interviews-- or not interviews, but meet-ups.
DIANE KOVATS: So you can actually request the meet with the sponsor and have single discussions. And then on top of that, we offer each of our exhibitors, would you like to host a lunch and learn? Because we made a very strategic decision that over the lunch period, we would not hold any scientific sessions. We'll have our Birds of a Feather sessions, where people gather in groups and kind of talk about very unique challenges and things.
DIANE KOVATS: You can access the posters. But we're not going to really run a lot of sessions. So we've said, to our sponsors, if you would like to, we can have a Lunch and Learn, where you can be on the schedule, and you can have your time with the audience, and then you can have that dialogue back and forth with them. So the valuing of the sponsorship is also going to be very difficult.
DIANE KOVATS: I think one is we're going to be able to really track how many times your link was clicked on that. We wouldn't have had the opportunity to in person. I guess they could have a clicker when people walk up. But it's going to have to be a very fluid and open conversation with your exhibitors and sponsors-- what do you want to get out of this? Do you think this will work?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And so are you having that conversation, Diane? Have you started that conversation, is that what you're saying?
DIANE KOVATS: I've done it with all of our sponsors and exhibitors. And we have recruiters, too, who had already pre-signed up. I reached out to them when we decided to go virtual. And I said, we're going virtual. Here's my idea of how I can still service and provide value to you. What else would you like to see? And a lot of the exhibitors and sponsors were the ones that came up with the Lunch and Learn.
DIANE KOVATS: And I think, sure, we can certainly do that. We'll make you part of the schedule. So it's almost like giving them a technology talk for free. But they only get to talk about their products. It's more like a demo-- like a demo review. And then, for our recruiters, they said, we find so much value in being able to have touchpoints with your membership.
DIANE KOVATS: Can you still execute the virtual career fair? And I said, absolutely, we can. So it's going to be different. Because we have to create a whole bunch of little breakout groups for people kind of go in and out throughout the thing. And we were honest. We were like, we may fail. And you have to be OK if we fail, and accept that this may not work.
DIANE KOVATS: But we're very, very fortunate that we've had some very longstanding partners who are like, we're willing to go with you on this journey, and we'll see how it goes. And maybe it's going to be great. We can add a lot more bells and whistles later. But we just didn't have the functionality, or the resources, or finances to add that avatar exploring the exhibit booth.
DIANE KOVATS: But you can do-- and you can have them donate to a virtual conference delegate bag, you can have the sponsors have little raffles in their booth, and a gamification to get people to interact with them, which isn't an extra platforming fee, it's just something you just have to communicate.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. Hm. Yeah. I sound unconvinced. I assure you I'm not. I'm just processing what you're saying. Alexa, you started the process of engaging with your sponsors and exhibitors with the online proposition.
ALEXA TULLETT: For us, I think those challenges are just much smaller in scale. So we have a few sponsors that we had to consult with about switching to an online format. And most of them seemed on board with switching the format. And then, right now, SIPS doesn't have exhibitors. So we haven't had to manage those kinds of problems yet. Yeah, I mean, I think that one way that we've been trying to balance the needs of different people involved in the conference is interacting with the presenters.
ALEXA TULLETT: And so one question I think that we still haven't completely answered is, how much of the control is in the hands of the presenters versus the conference as a whole. How much say do the presenters have in this sort of format and the way that they want to run their sessions, and do they get to choose the medium, and how they sort of choose to interact with the attendees. I think there will end up being some different models.
ALEXA TULLETT: And the individual presenters at SIPS will have a fair amount of control over their sessions. And then I think a broader question, too, is how to, I guess, track people's experiences at these online events. And that's something that I've just started to think about, is how do we see what people think of the online event versus the in-person event, how do we compare those things, and then, going forward, make decisions about what to retain and what to get rid of.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So Violaine, have you had any discussions or are you having discussions about the value proposition-- not just for sponsors and commercial partners, exhibitors, et cetera, but generally, for memberships, What the value proposition can look like, and what platforms are most appropriate?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So this goes back to what I think is a topic that's on the minds of specifically scholarly societies, is that, again, they're really content-heavy. They're really focused on the content. And that translates into hundreds of sessions and hundreds of concurrent sessions. And so the experience online of having to either organize or attend 1,000 webinars is just like-- there's no point trying to recreate that.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I think, again, going back to the mission of societies, which is to-- well, one of the missions, which is to help scientists communicate their science, you can go back to that and say, OK, what is the best science out there, and how can I help scientists communicate it? And if the best way to do that is to provide, for example, a subscription product that is going to be made of presentations that people would normally have presented online, and then allowing attendees to interact with those presenters maybe three a Q&A, through a chat, through a breakout room in many different ways.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I think not sacrificing the content is how I think you can keep the value of your conference mostly. And then being open to new formats and new models, even, for pricing. So embracing continuity, for example-- there is no reason why you should have the same three events a year that you used to. Because again, you have a three-day conference because you're booking a hotel for three days, and your attendees you have to be there for three days.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Why would you restrict that online? So embracing a more global audience. And I love what you just described, Diane, about the tiered pricing. I was wondering about that. And I think that's fantastic. That's a fantastic way to just engage with an audience more globally. And yeah, listening to audiences, too-- this is another point I wanted to make, which fits here or not.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But on top of the fact that it's difficult to sit at a desk for a day, it's almost impossible for parents and people right now who just have to juggle so much. And so having ways for them to engage with a conference on a more punctual basis or, on the other hand, having more time to consume the content of the conference, that's really important, and probably especially for women.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: We're seeing that right now there seems to be a trend towards let fewer journal submissions-- articles submissions from women these days because they're taking on the brunt of the housework and the homeschooling. And the same thing is true of conferences. We have somebody on our team who just said, I can't work for these three days because my husband is attending a conference all day for three days.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: That's just not a practical way to do things. So I think just breaking that format is going to be really important if you want to make sure people have a positive experience.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. So the message is very much, then, about innovation. This is our opportunity to innovate. This is our opportunity to challenge the status quo.
DIANE KOVATS: Well, and I think, Andrew, too, on top of that, if you're trying to serve a global audience, you need to make that content available at any time for wherever your attendee or your participant may be. So while-- and I know this question came up earlier-- so if you're trying to be global as possible, starting at 10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time and going through about 4:00 in the afternoon will get some access point to the majority of the world.
DIANE KOVATS: You are going to miss Asia. So what a lot of groups are doing is they're making their content recorded and available on demand, or even doing rebroadcast. So what ISEB will do is we'll have our keynote speaker at 9:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time, and then we'll rebroadcast that keynote at 8:00 PM so everyone in Asia can participate with those groups. And then the speaker will come on and answer the questions again.
DIANE KOVATS: So it's really about what content do you want to make sure you deliver twice to meet all the regions, but also having it available. And like we had said, having it available for a much longer period of time. So you can go in and access the platform, at any time and watch a presentation, and still interact with the speaker through a Q&A function that goes right to that speaker. And I know a lot of platforms allow that functionality to exist.
DIANE KOVATS: Ours does. And I'm happy to share with Society Street [INAUDIBLE]..
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So is your platform a bespoke platform, Diane?
DIANE KOVATS: Our platform is developed in conjunction with Perform Media. So it's an interface that has a lot of bells and whistles behind. So from a user experience, you want to know everything that's interacting behind the scenes. But the backend technology is Zoom, webcast, some chatting features, almost like a Google meet type of functions that are all acting and behind the scenes, where you're going into a module within the platform to access the functionality.
DIANE KOVATS: The speaker Q&A is tied to-- when it's a live session, it's all live. But once the session goes on demand, the Q&A emails the question directly to the speaker.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Right, OK. And Alexa, is that true-- is your platform off the shelf or is it bespoke?
