Stop Living in Limbo and Start Planning Your 2021 Events
Living with uncertainty about your association, job, career, finances, personal life, health, kids, and loved ones is exhausting. It’s no surprise a study revealed that psychological distress has tripled in 2020 compared with 2018.
Everyone is stressed because humans are wired to avoid uncertainty as a matter of survival. Our technology has made us even less equipped to deal with uncertainty: we can Google something, ask Alexa or check the historical data. But Google, Alexa and historical data don’t have answers for you now. You’re in new territory.
You Can’t Continue to Wait and See
Despite this pervasive uncertainty, your association must move forward, no matter how uncomfortable it is. You can’t eliminate all risks. You can’t wait to see how things turn out. You must be courageous enough to make the decision to take mission-critical risks in the midst of uncertainty.
If you’re tempted to wait and see, you’ll be waiting a long time. Recent data-modeling shows the best case scenario for “getting back to normal” is August to October 2021. By then enough of the population will have been vaccinated or exposed to COVID-19 so theoretically they’re immune. Dr. Anthony Fauci said “we could approach herd immunity by summer’s end and ‘normality that is close to where we were before’ by the end of 2021.”
The hope of hosting an in-person conference in the fall of 2021 is based on many assumptions:
- Enough people will be vaccinated.
- Attendees will be willing and able to travel.
- Attendees can afford to travel or employers will pay for their travel and time off.
- Attendees won’t have other responsibilities keeping them at home.
Why wait for the end of 2021 when you can deliver a memorable and meaningful virtual conference experience to members well before then?
The Dream of Getting Back to Normal Is Holding Your Association Back
You can’t defer your mission and ignore unmet member needs while you wait for the world to get back to normal. Joy S. Davis, CAE, managing director of member products for the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, said,
“I need to operate now and look forward, not try to claw may way back to ‘normal.’ The ‘normal’ we know is history. And I have to ask, do we really want to repeat it? We should not, even if we think we can.”
We’ve seen associations make conference decisions based on fear of change. “It won’t be the same,” they said. No, it won’t, it will be different, and that’s fine.
Some associations shut down psychologically in the face of change and uncertainty, and didn’t offer any kind of virtual conference. Or they decided to replicate their old conference with long days of one Zoom presentation after another without any opportunities for interactive social learning or discussions.
Many associations decided not to offer their revenue partners an opportunity to exhibit because they heard it can’t be done well. We’ve seen it done well by associations using The Echo but it takes creativity and effort on the part of the association and its exhibitors. Don’t limit yourself to what you’ve always done. Take advantage of this upheaval to try out new approaches to sponsorship and exhibiting.
You can’t wait for things to get back to normal. Joy Davis said, “Going backward has never, ever been a good business strategy. Why are we all sitting around talking about how much we want to go backward, as if that’s an option? You cannot find your way forward if you are constantly looking backward. Or waiting for things to go back to normal.”
Use This Crisis as an Opportunity to Fulfill Your Mission and Deliver Value in New Ways
There is no better time to experiment than during a crisis. Explore new approaches for achieving your strategic goals, helping attendees achieve their career and professional development goals, and supporting your revenue partners in achieving their marketing goals.
Joy said, “An obsession with what the world once looked like and getting back to that will also keep you from seeing what it could look like, and what you can do about that right now.”
Don’t abandon your members when they most need you. Find new virtual ways to deliver value—education, community and conversations—to them.
Reinvent How You Achieve Your Mission
Joy said,
“We never lost sight of the fact that our mission is not to have an in-person meeting—it is to bring scientists together. That’s our actual job, and we’re doing it… We are doing something important for the scientific community. That’s what we can control, and we’re taking full advantage of it.”
We’ve seen many associations host successful virtual conferences. They didn’t try to replicate their in-person conference. They understood that participating in a conference from home is very different than traveling to a conference. They took advantage of the opportunity to reinvent the learning and networking experience for their virtual audience.
As a result, these associations extended their market reach with double and triple the usual attendance. They had access to a wider range of speakers. They provided opportunities for all kinds of attendee conversations.
And they made more money. They reinvented sponsorship and exhibiting by providing opportunities for revenue partners to meet with attendees beyond the booth, and to teach, not just sell.
Resist the urge to think “but we’ve always done it that way.” Joy said, “You shouldn’t go back to doing things the way you did them before. If you do that, then you didn’t learn anything. That’s dangerous, because right now your partners are learning how much data they can get from online engagements, and your members are learning how to network online with intentionality.”
There’s no going back. Standing in place is dangerous. The world moves on. The competitors for your members and attendees’ attention and wallet are moving on and will take your members and attendees with them.
Resist the magical thinking that if you can just hold out long enough, everything will be okay. Pining for the past won’t help, it just limits your vision. In uncertain times, stay focused on your mission and explore new ways to deliver on that mission.