Platform providers
You build the worlds that virtual conferences inhabit.
You can make anything possible.
Unleash your creativity.
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Facilitate deep networking
Use Social Network Analysis and A.I. to recommend attendees to each other by professional interests, questions, approaches, and connections to colleagues. Make visible the colleagues people want to find.
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Create levels of anonymity
Anonymity invites honesty and reduces power differences, but can also erode social norms. Give organizers and attendees options for adjusting levels of anonymity.
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Show the audience somehow
Presenters need feedback when presenting. Create digital rooms where they get that feedback, even if listeners have turned off their cameras.
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Deal with gaze fatigue
In real life, people gaze when listening and look away when speaking. Make digital tools that allow for more natural gazing behaviors online.
Improve existing platforms.
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Enhance translation
Let’s build Star Trek’s “Universal Translator” by offering real-time, translated, dubbed audio between participants. And let’s include American Sign Language through gesture recognition.
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Support spatial movement
Give attendees the opportunity to move around in a room, seeing and hearing only those near them. This mimics the real world, fosters immersion, and facilitates conversation.
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Immerse more fully
Greater immersivity can drive engagement and persistence. We need virtual environments that support gaze, gesture, and even body language.
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Leverage fast regroupings
Jigsaws, roundtables, pairings, speed-meets—virtual formats allow much faster regroupings than onsite meetings. Give organizers more options for grouping attendees in different combinations.
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Humanize teleportation
Virtual environments allow instant movement, but humans need transitions. Help attendees “jump” to other colleagues without disruption or surprise.
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Streamline file sharing
Digital worlds support digital sharing, so make it seamless to see each other’s ideas and images, and to send and receive files.