ALEXA TULLETT: We will likely use Zoom for SIPS at the end of June. So there's nothing like unique to our specific conference and format.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK. Violaine, one of the questions that's come through is about the availability of platforms. And we've all got Zoom fatigue. I've never seen myself so much [INAUDIBLE].. And what other-- but such a huge demand on one platform isn't a good thing. So what other platforms are available out there other than the ones that Diane mentioned-- webcasts, Google Meets, et cetera?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Is there something else that's not necessarily high-end, bespoke, high-cost? What other low-cost solutions are there to the smaller societies?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I think one of the reasons why it's difficult to answer that question is that you actually have lots of different tech that come into an event. And Diane just mentioned that. She says she's got a platform, but then there's actually different tech that goes into it. And that depends what you're trying to do. So if what you're doing is this-- so a panel with a chat, and Q&A, that sort of thing, where the chat feeds into the Q&A, then you do need some live interaction.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And in that case, it's the same. It's the usual suspects. It's going to be Zoom, and ON24, et cetera. But that's webinar-type thing. Then I do think, because there's so much content, because there can be so many sessions, that there can be so many sessions for scientific societies, one thing to invest in, I think, is just a good video management software as well.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Because what you can do is you can actually request a recording. And there are societies that are doing this right now. They're requesting submissions of recordings that are tied to the papers that are submitted for the conference. And in that case, what you get is, in the end, a whole lot of content that you need to put onto a platform.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So in that case, what makes more sense is an actual Netflix-type platform that is going to give real good on-demand access. And that's not what Zoom is built for. And then there's chatting functionality. So I know I'm not answering your question directly, because I don't think that there is one platform that's going to do everything. And some of these high-tech platforms, the virtual platforms, I think they have some great things going for them.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But what they don't do is they don't break the model of the conference. They don't. It's still a three-day event. And I think, frankly, personally, the idea of walking into a fake virtual hall seems very weird. Maybe it's not just a cost thing, right? It's actually not-- why would you want to do that? So I think that exploring ways to-- even the publishing platforms in some ways, now that you've got all this video content, you can actually have it alongside the proceedings.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And so that's another way in which the content is going to be adding value to all of your products. So in terms of Zoom, GoToMeeting, they're pretty much all the same, to be honest.
DIANE KOVATS: Yeah, I think--
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Some of them work better than others, but--
DIANE KOVATS: --assess what you want out of the technology, and then integrate it. Because you could even use slack for some of your ongoing conversations. And that doesn't necessarily have to be integrated into the platform. It could be standing outside the platform. And if you don't have a repository-type style platform that you're using from a vendor, you could record on zoom and then just put it on YouTube, and then direct people to YouTube to the content.
DIANE KOVATS: So there are some very low-cost ways of doing it. But for ISEB and for my own comfort level-- we're only a staff of four, so I knew that there was no way our staff could handle nine concurrent sessions, 600-plus talks, 1,000 posters, with just the four of us, and trying to integrate it into a proprietary backend platform. So that's why we decided to go-- And we're using our previous content capture group.
DIANE KOVATS: So we had already started dabbling in the livestream things before this hit us. So it was great to know that they could provide us with this additional service.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK. But it sounds to me that, arguably, there is no-- well, let me rephrase this. We're talking about the opportunity to be innovative. We're talking about the opportunity to challenge the status quo. We're talking about an opportunity to present content in a new and engaging fashion, globally. We're talking about accessing new markets-- what we would call our new markets-- across the world.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: But that's got a price tag attached to it, then. Am I right? I mean--
DIANE KOVATS: It's not free. [CHUCKLES]
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah, exactly. It's not free. [INTERPOSING VOICES]
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: I'm sorry. Go ahead, Alexa.
ALEXA TULLETT: Maybe I was going to say something similar, which is just that, in some ways, yeah, this technology costs money. But the way that we have traditionally done conferences is quite expensive also, right? We're paying exorbitant amounts of money for space and food, and then also for the technology, like paying for internet at, like, some of these venues can be really expensive.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: A/V-- how much does A/V always cost? Oh my God.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: It's so much-- so one of the conferences I was talking to, their price point was, I think, $650. And they moved it to $275 for their online conference. They had twice as many registrants already. And if you take the hotel costs in New York out of the way-- The problem that we're having right now is that we're pivoting to virtual. So we're going from-- we have hotel reservations that are being canceled [INAUDIBLE]..
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So you've got this financial hit. But if your event is born digital, and if you think about it from the get-go, it really doesn't have to be expensive. It's much cheaper than a physical event. And then I've been arguing for years that content should be captured on site. And now video is here. It's just if it's born virtual, you both have an opportunity to think about the initial concept in a much more user-friendly way.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But you also have more opportunities for monetization later, because you get all this content you didn't have before. And what societies have, more often than not, is they have great education departments, they've got great publishing departments who can now use this meeting content. And the medical societies have been doing that for a long time because they can offer CNE through those. So they've been offering those recordings.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: ASCO has been doing it. All the anesthetists, every medical society has these products. But now it's an opportunity for every society to embrace this and say, OK, I'm actually going to build a great educational product, and it's going to take some of the content from the meeting, for example. So yes, on the one hand, it seems-- I think the reason why it seems expensive is that it's new.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: I think, ultimately, it's going to be cheaper. ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN But how accessible is it going to be? And by that, I don't necessarily mean accessible to the society. But in terms of the members-- so for example, we know that a lot of attendees will be cancelling their classes to travel to conferences. Do we know if there's any examples of institutional conversations going on whereby colleagues are given time to attend virtual conferences?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Or is it the case that, well, look, you're on site, you're on campus, you're here, you're teaching. So have we heard anything yet about whether there's a culture emerging within the sector, within the research environment, that allows people to have the time to engage and access these online portals? Alexa, what are your thoughts?
ALEXA TULLETT: I don't know for sure. My guess is that the status quo sort of works in our favor in this case. So I think that the departments and colleges that have a norm for the way that they treat faculty when they go to conferences will stick with that. And so if you used to say that you were going to a conference, and you were traveling somewhere, and you needed to book off your teaching or whatever, my guess is just that people will just use that same format for an online conference.
ALEXA TULLETT: I mean, there might be some particularly cruel universities or colleges that say, well, now that your conference is online, it doesn't count or something like that.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. Diane, do you have a view on that?
DIANE KOVATS: Yeah, I haven't heard anything from my colleagues and members about that. We're very fortunate that our meeting is in July. And it's placed in July because we tried to find the one month in the entire year for most of Europe and America where they're not teaching. I mean, we run into problems with our Australian members because they are teaching in July. And the same with Latin America and Africa. But I am hopeful that the deans and leadership administration within the universities will still see the value of being able to consume this content and connect with research.
DIANE KOVATS: Because for use to advance research, we have to know what's going on. And hearing that delivery of a session is the best way to do it and ask questions. So hopefully they'll be given the ability to still participate virtually, and not overstrain themselves as a researcher and an instructor.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. We only have a few moments left. I just want to ask each of you-- I asked you at the start how things had progressed in the six weeks since we last met. I don't want you to look into a crystal ball. I'm not doing any of that. But I want to understand, in your opinions-- and there's a lot of pros and cons we've raised here in terms of the virtual meeting environment versus the physical.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: What's best? I'm going to start with you, Alexa. What do you think's going to be best?
ALEXA TULLETT: What's best? I mean, actually, several of the things that Diane and Violaine have said have been sort of inspiring to me in terms of envisioning what things could look like going forward. So one thing that I hadn't even thought about was this idea that we no longer have to stick to this once-a-year huge conference that happens on these two specific days.
