I have been considered a live online training enthusiast since March. Yes, it is true—I have conducted nearly one hundred live online training sessions in the past seven months. We have built a studio that enables us to deliver truly excellent interactive training. And I can say these are not a stopgap solution, but an absolutely enriching expansion of our training portfolio. And the posts I have observed in recent weeks on the topic of “Great, we’re conducting in-person training, workshops, or seminars again” confirm the article I posted back in June. Many of these images look like they are from the 1990s.
I must unfortunately say, even at the risk of making myself unpopular: This type of event will not be missed. And it is downright absurd when gifted in-person trainers are forced to practice Stone Age pedagogy under COVID restrictions.
Now in-person training is once again completely off the table. In the past two weeks, everything that was planned for November and December in person has been canceled. Although canceled is the wrong word: We are converting it to live online training. And I must complain a bit, because I repeatedly asked many of these clients: Are you sure it will actually take place in person? The principle of hope has cost a lot of money in many cases, as hotels had to be canceled. And this is not always free of charge. Honestly, I can understand the hotels here as well: Cancellation fees are currently their only source of income.
Long story short: Hoping for in-person training makes no sense for the next six months. More and more companies are deciding to switch to an online-only strategy. In-person training, seminars, and workshops are no longer being planned at all. This is a drastic change, a true disruption. Because if a company has not held a single in-person training session for a year or longer, it is clear: Structures have solidified here.
In-Person Training Is a Dying Model
In-person training will be an important format from 2022 onward, but no longer the standard. In some companies, it will even be an exception. All stakeholders within the Learning & Development community must prepare for this. A drastic change.
This means:
- We all need to become truly proficient live online trainers.
- We need the necessary setup for this: technically and methodologically. The requirements will continue to grow. As always, it is the American super trainers who are leading the way, for example Tony Robbins. Take a look at what he does online. And there are already some German colleagues with questionable reputations who can nevertheless serve as technical role models.
- We must completely redesign our training concepts. An in-person training cannot simply be transferred one-to-one to live online. The schedules change. Two eight-hour sessions make no sense. Some exercises do not work, while others work better. In short: Every training program needs to be redesigned.
This is exactly what is happening in some companies right now. For freelance trainers or agencies, this means: We must also be compensated for redesign work. Some clients still lack understanding in this regard.
New Roles Are Needed
My credo since March: We need a new role for live online training, seminars, courses, and workshops—namely the technical moderator. One person alone cannot handle this. The more interactive the event, the more overwhelmed a single person becomes. We need a second participant who monitors the tool, divides the groups, solves technical problems, introduces certain tools, ensures in advance that participants are invited to the client’s tenant in Microsoft Teams, for example, etc. And here it is essential that we all actively promote this new role.
This is not even about revenue, because as an agency, I am already happy if I can find good technical moderators. I do not want to profit from it. The point is that everyone, especially in companies, understands this necessity. No one is capable of multitasking, not even trainers. And when we try to control the tool, our technical studio setup, and the training itself simultaneously, we overwhelm our brains.
If the client does not pay for what is actually necessary, you end up with perhaps perfectly planned but rather less interactive and by no means flexible live online experiences. And no one has an interest in that—neither the participants, nor the trainers, nor the client. Actually, we all have the same interests here—we just do not know it yet.
Live Goes Online—Successfully Conducting Meetings, Presentations, and Seminars Online
Live Goes Online: Anyone who thinks the V in this title is wrong and should be replaced with an F is not entirely mistaken, because ultimately our entire life is also taking place online. Live Goes Online is about live communication in conversations, meetings, presentations, and conferences, which initially due to COVID, but now also for practical reasons, is increasingly taking place online.
Albrecht Kresse and Jannis Herzog have compiled their experiences from the past six months in a practical guide that shows us all how live online communication works.
- How do I present myself professionally online?
- How do good live online meetings work, regardless of which tool I am currently using?
- How can I improve my own online communication skills?
- How do I present my content in online meetings professionally, convincingly, and technically flawlessly?
- And how is our working world changing through the shift from phone calls and in-person meetings to the virtual space?
This is what the book “Live Goes Online” is about, aimed at everyone who, since March 2020 at the latest, has been navigating the live online communication world more frequently or even daily in their professional life.
