Keeping conferences alive during lockdown

This conference was cancelled in March – due to the coronavirus. Global concern over the growth of the virus was rising and the art of doing business in these conditions was evolving so rapidly that the conference itself had become a self-referential portent of things to come.

During the early days of the coronavirus there was a swelling of interest around digital formats of bringing people together. Global audiences of more than 1m people joined live home exercise classes run by Joe Wicks, replacing the locked-down gyms and PE classes.

Now is the time to reinvigorate the sector and trigger change to support the not-for-profits working to bring the pensions industry together

‘House Party’ went from obscurity to top of the app download charts, replacing locked-down pubs and restaurants as a digital meeting place to bring friends and colleagues together to socialise through their screens.

It is impossible to say whether these particular forums are here to stay. They could be outlets of an irreversible societal change that were in the right place to capitalise and become a new norm. Or they could be experiencing a temporary spike in appeal from communities adapting to a suddenly changed world. Maybe they are Lovefilm, and Netflix just has not come along yet.

‘Game-changing’ times for conferences

For the pensions industry, conferences are a staple of our calendar. We meet to learn, exchange ideas and grow our professional networks.

When done well they can lead to cross-industry collaboration – progress for the ultimate good of members. But a proliferation of conferences and events is not always a good thing and, when done badly, can feel like a closed shop with the same people talking about a flat subject.

We are accustomed to numerous pensions industry bodies running regular events – the Pensions Management Institute ourselves, the Pensions and Lifetime Savings Association and the Association of British Insurers, to name a few.

These are not-for-profit organisations, deriving a notable proportion of their income from these events. It is not trivial to lose that income.The conference functions of these organisations are in the business of bringing people together, and it is game-changing to do that in a locked-down world.

However, there are success stories of companies within our industry quickly adapting to home working and finding novel ways to keep teams working together.

This goes beyond the business continuity plan of ‘keeping things running’ – it is about keeping people motivated, happy and working collaboratively. But where we have solved the problem for communities within a company, we now need to look at the wider community of our industry.

Webinars will not replace live events

The temptation will be to start switching conferences to online webinars. While this will still help people develop their knowledge, it will be of limited use for building cross-industry collaboration and of no use to those who wish to network or grow professional networks.

As such, the opportunity is there for new technological solutions to enter the fold. If we are running ‘digital-only’ conferences, then we need more than just online transfer of knowledge.

In the latter half of 2020 we will likely see an explosion of face-to-face events delayed from earlier in the year, and the industry should unite to support these while following any government contingency protocols that may then be in place to ensure the virus remains suppressed. 

When you plan to attend one of these events, consider buying an extra ticket. Take a colleague who would not ordinarily have had the chance to go, or someone new to the industry, with fresh perspectives. 

If you have ever attended a pensions industry event and felt like it was a ‘closed shop’, now is the time to reinvigorate the sector and trigger change to support the not-for-profits working to bring the pensions industry together.

Tim Phillips is vice-president of the Pensions Management Institute