ALEXA TULLETT: You can start to envision things that happen more often on a smaller scale. I really also like this idea of-- so when I had previously envisioned conferences that combined a main location and online content, I imagined some people who were attending in person who did all the fun stuff, and they go for beers with each other, and then some people who are sitting on their couch at home watching a webinar.
ALEXA TULLETT: And that felt like [INAUDIBLE]. But this idea of these other clusters, where other groups are together as well, and they also have sort of a pocket of networking and socializing makes that sounds a lot more appealing. So I mean, it sounds like there are increasingly ways of combining the nice things of a collection of people who are physically in one space and an online connection.
ALEXA TULLETT: And I think will really blow the options wide open when it comes to accessibility. So even in my day-to-day life now, these small events that are happening online, there are all of these new possibilities where, like, my mother can watch me play piano on Instagram or something, you know? [CHUCKLES]
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: I thought you were going to say, your mother can watch you work. I was thinking, my God, my mother would-- she has no idea what I do. [ALEXA AND ANDREW CHUCKLE] OK, so generally, you're sounding pretty positive and optimistic about what the future of the meeting for your society could look like.
ALEXA TULLETT: I'm generally optimistic. And these Society Street events are-- they turn up the volume.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Fantastic. Violaine, what are you thoughts then? Physical, online, virtual--
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: I think there are many, many, many opportunities for innovation. And that part is extremely exciting. I personally have a really hard time sitting in a session of the conference. So I'm really excited to be able to watch that and kind of go back to things. And I cannot wait to go back to a conference. That is the bottom line. I mean, it's true.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: As much as I think we have a tremendous opportunity to create communities online, and I feel like Alexa and Diane are my friends now even though we've never met in person, just because, you know-- so you can create meaningful interaction online. And there are opportunities to break some barriers and to make some connections. That being said, I also think that as soon as we all can go out and back on a plane and meet people, we will love every minute of it.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I do think that physical events still have a great future ahead of them. I really think that it's just the balance. To me, we should see it as one more opportunity to build upon. And there is a huge crisis and transition to go through right now, which is awful for everybody on the planet. So I don't think we should forget that, that it's mostly traumatic.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But at the same time, I don't think it's the end of the physical conference at all.
DIANE KOVATS: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I've said it, and I know that people don't like when I say it, but not every event should be digital. There are very clear purposes for some events that could only happen in person. And if you don't have a very clear focus, vision [INAUDIBLE] of why that event should have a digital component, I would suggest that that you not do it. I do think that the reentry into everything is going to be difficult. I think we're going to be faced with a lot of challenges of how do we communicate to attendees that the environment is safe and safely maintained, what is that seating like in the future, are we going to have to have extra space and social distancing, are we going to have to feed session information into other rooms because a room fills up.
DIANE KOVATS: I do think there are going to be a lot of challenges. But there are just some things that should be done virtually. I mean, if the purpose behind the event is something that just doesn't work online, then don't do it online. And that's OK. And it's OK to say, this just will not work online. But I also think there is a huge opportunity to be more inclusive and more global with all of our content moving forward because we are really pushing the boundaries now with the technology that's going to be offered.
DIANE KOVATS: I think venues are going to have to push their boundaries with how their internet pricing is going to be. Because I think a lot of planners out there are going to say, look, if you can't give me the bandwidth that I need to execute this successfully, I'll find somewhere that can for an affordable price. So I think we have a lot of changes coming around. I think they're going to be good changes.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Excellent. Good.
DIANE KOVATS: But I'm getting on a plane the first moment I can to see everyone.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Tell me about it. My God.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Me too. Let's go somewhere. [ALL CHUCKLE]
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So, good. Well, so I'm clearly echoing Alexa's point there-- Society Street has provided an extremely optimistic platform for us to engage with each other. But we recognize that actually the virtual meeting space is another string to our bow in terms of adding value to our members. It isn't a direct replacement for our physical conferences and meeting venues. But it is and it should be exploited as another opportunity to demonstrate value and to provide the opportunity for our members to connect with one another, not just locally or nationally, but internationally.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So I actually think there are many more of these conversations that need to happen, that are all going to happen over the coming weeks, months, years, actually. Because I know that we've, again, had an hour to skim the surface. But I would very much welcome the opportunity to come back again at some point with this panel and hear how you only do things virtually, you've never gone on a plane since we last spoke because you've just embraced the tech wholeheartedly.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: I would just like to thank each of our panelists, Alexa, Diane, and Violaine. Thank you once again for your time this afternoon. Your insights are invaluable. I really do appreciate it. And I know that our attendees have done so as well. I'd also like to take the opportunity to once again thank our sponsors-- our gold sponsors, Wiley and Elsevier, and also our other sponsors who are supporting this webinar series throughout 2020.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: The next webinar is taking place on the 11th of June. That's Thursday the 11th of June at 11:00 AM Eastern. That will be chaired by my good friend Sam [INAUDIBLE].. And that session is focused on, who is your community? We'll be hearing from early careerists. So thank you very much, everybody, once again. And we look forward to seeing everybody on the 11th of June if not before. Thank you very much for your time.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Thanks, Andrew.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Thank you.
ALEXA TULLETT: Thank you.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Bye, everyone.
Segment:0 .
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK. Good afternoon. Welcome. We will just give ourselves 10 seconds whilst delegates or participants' machines are buffering to make sure that we start everybody can hear us. OK, excellent. Well, good morning. Good afternoon.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Good evening, depending where you are, where you're joining us from in the world. I'm delighted to welcome you to the first in this webinar series hosted by Society Street following the unprecedented success of the online conference that was put together at the very last minute in March, following the success and the engagement from our delegates, not participants. We want to maintain that energy.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: We want to maintain that engagement and enthusiasm. And so part of Society Street's commitment to doing so is to deliver this series of monthly webinars throughout the year. And as I say, I have the pleasure of hosting and sharing this first session. My name is Andrew Chamberlain. I am the Managing Director of Consort Strategy, which is a consultancy firm based here in the UK.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And I work to support societies, membership bodies, learning institutes, et cetera, in their leadership development, business development. And I will ask my colleagues on the panel today to briefly introduce themselves. I'll start with Alexa.
ALEXA TULLETT: Hi. I'm Alexa Tullett. I'm an associate professor at the University of Alabama, and I'm the president of the Society for the Improvement of Psychological Science, which is a society that started in 2016. And we have annual meetings where we discuss ways to improve research methods in psychological science. We had our first in-person meeting in 2016, and we're about to have our first online meeting this year.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Excellent. Thank you very much. Violaine.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Hi. I'm Violaine Iglesias. I'm CEO and co-founder of a company called Cadmore Media. We are a video host company that specializes in serving professional and scholarly organizations. So we host videos for them, including conference videos. And this is something that we've been interested in in a long time. But obviously, that activity has exploded with the current crisis.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So my point of view here is mostly going to be derived from a lot of interactions that we're having with societies who are planning virtual events who have done virtual events or are planning virtual events in the coming months. So I'm going to be representing quite a few points of view here.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK, thank you very much. And finally, Diane.
DIANE KOVATS: Thanks, Andrew. Hi. I'm Diane Kovats. I'm the executive director of the International Society for Computational Biology. We are a medium-sized member-based organization that service members around the world. We host both in-person events, online, interaction, and digital events. And ISCB will be executing their very first full virtual meeting this year in July.
