The V Word

By: Sandi Cain
Issue: Smart Meetings May 2009

Features

Planners have nothing (about virtual meetings) to fear but fear itself

 The convergence of a weak economy, a warming planet, robust technology, soaring travel costs and skewed public perception about meetings has begun to lead more meeting planners down a virtual path. The journey has also been prompted by the growth of Web 2.0 (the interactive Internet), which has spawned numerous social networking sites, some of which are evolving into business applications that make them useful for more than filling down time at the office.

But the biggest thing sending planners scrambling to the virtual world is the increasingly dour economy, which has made cost-savings not only a priority, but also a necessity.  “The economy is changing how we meet,” says Nancy Wilson, CMP and principal of Meeting Strategies Worldwide in Portland, Ore.

According to Meeting Professionals Interna- tional’s Future Watch 2009, 11% of meeting professionals expect an increase in the use of technology in order to help lower costs after expected budget cuts of roughly 6%. The same MPI survey indicated that organizations already had cancelled about 7% of all meetings by the end of last year, at an average cost of $200,000 per meeting.

Cutbacks also suit green meetings goals, which continue to be a top concern among planners according to a Business Barometer conducted by MPI. About 30% of corporate travel managers already incorporate green issues in their travel policies, according to the National Business Travel Association, while some environmental organizations claim up to 20% of business travel could be replaced by online meetings.



As a host of factors spark to bring demands for lower meeting costs, planners see the writing on the virtual wall and are embracing new ways of doing business. An HSMAI fall survey showed that 57% of planners already use online registration; 20% use videoconferencing; and 18% use social networking. Companies like Accenture have installed videoconferencing rooms to cut costs. Webcasts and podcasts are replacing seminars, and social networking sites enable participants to meet before and after events, bolstering networking capabilities.

Webinars, podcasts, Tweets and VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) conference calls—things that didn’t even exist a decade ago—are becoming commonplace in the office. Now 3-D virtual meetings are poised to come into their own, along with life-sized video conferences that improve upon the usual blurry movie screen with a few familiar faces. Improved technology can replicate physical events, including exhibits, and provide live Q&A sessions or a transcript of attendee conversations with your booth “staff” at virtual trade shows.

Brent Arslaner, vice president of marketing at virtual trade show provider Unisfair in Menlo Park, Calif., calls it “actionable intelligence” that can generate high per-lead return on investment. That alone should catch the eye of some doubters, as ROI becomes king in evaluating a meeting’s worth.

Some planners still worry that virtual meetings aren’t yet ready for prime time, but recognize that the shift could help them save money. In a survey last fall by online event provider ON24 in San Francisco, 72% of respondents said they faced a reduction in the number of physical meetings due to economic circumstances this year. That planners are exploring virtual alternatives has been evident in more inquiries about the company’s services. “The demand is definitely increasing,” says Denise Persson, chief marketing officer of ON24.

Despite growth in virtual options, such meetings are unlikely to replace in-person events any time soon. Indeed, 74% of respondents to MPI’s Future Watch 2009 still say they get the highest ROI from face-to-face meetings. “Face-to-face meetings will remain viable forever because people are social animals,” says Corbin Ball CSP, CMP, MS, a renowned speaker and consultant on technology issues and principal of Corbin Ball Associates in Bellingham, Wash.



Face-to-face Meetings Not Obsolete
Ball likens predictions that the meetings industry will disappear to dire predictions for the movie industry, which has been threatened through the years by television, video stores, DVDs, home theaters and Blu-ray. “It’s survived 60 years of technology onslaught,” he says.

Conversely, Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research Inc., an independent provider of business and technology research, believes technology is catching up to the promise of replacing at least some face-to-face meetings. In 2008, 40% of Future Watch planner respondents said they expected to use more webcasts. And 80% of associations were interested in boosting their use of social networking. “We have to be more careful about which (meetings) we do in person,” says ON24’s Persson.

