Critiquing the Virtual HR Conference
The HR world got its first taste of an online virtual conference and trade show with the debut in mid-December of HR.com's VIEW. How good was it? As with all attempts to replicate human interactions online, the answer is, kinda, sorta, maybe soon.
By Bill Kutik
Debbie McGrath, founder of HR.com, is more entrepreneurial and risk-taking than any other businessperson I know in our world: entirely appropriate for a rare dot-bomb survivor.
She never dips her toe into the water of something new when she can dive head-first (anybody notice the rocks down there?!?) with utter abandon and complete enthusiasm, even when facing the prospect of losing money -- at first.
Debbie's latest venture, VIEW, an HR virtual online conference and trade show, debuted on Dec. 12 and 13. It was hardly the world's first: Computer publisher Ziff Davis has been producing them for at least two years now, using the same software (inXpo) as Debbie.
But it was certainly the first for HR, which has already been dabbling in the use of virtual worlds such as Second Life, mostly by staffing companies for job fairs, but also by IBM for onboarding and new-hire training (featured at last October's HR Technology Conference®).
Along with social networks and clever new recruiting software, it's all part of the current trend of attempting to
replicate human interactions online
.
Naturally, I had to attend.
If this new virtual form really catches on, the 10 years I've spent as co-chairman growing the real-world HR Technology Conference & Exposition® might be for nothing.
Moreover, I wanted to find out how well the event delivered on its advertised promises: "...online presentations, mixed with virtual booths, online chats, product demonstrations, information gathering and exchange, and one-on-one interactions. You gain all the benefits of an in-person HR industry event while saving the travel time and expense."
Well, yes and no.
For me, it was like kissing my sister. I missed the dynamism and serendipity of face-to-face interaction and the press of the flesh, both in the conference and the trade show. But I have long disliked webinars and WebEx software demonstrations for the same reason. No faces and no one to talk to. Call me old-fashioned, if you like, just not a people person.
The event's limitations were mostly due to the limitations of the current software, which was state of the art. I dragged along an expert in the field: Richard Feldman, CEO of CTW Media, a producer of both real world and online events, and formerly head of inXpo's software competitor iCongo.
First, the technology did work. Registration was easy, though too nosy about my buying intentions. Creating my avatar was fast. Navigation was pretty intuitive. Getting into sessions or to booths was straightforward with no problem finding the right breakout "room." The sessions all came through properly on my laptop. Even the event's special requirements of updating my Java from Sun and getting Instant Messaging from Yahoo! were made a snap by the event software. Though I did have trouble finding the bathrooms.
Comparing notes, Feldman said (and I agreed) that the show-floor experience was simply like viewing a large collection of Web sites by clicking on separate logos. Each cartoonish virtual booth was only as interesting as the vendor's Web site behind it. Taleo featured some nifty canned demos, while Kronos had heavily produced videos of their products. Others had podcasts and webcasts available.
But many just offered online PowerPoint presentations in PDF format (some with narration), and I couldn't find a single real software demonstration -- like a salesman would give you at a real show booth. More than one vendor told me real demos were just too hard to set up in the system.
Most booths featured tabs leading to pages of downloadable PDF documents (product brochures, fact sheets, white papers, etc.): virtual versions of the metal racks of printed collateral at trade show booths, but certainly much easier to carry home.
Human interaction was the biggest disappointment. Each booth page showed a row of avatars representing people who were online there. You could initiate an IM "chat" with any of them. And if you didn't, booth personnel could see you visiting and certainly tried to start one with you!
In fact, I was amused by how many times a two-second fly-by visit would result in an IM invitation or an e-mail through the conference system from a salesperson. They didn't even need to scan my badge. A definite vendor advantage of virtual over real events. Happily you could ignore them or turn them down, which many vendors told me attendees did.
It all felt so familiar, yet different. Like walking past a real booth, catching the salesman's eye by mistake but then having him leap out and chase you down the aisle! Happily, that's never happened at a real show.
Ellen Madonia, vice president of marketing at DoubleStar, says VIEW seems more like a marketing tool than an immediate sales lead generator, while Peter Louch, CEO of Vemo, says, "It's much more like a big advertisement than an opportunity to chat with people."
Many said they thought it was cool (me, too), but too difficult to have a substantial conversation. So true.
IM is no substitute for real conversation. The only time I do IM is for tech support from my e-mail provider's call center in Bangalore. Feldman says new virtual conference software under development is expected to allow direct conversations through your computer's microphone and speakers, similar to Skype.
And new software may also offer solutions to other current limitations. While you could look through a list of everyone registered at VIEW, you couldn't see them (or even yourself) or bump into anyone you knew.
You could meet other attendees in the lounge -- a button told you exactly who was in there with you -- but the chat I saw was pretty boring. Many conversations revolved around people amazed at their distance from one another -- announcing their local weather and time (the fellow in India beat everybody) -- and vendors typing boldface pitches for their products. It hardly qualified as good networking time.
In short, a virtual online trade show does not yet replicate human interactions. It needs to be more like Second Life, where your avatar virtually walks around a truly 3-D world, sees other people, but also hears them talking, joins conversations or demos in progress that you like and avoids people you don't. Feldman says that too may be coming.
The conference (rather than the trade show) was supported by another software vendor named Vcall. It felt like a completely different, but utterly familiar, environment from the show floor.
All the presentations, except for a pre-recorded streaming video keynote, were live webinars or webcasts, some with slides and others without. There was a good mix of panels, individual and two-speaker sessions. Most presenters used the online polling facility often and well. And as usual, you could type questions throughout, which they responded to.
And being in the office, you could multi-task, even more than some rude people do at real conferences. I made notes for this column during several sessions, answered telephone calls (after muting the conference) and could still e-mail despite being connected to VIEW. That was cool too.
But my prejudice again, perhaps not yours, is I need the talking heads. While I shamefully admit to having dozed off after lunch at some real conference sessions (certainly not at HR Technology's), my head hit the keyboard more often during these disembodied presentations, even on topics I care about from people I respect.
Unfortunately, I can't imagine video (even from webcams) coming to a virtual conference anytime soon. That would make a huge difference, as would voice for the trade show.
Even before VIEW got more than 1,500 unique log-ins over two days (registration was free), Debbie had characteristically rushed ahead to schedule more than 40 HR virtual conferences for next year, plus plans to do virtual user conferences, job fairs and hosting other companies' events for them. I wish her luck.
If you're a practitioner and also attended VIEW, I'm eager to hear your impressions, maybe for another look at replicating human interactions online. But please make your online interaction with me via e-mail, not IM.
HR Technology Columnist Bill Kutik is co-chairman of the 11th Annual HR Technology Conference & Exposition® in Chicago, October 15 to 17, 2008. Speaking proposals are due Jan. 14, and can be submitted at
www.HRTechnologyConference.com
. He can be reached at
bkutik@earthlink.net
.
December 17, 2007 Copyright 2007© LRP Publications
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