DIANE KOVATS: So I'm happy to be here and kind of walk you through our strategies behind how we're going to implement that meeting.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Brilliant. Thank you very much. Thank you. So before we begin our discussion, our conversation this afternoon, I first of all want to thank our sponsors, our gold sponsors Wiley and Elsevier. I'd also like to thank Silverchair, Renew Consultants, the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, Advantage, AJE Cadmore.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: I'm sorry.I have to apologize. Atypon and Cactus. And, of course, Consort Strategy. Without their support for this endeavor, certainly our conversations and our dialogue would not be as enriched and as valuable as they might be. So I'd like to take a moment to thank everybody for your ongoing support not just last month on the online conference, but for 2020 as part of this webinar series.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: I'll also just highlight for those of you who are watching this live, please do click on the blue chat button to open up the chat. Absolutely, we encourage you to engage with one another as well as with us, the panel. This is very much about sharing our knowledge, our experience, our expertise, and that includes you. We are very fortunate to have nearly-- I think the count this morning was nearly 200 delegates, so participants from around the world.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So there's clearly a huge amount of-- there's a huge wealth, and breadth, and depth of knowledge and experience to share, so do please do so using the chat function. Of course, please be respectful and polite at all times. I expect you all will. If you do have a question-- because we are only using the chat function-- please start with the word "Capitals Question" or comment so that we understand, that our moderators will understand, well, whether you are just passing a comment, or chatting with each other, or whether you have something you want the panel to discuss.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK. So we're here to talk about conferences and events, conferences and meetings. Now, conferences and meetings are the very heart of so many of our organizations. They form the backbone and the foundation of our activities. The ability to network, connect with one another, have a platform for sharing our skills, our expertise, our knowledge, our problems is fundamental to the success of any learned society to any membership organization.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And as we saw in March with Society Streets suddenly scheduling an online platform, that opportunity was pretty much snatched away from us. And we have very, very quickly had to adapt to this brave new world, one that is going to require us to adopt long term in terms of how we provide opportunities for conferencing and meetings amongst our members and across our networks.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So a huge amount has changed in the last six weeks since we held Society Street. And indeed, I would argue things are changing almost on an hourly basis it feels sometimes. So we certainly have a challenge on our hands to establish a new norm to understand and create standards for best practice and innovative practice in the society sector and the association world. But we're very lucky to have three experienced professionals to talk us through today, what's been happening to them since they last spoke at Society Street in March, and how they foresee the development of the conferences and meetings portfolio over not just the next three to six months, but over the next one, two, 10 years, potentially.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So I'd like to start by asking the question, how have things changed? What has been different for you, our panelists, since you last spoke in March? I'm going to start. Actually, Alexa, I'm going to ask you first.
ALEXA TULLETT: Great, thanks. So a lot has changed for-- so I can speak about our society, which is a relatively small and relatively new society. So we have one annual meeting a year. And since the last time we spoke, we had gone from being unsure whether we would be having an in-person conference at the end of June to being sure that we're not having an in-person conference. And now, we're doing the conference, an online remote version.
ALEXA TULLETT: So in that, I had to sort of re-envision what our conference would look like. And in some ways, our conference presents some unique challenges because a lot of this format involves a lot of interaction between participants and attendees of the conference. So maybe for the typical client that you would see at an average psychology conference or even an academic conference, generally a lot of that content might be able to be repackaged as like a video presentation that people will prerecord.
ALEXA TULLETT: But the way that [INAUDIBLE] works-- so one unique thing is that a lot of the sessions are being called hackathons, so they're interactive sessions where multiple participants are working together to solve some kind of previous specified problem. So re-envisioning that as an online version involves some kind of interactive online call where participants as well as presenters or leaders are all able to talk and interact simultaneously.
ALEXA TULLETT: Thankfully, we're a small conference, because I don't know how we would do it if we had, like, 200 people in a session. And then the other thing that is a little bit unique about SIPS is that we have a lot of on the fly programming, usually. And probably what will happen for this first online conference is that we'll have to sacrifice a lot of that. So I think one of the things we'll talk about here today is how much of a program can you rescue?
ALEXA TULLETT: And probably one thing that we will not try to manage the first time we do this is, how do people propose sessions during the conference, and then setting up a session? That's what we would do in-person, but that's something that we will probably maybe wait for the next year. I don't know how much you want to talk about the different points.
ALEXA TULLETT: Maybe--
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Well, if I may, we'll come back to the detail of your experience. But I'll just move on now, just to ask everyone this question just so we can get a real sense of what the environment's feeling like at the moment. So I'm actually going to ask Violaine, what are your thoughts on how things have evolved in the last six weeks?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Sure. So the first difference is a little bit obvious. But at the same time, I feel like we're forgetting a little bit is that when Society Street happened, there were a lot of discussions around whether it should be canceled, or whether it should be postponed, or what we're going to do about it. Going virtual wasn't necessarily obvious. And now, it feels like most societies are actually just going virtual.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So at first, there are a lot of conferences that got canceled or postponed. But then I think because both there's more uncertainty in the world, and we know that the crisis is going to continue, so there's no point in postponing. And if you're canceling, you just don't know. Is this going to be the last time I'm going to cancel? So there's more uncertainty. but there's also more time for planning, because we have more of a heads up now, so we don't have to cancel.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: We can actually go virtual. So it's just the trend has really changed there where the default is virtual now. For example, we work with a large society that organizes hundreds of conferences a year. And they've said that the trend now is absolutely clear that everybody's going virtual. The second thing I would say is that there were a lot of uncertainties when we got started with this, and one of them was about attendance.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And I think that what we've seen is attendance generally is up, and it's more from what it would have been for a physical event. It's also way more global. So Society Street is another example. Again, we got four times as many attendees for the virtual conference that we would have had for the physical event. We're also working with a small conference organizer. That's not a society.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But then we're going to have about 250 attendees in person. That's what they had last year. They got 200 attendees and they got 450 online for their online event. And they had people from Bhutan, from all parts of the world, from Africa, from Asia, from people who would never been able to travel to New York. So globalization seems to be very important. And I think that one of the questions that societies are asking is, is this trend towards higher attendance, is that going to continue or not?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And it seems because there's it's new. Everybody's going online, and then there's fatigue that comes in. It's like, OK, I actually don't want to sit at my desk for 10 hours today. But I think that because of this trend towards globalization, that's when opportunity that societies have to kind of sustain the attendance, just because there's a huge pool of potential attendees for every conference now.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: I've got more thoughts about formats, but I'm going to save them for later.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK, thank you. What's nice so far is that both of you have already echoed some of the chat I can see and some of the questions that are coming through from our participants. This is excellent. There's clearly already some alignment globally in terms of how we're foreseeing the future of conferences and meetings. But Diane, I know that you've had a hectic, turbulent, busy, and terrifying six weeks.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Would you like to explain to us how life has been for you since we last spoke in March? Sure, Andrew. When we met in March, ISCB was still in the process of assessing all possibilities. Do we cancel? Do we create a hybrid meeting? Do we bring this 100% virtual? Since then, our board of directors did meet, have a very lengthy discussion.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And as a society, we made the strategic decision that it was very important for us to still fulfill our mission. So we did decide to move the meeting 100% virtual for 2020. And recognizing the partnerships that we had already in place, the location we were scheduled to be in Montreal in July, we actually reached out to them and said, we have an opening in 2024. Do you have availability?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So we've rescheduled the meeting to take place in Montreal in 2024 as part of our strategic decision to move forward. What I didn't anticipate-- and when we spoke last time, I kind of outlined how we were going to execute the various components of the meeting, what sessions would be Livestreamed, which sessions would be pre-recorded and broadcasted on the schedule, how we were going to do the posters. What I didn't anticipate is as I was going to the stakeholders on how to manage the hundreds of comments, and, why can't we do it this way?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Why should we do it that way? Come back. And the biggest challenge since we met was, how do we monetize registration and show value for the meeting, but also recognize that people aren't traveling, and they don't want to sit at their desks, like Violaine said, for 10 hours a day. So after about a 12-hour-- and I'm not exaggerating that-- 12 hours of conversation, we finally put together a very robust registration package which tiered pricing to make sure that the meeting was inclusive globally.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So we have price points for low-income countries, price points for middle-income countries, and price points for high-income countries. We also as a society made the decision that we would invest 25% of our reserves into the meeting this year to keep registration prices low. We saw that our abstracts weren't picking up as high as they were in the past. In fact, we were down about 45% in our abstract submissions for 2020.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So we were very, very conservative in our approach and knew that for us to execute our mission, and to bring science, and provide a platform for dissemination of science, we would have to make this investment, and that's what we chose to do. We're fortunate that we did have a significant amount of reserves to do that. As a society without a publication that kind of supports operations, it's been scary to say, yeah, I'm willing to take 25% of that away.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: But we also knew that this year, we would really have to support our membership, and the goals of membership, and those scientists being able to share their research. the long-term implications are, though? I mean, it's a brave move. It's certainly the right move to invest 25% of your reserves, assuming one can afford to do that.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: But what's the long-term implications in terms of that? And I'm really I'm really interested in you mentioned how we monetize the value of all of the member experience, of the event. And I have strong opinions, and I've written articles about the monetary value of online meetings. But in your opinion, how do you foresee the long-term implications of 2020, using 25% of your reserves?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: You can't do that extra. You can't keep doing that every year. So how do you think you'll progress on in 2021 to increase the fees for attending these meetings, be it physical or online?
