Hybrid/Mixed Events & Miro; what will future best practices be?
Hello All!
Miro has been a savior to our innovation consulting business. And Miro has evolved greatly over the past 15 months (thank you!). We’re now wondering what the world will look like as we get back to traveling to do workshops with clients, and have a couple of questions. We’re anticipating that we’ll be doing some workshops where people will be both in the room and remote at the same time.
How do you all anticipate managing this hybrid environment with Miro? (or how do you currently do it?) Typically we have people focus on each other, rather than on a laptop in front of them, adding sticky notes in Miro. In fact we discourage computer use during workshops, so that they can focus the ideas and energy in the room (we tend to scribe ideas). Would everyone just have their own input device or could we just capture on a central device?
If you’ve done workshops like this, what challenges have you come across and how have you resolved them?
If you are doing these hybrid workshops, how do you manage sound (i.e. how do the people on Zoom hear the people in the room, and vice versa)? It seems like it would require a reasonably sophisticated sound system. Not a deal-breaker, but just trying to figure it out.
Are you using Miro for fully in-person events? I’ve only used it for all-virtual workshops. Any best practices, pros/cons would be great.
We’d love your perspective! Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Great questions, @David Culton! Pre-pandemic, I used to work with teams who were geographically distributed, for example, some members in Singapore and others in the UK and elsewhere. Then, we’d have in-person workshops in Singapore with the UK team “watching in”. I always felt terrible for the team members joining in remotely.
Today, my principle is be inclusive. This is my advice for all my clients, and thankfully, they’ve all agreed with this setup. What it means is that, even if one person is joining in via a laptop, then everyone else must do so too. Regardless if it’s a party of 20 or 2000.
Also, a platform like Miro liberates everyone to participate in the process, equal tools, equal opportunity to participate. As facilitators, isn’t this fundamentally our goal?
Whether anyone will focus during such all-virtual session will depend on the design of the experience, the topic being discussed and the skills of the facilitator. People switch off during in-person workshop too if any of those pre-requisites are not met!
Also, I find participants are as engaged in my Miro-fuelled virtual workshops as they did in-person, if not more. If you know how to use Miro, you can engage, with or without voice.
For your last question….
This is a photo of my associates in Holland delivering one of my training programs last year. Innovative use of Miro in the classroom for social distancing purposes!
Thanks so much Isman! I very much appreciate your input and perspective.
@David Culton -
I’d agree with @Isman Tanuri that if the activities or exercises you would have done with the remote participants are engaging, there is nothing lost and a lot gained by having the in-person folks also engage in those exercises in the same manner. While we haven’t been able to do so yet thanks to our COVID restrictions, I do envision a time when our courses might be offered in either fully remote, fully in-person or hybrid modes which would necessitate this approach.
Kiron
I agree with both I @Isman Tanuri and @Kiron Bondale - they bring up some good points. Also, I find its important to consider the participants themselves and their comfort with technology and ‘thinking on their feet’. I want to make sure I make time for my introverts and people that may be keyboard challenged to be included. Setting silent brainstorming exercises, great onboarding practices to the tech, additional co-facilitators to get folks some one-on-one space to ask questions and help them get their contribution heard. Great questions @David Culton !
We use Miro in offline sessions nowadays too. We split up in smaller teams, going through the program. Each team sits at their teamtable and work on laptops. The live conversations take over the place of Zoom or MS Teams. At the same time we have a larger screen per team at the teamtable and one large screen in the room we use to explain the next step the participants will make.
Participants love this way of working, as they can proceed with their fieldwork remotely and continue working on the board. We have scheduled quite some projects in this hybrid way, and it makes it more efficient and more sustainable.
We use Miro in offline sessions nowadays too. We split up in smaller teams, going through the program. Each team sits at their teamtable and work on laptops. The live conversations take over the place of Zoom or MS Teams. At the same time we have a larger screen per team at the teamtable and one large screen in the room we use to explain the next step the participants will make.
Participants love this way of working, as they can proceed with their fieldwork remotely and continue working on the board. We have scheduled quite some projects in this hybrid way, and it makes it more efficient and more sustainable.
This is innovative, @Kees Froeling! A little clarity, are the groups in a single physical location too? Also, I assume this is a training/workshop situation?
I like the idea that when they actually meet together, like during the break or lunch, it will, hopefully, be focused more on the social aspects of collective, less of the ‘work stuff’.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful questions @David Culton. Happy to provide some insights below!
How do you anticipate managing this hybrid environment with Miro? (or how do you currently do it?) Many of our customers (and some of our distributed teams) leverage interactive displays with Miro in meeting spaces, which allow them to host engaging and inclusive hybrid meetings. This way, everyone feels part of the meeting, no matter if they are in person or joining remotely. Participants can collaborate together on one screen, on a single board - everyone is seeing the same information in real time, without the distraction of personal devices. One of the challenges with workshops like this, is that sometimes one device is not sufficient for large groups. In this case, we recommend everyone use a personal device (mobile phone, tablet, or laptop) to join the meeting and contribute on the board individually. Learn more about using Miro on interactive displays here.
If you’ve done workshops like this, what challenges have you come across and how have you resolved them? If you are doing these hybrid workshops, how do you manage sound (i.e. how do the people on Zoom hear the people in the room, and vice versa)?
Within our Miro teams, when working with a large interactive display and a video conferencing system, there have been no real issues with sound or video, as long as the device is set up in a central location where everyone who is in the room or joining remote can be seen and heard. We recommend using high quality video and microphone systems to ensure the most optimal for both types of participants.
Are you using Miro for fully in-person events?
We haven’t used Miro for in person events yet (only virtual settings), but this is something our teams are going to start thinking about as we prepare for hybrid/IRL events!
Thanks to everyone who commented already in this thread (it’s not my thread, I just like the replies). I discuss using Miro during interactive hybrid sessions in a just-released free book, Hybrid LIve Guide:
I cite Miro’s Hybrid Collaboration Field Guide many times in the book with a specific example of using Miro on pages 108 and 109:
There are times when all participants will benefit from collaborating on the same virtual tools. In our effort to create equality, have all hybrid participants use the same exact tool. Beyond equality is functionality and collaboration, both of which are supported when groups use the same virtual tools. Miro is my go-to virtual whiteboard. Getting both in-person and virtual participants on Miro allows them to contribute to the same activities in the same ways and even be in the same teams. The in-person participants don’t need to be on a virtual meeting platform either, just Miro.
Pre-session, I set up a Miro board designed to walk participants through an innovation process including stages on identifying problems and brainstorming possible solutions.
During the session, the in-person participants connect to Miro through their browser or Miro’s app. Some use laptops. Some use tablets. Until this point in the session, the in-person participants never needed to connect to anything. The virtual participants connect to the same Miro board using their own devices, which they were already using to connect through Zoom. When I ask everyone to contribute their clients’ possible pain points and frustrations, everyone uses virtual sticky notes and writes their ideas. The notes start appearing in the same box I created for this activity. There is no differentiation between ideas posted by in-person and virtual participants. Sure, if they have logged into Miro, their name might appear, but that doesn’t affect the idea itself. As I call out specific ideas from the board, the contributor speaks to the entire group regardless of their location.
Post-session, I keep the board accessible for a few weeks so participants can revisit their work and progress. I often design additional post-session activities for further self-development and/or group activities. Because Miro allows a variety of files directly on the board, PDFs, slides, videos, and other resources are easily hosted in the link everyone already has.
