I saw a tweet thread by Matt Ballantine the other week:
I was in central London again a few days ago, doing some more filming for my current assignment. The rooms were clearly marked with the maximum capacities they could hold. We used one room that I’d been in before; a couple of years ago I was briefed on a new learning technology for the Civil Service and there were close to 30 people in the room. For normal usage, this room would have 12-14 people in it. Now? The room has a maximum capacity of 4.
If you’re thinking of bringing people back to training rooms, it’s going to be pretty tough to do so in large numbers; social distancing is likely to remain for a while so the square meterage of rooms is going to limit those face to face events. We talk about hybrid working but hybrid learning with people in the room and online? You’ll be trying to deliver an incredibly difficult experience and I can’t remember one event where this has worked to the satisfaction of both groups.
In reality, we’re not going to be changing much from our current online delivery models in the near future. Make sure you plan for the long stretch.
Lost and Desperate 
I experimented quite a lot pre-Covid with hybrid events, so as to cut down on travelling time and costs. These were either meetings or training events. I also tried audio only using a spiderphone and, separately, audio and video using Microsoft Teams.
Neither worked particularly well. It proved difficult to maintain engagement with those joining virtually, almost as if they were an afterthought. This was very much the case when face-to-face attendees significantly outnumbered those joining remotely.
I found delivery of training via Teams an excellent experience that was very inclusive – no more issues around family/children/pet commitments that prevented attendance from afar. But in my view, it is face-to-face OR Teams – but not both at once !
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Totally agree. Do face to face really well, do love online really well, hybrid rarely works and the amount of resources to do it well enough I’m not sure is worth it most of the time.
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