virtual meetings

Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve run over one hundred virtual sessions, and dozens of virtual events, interacting with thousands of participants. Here are six things I’ve learned along the way. Three things I’ve learned about tech: Keep the tech simple. Only use the tools you need. For example, […]

Six things I’ve learned about virtual sessions

Before diving into 2021, I’m taking a moment to reflect and capture what happened in the world of FabRiders in 2020. What I did In 2020, I supported over 80 virtual convenings, collaborating with more than a dozen organisations in 2020. I led over 60 of those, meaning I designed […]

FabRiders’ 2020

Content & Logistics Come Last To have a successful convening, you need to stay focused on how the outcomes will serve your long-term goals, and on the most critical element, your participants. It’s the experience that participants have and how they contribute their expertise and perspectives. Your event design must […]

Weeknotes for November 27th, 2020

Refrains I find myself repeating. Your virtual convening must have purpose Since barriers to joining a virtual event are lower, you have a greater chance of gathering a diverse group of participants. People don’t need to travel, get on aeroplanes, deal with visa issues, etc. However, because the barrier is […]

Weeknotes for November 13th, 2020

Seeding a Network of Practice We’re helping the Institute for Economic Justice plan a convening to be a first step towards building a network of practice that strengthens the connection between economic policy and human rights. We’ve started interviewing potential participants on what they want to get out of such […]

Weeknotes for October 23rd, 2020

“I think we need to lose the parenthesis around Virtual” – I was getting some feedback from Colleagues on a new resource called The (Virtual) Session Design Canvas when Tin Geber threw that one out. I had started using the virtual with parenthesis last March when I shifted my first […]

Weeknotes for October 9th, 2020

This week I learned a hell of a lot about RightsCon, the world’s leading summit on human rights in the digital age. I started the week with the goal of learning about what makes an effective RightsCon session. I managed to get to 15 sessions, one side group meetup and […]

Weeknotes for July 31st, 2020

More Zoomies The primary focus this week was supporting a High-Level Convening on UN Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights on June 11th. Registration closed on the morning of the event with over 1000 registrants, and we ended up with around 600 people attending. I used the webinar module in Zoom for […]

Weeknotes for June 12th, 2020

Had a chance to catch my breath this week. Breathing is a good thing. Wrapping Up Data Champions However, I was so busy last week that I even forgot to mention a workshop I’d done in the previous weeknote. Mor Rubinstein and I had run a Data for Leadership Workshop […]

Weeknotes for June 5th, 2020

Every week I seem to push new boundaries in terms of intensity, capacities and activities. Work with IFRC’s Solferino Academy is providing lots of meaningful learning opportunities for our team, Laurent Fernandez, Shaun Hazeldene & HeatherLeson, and I’m grateful. On Wednesday, we ran a virtual event on Health Innovation & […]

Weeknotes for May 29th, 2020

This week: lots of planning, some outputs and a productive workshop for CESR Strategy Canvas for Data Champions I am working with Mor Rubinstein at 360 Giving on two workshops to wrap up this cohort of Data Champions working in UK Grantmaking Institutions. These workshops will focus on Data 4 […]

Weeknotes for May 22nd, 2020

Had a four day week this week as Friday, May 15th was my 10th Wedding Anniversary, but it still felt like a full-on week. As expected, during the ECNL virtual workshop on “The Unheard Voice of Civil Society in EU Policy on AI” we danced around the definition of AI. […]

Weeknotes for May 15th, 2020

On Monday, as part of IFRC’s Solferino Academy,  Laurent Fernandez, and I ran a ‘How to use Zoom’ Skillshare for National Societies in the Americas. We broke the participants up into small groups to discuss their challenges and generate a list of questions in a google doc. We then spent […]

Weeknotes for May 8th, 2020

Another whirlwind week, can’t believe it was only four days. The main focus of the week was work with Shaun Hazeldine & Heather Leson for IFRC’s Solferino Academy to support a 60 person virtual meeting that needed simultaneous translation into four languages: Arabic, English, French, and Spanish. We worked with […]

Weeknotes for April 17th 2020