From F2F to On-Line Conferences

As mentioned in an earlier post, and consistent with the theme that is emerging here, the down economy is forcing companies to make significant changes in order to reduce costs. Travel was the first expense category to be axed—and when travel gets cut, other changes are sure to quickly follow. One change that has recently been hastened is the shift from face-to-face (F2F) attendance at business meetings and industry conferences to on-line participation.

A recent industry survey of over 1,000 corporate managers found the following expectations about F2F meetings for 2009:

• 42% expect participation in physical trade shows to be down by as much as 50%
• 64% expect to have fewer physical sales kick off seminars - or none at all
• 60% expect training, management and other internal events to be down 20 - 50%.

As a result, over half said their companies had already begun conducting events on line and a significant portion of the rest said they were planning to do so to supplement their physical events in 2009.

In terms the downsides of substituting on-line for F2F meetings and conferences:

• 61% said they would miss seeing people in person
• 36% said they would miss enjoying the social activities
• And only 20% said they would miss seeing speakers in person.

Cost cutting aside people mentioned several aspects of virtual participation to be particularly appealing:

• 75% appreciated that there is no travel required
• 64% liked that they can attend the on-demand sessions on whenever convenient
• 58% found it useful to be able to "forward" to their colleagues on-demand sessions that they thought would be of interest to them.

Again, difficult times precipitate difficult decisions, but often those decisions actually exemplify needed changes to the underlying assumptions about how people and companies learn and work. In this case, the “no travel rule” is forcing companies to question the need for F2F participation in meetings.

This survey completely corroborates what we have heard and seen at Altus Learning Systems from our enterprise customers. And that is why they are turning more and more to Altus for live webcasting, searchable on-demand video, and on-line interactivity to supplement or replace F2F participation.