In January, the MVP blog is looking ahead at what’s to come across the tech world in 2022.
As we look back on a year full of transformative change, we thought it would only be appropriate to give a recap of some of the major trends in tech and business culture we saw worldwide, and how our stunning lineup of MVPs capitalized on those trends in a way we can all learn something from.
Whereas 2020 will go down in history as the year we learned we can conduct business in our pajama bottoms while presenting to a webcam, 2021 was the year we hybridized the remote work experience by creating unique new digital conferences that blended in-person and remote attendance.
This week’s three MVPs all come to us from Europe. First up, we have Aurélien Clere, who in 2021 co-organized the hybrid event: Power Platform French Summit, and co-wrote a book called Machine Learning with Power Platform and Dynamics 365.
Aurélien says the first Power Platform French Summit was held in a fully-online version in 2020, but in 2021 he was able to organize the event in a hybrid format. Held across two days, the second-annual summit featured 90 speakers and 90 sessions with an attendance of nearly 2000 participants from 17 French-speaking countries.
Next up we have Peter Doering and Karl Donaubauer, organizers of the German Access Developer Conference AEK. Since 1998, Karl has organized the annual German Access Developer Conference AEK in Nuremberg. But this past October, due to pandemic requirements, the event returned in a hybrid format with a greatly reduced on-site attendance of 50 people and live streaming for 110 online participants.
Peter says the most important element was selecting suitable streaming techniques. “The most surprising positive aspects were, first, the stability and quality of Teams as the central streaming medium,” says Peter.
“Second, according to their numerous feedbacks, our online participants survived sessions up to 90 minutes long across two long days (almost 20 hours in total) without ‘fitness problems’ and described the event as pleasant and ‘like being on-site’ with no sign of the much-vaunted remote participation fatigue,” he adds.
The technical team for camera, sound, and Teams were MVPs Peter Doering and Philipp Stiefel.
Finally, let’s look at the hybrid approach of Guillaume Gaudfroy and Power365.
Guillaume said the choice of moving to a hybrid conference was made according to the need of the community, while also allowing for audience expansion beyond the borders of the North of France and, above all, maintaining the event’s identity.
The conference did pose its challenges, but Guillaume’s methodical approach meant participants were able to enjoy the conference while staying safe.
“We will reuse this format next year regardless of COVID, but by accentuating the onsite opportunity to guarantee an event of proximity and sharing,” says Guillaume.
By Nick Kipley
