Bill Kutik, the organizer of the HR Technology Conference, recently wrote about VIEW, an HR virtual online conference and trade show that debuted on Dec. 12 and 13.
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.
Id suggest that we’re a long way from eliminating the face to face HR conference. There are a couple of major factors that drive people there that might be too hard to get online.
- Quality networking. Real quality networking that yields long term relationships with people you will call “all the time” can only be had meeting someone face to face and getting a real connection. This may not be as true for younger generations, and of course I recognize the fact that people are getting married after getting to know each other on the web for 6 months before meeting. However, it’s still more likely that you’re going to call someone and ask them how they deal with ABC if you’ve met them and had a discussion getting to know each other. IM for 5 minutes just doesn’t cut it.
- Free gifts. This might sound really stupid, and I’ll first admit that I don’t take any stuff from vendors just because I usually can’t get anything else into by luggage. However, people love tradeshows in part because they get to walk around from booth to booth and get the free stuff. Then the vendors get to talk to people, and get leads. Honestly, if all you’re doing on-line is clicking on a link with a flash presentation, that is something you could do at home. There is just no incentive to bring buyers into the vendor space.
Perhaps I’m showing some signs of old-fashionedness, but bringing people physically together is still important. While I’d personally rather not spend the money or the time going somewhere, the time spent once there with people is usually pretty good.
One response to “Is the Online HR Conference the Future?”
brent@wowtechminute.com (Bill Cullifer and Brent Norris)wrote an interesting post today on Here’s a quick excerpt Bill Kutik, the organizer of the HR Technology Conference, recently wrote about VIEW, an HR virtual online conference and trade show that debuted on Dec. 12 and 13. Registration was easy,
DD & BK
Great subject.
What about a blended approach? Could a human capital conference do both at the same event? Part offline / part online. My thinking is that some people would love to attend certain parts of a virtual show and some parts of the offline show are still important. So, why not do both?
Personally, I’d love to see someone try it.
J. William Tincup
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