 Overnight, 2020 forced us to get digital video right. For the first 90 days, it was pretty awkward to say the least, but as people became more comfortable with home setups and lighting and just the weirdness of being locked down and shut in, the frequency, the quality, and I think the watchability of virtual conversations improved quite dramatically. Welcome to theCUBE, my name is Dave Vellante and with me to talk about what we learned and can take away from producing video content during the isolation economy is event expert, conference facilitator and MC extraordinaire, Sam Allen. Sam, come inside theCUBE, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Really lovely to be here with you. Yeah, it's really our pleasure. So I got to ask you, you know, am I right? Do we actually have more watchable video online or now are we all sort of zoom fatigued out? I think if people watch theCUBE, I think you've got some incredible content online. You guys are the pros. I think we are still in this change format right now. We've got people who are doing it well, who started really early, tried, failed, picked themselves back up, tried again, and are producing some really good pieces of content looking outside of perhaps the norm to create some great visual, some great conferences and events. I think on the whole, sadly, I think we still have a way to go, which is great for the likes of us in terms of helping those professionals become more professional. And just trying to differentiate between what's just a Zoom meeting and actually what's an experience for communications for our audiences. I want to get into some of the best practice and maybe some of the do's and don'ts, but let's roll back a little bit. Tell us about yourself and how you got into this business. I'd love to say I've been a virtual event designer and MC moderator for years, but as we know, the world has turned itself on its head in the past 14, 15 months. Prior to that, I've been in the event and conference industry for about 20 years, most recently traveling the world on stage, presenting, moderating, hosting conferences across various different industries from pharmaceuticals to finance, through to industry associations, telecoms, et cetera. My world fell apart just about February 23rd, 2020, as many people did. I was excitingly booked to work with a lot of clients through November 2020. That didn't happen. And we have a couple of choices as an entrepreneur, pick ourselves up or stay down on the ground. So I chose that first option. I studied online event design. I was a meeting an event designer already, but there are big nuances when we work in the world of online. So I picked myself up, started studying online event design. I was fortunate, my clients trusted me. So we managed to pivot several of their events early on during the pandemic into the world of virtual. We've had some incredible feedback from our participants and we have gone from strength to strength. I now work with several other associate MCs experienced in this digital field, working with new and existing clients in terms of designing a better experience for those who are watching us on our screens now. That's awesome. I love the reinvention story. Sam, I didn't know you could take a class in this stuff. So tell me about that. What was that like? I think one of the things when, you know, when we are in and I'm sure many of our viewers today have sat in the wonderful conference theaters and we'll be back in those rooms soon, everything is done with experienced AV and technical and event producers and venue people. Whereas in the online world, I'm here in sunny London on my own, making sure that I have the right sound, the right connectivity, the right visuals. All of these things are things that we just didn't have to do. And we have to do that for every single content contributor. So studying an online event design course back at the very beginning of lockdown really helped me understand the checklist that we need to have for our clients, the things that we need to assume and most importantly, the things that can go wrong so that we can pick up on those as quickly as we can and try and create these seamless and engaging experiences for our audiences. So I would say to anyone who's sort of looking into this and really don't know where to start, it's probably good to go and have a look at an online event design course. Thank you for that. So tell me, what were some of the things that you look back on 2020 and you think about the work that you did with your clients and maybe even observing some of your non-clients, what were some of the mistakes that people made and we can get into some of the best practice? Well, as all good people who are being interviewed say, well, you're going to have to wait for my book to be published later on in the year with all the things that have gone wrong and all the ways we've rectified it. But I think one of the major things that we've had is obviously this world of distraction. We've all seen it with the cat lawyer. We've seen it with the kids coming in and we've humanized, I think, the world of events which I think is a really positive experience for us all. We are all humans and events are about bringing humans together, human connection. So I think there's a positive side to that but equally by the same token we've seen people maybe not really getting under the skin of what's the difference between a Zoom meeting and an event experience in terms of what people have been wearing. I've had an awkward conversation when we've taken a Zoom background away from a speaker and you don't want to know what was hanging on the door. We also had a situation where we've lost speakers and we've had to jump in due to connectivity issues that we've tested them but then they've ended up broadcasting from somewhere else. So I think some of that seamless technology and I would say to anyone to try and not suffer those challenges I would say test, test, rehearse, test and rehearse again and make sure you've got that team of people around you. I think a lot of people think that it's very easy to do this Dave as I know you and your team will know it is not. You wouldn't just because I happen to like flying you wouldn't want me to fly your aircraft and I think there's the same analogy in terms of running your online event and digital communication experiences. Don't you think, I mean, I think we found that running virtual events is harder because first of all, there's so much unknown you can't really call late stage audible. I mean, things are locked in when you're doing a simulive. I presume you found the same thing and your clients have learned a lot in that regard. I think it's a lot more work. I think there's a lot more work pre-event, pre-conference, pre-meeting that people are still trying to get their minds around. When we host an event in person, we all get there the day or two before during setup. We then have a very, very long two, three, four days depending on how long that event is where we've got our speakers in the same room they've all flown in. We know that they've arrived. We know they've checked in at the hotel. What we don't have are any of those variables in this world. So we need to make sure that we're working with all of those content providers. And if like me, you work in the association world where you can have up to 90 or 100 different speakers over a course of a Congress. We've got to fit in the time to make sure that we've tech checked, we've worked with panels so that we can make sure that they're dynamic and we've got people looking as well as sounding good. So I think one of those things is exceptionally huge amounts of pre-planning that people need to factor in. I think the second thing is people need to not underestimate how exhausting it is when you don't have the vibe of a live audience, especially if they be considerate of your keynote speakers, especially if they're not professionals, they haven't been doing this they're not comfortable with a green light. It is tiring trying to visualize a thousand, four and a half thousand, 25 people, one person in the same room as you would be quite nice and we haven't had that for the past 12 months. So I think we've learned a lot from that and we've got some good tips and tricks now that we can use. But I'm pretty sure a lot of our content providers and speakers are looking forward to seeing people back in a room. Fantastic. Well, that brings me to my next question. Let's make this the last one. Just as we begin to get a little bit more comfortable with virtual, now we're getting vaccinated. People are there's huge pent up demand for face to face. So now we have this new thing of hybrid, which is going to be really interesting to see how that plays out. What are you seeing? What's your expectation for that sort of new abnormal? That's an incredibly good question. And we have to start with the new C word is the H word, which is hybrid. I think we have a lot of people getting worried about what hybrid looks like. But I think if you think with a design thinking mind, when you're looking at event planning, the virtual or the in-person audience are just another stakeholder. So if you're spending that time to plan out your meeting or event the way you should be, then you can factor those people in. I am excited about this world. I think it becomes so much more inclusive for organizations moving forward. And DNI is something that has often been forgotten in the world of conferences and events. And I think the hybrid role gives us all the opportunity to have that choice. I think people, especially event organizers, because it's their job, believe that everybody wants to be in a room and not everybody does and not everybody can. And now this is a really, really exciting opportunity to do things differently, to do things to become more inclusive and of course to be more sustainable. Well, Sam, you're really an inspiration. I mean, a lot of people out there have to reinvent themselves. You've done it. You retrained. You started a new type of business that drew on your existing passion, but it's really fantastic to have you on. Thanks for sharing your expertise. Best of luck in the future. Great having you. Thank you. Thanks, Dave. All right, thanks for watching everybody. This is Dave Vellante for theCUBE. We'll see you next time.