That clearly makes virtual meetings another tool that planners can use. But they’re not meant to be just another way to show a PowerPoint presentation. Technology research giant Gartner Inc. of Stamford, Conn. uses virtual options to support employees worldwide, reduce travel and collaborate on projects. Xerox consolidated its travel and meetings department with virtual conference management in 2005. And PricewaterhouseCoopers, which started working in the virtual world seven years ago, has its own virtual meetings team that has staged as many as 600 such meetings in one fiscal year. Unisfair produced 300 virtual events in the past 18 months. Many virtual meetings are used to supplement in-person meetings or trade show presentations; others replace training and educational seminars. Citrix’s GoTo Meeting, for example, can provide online training to customers and conduct live demos for prospects (it’s also easy to access through Microsoft Office, e-mail and instant-messaging applications.

Dan Parks, president and creative director for Dana Point, Calif.-based Corporate Planners Unlimited and creator of the MeCo Mansion and Virtualis Convention Center in Second Life, says his company always presents virtual options first for small meetings. Parks says that demonstrates his company’s willingness to get clients the best possible value for their dollars.



As is true with many aspects of our lives, the trick is in finding the right balance between live and virtual events. “The major selling point for virtual meetings is reduced travel, but realistically you might not have had a meeting (at all) if it required travel,” says Naylor Gray, director of global marketing for Mountain View, Calif.-based Frost & Sullivan, a research and consulting firm. A virtual meeting should save time and facilitate communication, he says.
Frost & Sullivan predicts the global web conferencing market will reach $2.5 billion within two years. Yet just 7% of small and medium companies surveyed by Jupiter Research said they’re using the technology. Parks says just 5% of meeting planers use Second Life’s dedicated meetings platform. Clearly there’s a gap.

When technology changes, there are always those waiting at the gate wanting to be first and the laggards who need to be dragged kicking and screaming into the future. “Those who embrace tech will be more efficient,” Ball says.

Decisions, Decisions
Picking the right technology for a meeting isn’t child’s play. “Many people think it’s just like sharing a PowerPoint, but it takes a lot of planning,” says Kelly Snyder, CMP, director of online events for Elkridge, Md.-based CommPartners. In general, virtual meetings are good for data-sharing and presentations, but not as good as face-to-face meetings for networking and brainstorming.

First and foremost is the need to research online options to select the different features and price structures that are the best fit. There are dozens of providers with dozens of options from voice, video sharing and video streaming, to 3-D interactive rooms employing avatars, virtual walls, virtual trade shows and plain web-based presentations. Cisco’s WebEx, for example, combines real-time desktop sharing with phone conferencing so you can deliver presentations, show documents and demonstrate any application (see Smart Resources below).

While planners may already know their meeting objectives, Snyder also asks what they want to do with the session after it’s complete before selecting a platform. Key factors include how many features they need, whether the program needs to be branded, whether it will be recorded and how it will be archived and/or available online after the presentation. “That may dictate the technology you  use,” she says. It also may determine the cost.

Snyder also asks how tech-savvy the audience is, how many people are expected to attend and whether it is free to attendees. For paid webinars, she’ll later ask attendees how many others sat in with them in order to better determine return on investment.

Frost & Sullivan’s Naylor Gray says there are additional things to consider for a global audience. Bandwidth, the availability of local customer service for troubleshooting, local call-in numbers and issues with the ability to download required modules before a call all can be more problematic overseas than in the U.S. When time zone issues can’t be overcome, Snyder suggests recording the sessions and making them available on-demand after the live presentation.

Cultural considerations also can get in the way of global virtual meetings. “Until I went to Asia and met the people, the virtual meetings weren’t effective,” Gray says. “Once they knew who I was, it worked better.”

3-D options are gaining ground and are widely believed to be the virtual meetings of the future, though only early-adapters seem to have caught on so far. Fewer than 5% of meeting planners currently use Second Life, Ball says. “Unless you’re a geek at heart, it’s beyond the patience of most business professionals,” he says.

That may be changing. Corbin Ball was the first to deliver an industry session last year on Second Life. Meetings consultant Joan Eisenstodt has an office there. Parks says it’s no longer just meeting planners who call him for information; now he gets calls from CFOs of major companies. One new client is an association seeking options for its annual 300-person meeting and exhibit. Another inquiry came from a group that has 350 exhibitors. And Parks last year staged a program for Tokyo-based Trend Micro, including virtual team-building events that got positive reviews. “The ‘Wow’ factor is significant,” Parks says.



