Community webinar learnings

The below learnings initially come from the Community Working Group-organised webinars (post-event reviews and participant feedback). Other groups organising community events are more than welcome to use and / or contribute!

Things that people appreciate based on positive feedback:

• Careful choice of panellists / speakers
  • Diverse / different perspectives
  • Inspiring / Engaging speakers / stories

• Interactive formats (eg Q&A) instead of long presentations
• Encouraging enthusiastic audience participation: A+
• Critical dialogue relevant and accessible to both practitioners and academics
• Collaborative note taking
• Time zone considerations (webinar mini-series covering multiple timezones)
• High participants / attendance (investment of time and energy in promotion / communications)
• Diverse participants / attendance (investment of time and energy in promotion / communications)
• Co-creation of event by crowdsourcing topics and questions in advance
• Simultaneous livestream to youtube (or other platforms) solves capacity issues and increases accessibility
• Use of polls to make groupd decisions during events (for example to extend the discussion time)
• Experienced and well-prepared chairs (chairing is a skill and makes a big difference)
• Breakout rooms / sessions (optional) following main event facilitating deep dives and increased participation
• Clear responsibility for technical support and back channels for organisers to collaborate during the event
• If the topic is interesting, make space for people to follow up / continue the conversation

Things we could do better in the future based on negative feedback:

• Breakout rooms not clearly signposted for participants
• Unclear how to follow-up with people/group asynchronously (follow-up questions, conversations…)
• Didn’t have feedback form ready AGAIN! Needs to be ready for sharing at the event.
• Not quick enough to thank the panellists and chairs.
• Failed to cross-promote other opportunities / events related to the working group that organised the webinar.

Things we should consider trying in the future:

• Sessions in other languages
• Poster/promotional materials include live language availability during the sessions (through the use of Microsoft Translator, Zoom Language Interpreter, etc)
• Add a 'Host' as well as a chair / moderator (to handle aspects like intros, feedback, cross-promotion, timings, etc)
• Longer sessions for panel discussion (to allow more conversation)