It’s OK Not to Understand, But Don’t Stay There

I turned 50 at my last birthday. Yep. I said it. I say that to give you context for my technology savvy (or absence of it). I am a genius with a spreadsheet and a list of details. I can scan a contract and an event BEO (banquet event order) with my eyes closed. I can email, troubleshoot basic computer stuff, work my iPhone, and am on Facebook. I volunteer as a weekend service producer at my church so I can hold my own in a production, but I can barely handle Instagram and still can’t figure out how Twitter works.

If you’ve read my previous blogs, you know I work with a team of people who had to transition a large, annual, in-person conference to an online experience. Normally we have a year to plan an in-person event. It’s annual. It happens every January. By the time we made the decision to transition to online, we had just over four months to plan. Needless to say, things had to move quickly.

The first decision that had to be made quickly was which online provider to work with. There are many, many, many providers to choose from. I half joke about my research experience in my blog “5 Time-Saving Tidbits When Researching Online Platform Providers.” You should check it out. What I quickly discovered is that the online platform world speaks a language all of their own.

As a seasoned Certified Meeting Professional (CMP), I am used to being around technology. Stage and production technology. It’s different. At the beginning of the online transition, I did a little internet searching so I had a basic understanding of what I was looking for in an online platform provider. What I realized in the first few conversations is that I was a technology foreigner. I was living and working in a country COMPLETELY unknown to me. I had my work cut out for me.

One thing I have learned over time is that it’s ok not to understand things at first. But shame on you if you whine about it and do nothing. I took copious notes. I asked the providers to explain terminology to me. I asked them to explain what the differences were between the various features and options they were showing me. I sought out friends who knew more about this than I did and asked them to clarify for me why one direction would be better for our event than another. I created a “glossary” for myself and a spreadsheet so I could see the different platforms side-by-side to compare them as equally as possible. For those platforms I had met with early on, I even rescheduled demos once my knowledge had expanded and I realized I had not asked the right questions or missed the opportunity to gain the information needed to make an informed decision.

Don’t let pride or embarrassment hinder your opportunity to learn something new. It is ok to ask questions. I personally think in questions, I always have. Be sure you take the time to gain a full understanding of something especially if it is related to a large financial responsibility like choosing the online platform provider for your non-profit organization’s event.

Have you had to learn a new subject matter during these post-2020 months? I’d love to hear what you did to gain understanding. Email me or comment below.

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ps…..Quick afterthought to this post….One of the terminology issues that I struggled with was around how content was delivered to the registrant. It’s not as straightforward as you may think. Let me share with you what I learned.

A live broadcast is a combination of live-hosting (with a host or emcee) and recorded video content combined into one experience. However, the entire thing can be recorded and “seemingly” broadcasted live. This would be a simulated live experience. Live streaming, however, is an almost real-time stream of content from one location to the audience. Pre-recorded video content is a library where the registrant can watch a video at their leisure by accessing the content anytime. This is also called video-on-demand but can also be pay-per-view.

I hope this clears things up.