CEO Insights: Peter Weddle, CEO TA Tech, Virtual Events During Covid-19

Welcome to a CEO Insights edition of the TotalPicture Podcast – coming to you in both YouTube video and iTunes audio formats. The one thing Covid-19 has done for streaming video is to encourage everyone to improve their at-home capabilities to stream and participate in video conferences, events, and meetings. And that’s the focus of our show today. I’m happy to have back on TotalPicture the CEO of TAtech, Peter Weddle. TAtech has aggressively pursued a virtual conference and event schedule.

I would guess if you are watching or listening to this your email box has been flooded over the past few months with invitations to sign-up for virtual events. My experience has been mixed. What about you? Please share your comments and experiences with us in the comments below.

TALKING POINTS:

1. Peter, welcome back to TotalPicture. It’s good to see you! How have you been?

2. Back in February and March of this year, your business model and mine changed overnight. Tell us a little bit about your pivot from producing live, in-person conferences, and events on a global scale to the virtual world?

3. As I said in my open, my experience participating in virtual events has been mixed. There are a lot of technical issues everyone has had to deal with. And some of the so-called virtual events seem to be little more than a typical webinar. How is TAtech approaching these issues?

4. There’s a lot of conversation regarding Zoom fatigue. I’ve certainly experienced it. How have you adopted what were traditionally full-day events into virtual events?

5. Of course, another issue is participation. I’ve been fortunate to participate in a number of your live events as a video producer, and have experienced the collaborative and audience participation you’ve always promoted. How are you able to extend that important ingredient of collaboration into your virtual events?

6. Let’s talk about some of you upcoming events – starting with the DirectEmployers Digital Conference on November 12-13 – how has this been organized?

7. Another event coming soon: TAtech Digital Summit on AI & machine learning in TA November 17th.

8. One bullet point on your events page at tatech.org/events that I agree with is this: What’s special about TAtech conferences? The people who attend. Care to comment on this?

9. Even with the success of your virtual events, I know you’re looking forward to hosting live conferences again. Take out your crystal ball: When do you think that we’ll be able to meet in person again?

10. What haven’t we covered today you would like to share?

11. What’s the best way to connect with you and TAtech?