Weitere Beiträge zum Thema Virtual & hybrid

Alerts, warnings, press conferences—since last weekend, the Log4j vulnerability has been omnipresent and the situation is serious. Companies, in particular, must now take urgent measures to fend off potential hacker attacks. What does this mean for organizers and all the data stored and processed in connection with a conference?

Event organizers looking for software for their digital or hybrid scientific conference usually come across online tools that promise a first-class event experience quite quickly. However, very few solutions can actually meet the demands of a fully digital or hybrid scientific congress.

Event organizers have a timing problem—and it’s not the usual one about not having enough time to prepare for the conference. The rise of virtual conferences has introduced a whole new complication: participants are no longer in the same location and can theoretically log in from anywhere in the world. To ensure they actually do, the conference must take place at a time that works for all time zones. Is that even possible?

Virtual and non-virtual conferences may differ in a few points, but the goals that sponsors and exhibitors pursue by participating in an event are always the same: establishing contact with the target audience and engaging potential customers. To make this work, a change in thinking is necessary, because the familiar analog-style exhibitor booths are out of place in a virtual environment.

Virtual conference sessions have become a reality for many organizers. However, a conference is not yet complete in this format, as the social framework that turns an event into a communal experience and connects the individual program parts is still missing or, at the very least, has room for improvement.

Even though the sheer number of online formats currently available might suggest otherwise, webinars and virtual conferences are not the same thing. Organizers who fail to grasp this distinction contribute to a questionable revival of non-stop, one-way broadcasting—a fatal mistake for any conference.