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Re: Hybrid Setups


 

This is a stellar thread!

I'll add to the points about in-person/remote pairing and remote participants' representation, as I think it could be easy to get stuck in the technology and simple mechanics - which are essential but not sufficient.

I wrote a listicle in 2019 about . This needs updating for the new world of work, but some points are still worth putting on your list. For example:
6. Name and empower an in-room advocate: As much as you design for remote inclusivity, it will still be challenging for a virtual participant to naturally interrupt, ask a question, make a suggestion. It may also be tough for them to get the attention of you, the facilitator, as you have so much going on! Unlike completely virtual collaboration, you are not sitting in front of your computer, so you may not be seeing the confused faces or text chats of remote participants. Name someone in the room who will be in charge of advocating for remote participants, and assign them specific advocacy duties. These duties could include items such as ensuring that they have access to all presentations and handouts, reading aloud from the text chats, and requesting that the facilitator call on a remote participant who wants to speak to the group.

I'm eager to read more suggestions!

Sarah

Facilitator, Trainer, Coach, Learner?
(Virtual & In-Person)??|??
Ed.M.,?Learning?&?Teaching?Program |?Harvard Graduate School of Education
Associate Certified Coach (ACC) |
Learning Travel Blogger ? | ??
@sfnehrling


On Fri, Mar 4, 2022 at 11:00 AM Eva Schiffer <eva-schiffer@...> wrote:
Hi Alwin,
I planned one interactive hybrid event (that was moved fully online a day before the event because of COVID exposure of the whole facilitation team, but that's a different story). In our planning we had a strong discipline to only include things that everyone could do, i.e. no paper post-its in the room, but rather access to online whiteboards (in our case jamboards) for everyone.

In our minds we set this up as a large zoom call where some people were in a room together - instead of setting it up as a face-to-face meeting where some people called in.

We had booked a room 3 times the size we would normally use and would have had small groups huddled around laptops for breakout groups. I was surprised how decent the noise cancelling was, so small groups could actually have a conversation, with, e.g. three people huddling in the room and three people on the zoom screen, each typing on the same jamboard.

The aspect of this that took the most choreography and practice was switching from large room audio (with hand held microphones and room speakers projecting sound) to small group audio (room audio off, laptop audio on). Also, we had one of our facilitators to be online, while the other was in the room.

One big insight from planning and nearly executing this: You need far more tech support than in a face-to-face or online only meeting. And practice transitions until you are like a well organized ballet.?
All the best,
Eva

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