DIANE KOVATS: Yeah. It's a great question. I definitely see our business model shifting dramatically. ISCB does more than just one conference, so we have three other conferences on our schedule for 2020 alone. We are already in the process of assessing the goals and the missions of each of those conferences and starting to work out hybrid models. I think this is a very exciting time for associations.
DIANE KOVATS: I think quite honestly, we were stuck in the 19th century when it came to conference planning for associations. And so many of us were scared to take that leap to move to more digital offerings. So I think what's happening, it's really forcing us to move forward and take that leap. So reentry is going to be very difficult. So many countries and states have so many different rules and regulations that you have to follow.
DIANE KOVATS: I think we're going to have to be very thoughtful in how we approach this. Some of the ideas we're having are some hub and spoke models where there's a main hub of people gathering, but we also set up spokes where people can gather in their universities or within their labs and then connect into the hub. And the presentations go back and forth. So you don't get that huge community networking feel, but those who can't travel or were capped at registration restrictions, that we can still adhere to the protocols and government regulations that are presented in front of us.
DIANE KOVATS: We may have to change our membership model to recover the 25%. I'm hoping that how low we set the registration rights really encourages membership, because driving the members and increasing membership helps bring in some of that revenue that will help some of the other operations. And then there are things that will have to be cut. We'll have to cut, pull back on some other programs.
DIANE KOVATS: But for I think for ISCB moving forward in the future, it's always going to have some type of in-person and digital offering for all of our conferences, not just ISMB, which is our biggest one of 2,000.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah, yeah.
DIANE KOVATS: Even the smaller ones. And maybe even some more meet-ups. Maybe this is going to give us the opportunity to allow our communities to have monthly mini conferences that we wouldn't have done before.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Alexa, does this resonate with you on what Diane is saying? Do you see that within your organization as well?
ALEXA TULLETT: Yeah. So we were in a fortunate position, at least for this year, in terms of finances. So we also had enough in our reserves that our approach was to change registration to be free for the online event. But we gave people the opportunity to donate their registration fees. And I think maybe, like, there's graded ways in which you could do that.
ALEXA TULLETT: So the way that we did it was automatically, we would get a refund on your registration, and you could then opt in to donate your registration fee. And we've got approximately, I think, 10% of our registrants chose to do that. You alluded I think if you had less financial leeway, you could have a different system where you have to opt out of donating your registration fee, or you get some kind of partial refund.
ALEXA TULLETT: So that's how we approached that. And then also, I mean, one of the questions I think is the most interesting that both of you have alluded to is this idea of what do you maintain going forward, and how do you manage your expectations? I mean, I think, like, as [INAUDIBLE] have noted, necessity is the mother of invention. So we might not have ever learned all that we are learning about online conferences if we weren't forced to.
ALEXA TULLETT: But its something that our membership has been interested in for a long time. So that's one thing that we're thinking about going forward is, I like this hub and spoke idea. But how to maintain some of the online content while also maintaining an in-person event. And I think we'll talk about disability later, too. How do you make sure that one event doesn't end up being sort of the main event, and other events and being subordinate events.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah.
ALEXA TULLETT: Which it might be unavoidable to some degree. But obviously, you don't want some people to feel like they're more included or more central to the event than others.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. I love that Diane's optimism thinks that if we were only in the 19th century, I'm surprised that we would be that far advanced in terms of some of the practices in our sector. But I admit to listening to Diane and Alexa, I'm curious because there seems to be a suggestion particularly, Diane, what you were saying was that, well, we'll need to offset value by reducing membership fees.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Because there's a, in my opinion, a misconception. But there's certainly a perception that perhaps value isn't as strong delivered online as it is through physical face-to-face traditional-type events. And so we need to offset that by incentivizing our members to say, look, we know you're not going to have a face-to-face, so we'll drive down prices to make it attractive to you. But Violaine, you said that you had some really good-- I know you've got some opinions and ideas about what future delivery models could look like.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And for me, I'm a former association chief executive. so I absolutely know that the reality is we need to run. We may be not-for-profit, but we're also not-for-loss. And as organizations, we need to use our events program as an income generator as much as anything else. So Violaine, in your opinion, how can we offset this perception or how can we counter this perception that value isn't necessarily the same if we're online as opposed if we're in the same room sipping champagne together, which I'm guessing Diane and Alexa's other networks do?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: [LAUGHTER]
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I think it goes back to the question of why do people go to conferences? And the two things that are always at the top were networking and content. And in the case, I think taking conferences online brings an opportunity to present the content better. So content is actually, if you think about the experience of walking into a session, and sitting down, and listening to somebody. And then at the end of the session, it's always going to be the same two or three people who stand up and ask the question, because there's even a bit of a hierarchy when it comes to, am I allowed to ask a question?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Am I too junior for this? Am I a sponsor? Can I do that, et cetera? So this kind of is a bit stifling, the traditional session format. And online, you can actually do that better. So you can attend all of the sessions, if the conference is done well. You can pick your sessions better.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: You can go back to them. You can also interact with the speakers in a way that I think is more level than if you go to a conference. Again, if you're a newcomer to a conference, you walk into your room, and everybody knows each other, and it can be really intimidating. And the internet really levels that. Once you get into a chat room, you can just say hello, and it's not the same as saying hello in person.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So there's a lot that's just better online, and I think that we can take advantage of that. There are some things that are not as good, and you're never going to be able to replace the networking. There's just no way. I was thinking about that. We were talking to Society just yesterday. And they were asking me, oh, you know-- because we were talking about their sites.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And they were asking, where do we put the attendee list? I was thinking, you know what? The attendee list actually doesn't matter as much in this case as it would as a sponsor, because typically I would go in and I would make appointments. And now, I'm not going to make an appointment to a conference to somebody who's coming online. So I have to find a way to interact with the attendees in ways that I think are going to be new, but mostly that need to leverage the power of the internet.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So one of my soap boxes is you can do many things on the internet if you use it the ways that infuse in ways that are similar to how you use it in your daily life. So for example, Netflix is great. Everybody loves being able to watch things when they want to watch them, and nobody wants to watch TV anymore. So why would you want to actually sit down and listen to a [INAUDIBLE] as it's being given?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Or the flipped classroom model is another thing that I think that we can explore. So for example, you've got your recording. You watch it first, and then you have the discussion afterwards. It's the same thing that kids in class who listen to their lesson, and then they have a discussion with their teacher, which is funny, because the flipped classroom has been kind of coming in the past few years.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But now with online education, it's just here. That's how my kids do it. So another thing that I wanted to highlight is you can actually leverage things like chats, because I don't know-- I'm not allowed to look at the chat room right now, which is super frustrating. So I want to participate in that. But chat is what the internet does well.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: We communicate through just written texts. Get Twitter, for example, email, et cetera. That's how we do it online. So I think formats that can leverage all of this and that don't try to just recreate what the 19th century event was, but online, that don't try to do that, they can have a better chance at highlighting the value of the conference.