Unisfair’s virtual trade shows look and feel like live exhibits, with networking lounges, exhibit booths, audio, video, voice and text. The big perk is that organizers get an analysis of what the attendees did—the presentations they attended, demos watched, what they asked and what materials they picked up.

Still in its infancy is telepresence, currently offered by Cisco, Hewlett Packard and Polycom. Telepresence is like videoconferencing on steroids, and still carries a high cost—up to about $350,000 for a self-contained system. Specially designed screens, custom lighting and custom acoustics provide life-size images that appear to be sitting across the table from you.

Cisco says the system saves the company about $100 million in travel costs; HP says it has helped reduced travel by 25%. Analysts contend that telepresence rooms pay for themselves in about a year. Sales, estimated at around 600 in 2008, are expected to reach 8,000 by 2012.

Cisco recently debuted public rooms to introduce the system to those not ready to buy. Costs range from $299 per hour for one or two people to $899 per hour for up to 18 people. Companies like Baxter Healthcare, Procter & Gamble and Taj Hotels already are on board.

Planners in the nonprofit sector might wonder how much of the virtual world is beyond their means. At least one 501(c)3 group has turned some options to its advantage.

Best Friends Animal Society, based in Kanab, Utah, began in 2006 to build an international network of volunteers through an online community. Almost all training, educational seminars and communication takes place online. The volunteers are team leaders, researchers, news writers, forums moderators, ambassadors, local managers and those willing to foster or transport animals in need. They reach out to animal shelters, rescue groups and others in efforts that support the group’s mission of “No More Homeless Pets.” There currently are about 700 Network volunteers and another 54,000 Network members. Sixty-eight percent of the volunteers were recruited online. A survey conducted last year by Pepperdine University in California to review the program indicated a high satisfaction level with the virtual effort, with 89% saying they feel appreciated as volunteers.



The Case for Virtual Meetings
There’s been a significant shift to virtual meetings in the past year, driven in part by economic concerns, says ON24’s Persson. In a company survey, 42% of responding clients said their companies planned to reduce their trade-show presence, while 76% said their companies already were using some virtual events.

Aside from helping to save time and money, there are other benefits:

• Persson says just 59% of respondents indicate they’d miss seeing speakers in person if events were converted to virtual ones. That bodes well for online presentations by high-profile speakers whose costs may be lower if they don’t have to travel.
• Virtual meetings neither add to a planner’s workload nor subtract from it. They may not have to do site inspections or book venues, but they still have to book the virtual conference, make certain the technology is working and do follow-up reports.
• Virtual meetings fit in well with planners’ green agendas. “It’s been a key driver for virtual events,” Persson says.
• Both presenters and attendees can be in multiple locations.
• 3-D options provide real-time interactive brainstorming opportunities in an environment where people can see each other’s avatars and share digital models in the
• virtual workspace.

The Challenges of Virtual Meetings
Naturally, there are still a few challenges to overcome, including:

• Nongamers find it difficult to navigate on sites like Second Life.
• Set-up can be tedious on both ends, especially in 3-D worlds. Virtualis offers guest avatars and claims a 10-minute orientation is all that’s needed. But don’t forget to count the man-hours required for set-up when comparing costs.
• Many virtual environments still can’t provide document-sharing.
• Most systems require attendees to download software, an issue for those with proprietary networks, firewalls or older computers without massive memory capabilities to draw on.
• Systems tend to gobble bandwidth. Those without high-end video cards and high-speed processors will likely find frozen screens or a frequent need to reboot.

The Future
Meeting planners are unlikely to fall by the wayside. Their planning and logistics skills are just as crucial to a virtual meeting as a real one, says Snyder, who has presented at HSMAI’s Affordable Meetings Event Technology Expo. “One speaker flipping through slides doesn’t work well,” she says. Instead, the planner needs to work with speakers, ensure tech support and do the same kind of run-through that would be done for a live presentation. 

Colleges may have a bigger presence on 3-D sites like Second Life. Already, 200 universities teach classes there, Parks says.

Forrester Research believes social networking tools and internal company wikis are the next areas poised for growth in the office to facilitate collaboration. Forrester expects the collaboration market to hit approximately $2 billion by 2013.

According to tech expert Corbin Ball, the downturn in the economy might inspire faster growth in the workplace, even as technology makes bigger gains. “We’re in for a wild ride of exponential growth of technology in the next 10 years,” he says.

