VIRTUAL GATHERING IN THE TIME OF CORONA
Work Edition
APRIL 1, 2020
#TOGETHERAPART @PRIYAPARKER
So your big upcoming
work thing has been
cancelled.
At least you’re not alone.
Gatherings of all kinds, from conferences to offsites to global meetings, are being
canceled because of the new coronavirus. But while we may be entering a
recession of real-world gatherings, we have the power to stave off an
accompanying boom in loneliness.
Many of our real-world, in-person gatherings aren’t actually that useful or warm or
connective or transformational now. Turning them virtual may not be as bad as
you’d think. Given the low bar set by our traditional meetings, with people staring at
their phones at poorly moderated panels and pointless meetings, it’s possible that
these gatherings, when treated with intention, can outshine your rote in-person get-
togethers.
This guide provides ideas for ways you might inject connection and meaning into
events when you’re physically apart but virtually together.
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If you're new here, Hi!
I'm Priya Parker.
In case this guide landed in your inbox as a recommendation from a friend or
colleague, I should probably tell you a little something about me.
I am a facilitator, strategic advisor, and author of The Art of Gathering: How We Meet
and Why it Matters. For the last 15 years, I've been helping people create collective
meaning in modern life, one gathering at a time.
I hold degrees in public policy, organizational design, and political theory. But I've
also been deeply shaped by dance, community theater, improv, and the fields of
dialogue and deliberation. I realized along the way that when coming together, we
often spend more time planning logistics than thinking about the elements that
make a gathering sing - the human ones.
And I have now turned my attention to how we can make meaning together while
we're apart. In partnership with The New York Times, I have a new podcast, called
Together Apart, where I explore how people are gathering virtually, even while apart.
You can subscribe here.
I hope the Art of Gathering encourages you to have conversations about community
and identity at moments of transition. And I think we all agree that this is one heck
of a moment of transition.
You can find additional resources at priyaparker.com and find me on Instagram
@priyaparker.
HELPING PEOPLE
CREATE COLLECTIVE
MEANING IN MODERN
LIFE, ONE GATHERING
AT A TIME.
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9 STEPS TO MAKE ZOOM CALLS EFFECTIVE AND ENJOYABLE
STEP 1
CLARIFY THE PURPOSE OF
YOUR VIRTUAL GATHERING
It may not be the same as the canceled gathering.
Don’t assume your digital gathering shares the same purpose as your real-world
one. And don’t try to do everything. Instead, first ask, given this new context:
What is the most important need now for this group to gather around?
What is the new heart of this gathering?
How might we create that online?
If, for example, the canceling of an annual gathering is going to affect a whole
range of small businesses’ annual sales, maybe the biggest need is to create an
ad hoc virtual marketplace where each business gets 30 seconds to pitch their
new offering, and guests commit to placing orders on the spot.
After the city of Austin cancelled SXSW this year, Nina Gregory, senior editor on
the arts desk at NPR posted this on Twitter: “What if @AmazonStudios or
@netflix or @Apple just bought all the films from @sxsw and did a sxsw x
streamer film festival, coronavirus edition. build online community around it.
films get bought and seen. and the streamer is a hero to indie filmmakers and
fans.”
Or if the benefit was to create the warmth that builds the good will for the rest of the
year, maybe you scrap the “official” agenda and host a virtual game night instead.
If your purpose remains the same, then find the appropriate digital tools to help
you recreate it. (Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, and Run The World are some
tools that can help.)
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STEP 2
USE EVERYONE’S ENVIRONMENT
TO FILL THE CONTEXTLESSNESS
OF VIRTUAL GATHERINGS
The room and location do a lot of work to set the context for a group.
A ballroom signals a different set of norms than a mosh pit. The level of light in
a restaurant primes guests to the level of intended intimacy. The height of a
judge’s bench conveys authority.
Virtual gatherings suffer, in part, because there’s almost no inherited context to
set up “the room.”
We do very little to counterbalance that. We place our cameras in front of the
blandest backgrounds we can. Instead, invite people to help co-create the room
by sitting and placing their cameras in front of spots that have meaning for
them, or that adds beauty or color to the many frames everyone else will be
looking at. It will add warmth, context, and point to other parts of people’s lives.
"ON ZOOM, YOU CAN BUILD
THE ROOM THROUGH A
DOZEN WINDOWS."
- Priya Parker
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STEP 3
HAVE A CLEAR HOST WHO KNOWS
HOW TO USE THE MUTE BUTTON.
Whether the gathering is four people or 4,000, know who’s in charge.
