I’m hearing quite a buzz these days about the virtues of virtual meetings and some growing lament on the “end of live events as we know it (sigh).”  Before I join the official debate online, I’d like to share with you a story I heard from a friend that I believe cuts to the heart of the matter:

A teenage son sits in the living room with his teenage girlfriend in front of the TV. He pulls out his cell phone and thumbs blur as he types a message. His Mom, also in the room, thinks it may be time for a conversation about “how to keep a girlfriend,” beginning with, “don’t text someone else when you are in her company.”

Just as the young man finishes and looks up, his girlfriend’s phone buzzes. She picks it up and nonchalantly replies. Mere seconds later, the boyfriend’s phone buzzes.

“You,” the mother says, “are not texting each other!?”

But in fact they were.

Now, as you gauge your reaction to this with regard to your children, your friends, your colleagues; as you ponder the question this presents, the concerns it raises about our decreasing ability to relate to each other face-to-face, the increasing predominance of technology into every facet of our lives…also ponder this:

Are you considering holding your next corporate meeting in virtual space?

If you think it’s silly or sad or somewhere in between for two people to sit next to each other and text rather than talk, we agree.  And on that premise, we respectfully offer that meeting and event technologies are best used to enhance the personal experience, not replace it.  We’re humans and we crave human interaction.  And we’ll always get more out of the experience by actually “being there.”

Without live interaction, the life of the relationship goes cold.  Clearly no one aims for impersonal relationships with their clients, employees, executives, and shareholders.

Will technology play a bigger role in corporate meetings?  Yes.  And to be clear, virtual meetings have huge benefits for corporate planners, marketers, and audiences the world over.  But there is a right time and a right place for them in your overall event marketing strategy.  To think that virtual events can truly replace live events in terms of the experiences they provide, the opportunities they afford, is naïve – even an awkward teenager would probably agree.

This is a huge topic in the corporate meetings and events industry, worthy of a great deal of consideration and at least a couple of blogs.  So visit us here for more analysis and insight as we explore the pros and cons of face-to-face vs. cyberspace, (spoiler alert: I’m pretty partial to LIVE).  And a special shout out to friend and fellow blogger, Mike Hanbery (http://mikehanbery.blogspot.com/), for sharing his story.  Thanks Mike!