DIANE KOVATS: So if I can, Andrew, can I just make just a few comments here?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Please do.
DIANE KOVATS: Building on this discussion. I think the valuing of the conference is very, very difficult, because associations that do not have the ability to rely on publishing proceeds and publishing revenues really hurt a bit because they're still competing with all these other organizations who are out there who are either able to offer it for free or offer it for $49. And I think that was the challenge that ISCB was having.
DIANE KOVATS: Of the 3,000 members involved, so-and-so is only doing it for 200. And then really communicating back to them, look, we're going to try to make this as low as possible. But you have to understand that this still costs money. And I think just being very clear in the communication to your delegates and your community, that this is not for free. Every platform costs money.
DIANE KOVATS: And the more fancy bells and whistles you add to a platform, that's even going to be more. And then it gets to the point of, OK, now, we're moving in online. That sponsor or exhibitor experience is so different. So there are platforms out there where you can create an avatar, and you can navigate through and have these physical booths that you visit, and then the sponsor can talk back to you. But a lot of associations aren't going to be able to afford that technology.
DIANE KOVATS: So how ISCB has handled that sponsor element is we've actually offered to our sponsors, we have an exhibit hall. You can go in, and each sponsor has a description of their organization, their logo, and a video that they prepare, that they record to really explain who they are. But we also have that one-on one interviews-- or not interviews, but meet-ups.
DIANE KOVATS: So you can actually request the meet with the sponsor and have single discussions. And then on top of that, we offer each of our exhibitors, would you like to host a lunch and learn? Because we made a very strategic decision that over the lunch period, we would not hold any scientific sessions. We'll have our Birds of a Feather sessions, where people gather in groups and kind of talk about very unique challenges and things.
DIANE KOVATS: You can access the posters. But we're not going to really run a lot of sessions. So we've said, to our sponsors, if you would like to, we can have a Lunch and Learn, where you can be on the schedule, and you can have your time with the audience, and then you can have that dialogue back and forth with them. So the valuing of the sponsorship is also going to be very difficult.
DIANE KOVATS: I think one is we're going to be able to really track how many times your link was clicked on that. We wouldn't have had the opportunity to in person. I guess they could have a clicker when people walk up. But it's going to have to be a very fluid and open conversation with your exhibitors and sponsors-- what do you want to get out of this? Do you think this will work?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: And so are you having that conversation, Diane? Have you started that conversation, is that what you're saying?
DIANE KOVATS: I've done it with all of our sponsors and exhibitors. And we have recruiters, too, who had already pre-signed up. I reached out to them when we decided to go virtual. And I said, we're going virtual. Here's my idea of how I can still service and provide value to you. What else would you like to see? And a lot of the exhibitors and sponsors were the ones that came up with the Lunch and Learn.
DIANE KOVATS: And I think, sure, we can certainly do that. We'll make you part of the schedule. So it's almost like giving them a technology talk for free. But they only get to talk about their products. It's more like a demo-- like a demo review. And then, for our recruiters, they said, we find so much value in being able to have touchpoints with your membership.
DIANE KOVATS: Can you still execute the virtual career fair? And I said, absolutely, we can. So it's going to be different. Because we have to create a whole bunch of little breakout groups for people kind of go in and out throughout the thing. And we were honest. We were like, we may fail. And you have to be OK if we fail, and accept that this may not work.
DIANE KOVATS: But we're very, very fortunate that we've had some very longstanding partners who are like, we're willing to go with you on this journey, and we'll see how it goes. And maybe it's going to be great. We can add a lot more bells and whistles later. But we just didn't have the functionality, or the resources, or finances to add that avatar exploring the exhibit booth.
DIANE KOVATS: But you can do-- and you can have them donate to a virtual conference delegate bag, you can have the sponsors have little raffles in their booth, and a gamification to get people to interact with them, which isn't an extra platforming fee, it's just something you just have to communicate.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. Hm. Yeah. I sound unconvinced. I assure you I'm not. I'm just processing what you're saying. Alexa, you started the process of engaging with your sponsors and exhibitors with the online proposition.
ALEXA TULLETT: For us, I think those challenges are just much smaller in scale. So we have a few sponsors that we had to consult with about switching to an online format. And most of them seemed on board with switching the format. And then, right now, SIPS doesn't have exhibitors. So we haven't had to manage those kinds of problems yet. Yeah, I mean, I think that one way that we've been trying to balance the needs of different people involved in the conference is interacting with the presenters.
ALEXA TULLETT: And so one question I think that we still haven't completely answered is, how much of the control is in the hands of the presenters versus the conference as a whole. How much say do the presenters have in this sort of format and the way that they want to run their sessions, and do they get to choose the medium, and how they sort of choose to interact with the attendees. I think there will end up being some different models.
ALEXA TULLETT: And the individual presenters at SIPS will have a fair amount of control over their sessions. And then I think a broader question, too, is how to, I guess, track people's experiences at these online events. And that's something that I've just started to think about, is how do we see what people think of the online event versus the in-person event, how do we compare those things, and then, going forward, make decisions about what to retain and what to get rid of.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So Violaine, have you had any discussions or are you having discussions about the value proposition-- not just for sponsors and commercial partners, exhibitors, et cetera, but generally, for memberships, What the value proposition can look like, and what platforms are most appropriate?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So this goes back to what I think is a topic that's on the minds of specifically scholarly societies, is that, again, they're really content-heavy. They're really focused on the content. And that translates into hundreds of sessions and hundreds of concurrent sessions. And so the experience online of having to either organize or attend 1,000 webinars is just like-- there's no point trying to recreate that.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I think, again, going back to the mission of societies, which is to-- well, one of the missions, which is to help scientists communicate their science, you can go back to that and say, OK, what is the best science out there, and how can I help scientists communicate it? And if the best way to do that is to provide, for example, a subscription product that is going to be made of presentations that people would normally have presented online, and then allowing attendees to interact with those presenters maybe three a Q&A, through a chat, through a breakout room in many different ways.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I think not sacrificing the content is how I think you can keep the value of your conference mostly. And then being open to new formats and new models, even, for pricing. So embracing continuity, for example-- there is no reason why you should have the same three events a year that you used to. Because again, you have a three-day conference because you're booking a hotel for three days, and your attendees you have to be there for three days.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Why would you restrict that online? So embracing a more global audience. And I love what you just described, Diane, about the tiered pricing. I was wondering about that. And I think that's fantastic. That's a fantastic way to just engage with an audience more globally. And yeah, listening to audiences, too-- this is another point I wanted to make, which fits here or not.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But on top of the fact that it's difficult to sit at a desk for a day, it's almost impossible for parents and people right now who just have to juggle so much. And so having ways for them to engage with a conference on a more punctual basis or, on the other hand, having more time to consume the content of the conference, that's really important, and probably especially for women.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: We're seeing that right now there seems to be a trend towards let fewer journal submissions-- articles submissions from women these days because they're taking on the brunt of the housework and the homeschooling. And the same thing is true of conferences. We have somebody on our team who just said, I can't work for these three days because my husband is attending a conference all day for three days.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: That's just not a practical way to do things. So I think just breaking that format is going to be really important if you want to make sure people have a positive experience.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. So the message is very much, then, about innovation. This is our opportunity to innovate. This is our opportunity to challenge the status quo.