A good host is a deft traffic cop, especially for online gatherings that are clunkier
by nature. A good host orients her guests to the gathering’s purpose, and
connects, protects, and equalizes her guests. Be strong where you need to be but
chill in unexpected ways.
After the 2016 election, I learned of a progressive political nonprofit that hosted an
open conference call to reassess their priorities for the following four years. More
than 60,000 people dialed in.
Rather than just talking through the entire call, the host welcomed everyone, and
then announced they were going to turn off the master mute button and invited
everyone to give one giant scream. Within minutes, the hosts had established their
purpose: to remind people that they were not alone.
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"POWER EXISTS IN EVERY
GATHERING. ON ZOOM,
DISPROPORTIONATE
POWER LIES IN THE MUTE
BUTTON."
- Priya Parker
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STEP 4
CREATE AN OPENING RITUAL
A consistent opening ritual connects people and establishes who’s in the room
and their relevance to the meeting.
Don’t just “get straight to business.” Invite people to bring a beverage in a favorite
mug (or timezone appropriate vessel) and open the meeting by asking them to
show the mug (this helps create a common shared moment across distance), and
then answer (in one sentence or less) a relevant opening prompt that informs the
discussion and shows their own relevance to it.
Have guests share a physical object they keep in their work space, and why it
matters to them. (On my desk, you’d find a large smoothed stone with the words
“Hal Saunders. Listen deeply enough to be changed by what you hear. 1930-
2016.”).
You will get insights into your colleagues that can explain what they care about,
how they make decisions, and other parts of their histories.
And, of course, the traffic cop should keep this moving along.
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STEP 5
SHARE, BUT DIGITALLY
We can share things with each other instantly that previous generations
couldn’t have imagined.
Send a relevant episode of a podcast for guests to listen to ahead of the call.
Share a relevant article, video, and a specific agenda that orients people to the
new purpose of the gathering.
Send a digital gift that arrives at the end of the gathering: an app that’s related to
your gathering’s purpose, a digital subscription, a Venmo payment with your
favorite relevant emoji, a screenshot of the gathering that just occurred.
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"THE GATHERING BEGINS
FROM THE MOMENT OF
DISCOVERY, NOT THE
MOMENT THE GUEST WALKS
IN THE DOOR."
- Priya Parker
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STEP 6
ALLOW PEOPLE BBC MOMENTS
A home office is just that. A home. Also, for now, an office.
Remember when those children burst into the office of their dad while he was
explaining the world?
We need more of these moments, not fewer! They remind a group that everyone
has multiple things going on in their lives (which is a good thing). And though
you may be hanging out in the digital ether, there are real living, breathing,
interesting human beings on the other side. Many of them have cats who’d like
to say hello.
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STEP 7
BREAK IT UP: HOST DIFFERENT
CONVERSATIONS IN DIFFERENT
ROOMS
Shake it up.
In a conference, if there’s a new session, we move to another room.
Ed Cooke, a memory expert, tells us that people are more likely to remember
different moments of an evening when they occur in different rooms.
To break up different sessions of your call, have people change rooms or even
just camera angles. (Take stretch breaks in those transitions.) They will be more
likely to recall different parts of the meeting later on.
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"CONNECTION HAPPENS
WHEN YOU REMIND PEOPLE
WE ALL HAVE MANY SIDES.
AND, THOSE SIDES MAY
EVEN BE IN TENSION WITH
ONE ANOTHER."
- Priya Parker
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STEP 8
DON’T DITCH THE COCKTAIL HOUR
Keep the time for celebration, banter, and release.
Invite people to bring a drink of choice. Invite people to move into a part of
their space that would be the closest thing to a cocktail hour. Consider
sending them a $12 drink credit, so you’re still “hosting” them.
With their permission, screen-share their cellphone numbers, and allocate
part of the hour for one-on-one phone chats, just as they would have milling
around at a cocktail hour.
Make time for toasts and chitchat. It will help close your
offsite/meeting/virtual summit. It gives a sense of camaraderie. And it is a
moment to make meaning.
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STEP 9
KEEP CALM AND GATHER ON (ON
ZOOM, AT LEAST)
In times of isolation, we need each other more than ever.
Don’t pretend that this isn’t strange. But don’t retreat, either. The human
spirit is resilient and creative. The same creative people who show up to
your conference, or glass blowing lesson, or sidewalk sale, still carry that
spark when they’re behind a screen.
Instead of being what Sherry Turkle has astutely termed “alone together,”
we have an opportunity to be creative with the digital tools that previous
generations couldn’t have imagined.
During this tumultuous and unpredictable moment, let’s invent creative,
meaningful ways of being together apart.
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