Thread by @NativeWired

Lean Agile Global #lag20 has been the first virtual conference for me.

Despite good speakers and good setup it has been quite draining for me.

I have not had energy to be social (yes it is me we are talking about) and I have had to skip several talks as well.

I liked the idea of Sococo as a virtual space where one could meet others, but that became very overwhelming for me as soon as there were more than a few people in the room. As far as I can tell, it worked really well for others.

The slack channel I did not use at all.

I liked the schedule with links to all the zoom sessions - that made it easier to get to the talks. I would have prefered that the descriptions and links were in the same document.

The talks had a producer talking care of tech and polls etc, and that worked really well.

Many of the speakers had made an effort to make it more interactive using different techniques.
Polls, mentii, breakout rooms, contributing in chats.

Polls, mentii, and chat felt like I could opt-in if I wanted, while breakout felt more like thinks I was obliged to do.

I am often fond of interactions with audience, but I found that I did not have much energy for most of it. The polls and mentii yes. And sometimes contributing in chats.

The breakout rooms mostly did not work for me due to lack of energy. Maybe because they felt like a surprise?

Normally I expect talks to be more or less one way and workshops to be interactive. In this case I found that many talks were too interactive for me.

And I only recall one speaker explicitly saying "it is okay to opt out"

I am thinking that part of my struggle was being remote.

I watched great talks and was glad I participated.

But I got nowhere near as much out of this as I do a normal conference. And this was a well run virtual conference.

I will need to consider if conferencing is for me if it is virtual or if the cost is more than the value I get

Not many conferences pay speakers and some only keynotes.

I choose actively which ones I speak at and a big part of that has been what I get out of it besides hearing other speakers. Travelling to different places, meeting interesting people, corridor talks.

If I don't get all the "side" things from conferences, I am not sure that they are for me...
I will need to ponder that.

I want my real conferences back...