DIANE KOVATS: Well, and I think, Andrew, too, on top of that, if you're trying to serve a global audience, you need to make that content available at any time for wherever your attendee or your participant may be. So while-- and I know this question came up earlier-- so if you're trying to be global as possible, starting at 10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time and going through about 4:00 in the afternoon will get some access point to the majority of the world.
DIANE KOVATS: You are going to miss Asia. So what a lot of groups are doing is they're making their content recorded and available on demand, or even doing rebroadcast. So what ISEB will do is we'll have our keynote speaker at 9:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time, and then we'll rebroadcast that keynote at 8:00 PM so everyone in Asia can participate with those groups. And then the speaker will come on and answer the questions again.
DIANE KOVATS: So it's really about what content do you want to make sure you deliver twice to meet all the regions, but also having it available. And like we had said, having it available for a much longer period of time. So you can go in and access the platform, at any time and watch a presentation, and still interact with the speaker through a Q&A function that goes right to that speaker. And I know a lot of platforms allow that functionality to exist.
DIANE KOVATS: Ours does. And I'm happy to share with Society Street [INAUDIBLE]..
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So is your platform a bespoke platform, Diane?
DIANE KOVATS: Our platform is developed in conjunction with Perform Media. So it's an interface that has a lot of bells and whistles behind. So from a user experience, you want to know everything that's interacting behind the scenes. But the backend technology is Zoom, webcast, some chatting features, almost like a Google meet type of functions that are all acting and behind the scenes, where you're going into a module within the platform to access the functionality.
DIANE KOVATS: The speaker Q&A is tied to-- when it's a live session, it's all live. But once the session goes on demand, the Q&A emails the question directly to the speaker.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Right, OK. And Alexa, is that true-- is your platform off the shelf or is it bespoke?
ALEXA TULLETT: We will likely use Zoom for SIPS at the end of June. So there's nothing like unique to our specific conference and format.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK. Violaine, one of the questions that's come through is about the availability of platforms. And we've all got Zoom fatigue. I've never seen myself so much [INAUDIBLE].. And what other-- but such a huge demand on one platform isn't a good thing. So what other platforms are available out there other than the ones that Diane mentioned-- webcasts, Google Meets, et cetera?
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Is there something else that's not necessarily high-end, bespoke, high-cost? What other low-cost solutions are there to the smaller societies?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I think one of the reasons why it's difficult to answer that question is that you actually have lots of different tech that come into an event. And Diane just mentioned that. She says she's got a platform, but then there's actually different tech that goes into it. And that depends what you're trying to do. So if what you're doing is this-- so a panel with a chat, and Q&A, that sort of thing, where the chat feeds into the Q&A, then you do need some live interaction.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And in that case, it's the same. It's the usual suspects. It's going to be Zoom, and ON24, et cetera. But that's webinar-type thing. Then I do think, because there's so much content, because there can be so many sessions, that there can be so many sessions for scientific societies, one thing to invest in, I think, is just a good video management software as well.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Because what you can do is you can actually request a recording. And there are societies that are doing this right now. They're requesting submissions of recordings that are tied to the papers that are submitted for the conference. And in that case, what you get is, in the end, a whole lot of content that you need to put onto a platform.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So in that case, what makes more sense is an actual Netflix-type platform that is going to give real good on-demand access. And that's not what Zoom is built for. And then there's chatting functionality. So I know I'm not answering your question directly, because I don't think that there is one platform that's going to do everything. And some of these high-tech platforms, the virtual platforms, I think they have some great things going for them.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But what they don't do is they don't break the model of the conference. They don't. It's still a three-day event. And I think, frankly, personally, the idea of walking into a fake virtual hall seems very weird. Maybe it's not just a cost thing, right? It's actually not-- why would you want to do that? So I think that exploring ways to-- even the publishing platforms in some ways, now that you've got all this video content, you can actually have it alongside the proceedings.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: And so that's another way in which the content is going to be adding value to all of your products. So in terms of Zoom, GoToMeeting, they're pretty much all the same, to be honest.
DIANE KOVATS: Yeah, I think--
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Some of them work better than others, but--
DIANE KOVATS: --assess what you want out of the technology, and then integrate it. Because you could even use slack for some of your ongoing conversations. And that doesn't necessarily have to be integrated into the platform. It could be standing outside the platform. And if you don't have a repository-type style platform that you're using from a vendor, you could record on zoom and then just put it on YouTube, and then direct people to YouTube to the content.
DIANE KOVATS: So there are some very low-cost ways of doing it. But for ISEB and for my own comfort level-- we're only a staff of four, so I knew that there was no way our staff could handle nine concurrent sessions, 600-plus talks, 1,000 posters, with just the four of us, and trying to integrate it into a proprietary backend platform. So that's why we decided to go-- And we're using our previous content capture group.
DIANE KOVATS: So we had already started dabbling in the livestream things before this hit us. So it was great to know that they could provide us with this additional service.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: OK. But it sounds to me that, arguably, there is no-- well, let me rephrase this. We're talking about the opportunity to be innovative. We're talking about the opportunity to challenge the status quo. We're talking about an opportunity to present content in a new and engaging fashion, globally. We're talking about accessing new markets-- what we would call our new markets-- across the world.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: But that's got a price tag attached to it, then. Am I right? I mean--
DIANE KOVATS: It's not free. [CHUCKLES]
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah, exactly. It's not free. [INTERPOSING VOICES]
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: I'm sorry. Go ahead, Alexa.
ALEXA TULLETT: Maybe I was going to say something similar, which is just that, in some ways, yeah, this technology costs money. But the way that we have traditionally done conferences is quite expensive also, right? We're paying exorbitant amounts of money for space and food, and then also for the technology, like paying for internet at, like, some of these venues can be really expensive.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: A/V-- how much does A/V always cost? Oh my God.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: It's so much-- so one of the conferences I was talking to, their price point was, I think, $650. And they moved it to $275 for their online conference. They had twice as many registrants already. And if you take the hotel costs in New York out of the way-- The problem that we're having right now is that we're pivoting to virtual. So we're going from-- we have hotel reservations that are being canceled [INAUDIBLE]..
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So you've got this financial hit. But if your event is born digital, and if you think about it from the get-go, it really doesn't have to be expensive. It's much cheaper than a physical event. And then I've been arguing for years that content should be captured on site. And now video is here. It's just if it's born virtual, you both have an opportunity to think about the initial concept in a much more user-friendly way.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But you also have more opportunities for monetization later, because you get all this content you didn't have before. And what societies have, more often than not, is they have great education departments, they've got great publishing departments who can now use this meeting content. And the medical societies have been doing that for a long time because they can offer CNE through those. So they've been offering those recordings.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: ASCO has been doing it. All the anesthetists, every medical society has these products. But now it's an opportunity for every society to embrace this and say, OK, I'm actually going to build a great educational product, and it's going to take some of the content from the meeting, for example. So yes, on the one hand, it seems-- I think the reason why it seems expensive is that it's new.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: I think, ultimately, it's going to be cheaper. ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN But how accessible is it going to be? And by that, I don't necessarily mean accessible to the society. But in terms of the members-- so for example, we know that a lot of attendees will be cancelling their classes to travel to conferences. Do we know if there's any examples of institutional conversations going on whereby colleagues are given time to attend virtual conferences?