Sandi Cain, a regular contributor to Smart Meetings, is a freelance journalist who has covered the meetings, hospitality and tourism industries for more than a decade.
 

Tips for Staging Successful Online Meetings

• Construct a program that solicits participant input.
• Use audience polling features frequently to keep participants’ attention.
• Enable participants to see who is on the call or in the meeting room.

Smart Virtual Etiquette
For presenters:

• Send presentation material in advance if possible.
• Include an agenda in the pre-meeting notice.
• Review ground rules (including instructions to mute the call, place it on hold, signal to ask a question).

For attendees:

• State your name when you speak.
• Use mute function if available to reduce background noise.
• Mute your e-mail alert or close that window and turn off your cell phone/BlackBerry.

For moderators:

• Test the system before the call.
• Know how to turn over the meeting to another presenter and take it back.
• Have a Plan B in case a portion of the technology fails.

Effective Uses for a Virtual Business Presence

• Create a store or office in places like Second Life to supplement other marketing efforts. The best ones include a “receptionist” who greets newbies and guides them around.
• Leverage worldwide recruiting through an online job fair.
• Conduct virtual trade shows and conferences at which attendees hear speakers, interact with sales reps on the show floor and network in special lounge areas. While Virtualis in Second Life is the most extensive of these, Unisfair’s virtual trade show soon will come with additional social networking tools like blogs, and Facebook last year developed an application that lets users link Facebook and Second Life networks.
• Hold virtual meetings for internal staff through a virtual campus or use Second Life for short employee meetings.
   

Getting Started in Virtual Worlds

• The virtual meeting industry may be young and ever-changing, but there’s one thing for certain: You can’t break it, so you might as well use it. According to Forrester Research, Inc., Second Life doesn’t cost much to launch—unless you include the time employees might spend building the environment and designing avatars. A faster approach may be ready-made programs from companies like Forterra Systems, Sun Microsystems or Qwaq Forums. Forterra offers pre-built conference facilities and avatars; Sun’s Wonderland system is open source (allowing users to make changes a la Wikipedia); Qwaq offers subscription services.
• Before you dive in, be sure you know your objectives. If you don’t need avatars, choose another technology like Unisfair’s virtual conferencing to get you started. And if you do try the entire immersive experience, be sure to develop company guidelines for behavior and dress in virtual meeting environments similar to those that employees use in social environments.

Smart Resources
Below is a list of some virtual meeting options to get you started. A quick Google search of “virtual meetings” will clearly demonstrate how extensive the sector already is. Descriptions below provide a very brief overview of what each offers.

Video Conferences

• cisco.com/telepresence – immersive, interactive, high-definition video, high-quality audio
• hp.com/halo – life-size, high-res, surround sound; has about 100 studios; participants work face-to-face
• microsoft.com/uc/products/roundtable.mspx – includes 360-degree viewing of all participants on the conference calls
• polycom.com – telepresence and video conference, streaming, real-time or on-demand video
• lifesize.com – HDTV videoconferencing at costs below telepresence but using high-res video where people are life-sized

Web Conferences

• webex.com – conferencing and collaboration tools
• gotomeeting.com – collaborative, flat fee, no time limits
• gotowebinar.com – up to 1,000 participants
• office.microsoft.com/en-us/livemeeting – allows for internal and external attendees, larger audiences, collaboration

Webcasts

• conferencearchives.com – online education; record and rebroadcast conference sessions
• mapdigital.com – on-site registration, Internet kiosks, webcast stations for conventions
• DimDim.com – (open source) share voice/video with no downloads required
• MeetMeNow.com – separate applications for training, sales, event, meetings
• ON24.com – video streaming to webcasts, full event production

Virtual Reality

• unisfair.com – cross between options offered by WebEx, LinkedIn and Second Life—virtual meetings, trade shows, interactive conferences, seminars, expos, job fairs. Provides real-time interactivity and post-event analysis of what attendees did while visiting
• secondlife.com – MeCo Mansion, Virtualis—specialized islands within Second Life for the meetings industry; Virtualis is largest convention center in Second Life
• qwaq.com – provides virtual space; participants can see applications on screens/virtual walls together  and the space remains when meeting ends, so subsequent meetings can pick up where they left off