When the world went into lockdown, our industry faced a tidal wave of change, shifting from the familiarity of physical spaces to the uncharted waters of virtual events. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Heidi and John, the trailblazing 'room parents' from the Age of Conversation Summit, to relive our collective leap into the digital realm. We swap stories of early Zoom fumbles and unexpected triumphs, embracing each twist in the road with a spirit of camaraderie. Heidi, who never imagined a career in conference planning, reveals the pivotal moments that reshaped her professional journey, and together we toast to the indomitable spirit that sparked drive-by parties and tech-powered togetherness.
Fast forward to today, where webinars are the new front-runners, serving as tantalizing appetizers or reflective postscripts to live events, while the anticipated surge in hybrid events has simmered down. My own adventure with Club EG, fueled by dreams of Croatian coastlines and the pioneering work of Liz and Nicole, underscores how personal landmarks can weave into the fabric of our professional lives. Their inventive approaches to events—like merging nuptials with networking—have not only redefined industry norms but also deepened the bonds within our network. Tune in for an exploration of how past lessons continue to illuminate our paths and why embracing innovation is the heartbeat of event planning's future.
When the world went into lockdown, our industry faced a tidal wave of change, shifting from the familiarity of physical spaces to the uncharted waters of virtual events. I had the pleasure of sitting down with Heidi and John, the trailblazing 'room parents' from the Age of Conversation Summit, to relive our collective leap into the digital realm. We swap stories of early Zoom fumbles and unexpected triumphs, embracing each twist in the road with a spirit of camaraderie. Heidi, who never imagined a career in conference planning, reveals the pivotal moments that reshaped her professional journey, and together we toast to the indomitable spirit that sparked drive-by parties and tech-powered togetherness.
Fast forward to today, where webinars are the new front-runners, serving as tantalizing appetizers or reflective postscripts to live events, while the anticipated surge in hybrid events has simmered down. My own adventure with Club EG, fueled by dreams of Croatian coastlines and the pioneering work of Liz and Nicole, underscores how personal landmarks can weave into the fabric of our professional lives. Their inventive approaches to events—like merging nuptials with networking—have not only redefined industry norms but also deepened the bonds within our network. Tune in for an exploration of how past lessons continue to illuminate our paths and why embracing innovation is the heartbeat of event planning's future.
Speaker 1:
We decided that there was a lot of virtual event knowledge that didn't exist yet and we just how do you start learning about virtual events if you've never been in virtual events? But the whole world is virtual events? So we created the world's first virtual event, created by an entire team of in-person event professionals who hadn't had expertise in virtual programs. We called it the age of conversation summit and I think we ended up with over 500 people being a part of the age of conversation summit, where we were learning about live streaming. We were learning about Zoom. We found a new platform that was called Kiko Chat. We have the team. We brought in 10 event professionals to help each other and learn and grow. So many things have happened since that age of conversation summit. So we brought back three of who we like to call our room parents, who were the moms and dads of the age of conversation summit in those Zoom rooms, to tell us what's happened in their lives and what's changed. Heidi and John, welcome back. I'm turning it over to you. Over to you.
Speaker 2:
Awesome.
Speaker 3:
Hey everybody. Hi Hi, we're so glad to be here so that we can tell you about the wonderful experiences we have had with Liz and Nicole. With the age of conversation, heidi, do you want to kick it off about, like kind of about the process and how it impacted you?
Speaker 2:
Oh sure, Just throw it at me. So I actually joined the age of conversation like probably two or three weeks before we went on. John brought me in John and I took a virtual event production class through a class.
Speaker 4:
National leadership national event program.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, with brand, with brand, it was awesome. So it was the first class. He was filming it like a day before they would go live with the broadcast, so, but then you needed to put it into practice. So John's like we need help, come come. So somehow I got promoted to like the keynote room. That was me, I did that and part of that was we're taking it so seriously.
Speaker 2:
Part of it was like you had to go and meet with all the speakers to make sure they knew how to use. You know all this new equipment that no one knew how to use, and the joke was I was like working with the top people in the country. Liz brought in listen to call, managed to bring in like rock stars to help us, so they were teaching me more than I was teaching anything, but it was. It was fun. John, what do you remember from that? That was like your favorite.
Speaker 4:
Well, first, you know it was great, liz brought me in and Liz and I go way back, you know, to pre COVID days, so it was really nice that she invited me to participate and obviously bringing you in and all that. But what I really remember the most is is how much fun we were having trying to learn all this going into these, into these rooms and using a white board and being able to move things around and learning these new apps that many of us had no idea that even existed, but we're all developed during the that time. We will not discuss. So it was really kind of fun because and then we got to meet great people like and and some of the other room parents that we met that we can we stay connected with. So what's really nice is that we're still connected and we still contact one another when we need help or if we have questions or things like that. So I really felt that that it was really good to work with everybody. We got to bond. We had a great experience Right.
