Virtually the Same? The Challenges of Online Conferences

I firmly believe nothing beats face-to-face contact when it comes to building and maintaining relationships. That’s why I’ve schlepped up to 18 miles in one day crisscrossing the unforgiving concrete of tradeshow floors. I’m committed to showing up in person at the booths of clients and friends to shake hands, catch up, and see smiles. I spend the money to fly in and set up our display because I know the value of being in the same physical space as the people who matter to me.

COVID-19 has taken that away from me. *Shakes fist at the sky* I SAY AGAIN, CURSE YOU, 2020.

Like everyone else on the planet, I’m turning increasingly to virtual solutions to our physical challenges in the midst of a pandemic. I give everyone credit for working to make the best of an unpredictable set of circumstances. I realize the impossibility of loading up a convention center with 10,000 surgeons and the people who want to sell them stuff. But I miss those gatherings.

For event planners, there are definite advantages. No food and beverage or room block minimum to meet, no travel arrangements for speakers, said Sean Fenske, editor-in-chief of MPO. The MPO Summit, originally scheduled for October 2020 in Salt Lake City, was postponed to September 2021. Instead, in 2020, the MPO Symposium was created as a virtual event with sessions twice a week from Oct. 20 through Nov. 17.

“When we said, ‘OK, we’re going to do a virtual event,’ we didn’t want to try and jam six educational sessions in one day then three more the next day,” he said. “There’s no reason to do it. So we have sessions every Tuesday and Thursday except Election Day. You register one time then pick and choose what you want to sign up for. That was a very conscious decision to not simply replicate [the originally planned Summit].”

Fenske said he was able to secure all of his first-choice speakers given the flexibility of the format. But there will likely be some challenges when it comes to online discussions.

“I don’t think a panel [of speakers] is as effective online. You’re not going to get that true discussion style unless you have a panel of three or four people comfortable with each other,” he said. “The information is valuable, but it’s just not as natural as you get with a face-to-face event.”

Angela Silvestri, director of Regulatory Affairs for Stryker, is a member of the Meeting Planning Committee for the Orthopaedic Surgical Manufacturers Association (OSMA). Meetings that have previously been gatherings of about 70 industry regulatory representatives and roughly 50 FDA reviewers in person have morphed into online discussions with more participants. 

“We’re getting more attendance at the virtual meetings, and that’s the positive thing,” Silvestri said. “We’re getting better at managing the virtual platform—sometimes there are technical issues. We are hiring a meeting producer to help us minimize technical issues.”

Feedback from the first two online meetings has helped OSMA refine its process and format to better fit the needs of attendees, she said, so they’re trying something new with each meeting. For the October event, OSMA is offering a mix of pre-recorded presentations followed by live question-and-answer sessions, breakout sessions, and smaller groups to encourage engagement. But it’s a challenge to offer the same experience attendees would have in person, she said.

“The benefit of this meeting is always the interaction—hearing from people about what’s working or what’s not,” Silvestri said. “Having the opportunity for regulatory people to meet with FDA reviewers, you can’t put a price on that in my mind. You’re in a more relaxed situation [in person], you get to know people. It creates for a better partnering going forward… We’ll see if the things we’ve done differently [for the October meeting] help to improve that.”

I understand online trade shows and conferences are the only viable option in the world we currently live in. But for my family of companies, being on a tradeshow floor is critical. The Empirical team attends shows first and foremost to meet other suppliers. Our goal is not to attend educational sessions so much as to get in front of hundreds, sometimes thousands of companies that may benefit from our range of services.

Chanda Chatham, marketing and communications director for Empirical, has a list of advantages and disadvantages we ponder before deciding to spend money to not go anywhere to be a part of a show.

“The best part—more of your sales people can attend and you’re saving on all the costs for travel and the headache of travel,” she said. “It’s really nice to not deal with that from an exhibitor standpoint. And we have digital access [to attendees]—I feel like that’s more direct and readily available.”

So rather than dividing a list of who on the team mans the booth while others hit specific sections of the floor, Chatham shares email contact lists with our sales team. They divvy up the list and start sending emails. It’s efficient in that we have a clear record of who we reach out to. But it’s not the same as looking someone in the eye.

“We’ve kinda lost control of how to grab someone’s attention—that in-person ability to talk to them and create that relationship,” Chatham said.

Although we can devote more team members to shows—including shows overseas—we also have to fight harder to get someone to look our way, she said. We can spend more on advertising to drive people to our virtual listing or include video in our “booth,” but again, it’s not the same as having someone in front of you.

“Now they can just click on something else and leave,” Chatham said. “They can leave in the middle of your video. They wouldn’t just walk away in the middle of a conversation. They can be in your virtual Zoom meeting and clock out. Attention grabbing, that’s a challenge. It’s a little harder to sell.”

That makes it hard to judge how much each event is worth. But like everyone else, we’re trying to make the best of a strange new world where we balance a public health crisis against professional, economic, and personal priorities. It’s uncharted territory. It’s at times awkward and uncomfortable.

And I miss my friends. We all do.

“There’s still email, there’s still chat, still Zoom calls,” Fenske said. “But it’s just not as natural. A lot of people are going to be happy to get out of their home office or basement. You miss seeing the familiar faces. There’s definitely that aspect.”

So until we can actually meet in person again, I’ll put on my headset, raise my tiny virtual hand to ask questions, and consider what upgrades to splurge on for my virtual booth. I’ll remind myself that we’re all doing the best we can, that each day gives us the chance to do it better. I’ll trust the keen minds and generous spirits in our industry will continue to innovate not just technology to benefit patients, but also ways to stay connected and move forward through this together. 

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Dawn Lissy is a biomedical engineer, entrepreneur, and innovator. Since 1998, the Empirical family of companies (Empirical Testing Corp., Empirical Consulting LLC, and Empirical Machine LLC) has operated under Lissy’s direction. Empirical offers the full range of regulatory and quality systems consulting, testing, small batch and prototype manufacturing, and validations services to bring a medical device to market. Empirical is very active within standards development organization ASTM International and has one of the widest scopes of test methods of any accredited independent lab in the United States. Because Lissy was a member of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Entrepreneur-in-Residence program, she has first-hand, in-depth knowledge of the regulatory landscape. Lissy holds an inventor patent for the Stackable Cage System for corpectomy and vertebrectomy. Her M.S. in biomedical engineering is from The University of Akron, Ohio.

For more information about Empirical Technologies Corp. visit www.EmpiricalTech.com