The discussion was led by Alexis Morin, Montreal Co-chair. The guests were Nicole Tanska and Eric Oosenbrug, Social Events Co-Directors.
Nicole Tanska, an interaction designer based in Brooklyn, New York. I’m one of two co-directors planning social events for Interaction 21. This year won’t be like any other, and we think you’ll be pretty excited by what we’re planning.
Eric, an experience researcher I’m based in Kitchener in Ontario, Canada, I’m the other co director and, yeah, let’s get started.
Interaction 21 is a fully online event but there’s going to be social events anyway, how does that work?
NT: Everything will be 100% virtual. Interaction 21 has themes set for each day. Anger accountability and action. These events we’re planning are to mirror those emotions for allowing amplification, release, ownership, encouragement, movement and fellowship. We’re leaning into the interactivity between participants and the conference with lunchtime events like lunch break yoga, portfolio reviews and game night. We’re also looking at wellness activities, a story slam, collaborative whiteboarding sessions, virtual bar hopping and an all day break space for coffee meetups.
I did hear game night, and that’s getting me pretty excited. Eric, can you tell me a little bit more about those.
EO: Yeah, so we’re playing around with a lot of different ideas this year, a lot of different games that we’re trying to consider. We really want to make this part of the conference experience.
The social experiences of in-person events have been pretty challenging to replicate as you can imagine, but it also offers some really interesting opportunities for different ways to interact and engage with one another. But we just wanted to play around with this format and take advantage of what we have here.
So, of course we started by looking at what other conferences had done when they started moving online. And a lot of the other organizers were having the same kind of problem that we were, which was just that; what kind of social experiences, if any, do conference attendees expect from a virtual conference.
We had some pretty clear objectives, above everything else, fun was important for these social activities. But we also wanted to make sure that the ones that we chose were able to complement and enhance the broader programming of the conference itself. So the social aspects we’re thinking about shouldn’t interfere with or distract from any of the other sessions. And they should be interwoven into a sort of seamless experience so in making decisions around these games, we had to make sure that they were scalable, we had to look at cost complexity, and the kinds of interactions that they afforded.
Ultimately we expect a lot of these games to develop organically as the people interact and have fun with one another in these spaces. We’re trying to create a really positive framework for fun. It’s really up to the people who decide to join and participate to craft the experience and to find out what it will actually be like in the end.
NT: Things are moving very quickly and the events are shaping up quite nicely. As I’ve mentioned before, a few of the events in the pipeline include a Collaborative Whiteboarding Session — to get everyone’s minds and hands engaged in solving a problem, Yoga — to get in a bit of movement after a day of watching conferences and talks, a Break Space — where you can connect with others the way you would if you stepped out in the lobby to grab a coffee. We really hope that you’ll find these events enjoyable.
The biggest event on my radar right now is the Opening Night Story Slam. It’ll have signups for participants to come and share stories and a story slam format like that which The Moth series made popular. We have a host who will introduce our storytellers and kick off the event, the storytellers will submit their names in advance, we’ll draw a handful of those names to share five minutes stories. At the end of the event, the audience will vote on who told the best story.
If you’re more interested in traditional networking and engagement, there’ll also be a Lounge Space where you can meet attendees or catch up with people from previous years. We really wanted to create a space for everything, and that meets different needs, whether you want to amp up the emotions of the day or find respite from them. Speaking of respite, we will be working with someone who’s both a designer as well as a wellness practitioner. She’ll be hosting the Day One Anger Scream Room and some mindfulness sessions on other days as well. Our closing event would be the Return To Base Party, a multi-room event with different genres of music, either live or pre-recorded, but mostly a networking space where you can virtually walk around and talk with other conference participants.
What were some of the challenges that you were faced with coming up with ideas for social activities when it was moved online.
EO: In defining what would make a positive and meaningful social experience. we felt it was important to move away from the kind of Zoom format that has become so common in these times. We wanted to turn that on its head and provide different kinds of ways of engaging with each other.
I met with some other designers and people who have done virtual conferences since the onset of the pandemic to learn what worked and what didn’t, to see what we could learn from. We did a mapping exercise with a bunch of the different members, volunteers and organizers from IxDA in order to map the kinds of experiences that would be most memorable and engaging.
It’s really important for us to remove things that people have done, things that have become almost cliche at this point in terms of online spaces and instead to include things that will appeal to a broader audience and allow people to engage and disengage as they choose. It was really important that there’s something for everybody. Because it’s online, we’re expecting a wide range of people, it’s accessible to many different groups, so we want to make sure that there’s basically something for everyone.
What other sorts of considerations as you have in mind when selecting these social activities?
NT: Participant safety. When we were initially working with the programming team and trying to find ways to align with the feelings of each day’s events, we also talked a lot about safety and Code of Conduct during events. We’ll have moderators in all of the spaces to make sure that everyone is adhering to the Code of Conduct and we’re working together to create a space that won’t leave anyone feeling vulnerable or exposed and that doesn’t broadcast anyone’s personal information. If you want to do speed-dating-style networking, the conference platform doesn’t show your personal information. So you do have control over what gets shared. Online safety is a big deal and it’s something we’re keeping in mind with each of our social interactions that we’re putting together.
Which events are you the most excited for?
NT: Definitely Story Slam. It’s so fitting for the first theme being Anger, but it finds a positive way to channel those strong emotions. We want people to come away from the conference motivated and ready to make change and I love that the opening event really follows that feeling.
EO: For me. I think I’ve articulated a particular fondness for the Games Nights and obviously those are gonna be really fun. But I’m also really interested about the networking opportunities that we’ve crafted into this experience because I myself am pretty new to design so I’m really interested in connecting with other people and interacting in these different spaces. We’ve organised something at the end of each day to provide people an opportunity to connect with each other in a much more informal and unstructured way because we want to allow lots of creative and spontaneous interactions to flow throughout this conference.
If I had to put my name on one thing I think that the Bar Hopping on Day 2 I’m particularly keen about. I don’t want to reveal too much but I’m doing a bit of a spin on some of the more traditional forms of gathering in physical spaces like bars and coffee shops. And so I’m interested to see how that will go because there’s a lot of potential there and I’m just generally interested in meeting people and so that’s what I’m most excited about.
Well, thank you, Nicole and Eric for laying it all out for us. I am certainly looking forward to meeting other attendees and speakers from interaction 21 and taking part in all these activities that you’ve so carefully crafted for us.