Speaker 3:
I think one of the things about it that made it so special is that none of us knew what we were really doing, even if we had taken the class like we hadn't put it into practice, like Heidi said, but we were given the opportunity to experiment and to fail and listen to cool. Don't do anything like straightforward. Everything has to be innovative and special. So we put it all out online so you could come to our meetings and see as we were like trying to workshop through things. You could come to our zoom practices and watch all the messes going on there and people like losing their internet connection because the whole world was on internet at the same time and you, you could like we just pulled back the curtain is what I think we kept saying so that, like anyone who was participating or not could like see the mess and the magic and the the bonds that we were like making, because everything was super creative, it wasn't run of the mill.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, I really like that too, because you know both listen to coal or idea creators or idea generators, and so there's no such thing as a bad idea when you work with them. And so we're all throwing ideas out, we're all having discussions and they're like great, great, and then they would just keep digging deeper until we really came up with something pretty cool and pretty fun.
Speaker 2:
That was where I learned put your hands up in the frame so you're not just a box with a face. So and I took it another step further I'm not even in my desk chair today, so you know, because we're all working from home sitting behind a desk. It's this is my favorite moment, for me and my friend were from our program and subscribe to our channel and there's a chance to do it in person soon the year. But a year ago because we picked up a con, we we made it through the pandemic, my firm I own a firm in Baltimore, maryland, called Innovative Party Planners and we were innovative during the pandemic. We went virtual thanks to Liz and Nicole and John and all the classes and sticking together and we three of us even worked other events together.
Speaker 2:
After that, the we started doing like drive by parties when they said you can be in person together but no more than 15 minutes. We started experimenting with those and then you know, get the vaccine helped and you know eventually, and that were 100% live events again. But for me, the difference is I really wasn't a conference or a meeting planner prior to the thing that shall not be named, and now I do conferences, because it's actually a lot like the back channeling of virtual events, except you're together so it's really easier. But the run a show and all the same you know scripting and all the things that we learned that we had to do because we were working in our own space and had to communicate with all these other tools are so useful for the meeting industry, so that was kind of cool for me.
Speaker 4:
And I have to say too that I think a lot of the virtual events has sort of merged into webinars, even though it's not a live virtual event. But it's because what we're seeing is there's a lot of webinars that kind of lead up to the actual in person event to help talk about it, help promote it, and then also a lot of events that I'm working on, there is a online component. It's not live, but it. We record some of the sessions and a few weeks later they're up on the website so people can go back and view them. So it's kind of morphed a little bit and I think that's good. It's nice to be back in person.
Speaker 2:
So I have a question Are you doing hybrid events? There was such a big talk, as we were year into the thing, that we were gonna come back out of it and it was gonna always be hybrid.
Speaker 4:
No, I mean not in the true sense of what we thought hybrid would be and, like I said, I mean we record sessions and they go on the website for later, so they're not live or we're doing a webinar that is again sort of like a virtual event, except it's just a few people speaking and not everybody participating.
Speaker 2:
Kind of like this yeah, exactly Because we have no idea who's out there.
Speaker 3:
I think the budgets for hybrid have. Like, really most of my clients are associations and it's just not. The cost is not. Like you're, two of us and it's too static and people have moved on. It doesn't keep up the momentum at all. Heidi, I heard you join Club EG today.
Speaker 2:
I did join Club EG today, you know why I really wanna go to Croatia. That's where my mom was from.
Speaker 4:
Uh-huh, I've been there.
Speaker 3:
It's nice.
Speaker 2:
Well, I feel like that might be part of it, but there's at least too much room and I wanna be able to get on that trip, first steps.
Speaker 1:
So but I mean, jonathan, can you hear me yeah?
Speaker 3:
Jonathan, yes.
Speaker 4:
Was there a?
Speaker 2:
question no, we can't hear you. There was a question.
Speaker 4:
Oh.
Speaker 1:
No, sorry about that. I think that we've got a back of house mix up here. You guys keep going, and Denise and Kiam, we're gonna chat with you momentarily.
Speaker 4:
Okay, okay, good. So I just think that that, you know, the experience itself really kind of helped us all jumpstart our careers. Obviously, the situation that happened stopped everything pretty quick and pretty hard, but the friendships, the knowledge, the information that we gained by working with Liz.
Speaker 1:
Is this on the right link?
Speaker 4:
Nicole really made a lot of sense, yeah.
Speaker 3:
Cause you're not gonna get the information and the experiences elsewhere that Liz and Nicole provide.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. And you saw those them on LinkedIn Every post.
Speaker 3:
Who's changed their business practices? Because some of their posts everyone. Raise your hand Right, right.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, yeah, they're rock stars. It was so cool. So, Ann and I got to meet well. You so, John. You knew Liz before, I didn't. Yes, and Ann, what about?
Speaker 3:
you, I had signed up for one of their first unconferences but I wasn't able to go and I just really, really wanted to get in on that secret family reunion for years there was a great one.
Speaker 4:
she did in New York City, where there was an actual wedding as part of the event. It was great. We had the one conference, we came up with great ideas and then at lunch somebody got married.