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Or is it the case that, well, look, you're on site, you're on campus, you're here, you're teaching. So have we heard anything yet about whether there's a culture emerging within the sector, within the research environment, that allows people to have the time to engage and access these online portals? Alexa, what are your thoughts?
ALEXA TULLETT: I don't know for sure. My guess is that the status quo sort of works in our favor in this case. So I think that the departments and colleges that have a norm for the way that they treat faculty when they go to conferences will stick with that. And so if you used to say that you were going to a conference, and you were traveling somewhere, and you needed to book off your teaching or whatever, my guess is just that people will just use that same format for an online conference.
ALEXA TULLETT: I mean, there might be some particularly cruel universities or colleges that say, well, now that your conference is online, it doesn't count or something like that.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. Diane, do you have a view on that?
DIANE KOVATS: Yeah, I haven't heard anything from my colleagues and members about that. We're very fortunate that our meeting is in July. And it's placed in July because we tried to find the one month in the entire year for most of Europe and America where they're not teaching. I mean, we run into problems with our Australian members because they are teaching in July. And the same with Latin America and Africa. But I am hopeful that the deans and leadership administration within the universities will still see the value of being able to consume this content and connect with research.
DIANE KOVATS: Because for use to advance research, we have to know what's going on. And hearing that delivery of a session is the best way to do it and ask questions. So hopefully they'll be given the ability to still participate virtually, and not overstrain themselves as a researcher and an instructor.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Yeah. We only have a few moments left. I just want to ask each of you-- I asked you at the start how things had progressed in the six weeks since we last met. I don't want you to look into a crystal ball. I'm not doing any of that. But I want to understand, in your opinions-- and there's a lot of pros and cons we've raised here in terms of the virtual meeting environment versus the physical.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: What's best? I'm going to start with you, Alexa. What do you think's going to be best?
ALEXA TULLETT: What's best? I mean, actually, several of the things that Diane and Violaine have said have been sort of inspiring to me in terms of envisioning what things could look like going forward. So one thing that I hadn't even thought about was this idea that we no longer have to stick to this once-a-year huge conference that happens on these two specific days.
ALEXA TULLETT: You can start to envision things that happen more often on a smaller scale. I really also like this idea of-- so when I had previously envisioned conferences that combined a main location and online content, I imagined some people who were attending in person who did all the fun stuff, and they go for beers with each other, and then some people who are sitting on their couch at home watching a webinar.
ALEXA TULLETT: And that felt like [INAUDIBLE]. But this idea of these other clusters, where other groups are together as well, and they also have sort of a pocket of networking and socializing makes that sounds a lot more appealing. So I mean, it sounds like there are increasingly ways of combining the nice things of a collection of people who are physically in one space and an online connection.
ALEXA TULLETT: And I think will really blow the options wide open when it comes to accessibility. So even in my day-to-day life now, these small events that are happening online, there are all of these new possibilities where, like, my mother can watch me play piano on Instagram or something, you know? [CHUCKLES]
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: I thought you were going to say, your mother can watch you work. I was thinking, my God, my mother would-- she has no idea what I do. [ALEXA AND ANDREW CHUCKLE] OK, so generally, you're sounding pretty positive and optimistic about what the future of the meeting for your society could look like.
ALEXA TULLETT: I'm generally optimistic. And these Society Street events are-- they turn up the volume.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Fantastic. Violaine, what are you thoughts then? Physical, online, virtual--
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: I think there are many, many, many opportunities for innovation. And that part is extremely exciting. I personally have a really hard time sitting in a session of the conference. So I'm really excited to be able to watch that and kind of go back to things. And I cannot wait to go back to a conference. That is the bottom line. I mean, it's true.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: As much as I think we have a tremendous opportunity to create communities online, and I feel like Alexa and Diane are my friends now even though we've never met in person, just because, you know-- so you can create meaningful interaction online. And there are opportunities to break some barriers and to make some connections. That being said, I also think that as soon as we all can go out and back on a plane and meet people, we will love every minute of it.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: So I do think that physical events still have a great future ahead of them. I really think that it's just the balance. To me, we should see it as one more opportunity to build upon. And there is a huge crisis and transition to go through right now, which is awful for everybody on the planet. So I don't think we should forget that, that it's mostly traumatic.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: But at the same time, I don't think it's the end of the physical conference at all.
DIANE KOVATS: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I've said it, and I know that people don't like when I say it, but not every event should be digital. There are very clear purposes for some events that could only happen in person. And if you don't have a very clear focus, vision [INAUDIBLE] of why that event should have a digital component, I would suggest that that you not do it. I do think that the reentry into everything is going to be difficult. I think we're going to be faced with a lot of challenges of how do we communicate to attendees that the environment is safe and safely maintained, what is that seating like in the future, are we going to have to have extra space and social distancing, are we going to have to feed session information into other rooms because a room fills up.
DIANE KOVATS: I do think there are going to be a lot of challenges. But there are just some things that should be done virtually. I mean, if the purpose behind the event is something that just doesn't work online, then don't do it online. And that's OK. And it's OK to say, this just will not work online. But I also think there is a huge opportunity to be more inclusive and more global with all of our content moving forward because we are really pushing the boundaries now with the technology that's going to be offered.
DIANE KOVATS: I think venues are going to have to push their boundaries with how their internet pricing is going to be. Because I think a lot of planners out there are going to say, look, if you can't give me the bandwidth that I need to execute this successfully, I'll find somewhere that can for an affordable price. So I think we have a lot of changes coming around. I think they're going to be good changes.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Excellent. Good.
DIANE KOVATS: But I'm getting on a plane the first moment I can to see everyone.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Tell me about it. My God.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Me too. Let's go somewhere. [ALL CHUCKLE]
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So, good. Well, so I'm clearly echoing Alexa's point there-- Society Street has provided an extremely optimistic platform for us to engage with each other. But we recognize that actually the virtual meeting space is another string to our bow in terms of adding value to our members. It isn't a direct replacement for our physical conferences and meeting venues. But it is and it should be exploited as another opportunity to demonstrate value and to provide the opportunity for our members to connect with one another, not just locally or nationally, but internationally.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: So I actually think there are many more of these conversations that need to happen, that are all going to happen over the coming weeks, months, years, actually. Because I know that we've, again, had an hour to skim the surface. But I would very much welcome the opportunity to come back again at some point with this panel and hear how you only do things virtually, you've never gone on a plane since we last spoke because you've just embraced the tech wholeheartedly.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: I would just like to thank each of our panelists, Alexa, Diane, and Violaine. Thank you once again for your time this afternoon. Your insights are invaluable. I really do appreciate it. And I know that our attendees have done so as well. I'd also like to take the opportunity to once again thank our sponsors-- our gold sponsors, Wiley and Elsevier, and also our other sponsors who are supporting this webinar series throughout 2020.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: The next webinar is taking place on the 11th of June. That's Thursday the 11th of June at 11:00 AM Eastern. That will be chaired by my good friend Sam [INAUDIBLE].. And that session is focused on, who is your community? We'll be hearing from early careerists. So thank you very much, everybody, once again. And we look forward to seeing everybody on the 11th of June if not before. Thank you very much for your time.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Thanks, Andrew.
ANDREW CHAMBERLAIN: Thank you.
ALEXA TULLETT: Thank you.
VIOLAINE IGLESIAS: Bye, everyone.
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