09 Feb “wonder” – a corporate virtual platform or a networking space for social interaction?
by now we are all well versed in the world of virtual; 2020 forcing us all to think differently and interact with each other online both at work and at home. this has been particularly prevalent in the events world and at sevenevents we’ve been working hard to provide the best possible solution for our clients.
after launching hub7, our own platform and streaming service for online events, we now regularly provide a tailor made solution for our customers, but still ensure that we continue to strive to keep on top of every option in the market.
one of the regular questions we are asked is how to encourage attendees to talk and network during their coffee breaks, lunch breaks and post event drinks, without being forced into another awkward zoom call but on a more dynamic and natural level, as in a face to face event.
virtual space “wonder” is currently something being talked about heavily in the events world, an online space where attendees can log in with just a couple of clicks and end up in a room with the other attendees, appearing as an avatar. they can move their avatar around the room, towards (or not!) other guests and once they get close enough are able to start a video or chat with either one or a group of people closest.
it’s simple and mimics a conference networking space where delegates would move around on a natural basis.
as the organiser you can design your space as you wish and set up different areas of the room, rooms within your room or simply call them a title based on what the guests might be interested in.
at any point the organiser can broadcast to either all or a group of attendees with the option of sharing screen, and it’s all browser based, so no downloads required.
on top of all this, it’s free! what is there not to like?
it sounds like a no brainer, the perfect solution to what we’ve been waiting for, however we all know that nothing really comes for free.
whilst testing this out internally within our team, we’ve found there were numerous glitches, sometimes we could log in, sometimes we couldn’t with the browser freezing and some of us unable to get into the room, no matter how hard we tried!
when moving around in the platform, and navigating closer to other team members, in our video chat we found only some of us could see others or hear what each other were saying.
when i forgot my password to my room, which was associated with my email, i clicked on the reset password button several times and never received a reset email. plus there was no way of contacting the owners, but i guess if it’s free why would they offer this service?!
it’s a fun, creative, dynamic and in theory a fantastic solution to what we need – however offering a solution to our clients that only works 50 percent of the time, just isn’t the way we work here at sevenevents.
conclusion… perfect for social networking with friends and family, and something different adding an extra layer to the regular zoom or facetime catch up.
we’ve not yet heard of anything similar on the market that would fit for our corporate events.. have you?!
contact us at info@sevenevents.co.uk if you have, or if you are ready to run your own virtual event, we can do that too!